John August

Books

Our Magnificent Bastard Tongue

Books

book cover
Over the weekend, I read John H. McWorter’s book Our Magnificent Bastard Tongue: The Untold Story of English
, which I’d recommend for any reader interested in language history, grammar, or why [English is Not Latin](http://johnaugust.com/archives/2005/english-is-not-latin).

McWhorter quickly recaps the standard story of how English came to be. You had Angles, Saxon and Jutes coming to Britain with their Germanic language, which over time shed most of its noun cases and verb conjugations. When the Normans came, they brought French — and with it, a ton of words that we already had in slightly different forms. Thus we end up with both *royal* and *regal*, plus a lot of other words pulled in from Latin. Swedish Vikings brought words too, particularly words related to the sea. As a result of all this in-mixing, English has a very, very large vocabulary.

McWhorter’s central thesis is that English is actually a lot more peculiar than commonly thought, and that by glossing over its idiosyncrasies, linguists have missed some tantalizing history.

He examines our thoroughly weird “meaningless do” — *Do you like eggs?* *I love eggs, but my wife does not.* — which is so atypical that you need to look for an explanation. And you don’t have to look far. The Celtic languages, Cornish and Welsh, do much the same thing with “do,” and were already on the island.

Standard history has the Celts getting wiped out pretty quickly and thoroughly, but McWhorter argues they co-existed for a significant time. Celts may have also given us our unusual present tense, which is more commonly the progressive *I am talking* than the straight *I talk.*

Notably, they’re not always interchangeable:

MAN

I write a book.

WOMAN

Wow, you’re not a native speaker, are you?

(I’ve written about the [progressive tense](http://johnaugust.com/archives/2009/present-tense) as it relates to screenwriting.)

McWhorter’s a witty writer, but he has a habit of going on a bit too long after his point is made. I found myself skipping pages in the section on Sapir-Whorf hypothesis. (Disproved. Got it. Move on.) But on the whole, I recommend it for any fan of language.

How I Became a Famous Novelist

Books, News

book cover
Add this book to your late-summer reading: How I Became a Famous Novelist,
by Steve Hely. It’s fast, funny, and will likely become the next movie I write and direct.

Here’s the official press release, with additional commentary:

> LOS ANGELES, CA (August 3, 2009) – Filmmaker John August has optioned How I Became a Famous Novelist by Steve Hely through his company Quote-Unquote Films. August optioned the hilarious novel with an eye to adapt and direct. The novel, published by Grove/Atlantic, has garnered excelled reviews across the board and was Amazon’s July 2009 title of the month.

The great reviews include one by [Janet Maslin in the NY Times](http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/13/books/13maslin.html), who quotes so many funny lines from the book that you might worry she’s spoiling it. She isn’t. She can’t.

Hely’s book has an unbelievably high joke-to-page ratio, the literary equivalent of a 30 Rock episode. (Which seems fitting, since Hely is now a writer on that show.)

> The book tells the story of Pete Tarslaw, an ambitiously underachieving college grad who writes a shamelessly maudlin and derivative Great American Novel for the sole purpose of upstaging his ex-girlfriend’s wedding. When the book becomes a bestseller, he finds himself sucked into a strange coterie of mega-authors and their attendants.

I wrote that summary, but it omits something that makes reading the book so worthwhile: excerpts from all the other mega-authors’ books, such as *Teeth of the Winged Lion* by Nick Boyle. It’s hard to write well, but writing badly well is a special talent.

The book also features special publishing-related miscellany, such as this [fake New York Times Bestsellers list](http://g-ecx.images-amazon.com/images/G/01/marketing/abna/Hely-NYT-list.pdf), which even includes “Great Fish.”

> On the title, August said “It’s the funniest thing I’ve read in a really long time. Like Go, it’s about thinking you have the system all figured out, realizing you don’t, then faking it. Characters who do the wrong things for misguided reasons are the heart of comedy.”

Let’s break down my quote.

First, I restate that the book is funny, in case that gets dropped out of any stories based on the press release.

Second, I refer back to an earlier comedy I wrote, because a lot of folks might think of my credits as being more funny-peculiar than funny-ha-ha.

Finally, I try to restate the premise in a way that seems more universal: it’s not a funny book about books; it’s a funny book about a guy on a journey.

> Why he bought it himself: “It’s the kind of book I could hear studios saying is too smart. I knew I’d spend many meetings convincing them that it wasn’t nearly as smart as they thought it was. So I’d rather just give them a script so they can see what it is.”

There’s stuff in the book that’s funny only because it’s in a book, such as those great excerpts. The danger is that a studio exec reading it says, “Well, that part’s not cinematic.” And it’s true, some parts won’t translate as a movie.

But the premise, the characters and the plot of the book all translate really well. It’s better for me to show what I *can* do in a script than focus on what I can’t bring over from the book.

> Ken Richman, Esq, negotiated on behalf of August with Anna DeRoy of WME handling the novel.

It’s the first book rights I’ve bought since Big Fish in 1999 — and technically that was Sony buying it for me.

In case you think that this was all Hollywood-insider dealmaking, let me talk you through the process.

In May, I was in New York, working on a yet-to-be-announced project. The hotel I was staying at had USA Today, which I don’t normally read. But I happened to spot [this article](http://www.usatoday.com/life/books/news/2009-05-06-summer-books-hely_N.htm) describing Hely’s soon-to-be-published book, and thought it sounded funny.

So I tracked down Pete Tarslaw’s blog on Google, figured it was probably Hely, and emailed asking for an advance copy:

> hey steve hely, can I get an advance copy of your book?

> By description, it sounds very, very great.

> — John August, the screenwriter

> ps. I will also pester you on Facebook.

He sent me the book. I read it the next day. A week later, I met with him at Susina, the coffeeshop featured in The Nines. Lawyers started talking, and eventually we got a deal in place. (So yes, there was Hollywood dealmaking. But it came very late in the process.)

As far as making a movie, that process is just starting now. I’ll be writing a draft, and then figuring out the how/when/where/who.

In the meantime, read his book. It is available pretty much everywhere, but it’s [cheap on Amazon](http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0802170609?ie=UTF8&tag=johnaugustcom-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=0802170609) ($10.98), and only [$8.80 on Kindle](http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B002DR48HY?ie=UTF8&tag=johnaugustcom-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=B002DR48HY).

Spelunking the Kindle market

Books, Follow Up, Projects, The Variant

How many books does Amazon sell on Kindle each day? How closely does it follow the 80/20 rule, in which a few top sellers account for a huge percentage of total sales? Is there a classic long tail — and is it even worth being on it?

Amazon is incredibly opaque with the details, even when you’re publishing on their system.

The day after its debut, my story [The Variant](http;//johnaugut.com) briefly reached #18 on the Kindle [bestsellers list](http://www.amazon.com/gp/bestsellers/digital-text/ref=pd_dp_ts_kinc_1). While that was exciting, I still don’t know exactly what it means.

Like other Amazon statistics, it seems to get recalculated hourly, but there’s no indication whether it’s a pure number of sales that hour (which would make for very erratic swings) or some sort of sliding average over time. Based on how it’s handled for physical books, it’s [probably a combination](http://www.webpronews.com/expertarticles/2006/06/15/navigating-the-amazon-sales-ranking):

> Only the top 10,000 books are updated every hour and the ranking does not depend upon the actual number of books sold, but rather, on a comparison against the sales figures of the other 9,999 books within that same hour. Simultaneously, a trending calculation is applied to arrive at a computerized sales trajectory. So, hypothetically, a book that held a ranking of 2,000 at 2pm and 3,000 at 3pm, might hold a 4,000 ranking at 4pm, even if it actually sold MORE books between 3-4 than it did between 2-3.

All I really know is that the day I hit #18, I sold about 500 copies. So my hunch is that titles around that spot in the list (say, 15 to 25) might sell around 500 copies per day. That is, they probably sell 500 as opposed to 50 or 5,000. I’m only try to get a sense of how many zeroes are involved.

Stephenie Meyer is rich
—–

twilight salesAs it happens, all four of Stephenie Meyer’s Twilight books fall into this range, and have been here for quite a while. They’re priced at $5.50 (for the first two) and $9.99 (for the second two).

If each is selling around 500 copies each day, that means the four of them are generating $15,400 per day, or $107,800 per week. Granted, that 500 is a guess, but it’s probably a number with two zeroes.

We don’t know the split between Meyer, her publisher and Amazon — it’s possible that the retailer is deliberately taking a loss on the Twilight books in order to woo Kindle buyers — but it’s clearly a nice bit of money with no paper, shipping or inventory costs. ((Yes, clearly Meyer and her publisher are making great money off the printed versions of the books, which probably account for 95%+ of sales. But the Kindle sales aren’t insignificant.))

Worst bestsellers
——

Unlike the iTunes App Store, Amazon doesn’t distinguish between free and paid content on their Kindle bestseller list. In fact, 19 out of the top 50 books are free. There’s nothing wrong with free, but it’s a semantic and tactical mistake to include them on a “bestseller” list.

The current system keeps [Serial](http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B002AJ7X2C?ie=UTF8&tag=johnaugustcom-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=B002AJ7X2C) in the #1 slot for no real reason other than being free. I envision many brand-new Kindle owners powering up their devices for the first time, and wanting to download a book to test out the service.

Where do they find a book? The bestseller list. And look! The bestseller is free!

This isn’t a knock on Serial or its authors. In fact, one of the writers has a [useful post](http://jakonrath.blogspot.com/2009/05/more-on-amazon-kindle.html) of his experiences with publishing on the Kindle. He notes that…

> The freebies are being downloaded and read. There isn’t money changing hands, but branding and name-recognition — two essentials for every successful author — are happening.

Free should always be a choice. But I’d argue the free preview feature on every Kindle title is designed for exactly this sort of try-before-you-buy. If after forty pages you haven’t convinced a reader to pony up at least 99 cents, I don’t know that “branding” is really the issue.

By letting bestsellers be free, Amazon also makes it easy to game the system. [The Cook’s Illustrated How-to-Cook Library](http://www.amazon.com/Cooks-Illustrated-Cook-Library-step/dp/B001RF3U9U/ref=pd_ts_kinc_23?ie=UTF8&s=digital-text) got into the top 20 as a free book, then jacked up the price to $9.99. ((Indeed, many of the reviews are some variety of “I can’t believe it’s free!”)) Letting author-publishers change the price is smart; letting them monkey with your bestseller list is dumb.

I’d propose Amazon keep the zero-price option, but move free titles to their own list. After all, nothing else in Amazon’s ranking system has to compete with free.

But until they make that change, I’m considering organizing an online flash mob for The Variant. For one predetermined hour, I’ll set the price to zero and invite everyone I know to “buy” it. I’m curious how high I could get on the list.

Overall impressions
——

As I noted in my earlier post about [formatting for Kindle](http://johnaugust.com/archives/2009/kindle-formatting-for-web-geeks), getting a book published on Amazon’s platform is surprisingly straightforward. But I really hoped for better reporting. Should one raise or lower the price? Do ads work? Do reviews help?

Without better information, it’s tough to make any of these decisions.

The Kindle isn’t currently the (mythical?) indie goldmine the iTunes App Store has become. Despite Amazon’s first-mover advantage, there is clearly opportunity for competitors, like Google, Apple or Sony.

More pressingly, there’s a need for better international ebook distribution. The Kindle is U.S.-only, likely due to do rights issues. A European solution would be great; a global version would be better. My e-Junkie/PayPal system for pdfs and ePubs is just barely workable. If I could graft it onto a trusted store like Amazon or iTunes, everyone would feel more comfortable.

Kindle formatting for web geeks

Books, Geek Alert

kindleAmazon’s Kindle, both the standalone version and the [iPhone app](http://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewSoftware?id=302584613&mt=8), make a compelling case for self-published books. The service is quick, free and (mostly) painless. And if you format your books properly, they will look every bit as good as those from traditional publishers.

When I was preparing my short story [The Variant](http://johnaugust.com/variant) for the Kindle, I found a lot of confusing and contradictory information about how to do the formatting — much of it on the official help site. So I’m writing up this quick guide aimed at somebody with roughly my level of coding or design experience.

If you feel comfortable hand-coding a site, you can get a book formatted in 30 minutes or less.

You’ll want to download the [source file](http://johnaugust.com/Assets/variant_amazon_short.html.zip) for The Variant to follow along. If you compare it with the [published version](http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0029ZAPRW?) as it appears in the Kindle store, you’ll see how it matches up.

(If any of this is over your head, there are several more comprehensive tutorials out there, including Joshua Tallent’s [Kindle Formatting](http://kindleformatting.com/index.php).)

So here we go.

[Read more…] about Kindle formatting for web geeks