Can indie bookstores be saved by chocolate?

Well, Belgian researchers apparently think so. The report in PS Mag says that the aroma of chocolates is so enticing that shoppers stick around longer, and boost sales of certain genres. That will be something Amazon won't be able to do: make computers smell like chocolate. Or, will they?!

And the book-stores won't even have to sell real chocolates, which is both good news and bad news. (Go figure.)

“Retailers can make use of pleasant ambient scents to improve the store environment, leading consumers to explore the store,” the report in the Journal of Environmental Psychology, a research team led by Lieve Doucé of Hasselt University for the 10-day experiment in a general-interest bookstore in Belgium, says.

Researchers found that sales of books on food and drink, and romances, increased, but history and thrillers dropped. This is not too good for Silverfish Books then because we don't sell romances and carry few cookbooks.

Still, it is worth a try. But we'll go for real chocolate though; if nothing else, we'll get to eat the merchandise.

Translating

I saw this story in Authors and Translators after I had finished translating Isa Kamari's three novels from Malay to English, and I was surprised how close my experience was to theirs. I had always thought that my Malay was not good enough, but after reading some of the dreadful translations we had to edit, I was convinced that I'd do a much better job. The thing about translation is that you can (and, according to MacLehose who gave us Harvill, you should) treat the translation as you would an original. What often happens is that very soon the novel you are reading becomes very much your own, and you feel obliged to give the reader the best experience possible.

Translating a novel line by line and word by word is not possible. So all such works are either a rendering or an adaptation. You'll have to read the entire novel first to understand what's going on, and then plan your strategy. I fumbled about in the beginning, and decided that I preferred to work on one chapter at a time. The trick is to retell the story to your readers with all the tensions and emotions intact, and this can often be done only if you are not a hundred per cent faithful to the text. For example the Malay language works best in the passive voice, while English is certainly far more comfortable in the active. (I'm uncertain if this is due to the evolution of the language or due to other inherent qualities.) So it's important to read the entire paragraph before deciding how you'd phrase it. Sometimes, it would sound better for later sentences to be brought forward, because it sounds better that way in English. Another thing I found is that English thrives on an economy of words, whereas Malay language likes elaborations and repetitions. Again, I'm not qualified to say if it's due to evolution or some other reason. Maybe it's purely stylistic.

It was tempting to tweak the story a little to give it a better zing, but fortunately for me, Isa Kamari (who reads English) was on hand to curb my over-enthusiasm. I wonder what happens when a work is translated into a language the author does not read at all. I guess it's better not to know. Just keep the cheques coming!

Showrooming

Showrooming happens when people browse a brick-and-mortar bookshop, compare prices and then buy it online at Amazon.

A story in City AM says that almost two thirds of shoppers in the UK admit to showrooming. As for the other one third, one can only guess if they were lying. The advantage transnational book stores have had is in the touch and feel of the books. Comparative shopping is not a crime, nor is it unethical, but what happens when traditional bookshops become mere showrooms for Amazon? Is it unfair? It certainly is not fair. Is the government going to do anything about it? Maybe in France!

"Today, everyone has had enough of Amazon which, through dumping practices, smashes prices to penetrate markets only to then raise prices again once they are in a situation of quasi-monopoly,” said Aurélie Filippetti, the culture minister in a story in The Telegraph

It appears that in the US and in Britain they are already in a position of quasi-monopoly. The interesting point is, what happens when there are no more shops to showroom off? Will Amazon be able to support the entire industry by itself? Or will publishers set up their own bookshops (like Apple does with its Apple store), or publisher authorised stores, and control the entire experience? One may soon find Penguin stores, Random House store, Faber stores and so on, all over the world, discounting the hell out of Amazon. And why not? It's either that or apocalypse of the book industry. No one seems to be interested in the return of the Net Book Agreement (NBA), or have I missed some threads in the argument?

At Silverfish Books, we opted out early when we saw the madness and predicted the carnage. We sell mainly Malaysian books, many of which are self-published or short print-runs, that Amazon and other big bookstores don't carry, although we can't say we are totally safe. The only way to survive now is to go small and local. That is, very small and very local, and wait for something to happen. It certainly will.

Why authors self-publish

From the Digital Book World. According to a new report based on a survey of nearly 5,000 authors of all kind, What Authors Want: Understanding Authors in the Era of Self-Publishing, nearly two-thirds of hybrid authors said one of their reasons was that self-publishing helped them exert more creative control on the final product. Some 40% said one of their reasons was because of the ease of the self-publishing process, and nearly 40% said it was because they could make more money self-publishing.

This caught me by surprise at first, then on second reading I spotted the term 'hybrid authors' -- authors who have previously published the traditional way, but now self-publish -- then it made sense. Many authors feel that publishers mutilate their story. Yes, many publishers, particularly the big ones, are too market driven to retain any form of integrity. They publish what sells. Period. (We have all read books and sometimes wondered about the purpose of some scenes with gratuitous sex, rape, incest, bondage, pederasty, homosexuality and violence in an otherwise good book. Many books have nothing but that, which is another industry altogether called pornography.) It is important to note though that this is the feeling of hybrid authors only (that is, those who have moved to self-publishing), not all authors.

Many smaller publishers, especially the independents, however, love their work too much and are very careful about preserving the authors' voice and intent, although they also have to keep their ledgers black. Integrity is all that counts, as does every book. There was an interesting story in the Guardian online on September 27, 2009, that asked, "Raymond Carver was one of America's greatest writers. But was his razor-sharp style created by his editor?" His editor was Gordon Lish. The story is long, complicated and dramatic as it sounds, but the important question is this: would Carver have been read at all if not for Lish's editing? Would have Carver been Carver? (A customer, who has read both, said he thought the edited version was much better. Maybe, the original didn't read like 'Carver'!) The extent of editing that was done to one of Carver's stories can be seen here in the New Yorker.

To be sure many world famous authors have benefited from astute editing for as long as publishing has been around. But, many have suffered too.

Now, how many feel that KS Maniam's 2003 novel, Between Lives should have been vigorously edited, although you are too polite to say it?

Would you have bought these books?

This is from BookRiot. It is one thing to judge a book by its cover, but how about buying books by judging its title? Although, many are now considered classics, how many of the following would you have passed up in the bookshop?

• TRIMALCHIO IN WEST EGG (The Great Gatsby -- Scott Fitzgerald)
• MULES IN HORSE HARNESS (Gone with the wind -- Margaret Mitchell)
• THE EYE AND THE EAR (A Movable Feast -- Ernest Hemingway)
• THE SENTIMENTAL EDUCATION OF FREDERICK HENRY(A Farewell to Arms -- Ernest Hemingway)
• TWILIGHT (The Sound and the Fury -- William Faulkner)

Conversely, how many book have bombed because the publishers chose a wrong 'title'? We'll never know, will we?