Sunstone, quietly and without any fanfare that I’m aware of, has made it’s archives (save the few most recent issues) available for free online.

! ! !

Including the comics issue I edited! Which is primo content, I assure you.

! ! !

Sunstone has just provided an incredible resource which I encourage you to check out.

For free!

Although, speaking of money, Sunstone could use yours even if they’re being coy about it. Considering thanking them for the pdf bonanza with some lucre.

If that’s his question, I think it’s a good one.

Tyler quotes the following from Casualene’s editor’s policy (as published in 2009—perhaps she’s somewhere else in her thinking now):

The task, then, of the poetry editor for BYU Studies is to try to discern among all the poems received which are the stronger, and even the strongest, and recommend them for prizes and publication.

During my hot-dogging days as a novice poet, a contestant for poetry’s laurels, a poetry editor and a managing and then founding editor of a literary journal, I cherished similar ideas about my roles.  Nowadays, however, I hear disquieting undertones in the close parallels Casualene draws between judging whether or not a poem is publishable and the ranking of strength and intelligences.

For one thing, applying a strength-and-intelligence quality scale to poetry (or any language) runs risks of reducing it to another consumer product—a thing—whose quality is judged by how effectively (”strongly,” “intelligently”) it meets my consuming needs (“healing,” “nourishment,” “pleasure,” etc.). Some poetry is only or mostly a consumer product (“Ach der lieber! Sick you are? Hope you soon feel wunderbar!”), and some language does abide in the get-it-done, “thing to use,” tool or product marketplace of communication (“I’d like two, chocolate Oreo shakes, please,” “Somebody call 911!”).  But much of human expression is a relational act (i.e. an act of reaching for relation, of forging relation) in the unbounded exchange of connection.  Usefulness scales don’t work in this highly charged and often unmanageable flow of energetic “getting across to”—or if I do apply valuation scales there, they whittle relation down to the means by which I get what I want, and only that. I may be more or less well intentioned in using a poem’s language to get what I think I want and need.  But instead of being caught up in encounter with another and with the world as expressed in what might possibly be the writer’s very best language, instead I’m beating the poem into a tool or assortment of instruments to use to my liking or advantage. In the strength-and-intelligence scale of poetic quality, the strongest poetry becomes the “most effective thing I use” to get nourishment, healing, or whatever I crave.  Bad poetry is poetry that doesn’t do anything for me or doesn’t do what I insist it should.  It doesn’t support me.

For another thing, the strong-stronger-strongest valuation scale casually orders the strength or intelligence of poetry readers, too.  If I, as a reader, like and seek out “middlebrow” verse like that of Longfellow and Benet, but not Milton or Goethe, whom some might consider “highbrow,” then may I be presumed less strong or less intelligent?

Younger poet-and-editor me used to think so. It took my becoming the mother of a child whose brain a clever virus rendered “severely disabled” to shed excesses of luxury living from my beliefs about what made for strength and intelligence.  And speaking of discerning, I began also to discern shadows in my valuations of others’ words—specifically, my indulgence in valuation’s dark, down-scale side, devaluation.  Yes, I, too, admired poems on the basis of how well they supported my needs and positions—whether or not they provided me “a portion of their power and virtue,” gave me healing, nourishment, or pleasure, as Casualene’s essay says they ought to do. I ignored or cast them aside if they didn’t tickle my strength-and-intelligence fancy. And there also lurked in my thinking the jaundiced implication that what I valued as strong and intelligent was strong and intelligent by virtue of my thinking it so.  Education failed to take the edge off that particular old circular saw.

But since those early, high-minded days, and in the wake of my daughter’s birth and nearly two decades of caring for and seeking to get across to her, my editorial stance has shifted. Certainly I see the historical and cultural importance of the diversity of artistic language that literary journals provide for. And I get that a wide variety of lit journals come and go, and that while they’re around, I can choose as I see fit and avoid contact with verse that doesn’t do it for me.  And yes, I believe that some language is more fertile and recombinant than other language is. In fact, some poetry knocks me silly with desire: Oh oh oh, I want to have your poetical baby! But, nowadays, I accept a lot more responsibility for my depth of response to poetry of all rhetorical walks of life rather than place the whole burden for proof of fitness squarely on the work at hand as if I were a football coach assembling a winning team: “You, you and you—you’re strong and intelligent, you make the editorial cut.  The rest of you—consider taking vows of silence.”

In his book, Homo Narrans: The Poetics and Anthropology of Oral Literature, John D. Niles quotes Walter Ong’s observation that calling people “illiterate” “… suggests that persons belonging to the class it designates are deviants, defined by something they lack” (Niles, 1999:23).  Ong and Niles’ interest in the use of the term “illiterate” relates to their studies of oral literature, where historical and modern populations not considered educated have developed sophisticated performance (oral) literature.  Of course, Casualene’s 2009 BYU Studies essay doesn’t call anybody illiterate.  But can we discern in a critical position that assesses poetry and its readers according to a value scale tied to “intelligence” and “strength” a similar, lower-down-on-the-yardstick marking out of writers and readers on the basis of what they’re thought to be lacking or unable to serve up? If so, this is, perhaps, an haute monde position, one that elevates itself at the expense of other meaningful narrative strains. In the past, as an editor, I was complicit in this stratification of language.  As a mother, I’ve faced off against strength and intelligence models applied against any idea of my daughter’s being a viable expression of human potential.  But wow!  How that severely developmentally delayed child, as the cognoscenti pronounced her, has rocked my world.

Nowadays, I consider language more than an instrument shaped for getting yummy ant-crunch out of a log, or a hem out of which I may absorb healing, or a commodity suited to sorting based upon its perceived value, usefulness, or ability (or inability) to meet my needs.  Language can be and do those things (or fail to do them), but it’s also up to so much more.  And no, I don’t think that language is inherently ineffectual.  And I no longer believe language a broken artifact of our fallen state.

In Adam’s Tongue: How Humans Made Language, How Language Made Humans, Derek Bickerton reflects upon Darwin’s intuition about how people got smart.

Darwin knew a century and a half ago that the Encyclopaedia had it backward—that it wasn’t a “highly developed brain” that gave us language …  and abstract thought, but language that gave us abstract thought and a highly developed brain.  “If it be maintained that certain powers, such as self-consciousness, abstraction etc., are peculiar to man, it may well be that these are incidental results of other highly advanced intellectual faculties, and these again are mainly the result of the continued use of a highly developed language” (Bickerton, 2009:5).

Setting aside the valuation phrases in the last sentence (“Highly advanced,” “highly developed”—yeah, compared to what? At this stage, we may be two-left-footed novices in the unfolding dance of brain and words), I find Bickerton’s point that language gives rise to what we call intelligence compelling.  And I’m also thinking that being too choosy about which language rates as artistically strong or intelligent or nourishing could well create and perpetuate poverties of expression.  And yes, I’m beginning to think the word “intelligent” in such qualitative and/or quantitative statements problematic, believing language that gives rise to connection and relationship more creative at its soul and less self-congratulatory.

So circumscribing the scope of what’s artistically viable—designating exclusively what’s “strong” or “intelligent”—might therefore be pretty risky business and result in all kinds of unintentional effects, including the snubbing of undiscerned beauty, the nailing shut of doors opening upon the possible, or the dousing of never-before-seen creative fire.  Rhetorical diversity could turn out to be as important as bio-diversity; perhaps it is a form of bio-diversity.  Human language might just be taking the human brain with it as it trips along to its next best expression, and the transforming human brain in turn might be giving rise to new movements in language.  As I hazard to say in my essay “Embrace the Pure Life” (Parts one, two, three, and four), in a dance of symbiosis, human “intelligence”—however it expresses in the diversity of minds on this planet—in turn dips and spins language, creating newer and more intimate and daring steps.

So increasingly, I’m thinking that, rather than imposing my pet valuation scale on the developing and actually quite sensitive realm of human expression, as an editor (of an admittedly marginal publication venue), I ought to be at least as creative and attentive in my response to the language others bring to me as I try to be to the world when I write poetry about it, or even as engaged as I am in my care-giving to my special needs daughter.  Rather than deciding this poem or that one worthy of continued life through publication and these ones non-viable, I’ve found myself leaning more toward a questioning stance in my editing: “What is going on in this person’s language?  What does he/she mean when he/she uses this word this way?  What does this person’s way of wording him- or herself tell me about language’s nature in general?  Is there something I can do, as an editor, to help this poem speak?”  “Is there something I’m not seeing?”

Increasingly, editing, for me, has become an act of engagement and exchange rather than a culling of the herd to advance my latest idea of what defines its fittest—i.e., its most utile—members. I’m glad that the internet provides boundless space so that I can experiment with breadth of inclusiveness.  Arguably, print journals face greater restrictions.

But, hm, even were I editor of a print journal, nowadays, I’d shuffle to find a way to discern and then publish something of the spectrum of language rising in a culture striving for words to get itself across—its wild blue asters, its violets, even its yellow dandelions, as well as its black orchids, blue roses, and Pot of Gold lilies.  A spectrum, rather than the upper quarter or third of a scale.  I keep sayin’, language is trying to do stuff to and with us, folks. If we can resist the urge, let’s try not to be too hasty to fix in mind what we suppose to be its most valuable assets. We people—Mormons included—are just beginning to find our tongues. I’m very interested in hearing what questions roll off those tongues.  And if we could possibly scroll back on treating language as if words are only a set of instruments that we use to reach the loftiest heights of what we want or need, that might just open us up to greater depths of real connection. The wowza of losing myself in the not-me, be that not-me God, the extraordinary soul of a fellow human, another creature, or spiritual or natural environs—that moment of becoming and becoming bound up in “being with” that in acts of cosmic anarchy blows up dams containing my notions of what I think is or what I think I want and need—that power flashfloods and dissolves, in sudden and unlooked-for moments, the bounds of the heavens.  As perhaps the Tower of Babel story illustrates for us rather strikingly, those heavens are unreachable through even the most determined and elaborate tooling.

Our same, instrumentality-based relationship with the physical environment bought us a load of trouble. Why do we imagine that it’ll work any better in the equally sensitive realm of human expression?

Oh, and, if this is just another Zeppelin of pretension, roll out the dogfighters and shoot me down—please.
_____________________________________________________________________

Notes

1.    Derek Bickerton, Adam’s Tongue: How Humans Made Language, How
Language Made Humans (New York: Hill and Wang, 2009).
2.    John D. Niles, Homo Narrans: The Poetics and Anthropology of Oral Literature (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1999).

But the more I look, I can’t find a publisher that is doing what Deseret Book is doing.

Yes, book publishers are creating apps for their books. But in general, those apps are for a single title. In order to either take advantage of the marketing opportunity that selling an app gives them, or to add features not supported in the current format used by ibooks and other readers support, book publishers often spend thousands or tens of thousands of dollars creating apps for books.

But this isn’t what Deseret Book has done.

Deseret Book has essentially re-invented the wheel — they are providing an ebook reader and sales app that does the same thing that Apple’s ibooks app and Amazon’s Kindle app (and several others) does. And, from what one reviewer says, the Deseret Book app doesn’t seem to do as good a job. The reviewer says that the Deseret Bookshelf app is slower, crashes occasionally, and doesn’t have as many features as these other apps.

So why another app?

The news articles about the app have all touted the app’s access to more than 1,400 Deseret Book titles (all for sale), which is, as near as I can tell, its main advantage. The reviewer mentioned above says that the Kindle (and Kindle app for the iphone and ipad) only has 1,200 Deseret Book titles, while other apps don’t have any Deseret Book titles available.

By itself that seems like a slim advantage. The review does indicate some features useful to LDS readers—links to the scripture, ability to search all the books purchased. But I don’t see that these, or any feature I can think of, justify a separate app. Are there any ebook features that LDS readers need that other readers don’t need?

Deseret Book is restricting availability of its titles so that the most comprehensive option is to use its app. And in return users get what? One more app using space on the device? The user has to now use at least two apps–one for Deseret Book titles, and another for everything else?

I think I’d be a bit more open to this app if it included all or most Mormon ebooks. There is an advantage to segregating out Mormon items from the noise that comes from the vast volume of titles available. This could be especially helpful for fiction titles that either can’t or don’t include Mormon elements in the description.

Given all this, I am somewhat confused about Deseret Book’s motivation for creating this app instead of simply making the books available through the ibookstore. Its a little hard to believe Deseret Book really wants to create a competing app to ibooks, kindle, stanza and the rest. Is Deseret Book committed to continuing investments in programming this app to keep it competitive with other apps? Surely app development isn’t part of Deseret Book’s core mission!

Instead, this comes across like some kind of attempt to control the market, to keep LDS customers somehow inside Deseret Book’s fold. It may instead be more likely that Deseret Book is trying to serve those customers trying to avoid morally questionable titles, just like seems to be the case for many customers of its stores.

If this is true, then at some point those customers may become dissatisfied when the app isn’t competitive with those done in the broader, national market.

But Riess went further, suggesting that novelists who can’t get a contract with Deseret Book should self-publish instead of going with any of the other publishers in the LDS market. Really?

I’m happy to admit that most of the publishers in the LDS market aren’t as professional as they should be, and have a very limited reach. I’ll also admit that the results that the small LDS publishers can get for the author will likely not be as good as if the author’s novel was published by Deseret Book or by a national market publisher. But, shouldn’t the author also ask herself if self-publishing will be as successful as publishing with these small LDS publishers?

One of the first posts I wrote after I was asked to join AMV discussed the difficulties of self-publishing, even in the current POD-driven self-publishing world. Among other things, I pointed out that self-published titles don’t reach LDS bookstores the way that even titles published with the smaller LDS publishers do. And, many authors self-publishing their books simply don’t realize how difficult self-publishing can be.

I won’t cover again all that I wrote in that post. Instead, I want to highlight another reason for supporting independent LDS publishers, you might call it a political reason: If most LDS authors self-publish, then will the lack of strong LDS publishers and a more dynamic LDS market ever change?

At least theoretically, carefully selecting a small publisher who can reach the audience or who the author can help to reach the audience for his book should give an author as much or more success than self-publishing, even if it isn’t as lucrative. And, by strengthening the small publisher, an author not only helps him or herself, but also helps fellow authors who publish with that publisher.

In the long run (again, at least theoretically), stronger small publishers in the LDS market means competition for Deseret Book, and improved opportunities for authors. In this sense, by publishing with a small publisher the author can help herself. When a market has multiple publishers, the successful author can choose between them, and likely get a better deal and better distribution in the process. And the less successful author may actually get published by a strong publisher, instead of spending a lot of time and effort learning how to publish effectively.

The problem is that the hallmark of self-publishing is its instability and impermanence. Usually self-publishing doesn’t institutionalize its ability to produce and sell—i.e., publish—books. Successful institutions learn and apply what they learn to future tasks. Like it or not, self-publishing usually learns for a single or a handful of projects, and loses that knowledge once the project(s) are done or the author has moved on.

I don’t mean to suggest that authors should never self-publish. My view is that it depends a lot on the author’s abilities and resources. For some it is probably the best move. But, I do want to reiterate what I first said soon after joining AMV, that self-publishing is a difficult path to getting published (although admittedly the only path for far too many books).

And, I also want to emphasize that self-publishing usually does little to address the overall problem we face in the LDS market. [Its not really a problem for the national market, which is well developed.] If Deseret Book is really the only LDS publisher worth publishing with, then we are indeed in a difficult situation. But even so, the only way out of it is to develop strong independent LDS publishers. And someone will need to publish their books with those publishers in order to make them strong.

As I considered these claims, I realized that they are often based on little or no knowledge of publishing economics. So I thought it might be useful to give a basic overview of the costs and economics of book publishing—something that might help those considering publishing their own ebooks, and that might help consumers decide if prices really are too high and authors understand why publishers don’t give them more money. I’m sure for some readers this is obvious—if so, then you likely agree with me about many of the complaints about publishers aren’t justified, or you will be able to tell me why I’m wrong.

Books, whether digital or print, are economically not much different from a lot of other manufactured goods. To manufacture a product, you first plan the production (design the product and how it will be made) and then actually produce the product.

To give a concrete example, the process is really not any different economically than making hor d’oeuvres for a large party, perhaps one in which you really don’t know exactly how many people will come, or how many hor d’oeuvres they will consume.

To plan for the party, you first figure out hor d’oeuvre you will make and what recipe you will use. You also need to consider what kitchen utensils and implements you need and even how many people will help you make these hor d’oeurves.

All of this planning takes time and costs either money or your effort (since you can’t spend the time you put into the planning doing something else you might want or need to do). You may need to consult with another chef, you might need to find workers to help you put together the hor d’oeurves or you will probably need to go to the store and purchase the materials needed to make the hor d’oeurves. You may also need to find or purchase the utensils and tools needed to make them—rolling pins, measuring cups, bowls, etc.

For what its worth, these planning costs are called by accountants fixed costs—because the total of these costs don’t change with the number of items (hor d’oeurves in this case) that are made. The costs of actually making each item are called variable costs—because the total of these costs changes according to how many items you make. In the case of the hor d’oeurves, all that planning might cost just a little bit, say$50, but the cost stays the same no matter how many hor d’oeurves you make. On the other hand, the cost of the ingredients and the time making the hor d’oeurves changes according to how many you make.

The most important and crucial costs for most books come in this planning or preparation phase. These preparation costs include not only all editorial costs (content editing, line editing, proofreading, etc.), but also design and layout of the book, preparation of the cover, design and management of marketing and sales, etc. At most large publishers, these pre-printing costs, all fixed costs, amount to at least several thousand dollars, and for the largest books they can amount to tens of thousands of dollars.

What large publishers do NOT include (but which most authors who self-publish should include) is the authoring cost—the cost of the author’s time and effort in writing the book. By agreeing to pay the author a royalty, the publisher converts that cost to a variable cost—the total depends on how many books get sold, and if the book doesn’t sell well, then the author’s time and effort isn’t paid for in full. But that fact doesn’t bother the publisher, because he only agreed to pay however much per book. But for the self publisher there isn’t any way to ignore or make into a variable cost the costs of time and effort writing the book.

The implications of the fact that such a large proportion of book publishing costs come up front, before a single book is manufactured, are huge. It means that book publishing is almost always about what kind of sales volume you can get. The basic math is simple: the larger the number of copies you sell, the lower these costs are per copy sold. If it costs you $5,000 up front to write and prepare a book, then selling only 500 copies means these pre-printing costs are $10 per book—quite a lot. But if you sell 5,000 copies, then these costs are only $1 a book, and 50,000 copies are just $0.10 a book!! Volume is everything.

Too often those unfamiliar with these economics ignore the editorial and other pre-printing costs, especially when considering book prices. Somehow, it is widely believed, a 9 x 6 200 page paperback book printed on standard paper should cost the same regardless of its contents. In fact, the most important factor driving the costs the publisher faces is how many copies it can sell. And the public’s belief that books configured the same should cost the same regardless of content, actually allows publishers to keep the price of bestsellers higher than they might otherwise.

These same costs are one of the factors that drive publisher reluctance to reduce prices for ebooks. The actual printing (variable) costs are a relatively small factor in pricing print books (printing for books is usually 1/5 to 1/6 of the cover price), so reducing that small factor to zero (as happens with ebooks) doesn’t save much money, and doesn’t allow you to reduce the price that much. Its not about cannibalizing print book sales, its about covering the editorial and other preparation costs. Unless the publisher is sure he will get a big bump in sales volume, he can’t reduce prices on ebooks much.

This is, of course, just one aspect of publishing economics, although its one of the most important aspects. I hope to address other aspects in the future, including distribution costs, sales patterns, and pricing.

I know this can be a bit confusing or daunting, and I hope I’ve made the concepts clear. In my mind, these concepts explain a lot of what goes on in book publishing, and indicate, among other things, why it is unlikely that ebooks, just because of their format, will have significantly lower prices than print books. If ebooks end up significantly cheaper, it will be because of many other factors.

I have the impression that the market for LDS audiobooks has faded away. Despite a relative revolution in audio, due to technology, LDS spoken-word audio materials are somewhat difficult to come by and not a bit part of the market. Deseret Book seems to be the only producer and, for downloads, the only place to purchase.

This wasn’t always the case. In the late 1970s and early 80s, following on the heels of the introduction of the Sony Walkman, a burgeoning market for LDS books on tape developed, led by Covenant Communications, which pioneered the format for the LDS market. Customers could purchase classic conference talks, BYU Education Week presentations, and various kinds of works of fiction. I recall going into some LDS bookstores at that time and seeing an entire wall full of audio materials on display.

Somehow the attention to audiobooks that I saw then has disappeared. I know that there are still audiobooks produced for the LDS audience, but relatively few compared to the current number of books being published. And the few audiobooks produced now don’t seem to get the emphasis in LDS stores that audiobooks once did. I suspect that the reason has to do with the changes in the technology used for audiobooks, and the resulting changes in customer expectations.

After the boost that the walkman gave audiobooks. I believe technology has had a significant effect on audiobooks. The walkman was succeeded by portable CD players. In the 1990s came mp3 players and the Internet, leading to the rise of audible.com and sites that distribute mp3 and other audio files. In the past decade we’ve seen the rise of the ipod and its cousins and competitors, leading to the itunes store. And smartphones in a huge variety have provided even more ways to consume audiobooks. For many people, its somewhat difficult to know where to go to get audiobooks (let alone those that are LDS), and with some devices its even hard to know how to get the audiobook onto the device so that it can be heard.

In all of this, LDS works seem to have been lost. Although Covenant was the audiobook pioneer in the LDS market, it did not specialize in audiobooks, instead also selling printed books and other products. And instead of relying on a specialized producer to prepare and market audiobooks based on their products, Deseret Book and other LDS market publishers (such as Bookcraft), developed their own inhouse capability to produce audiobooks. But since these were sidelines instead of core functions of these book publishers, when the move to mp3 files occurred, I suspect that these publishers had difficulty making the switch and providing downloadable audiobooks in a way that they could be added to the devices then current. As near as I can tell, Deseret Book (which in the ensuing years purchased both Bookcraft and Covenant, two of its erstwhile audiobook competitors) is currently the only publisher of LDS audiobooks, and the only way to download mp3 files of these titles is through Deseret Book’s website. Deseret Book’s audiobooks do not appear in the catalogs of either audible.com or itunes.

I don’t want to imply that the fact that LDS audiobooks aren’t available on itunes or audible is somehow Deseret Book’s fault. Neither itunes nor audible is known for making it easy for small providers to participate in their online distribution systems (unlike audible’s current parent company, Amazon.com, which makes it easy for almost every book publisher to sell their wares through the giant bookseller). As a result, on audible.com or itunes.com, the only results you get when searching for “Mormon” or “LDS” are the handful of general market titles in which Mormons are a subject—things like Jeff Benedict’s The Mormon Way of Doing Business and Krakauer’s Under the Banner of Heaven.

Of course, there are many Mormon spoken word audio files available for free — General Conference talks, LDS Church-provided audio files, BYU’s audio materials and many files produced by third parties. But very little, aside from a few podcasts, is available through audible and itunes, where many consumers look first.

I’m not quite sure where this leaves the LDS market. I believe that we should have Mormon audiobooks available, but I have no idea where they should be distributed. Perhaps there is now room for an audiobook specialist company in the LDS market, someone who can specialize in producing audiobooks for Mormons and who knows how to effectively distribute them—perhaps even get them into itunes and audible.

In any case, if my understanding of what happened to LDS audiobooks is correct, then the their decline may be an example of what technology can do to a niche market, and what the LDS market as a whole might face if we don’t work better with the general market.

In general, the move does make sense, just like consolidating competitors in neighboring stores often makes sense. Even if Deseret Book doesn’t make any profit on the church distribution sales, the move could bring additional traffic into Deseret Book stores. Why not add an inspirational book or Greg Olson print to your purchase of garments? Its good for everyone, isn’t it?

Thinking about this, you might ask why there is any distinction at all!

As far as I can tell, at least one of the answers is U.S. tax law. LDS Church Distribution Services is part of the Church’s non-profit operations. In order to maintain its non-profit status under U.S. tax law, the materials it produces and distributes are priced on a non-profit basis, far lower than comparable for-profit materials.But, the Church doesn’t have to pay any taxes on its revenues. As a result of all this, LDS Church Distribution Services charges the same amount to consumers as it does to retailers (i.e., to stores), meaning that stores either don’t make any money on distribution materials they carry, or they must increase the price they charge for distribution materials to more than what the Church charges.

In contrast, the book publishing operation of Deseret Book is a for-profit operation whose products are priced normally. As a result, Deseret Book (the publisher) can give stores a discount that allows them to make money while charging consumers a price based on the book’s list price. Deseret Book, or is parent company, Deseret Management, pays taxes on the profits it earns before turning those profits over to the Church.

As near as I can tell, Deseret Book’s stores are not making any money on the LDS Distribution materials they sell, and are instead getting just whatever benefit might come from additional traffic in their stores. Perhaps the company may also get some kind of recognition from the Church for the benefits the Church gets from not needing as many LDS Distribution outlets and volunteers. For what its worth, this also means that there is little keeping other LDS bookstores from carrying most LDS Distribution items, except for, perhaps, garments. The books and videos that LDS Distribution sells can be purchased at the same price that Deseret Book pays. Like Deseret Book, however, these stores would either have to sell the items at cost, and not make any money on them, or mark up the items and charge more than distribution. [This has long been the case, as  understand it.]

What becomes confusing in all this is any distinction between the materials published by LDS Distribution and those published by Deseret Book. In general, the materials published by LDS Distribution are those that are part of regular worship in the Church—Scriptures, manuals, etc. And those published by Deseret Book are more commercial in nature.

But I’m not sure that this line is clear to everyone. When consumers purchase materials at a Deseret Book, is it clear what materials are published by the Church? and what isn’t? Is that important?

When I talk to most consumers, they have little or no idea of who the publisher of a book is. They connect to the text, and usually recognize who the author is, especially if the author is well-known. I must admit that even I, as involved as I am in the industry, I often don’t know who the publisher of a book I own is.

Distinctions between publishers are then more important to those in the industry—booksellers, reviewers, etc. Inside the industry, employees use the distinction as a way of comparing who has done what, and who is more successful. The information is, of course, necessary for booksellers to determine where to purchase a book, and who to contact if there is a problem or if the book needs to be returned. But even some of this is of little importance in the case of LDS Distribution.

Still, despite all this, there is something uncomfortable about this agreement. I can’t help feeling that this increases the likelihood that anything sold in a Deseret Book store is somehow approved by the Church, giving Deseret Book an advantage over other stores. I believe that this is already a wide-spread belief. In addition, I have to wonder if this same policy is also available to other LDS stores. Can I sell garments also in my store?

I suspect that its not quite as simple as being willing to sell garments at cost. The Church wants some control over who sells garments and how they do it. And there may be a consumer perception that it wants to maintain. Still, I wonder about the perception of fairness and of Deseret Book’s role. Should those perceptions also affect this policy?

For those who haven’t seen the news, the edition is credited to Auburn University English professor Alan Gribben, who is worried about Huckleberry Finn being dropped from reading lists because of its language. The publisher of this edition is NewSouth Books, a decade-old publisher that produces about 15 titles a year.

Actually, Gribben is right that the book has been threatened recently. For example, in 2009 the Manchester, Connecticut School District added a requirement that teachers who use Huckleberry Finn must attend seminars on how to deal with issues of race before using the book in the classroom after parents complained in 2007 that the book used the word “nigger” 212 times. It was also challenged in Lakeville, Minn., Minneapolis, Minn., and North Richland Hills, Tex. in 2007. [See pdf reports on Bannedbooksweek.org]

My wife says that this is just pandering to those who would censor the book. And I do agree that this clearly violates the author’s intent.

OK, so, now let’s ask another question. Honestly, before you found out about this new edition of Huckleberry Finn, what was your opinion of CleanFlicks and the other efforts to “clean up” films? When you comment below, please answer both questions before drawing your conclusions.

In my own case, I thought the criticisms of Gribben’s project were overblown. Huckleberry Finn is in the public domain. There are dozens, if not hundreds, of editions available in almost any format you might wish. The book is available for free in many places on the Internet (including images of first or near-first editions, such as this one at the Internet Archive).

Because of this, and the relatively small size of its publisher, its hard to imagine that this edition will be any real threat to the book or to the author’s intent. Instead, I think its possible that this edition will reach some who wouldn’t read it otherwise. Yes, I agree that it would be better for them to read it as the author wrote it.

But I’m also certain that Huckleberry Finn has a lot of value beyond just 212 uses of the word “nigger” and a bunch more uses of the word “injun” (or the value of its unmodified language). Surely Huckleberry Finn still has value, even modified! I’d prefer that readers get at least that value from the book, and then, perhaps after reading it, they might seek out the original wording.

As for CleanFlicks, like many people I’ve had doubts about the wisdom of editing of films. It is a little disrespectful to think that you know better than an author or director. But it is also somewhat disrespectful of authors and directors to ignore the deeply felt beliefs of their readers and consumers. While I’m queasy about the legality and propriety of editing, even with those methods that are clearly legal, I even more favor providing the reader or viewer with a way of seeing or reading the material that has some impact on them.

What makes me uncomfortable about these editing jobs is their indiscriminate, hatchet-job, search-and-replace approach. If I replace all the profanity in a work, I am also likely to replace any use of profanity that is important to the plot or crucial to what the author is communicating. In some few cases it could make the work impotent (if the point of the work is closely related to profanity or being made by profanity, for example). Better would be editing by someone who understands the work well—in the best case the author or director.

Authors write their works for a particular culture — usually one very close to their own culture. When another culture involves another language, the work must be translated into something that the culture will understand, and almost always that means not a literal translation, but a translation that brings the authors intent to the new culture. The translator then tries to write what the author would have written if the author himself were writing for the new culture.

In both of the cases here (those editing Twain and Cleanflicks), I think what is being sought is a kind of cultural translator—someone to bring the author’s intent to a new cultural viewpoint. While I’m sure that this won’t work for all cultures (just as some works simply can’t be translated to certain languages), certain American subcultures are requiring some kind of translation—even if just the equivalent of something far less sophisticated than Google Translate.

I’m sure there is a point where indiscriminate editing makes a work worthless. But for most works, be they in text or in video, that point will never come. They simply don’t require the offensive content to communicate well enough, and even a hatchet-job translation allows the work to communicate the essential.

After all, there is a worse fate for any work than being made impotent or hacked up — not being seen or read at all.

Most publishers, of course, want to find material that they can publish. Magazines exist to publish material. Authors, you are not in a struggle with the publisher’s “waste basket.”

We take pleasure in publishing an article, from a new contributor, who forwards his first effort with the following modest apology: “Brother Wells, — I begin my struggle with your waste basket by sending you the enclosed for publication.” We desire to remind the young men and women of the Territory that the columns of the Contr1butor are at the service of these “first efforts,” which contain merit, and that the waste basket is not so ravenous as some of them seem to think.

While we receive a great deal of matter that is not published, the writers should not feel discouraged. There are many reasons why contributions sent to us fail to appear: the same subject is treated upon in different articles, while but one of them can reasonably be published. Again, items of local interest are thrown together, and sent us, but they would be unreadable to the majority of our subscribers. We wish however to encourage all, having literary tastes and ability, and respectfully urge the Associations to establish manuscript papers, in which practice will be given young writers, and as they improve,—their writings becoming of more general interest,—let them direct their attention to the Contributor, filling its pages with entertaining, lively, and instructive articles, the excellence of which will be a credit to themselves and to the Magazine.

I really don’t think things have changed much in 130 years. Believe it or not, publishers are still looking for good writing that fits their publications or imprints.

There are, however, some large hurdles to overcome.

Jonathan’s vision includes 5 broad elements. He wants the bookstore to be comprehensive in its list of titles, deep in the information about each title, well organized and categorized, with a customizable and interactive interface. I agree that all of these would improve the store’s ability to succeed.

In the post, however, Jonathan recognizes only one of the major difficulties with creating the store site: the list of titles to be included. I think there are at least three other major difficulties that anyone attempting this project would have to face. Below I’ll explore each of these four difficulties briefly:

1. The Title Database — As Jonathan mentioned, collecting the information about the titles is key. It isn’t just a list of titles, authors and perhaps ISBNs, however. The post does recognize many of the bits of basic title information (technically, database fields) that are needed — “publishing house, pages, binding, ISBN, etc.” plus some of the important additional information that help customers connect to the title:
   

   some kind of rating system or description (e.g., violence, sex, language — for those to whom that’s important), genre(s), topic(s), award(s), links to published reviews in places list AML and AMV, links to author publisher webpages/website, and whatever other information might be easy to collect and useful to help readers figure out if the book might interest them (setting? timeframe?). There should also be an indication of the Mormon connection (Mormon characters? Mormon themes?) and stance (e.g., pro, anti, neutral), though the latter would have to be done cautiously.

   In addition,this database also needs information about the publisher: contact information, purchasing terms, pricing, etc. This information is sometimes difficult to get also. First, not every publisher does what it should to let potential customers know that it exists. [An example is the edition of the poetry of Eliza R. Snow released a few years ago (no, not the recent Derr and Davidson edition, but the self-published edition that was only available from Sam Wellers and nowhere else)] Second, terms and pricing are usually given to those who are purchasing books for resale, and, sometimes vary by who the reseller is. Obtaining this information from publishers sometimes almost requires that the store be ready to purchase.

   Large retailers like Amazon.com and Barnes and Noble get information about available titles from several sources—distributors, wholesalers, books-in-print, publishers presentations. But in the Mormon market these aren’t as easy to use: There isn’t a true wholesaler in the Mormon market, and the distributors, which usually serve just the smallest publishers, don’t seem to provide this information on a regular basis, and the small retailers in the market don’t seem to be looking for it.Like it or not, the Mormon portion of the market doesn’t use the sophisticated data tools that the national market does.

2. System for Maintaining Title Information — Once the data on the titles in the Mormon market has been collected, it still needs to be updated regularly — in this case probably at least several times a month. I believe that the Mormon market produces at least a few hundred new titles each year, or dozens each month. In addition, these days new publishers arise several times a year, and publishers change their terms from time-to-time. Adding reviews and blog posts about titles, and maintaining the information becomes almost a full-time job.The problem here isn’t just the amount of work required. It is also the systems needed—what files are created and passed to whom and how are those files processed. Any bookstore trying to be comprehensive and to provide deep information about titles would need to develop its systems for maintaining that information.
3. The Logistics of Purchasing from Publishers — Even with a fairly complete database of information and a way of keeping it up-to-date, the bookstore would still need a system for purchasing the publisher’s books. Regardless of whether the store purchases from a wholesaler or the publishers themselves, this means meeting the publisher’s requirements for setting up a resale account. This often means meeting a minimum volume of purchases and meeting credit requirements (odd as it might sound, some publishers assume that all their customers purchase on 30 days credit and might have difficulty setting up an account on any other terms). While its usually straightforward, setting up and maintaining these relationships is necessary for the kind of book seller described here.
4. The Logistics of Packing and Shipping — One of the sometimes overlooked realities in online bookselling is the idea that the books for sale will ship in a short time after purchase. Because many of the publishers in the Mormon market aren’t represented at the national wholesalers, having the assurance that the book will ship a few days after purchase, is much harder to get. The largest retailers in the national market ask wholesalers like Ingram Books to ship the copies their customer’s purchase, so that the books never actually touch the bookseller’s hands. Since the Mormon market doesn’t have a wholesaler, such a relationship can only be set up  with the national wholesalers (which don’t have every Mormon title). Thus this bookstore would need to use national wholesalers (if possible) and also stock and ship at least some books—those not available through the national wholesalers. And stocking and shipping books means workers, a place to store the books, and shipping materials.

Setting all this up means an initial investment of tens of thousands of dollars (in the Mormon market) and a lot of work to get everything established (although it may be possible to develop all of this over the long term).

Of course, it may be possible to avoid some or all of this by using partners — such as developing a store that is simply links to the books on Amazon or another online seller. But that idea also has drawbacks — such as not being able to include titles that aren’t in the partner’s catalog.

I’m not quite sure that I’ve included everything in the difficulties above. I’ve probably left out something somewhere. But I do believe that the difficulties are significant.

But I also don’t want to give the idea that these difficulties are insurmountable. They are not. While its a lot of work, the project is worthy, and could make a big difference. It is possible, and even probable that a store like this will exist.

The title database is, I think, the most important piece. And the Mormon Literature and Creative Arts Database gives anyone who wants to do this a big chunk of the old data that they need. Unfortunately, without the access we asked about last year, I’m not sure that we can use it as a place to store even the relevant portions of the data needed — its not possible to add data there yourself! So perhaps we just need a way to create a structured database and give the Mormon Literature community access to add and modify data. Once that information is available, the other difficulties may be easier to solve.