X-Men: Secret to their Success Most of us grew up loving comics, and many of us still do. I bought them when they were about seven cents, and I was horrified when they went up to the astronomical (1960ish) price of twelve cents. How could the industry ever survive? But it did, many price increases later, and super-hero comix particularly are a vibrant part of the U.S. mythology. The linked article actually contains a host of lessons to be learned by struggling authors, whether 'published' or self-publishing (see this week's article for distinctions). Authors: notice Chris Claremont's discussion of how he made the characters so gripping. Also note the series' long run, and 1970s near swoon to oblivion. Successful series sometimes are a roller coaster ride. The trick is to hang on, and make the right decisions on those two-wheel turns… (CNN Entertainment 3 June 2011)

Librarians Ponder Digital Strategies The clash between old and new sales/distribution models today is most visible in the struggle of libraries to redefine themselves in the digital age. The Old (print) Publishing delusionally tries to keep its absolute death grip on a vanishing industry, which makes for conflict with the fundamental premise of Free Public Libraries… (Coloradoan 2 June 2011).

Phase: Platform Lock-In? If you buy a book on Kindle, Nook, or some other platform, you may or may not enjoy portability from one platform to the other. Is your purchase locked in? Will you lose your purchases if your next device is a different platform? At first, this is a predatory strategy—remember, all the platform makers are huge mega-corporations, who take their possessive clues from the late print monopoly of New York City. As I see it, only consumer outrage and voting with our dollars can change this trend before it becomes one of the first, big, ominous trends of a new and growing digital monopoly. That is tha last thing we want to see; but its chances are slim to none… (PC Magazine 1 June 2011).

How To Kindle-Proof Your Book Hilarious and informative article on how to demolish your chances of self-publishing a book that works on Kindle. Illustrates the foibles of today's still emerging digital industry… (The Millions 31 May 2011).

Concord Free Press (Alternative) World's last hippies lift the dead arm of print publishing for one final, feeble wave? Or new boutique niche for a dead art form? New Hampshire's CFP calls itself 'a generosity publisher' that does not pay the writers, but publishes their books in limited print editions of 3,000; bookstores that work with CFP give the books away… (Publishers Weekly 1 June 2011).

Gender Wars: 250 Books By Women All Men Should Read I wrote the rant below first, but then discovered that I am probably wrong on one count. The Big Six, who effectively controlled all publishing for half a century, probably will leave a legacy of some works that will survive to the Literature syllabi of the 23rd or 25th centuries. Who can say? Joyland, a Canadian literary magazine, tackles the question, amid the gender wars, after reading an Esquire (male pov) Magazine list of 75 books that all men should read. Only one was by a woman (Flannery O'Connor), and Joyland speculates that was because the androgynous author name slipped past the tight-lipped, stony eyed male censors at Esquire. I may just jog over to a surviving print bookstore, if I can find one, to buy a few of these great works… (Joyland 2011).

Gender Wars: Books by dudes for dudes, books by chicks for dudes I recently purchased the domain name romanticfictionbymen.com, on the premise that I'll use it to illustrate my theory about pabulum versus literature. The linked story speaks for itself, as always. My takeoff is that the print industry's snappy meal (see RWA rules) is not the only game in town. The Big Six and their acolytes have found snappy sales in books with formulaic plot, topped by a predictable happy ending. Actually, that genre has been around since the early 1800s, and nobody should ever deny women their secret little sweety nosh (or in some cases, those damper fantasies that makes women's hair stand out backwards in a long wave, like in those naughty, late-night vibrator commercials). Just because we like steak does not mean little candies will ever go away.

What I call Romantic Fiction by Men (Not RWA, and actually by women as well) has tended to make it to the Literature syllabus; whereas I don't know about those millions of sugary romances devoured since the early days of the Industrial Revolution. Nor do I care to criticize someone else's delights in this generally trying life. We all need and deserve our favorite forms of relief. Men and women are different; the real issue is that they must be treated equally on matters like salary and rights. That said, I take aim at RWA's stated, monolithic plot dicta, not for their own sake, but because this industrial, formulaic pabulum has crept beyond its bounds—across genre lines, essentially because women today constitute the majority of writers, editors, and readers.

There is indeed justice in that, but men still do read books and end up avoiding two-thirds of the bookstore or more because the literature of the past half century is not comfortable for male readers, and quite often frankly anti-male. I fully understand and support the rage inherent in Thelma and Louise, but the world cannot operate on petulant and one-sided tantrums, any more than it should operate on male stupidity or cruelty (of which there has been, and is, far too much). That said, we all vote with our feet and our wallets. Most men do not beat or mistreat women, and most women are not about to drive off the rim of the Grand Canyon. The RWA 'rules' mirror the Big Six party line. This powerfully defines and controls what may be published and what we must read; but the contrast with pre-Big Six literature lauded by academics, critics, and discriminating readers is palpable. It is like a difference between caricaturish Palin or Bachmann blather and a thoughtful Hillary or Mikulski speech, to name just two intelligent women. Not all dogs are male, not all cats are female. All women are not saints, and all men are not sinners. Whatever the economic argument (the market dictates what we publish), the truth is not entirely demand-side. To some extent, the economic argument fits tongue-in-groove with the print publishing monolith's doctrinal choices, which often steer toward the lowest denominator (e.g., books about utterly vapid felonebrities) because that's where the numbers and the wallets tend to be.

Digital publishing, from its inception, appears to be a new, subversive trend that bucks the party line of the New Kremlin in Manhattan. I speak in these metaphors because I just finished reading Doctor Zhivago. I find this novel, written between 1911 and 1956 (first publication in Italy) to be a truly romantic tragedy, very unlike the movie, and utterly unpublishable in the pabulum mills of the Big Six. The topic qualifies as another desperately self-published title, in that it was forbidden in the Soviet Union, and smuggled out by an Italian Communist publisher who was expelled from the CP for publishing against the Moscow party line. What was my point again? Oh yes, actually it's always interesting to see (a) when men and women write in the pov of the opposite gender; and (b) when one occasionally still finds a book written with male readers in mind. For my part, I've given up on clunkers like Three Cups of ?ee, sentimental and dishonest eye wash by a reputedly phony author. I'm increasingly reading books written before 1960. The downside is that all genre thrillers written during the middle 20th Century seem to feature a ubiquitous female lead called, simply, 'the girl.' How the pendulum has swung, hitting men in the rear end. Come back, Thelma and Louise. The house is yours now. You didn't need to go sailing over the Grand Canyon in artificially hyped up rage. But wait, men are still on the property, albeit in the dog house out back, where they have long been accustomed to nightly sojourns… (Los Angeles Times 30 May 2011).