Move over Kermit, Fern Gully and Avatar, this morning Meredith Walsh of Penguin Group UK inspired us to think of the trees and use environmental forethought in publishing. 

The guest speaker for our production lecture is the senior buyer for Penguin and Dorling Kindersley. She provided us with insight from her upcoming book, co-written with lecturer Adrian Bullock, The Eco Print Production Handbook. Available on 4th February, 2013. ISBN13: 9781781570296

 The risks that are causing concern in the industry at the moment include the ramifications of climate change on supply, and illegal material in the supply chain. Deforestation is very problematic: the cause of 18% of green house gases, compared to the 14% caused by transportation. In 1990 the EU conference formed the FSC (Forest Stewardship Council) to monitor and measure the rate and effect of deforestation in the Amazon rain forest. Examining the source of paper supply and tracking the product through the paper trail of invoices, the FSC helps publishers and printers manage good practice in the trade. This can also be monitored via PREPS (Publishers database for Responsible Environmental Paper Sourcing), a board put together by UK publishers to use due diligence and monitor the risk factor of mill submissions and the country of origin for paper fibres. Publishers must engage in a dialogue with printers and mills to trace the origin of their paper and source responsibly.

Meredith's talk highlighted the ways in which publishers embracing good environmental monitoring were using good business sense. With in house stages, green by design meant that editorial and production choices could be both environmentally friendly and cost saving. Selecting efficient font sizes, word count, and ensuring text space and format is used to the maximum benefit without wastage results in a product specific dematerialisation that can be green without taking away from the quality of the book. Developments in digital tools also allow publishers to save paper costs in overheads, removing paper proofs and switching to soft-proofing pdfs online. A question from student Mirissa Ladent inquired as to whether the consumer shift to ebooks and ereader devices was also considered a green move. The response was that it is difficult to measure. On the one hand the move away from paper does reduce problems of deforestation to a certain degree, however print is not dead and the costs will continue. Furthermore the environmental footprint of carbon burn with ereaders is much higher than the burn of the paper trade. Apple publishes the footprint of their ipads online. Similarly data storage in the publishing industry is costly, both with server space and emissions.

Yet digital advances do bring the benefit of print on demand, supplying books as needed. A controlled distribution service that ultimately reduces problems of returns and storage. 

The final question Brookes students had to ask was how do you market green products to customers. The conclusion being that customers do want to take the environment into account but too much information can be off putting. Point of sale impact is crucial. The FSC logo is recognized widely in the UK, but less so abroad. Publishers should avoid claims such as "100% natural" and instead be more specific, such as product will be recycled, with a url leading to further information on the company website. 

It might not be easy being green, yet the benefits of tighter control and transparent source routes discussed in a shared medium mean that, ultimately, publishers are conducting good practice and good business.

It's week 8 of the OICPS publishing MA, and the assessment period is here. Following a marketing exam which went well - I think, we shall find out next week - we had a proofreading test this week. 

I definitely did not expect it to be quite so tough. We had to mark up three text pieces and answer ten questions in an hour and a half. I tried to pay so much attention to detail on the first piece that time ran away from me. This happened to a few of us from what I can gather, regardless of all that practice beforehand. And what seemed like a sweet children's story about fluffy bunnies evolved into an alarming tale of twisted cannibal critters! 

Our first assignment piece is also due in this week from digital product design. Together with my partner Karly, I came up with a digital app proposal that took elements from the book Monsters in the Movies, by John Landis, and turned it into an interactive media Monsters in Motion. The pictures from the book come to life in video clips and the information from the book is broken down into bitesize chunks. We also added a social media element with a photo manipulation platform that would allow users to transform their friends into vampires, werewolves and more. Perfect for those mourning the end of the Twilight trilogy (and even for those celebrating the franchise's demise!) Now we just have to work out how to format the proposal into a PDF and submit it. 

Fingers crossed.

My editorial group is off to a great start as well, with effective division of the tasks. My weekend will be spent writing a hypothetical online dating guide chapter, to compliment the current trend for the phenomenon. Our biggest dilemma is understanding why the gap in the market seems to be so vast. Even the Dummies guide is nearly a decade out of date!

I've also applied for a publicity internship with Princeton University Press which looks like a very exciting opportunity to learn about a vast spectrum of the publishing industry from marketing to rights. Now it's the waiting game to hear back from them.

Good luck to all my fellow MA students who are about to tumble down the rabbit hole into assessment wonderland. We're all mad here, after all!

In 2007 young adult author John Green was guilt tripped into taking part in a daily vlog challenge named Brotherhood 2.0 by his brother Hank. The idea was that they would communicate with each other purely through four minute videos shared on youtube. Five years later and the brothers have gained millions of followers on their social media network. They’re collectively known as the vlogbrothers. They have a community of fans known as nerdfighters - they don’t fight nerds, they are nerds who fight to “decrease worldsuck” through charity, thought sharing and innovative collaboration on youtube, twitter, tumblr, facebook, kiva etc.  

They’ve sprouted side projects for example Hank’s invention (during the height of the 3D movie fad) of 2D glasses for those who suffered from headaches whilst trying to see the latest blockbuster.  The brothers release weekly ‘CrashCourse’ educational videos giving bitesize introductions to key events in world history and science. Hank is involved in an online vlog retelling of Pride and Prejudice called The Lizzie Bennet Diaries, with weekly episodes modernising the tale and teasing the identity of Mr. Darcy’s face, the reveal causing an excited rush of gifs on tumblr. Most recently they’ve encouraged their followers to embrace their right to vote in the US elections with the slogan Don’t Forget To Vote, America (DFTVA,) a clever take on their catchphrase Don’t Forget To Be Awesome (DFTBA.)

And for forty-two weeks this year, John Green’s latest young adult novel The Fault in Our Stars has featured in The New York Times bestseller list. 

The Fault in Our Stars (or TFIOS) is a story about a girl named Hazel who is facing the medical realities of cancer, befriending survivor Gus at her support group. It is an emotional trip through bitterness and laughter, grim acceptance and furious love of life and literature.  Basically, it made me cry on a public bus. I had to hide behind my hair and hope no one could see me. It wasn’t pretty. But it was definitely worth reading.

Followers of the Vlogbrothers channel saw John quietly go through the writing process off screen, and then tumble head first into the realities of publication. This included a promise to sign a large number of pre-ordered copies for his eagerly awaiting readership. It has been translated extensively, and movie options have been picked up by Fox 2. TFIOS is also currently being featured as the PenguinUSA online bookclub title for adult readers, proving it has crossover appeal.

The utilisation of social media in marketing of books is something that interests me. I follow publishers, authors, bloggers, bookshops and news outlets on twitter and keep an eye on the publishing tag for latest news in the publishing world. The audience that John has gained might be considered niche by those outside the online community, but the sales figures of TFIOS prove that his following has immense potential for meta data hits, retweets, reblogs, reviews, discussions and word of mouth promotion. Out in the real world, John tours author and library conventions, fan events, he spoke this year at the BEA breakfast panel, and was a key attraction at the LeakyCon lit panel and at VideoCon (another of Hank’s endeavours.)

Furthermore, increased interest in the John Green™ brand amongst the collective consciousness of readers meant that one of his older novels Looking For Alaska came out of the long tail slump and entered the NYT bestseller list for the first time, seven years after publication. And on the back of the success of TFIOS, his novels have been published in a hardback collector's boxset. One title An Abundance Of Katherines being reissued with a competition winning cover designed by a nerdfighter fan.

The vlogbrother effect may be difficult to recreate, but the community which the brothers have built shows the wonderful potential for clever marketing. The brothers have made reading and learning an interactive social event that can be shared internationally. 

 
Be afraid, be very afraid, it was Halloween. And not just because of the first official marketing examination of the course – no matter how terrifying – but instead the series of spooky talks I attended this week.

Braving the rain to hop on a train to London, it was slow going. A hurtling taxi ride and a brisk run to Leicester Square, we arrived just in time and I was counting myself lucky that that was the worst of the storms affecting us. “Send us your book related Hurricane tweets” asked one of the reinstated twitter accounts that Tuesday. The freak of nature, Frankenstorm Sandy, had hit America; disrupting servers, leaving publishers out of office, destroying shop floors, and cancelling the flight of one of the speakers I’d hoped to see the next evening.

So stranded was Erin Morgenstern, author of bestselling novel The Night Circus, tearing her away from being on stage with Audrey Niffenegger (Time Traveller’s Wife, Her Fearful Symmetry) for the  Waterstones and Vintage Books ‘A Halloween Spectacular’ at The Prince Charles Cinema. The evening was perfectly themed for a haunting Halloween, and Vintage had organised a brilliant piece of pull marketing. I discovered the event through social media, spread by word of mouth through links on twitter to an events page on Facebook with easily accessible ticket purchasing routes and the authors’ names emboldened on an eye catching banner.

Erin used the magic of technology, joining us via Skype from her Boston apartment to talk to her disembodied audience. Thus we were not left disappointed, and were treated to an international conversation on the flights of fantasy housed in the heads of two successful authors.

The night began with Audrey Niffenegger treating us to a ghostly short tale she’d written for the Chicago Tribune, reading aloud for the first time her story entitled Secret Life, With Cats, for what could be more terrifying than the mundane loveless marriage of her protagonist except the invisible creatures going thump in the night and perhaps the grizzly end of her spinster friend Ruth, a fellow volunteer  at The Happy Cat Home?

          I didn't mean to sleep. Even as I was falling asleep I thought, no, I must get back to work, but I knew I was  
          sleeping already. It was the kind of sleep that is like dropping into a hole. Then I was half-awake, and had a 
          curious sensation: there was a weight on the bed, leaning against me, and as I moved in my waking the 
          weight went to the edge of the bed and fell off. It landed with a thud on the floor. 

         I sat up and looked at the floor, but there was nothing there. 

This was followed by Erin Morgenstern reading a passage from The Night Circus. Projected on the cinema screen, surrounded by carved pumpkins and candles, adorned in a blood red cloak like a grown Little Red Riding Hood on the cover of an Angela Carter novel, Erin took us on a journey into the tents of the circus. She wrote the book because she wanted to create her own Wonderland. Young Bailey is not a secondary character, but vital to the story, she said, because she was fed up with only the English ever getting to go to Narnia.  

          Bailey finds a gap in the side of one of the tents. A split in the fabric, each edge dotted with silver grommets,
          and a black ribbon hangs just above his head, as though this opening was meant to be laced together to 
          keep the tent firmly closed. He wonders if some circus member forgot to re-lace it. 

The floor was opened up to a Q&A session.

How do the authors bring their reader along on their fantasy ride?

By grounding the tales in reality, be it through complex and real relationship issues (A.N) or the sense memory of a familiar scent (E.M.)

How do you write what you know when writing fantasy?

You know more than you think you do. You read, you talk to people, you empathise and imagine. If you ask someone what it’s like to be pregnant, they WILL tell you. The glimmer of truth opens doors to the fantastical.

What is your writing process like?

For years Erin couldn’t write, she’d write a page and hate it. But she took part in NaNoWriMo and forced herself to keep writing. The Night Circus was an accident sparked in the middle of this experience, when she found herself imagining the place. She was, she speculates, an architect in a past life. How does it look? Who were the people who ran this mysterious circus? With a background in theatre and experience with lighting design, directing and acting, she says writing gives her the chance to do all the jobs at once and create things she could never achieve on stage. She binge writes. Audrey on the other hand, percolates ideas for a lengthy time before tackling writing like a cart hurtling down hill picking up speed as she goes. With The Time Traveller’s Wife she started with that titular phrase. Immediately she had two characters, their relationship, and the fact that the husband was a time traveller. Next she asked questions. What was it like for the wife to have a husband who jumped through time? How did this affect their marriage? Questions are the key to writing. As both authors are also artists, Erin theorised that writing was about layers upon layers, like abstract painting.

In Halloween spirit, Audrey discussed her time spent as a tour guide for Highgate Cemetery whilst researching Her Fearful Symmetry. Writing gives her the chance to experience things she’d never do in her day to day life. Erin laughed and pointed out that she was sat in a cloak in her kitchen, so they may already have being a bit different on their side. They left us with their recommendations for Ghost Stories. Erin recommended Hamlet, and Audrey suggests H.G. Wells’ The Door in the Wall.

Sponsored by Waterstones and Vintage, the evening ended with a signing session and for those who hadn’t brought along their own much loved copies like I, books were on sale in the foyer. I congratulated Ms. Niffenegger on her feline spectres and scurried away with my signed novel and a photo.

I’ll be keeping an eye out for the next time Ms. Morgenstern is in town. Hopefully no hurricanes!


~ Charlie