I’m a long time listener of the Books on the Nightstand podcast. Last year, Books on the Nightstand organized a weekend retreat in Manchester, Vermont – a weekend of books, authors readings, and camaraderie. As part of the weekend, Ann Kingman and Michael Kindness, the hosts of Books on the Nightstand arranged to publish a book via the Northshire Bookstore’s Espresso book-printing machine – Two Books I Can’t Wait For You To Read. The book was designed as a collection of two book recommendations from every person attending the retreat.

Like a lot of Books on the Nightstand listeners, when Ann and Michael emailed the retreat attendees about the Two Books I Can’t Wait For You To Read book and asked us to send in our two books, I froze. I’m a passionate, voracious reader, and over the years I’ve read LOTS of books. How can I only recommend two, I thought?

In the end, I actually cheated, because with the two books that I recommended, I included a series – The Song of Ice and Fire by George R R Martin. Currently, that series has five books.

So, what would be my second recommendation? Would it be Robert R. McCammon’s elegiac coming-of-age novel – Boy’s Life? Would it be one of John Irving’s wonderful novels? Or, would it be The Lost Regiment series by William Forstchen, a pulp-adventure series chronicling the battles and adventures of a civil war regiment transported to a fantasy world? Genre, escapist fiction? Sure. But a series that I’ve reread multiple times and have enjoyed. Or, would I recommend one of the best memoirs I’ve ever read – Self Portrait with Turtles by David Carroll? Carroll’s love of nature and his obsession with turtles suffuses every glorious page.

In the end, I recommended Clark Howard’s Hard City. A book, that when I submitted it to Ann and Michael, was out of print. And, a book that, as of this writing is now available to readers again as an eBook. And, I had a hand in getting Hard City republished as an eBook

Let me explain.

Hard City was published in 1990 in hardcover by Dutton, a New York City publishing company. Unfortunately, as some books do, Hard City never really found its audience. It did find one reader though — me. In 1990, I was in college at the University of Georgia in Athens, Georgia. Being a bibliophile, I usually visited the college library two or three times a week. Not to study per se, but to browse the fiction shelves. Not only did the University of Georgia library offer new release fiction and non-fiction, but they had a deep collection of fiction.

One day, I was checking out the new releases, and I spotted Hard City. The front cover wasn’t particularly eye-catching, but I glanced at the description and decided to give it a try. I’m glad I did.

Hard City, which I discovered after reading was semi-autobiographical of Howard’s life, features Richie, a young, preteen boy from a troubled family, who lives on the streets of 1940s Chicago while sleeping in a bowling alley every night. Richie’s love of reading is key to Richie’s surviving, and eventually leaving, the street life.

 Writing about Hard City in a new Author’s Preface for the publication of Hard City as an ebook, Howard writes, “Because much of it is based on my life as a wayward boy on the mean streets of Chicago’s lower West Side, a life frequently fueled by truancy, petty thievery, gang membership, and other disreputable behavior, I had, as a respectable adult, left those bleak days far behind and buried them deep in my memory. The things I had done back then, the life I had experienced, as well as vivid recollections of my mother’s drug addiction and my father’s incarceration in federal prison and subsequent disappearance, had all melded together into some dark recess of my mind and, I thought, been locked away forever.”

Richie’s love of reading and how ultimately, that love of reading, genuinely changed his life, spoke to me on a deep level. I attribute many of the positive things that I’ve achieved in my life, thus far, to my love of reading from an early age. As so many people have written, books opened up a whole new world for me – a world of travel, exotic foods, and the central idea that learning about new people and places either via fiction or non-fiction doesn’t have to be dull or boring – it can be enriching, relaxing and fun.

Clark Howard is an award winning and acclaimed mystery writer. In 1981, his story The Horn Man won the Edgar Allan Poe award for best short story of the year from the Mystery Writers of America. In 2009, Howard won the Edward D. Hoch Memorial Golden Derringer Award for Lifetime Achievement from the Short Fiction Mystery Society.

So, why is Hard City now available as an eBook, when the book was out of print and basically forgotten when I submitted the title to Ann and Michael? After I submitted my two books to Michael and Ann, I was looking at my bookshelf one day, and I started thinking, “I know Hard City is out of print. What if . . . ” On the basis of several short stories I’ve sold, I’m a member of the Mystery Writers of America. I grabbed the MWA’s annual membership book that lists contact info for MWA members, and I found Clark Howard’s info, including his email address.

I promptly fired off an email explaining how much Hard City had meant to me over the years, and what a shame it would be for the book to remain out of print and basically lost to a new generation of readers. As a frantic parent with two young boys and a busy schedule, I basically forgot about my email. Three weeks later, on a cold January 2011 afternoon, I got a call on my phone. I didn’t recognize the number, but I picked up anyway. It was Clark Howard with a simple message, “I’d love to work with you.”

Now, Hard City is widely available again as an eBook. It’s currently available for the Amazon Kindle, Barnes & Noble Nook, Apple’s iBookstore, and Kobo. For those who missed Hard City’s hardback publication in 1990, you now have the chance to share Richie’s life on the streets of Chicago, and his ultimate redemption via books, reading, and writing.

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In addition to being interested in reading, I was always interested in book publishing too. As a teenager and in college, I spent countless hours in bookstores browsing – and buying when I had the money. And, I eventually ended up working for several bookstore chains – Waldenbooks, Books A Million, and Barnes & Noble.

The literary agent that I worked for was extremely diligent at pursuing rights reversions. And, I was the one tracking when books went out print, and writing the letters to book publishers requesting that they revert the rights to the author. FYI – for those who don’t know all the ins-and-outs of book publishing, when an author sells a book to a publisher, they’re usually selling the publisher the right to print and sell the book – they’re not selling the book outright. And, when the publisher decided not to order any more reprints, we would swoop in and immediately request rights reversions.

Interestingly enough, towards the end of my stint at the literary agency, many book publishers were starting to realize the impact that eBooks could one day have, so they began dragging their feet on reverting rights. Before that, most publishers would respond quickly to reversion requests.

So, what’s my point re: rights reversion? If an author still has an active and interested fan base, and they’re sitting on 5-10-15 or more novels that have been written, edited, and previously published, then those authors are sitting on a potential, passive revenue stream.

JA Konrath, a successful novelist who has published a series of suspense novels, recently blogged about his experience uploading and selling several old, “trunk” novels via Amazon’s Kindle. He’s selling the novels for $1.59 each. In May, Konrath made $1,250 on his Kindle sales. Now, no one is going to get rich on $1,250 per month, but that’s not Konrath’s only income. He’s writing and selling traditionally published too. An extra $1,250 per month could definitely come in handy for many writers.

However, any published fiction – or non-fiction – writer can attest that they often have ideas that they can’t sell – despite their existing success. In the past, writers would often have to either give up on those ideas – or try to sell them under a pen name. Now, if a writer is passionate about a book that their current editor and publisher doesn’t respond to – they have an option. They could publish that novel via Amazon Kindle – and other eBook platforms. Don’t forget – Google is planning to launch their own eBook platform for selling eBooks, and Sony has promised to also make writer-submitted novels and stories available for Sony Readers in the future.

If you’re an author with a fan base, or even an “expert” or “guru” with manuscripts or novels you’ve already written, you may want to consider selling them via Amazon Kindle.

One note, as Lee Goldberg, already pointed out. This isn’t going to work for everyone. If self-published authors who’ve never sold a novel to a traditional publisher flood Amazon’s Kindle store with half-baked, poorly edited, 10th generation ripoffs of James Patterson or JK Rowling, then Amazon will be forced to police the novels submitted directly from authors.

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Meanwhile, the latest Fortune magazine has a glowing cover story about Amazon’s Kindle, and the launch of the Kindle DX – a large-screen Kindle.

Despite Amazon’s success with the Kindle thus far, the Kindle’s only differentiation at this point is wireless connectivity. Admittedly, the ability to instantly download a title that you’ve heard about on NPR or read about in your morning paper drives unbelievable impulse purchases. And, those impulse purchases, are surely adding to the Kindle’s financial success thus far.

But, that wireless advantage could be short-lived. Ultimately – in the next 18 months – a competitor, Plastic Logic or Sony, will introduce an eReader with wireless connectivity. And, lurking in the background, is the 500 pound gorilla of well-designed consumer electronics – Apple. There have been plenty of rumors about a much larger iPod touch scheduled to be released. Regardless if Apple launches a larger iPod touch, as netbooks continue to grow, smartphones continue to grow, Apple will eventually release a device akin to an iPod touch with a larger form factor.

As eBook devices proliferate and eBook availability continues to expand via Google’s new initiative and others, will consumers continue forking over $359 for an Amazon Kindle? I doubt it.

Who is certain to lose regardless of how the eBook future unfolds? Sadly independent bookstores.

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If you’ve read much of this blog, then you know that I’m very interested in the book publishing and especially eBooks. In the mid-90s, before I moved into public relations, I worked in the book publishing industry. I worked for a literary agency in NYC.

This morning, I read a blog post Some eBook Observations by Mike Shatzkin at his Idea Logical blog. I left a comment on his blog. I think his comments are moderated, because I haven’t seen my comment appear yet. But, I also thought my comment would be of interest to people reading this blog too. So here it is.

“Mike,

I have to respectfully disagree with you. I would wager that if you walked into a bookstore today and asked 100 random people to name three specific publishers, you’d be hardpressed to find 10 who could give the names of three. Sure, bibliophiles know the names of HarperCollins, Penguin, or Random House. However, the vast majority of the buying public don’t buy books based on publishers. Instead, they’re interested in buying the new Stephen King, the new Dan Brown, etc. Consumers buy specific authors – or titles – not publishers.

Re: pricing, I also disagree. Many technology pundits have started warning publishers, “Rethink, rethink, rethink, rethink your pricing for books, and if you can’t bring yourself to radically examine your pricing, then you’re headed down the same, sad road as the music industry.” As smartphones continue to multiply, as netbook sales increase, and as the eBook industry continues to grow, the book publishers’ Napster is not far off. Hackers love cracking code, and if eBook prices don’t dramatically decrease, hackers will gleefully crack the eBook DRM out there, and distribute the latest bestsellers via an eBook Napster service.

Sure, there’s printing costs, and sure there’s fixed costs for publishers, but we all know that distributing a digital eBook file costs less than a penny. That’s a concept that someone with zero knowledge of the book industry can grasp, because just about everyone sends attached files via email these days.

Why can’t publishers follow the instincts of the master retailer himself – Sam Walton? I’m paraphrasing, but Walton often said, “I’d rather sell a million pairs of socks, and make a nickel from each pair, than sell 100 pairs of socks and make $100 per pair.” Publishers could dramatically lower the price of eBooks and make up the difference in volume.

Why not sell backlist paperback titles for $1.00 a piece in eBook format – and split the net profit 50/50 with the author? The $1.00, $2.00, $3.00 price point is such an affront to publishers, they won’t even seriously consider it, and they try to justify – with a straight face – charging a trade paperback price for a digital file that cost them basically nothing to distribute.

Realistically though, I don’t see that type of adventurous pricing happening. Amazon is taking a loss on just about every hardcover title they sell on the Kindle for $9.99. Publishers aren’t budging on prices. And, as publishers try to justify their eBook pricing with elaborate explanations and justifications, the hackers are eating pizza, sleeping under their desks, coding around the clock, and the eBook Napster gets closer and closer.”

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