I have to confess that I have not really understood the point of book trailers. It seems counterintuitive to market a book with a video, but perhaps I just need to rewire my brain. Well, if more book trailers were like the one above for Gary Shteyngart’s Super Sad True Love Story, then I would completely be on board. It’s clever! Funny! Heart warming! Of course, not all authors are connected enough to have celebrity authors and famous actors appear in their book trailers, but I think there’s a lesson in the trailer nonetheless: it’s okay to have some fun.

This weekend (June 18-20) in Paris, the much-venerated Shakespeare and Company bookstore is holding its fourth literary festival. Inaugurated in 2003, the festival has since settled into a biannual schedule, running in 2006, 2008, and now 2010. Each festival has centered on a different theme, including “Lost, Beat & New: Three Generations of Writers in Paris”; “Travel in Words: Celebrating Travel Literature”; and “Real Lives: Exploring Memoir and Biography.”

This year’s theme is “Storytelling & Politics”—appropriate, given that Shakespeare and Company founder George Whitman (now in his nineties) has always seen his bookstore as a political vehicle, even describing it as “a socialist utopia masquerading as a bookstore.” Check out this video to get a sense of the unique literary atmosphere he created.

The 2010 festival’s diverse, international roster of participating writers and artists will include Martin Amis (England), Fatima Bhutto (Pakistan), Breyten Breytenbach (South Africa), Tjawangwa Dema (Botswana), Mathias Énard (France), Janine di Giovanni (United States), Petina Gappah (Zimbabwe), David Hare (England), Jack Hirschman (United States), Ian Jack (Scotland), Yusef Komunyakaa (United States), Hanif Kureishi (England), Nam Le (Vietnam), Philip Pullman (England), Carole Seymour-Jones (Wales), Raja Shehadeh (Palestine), and Gao Xingjian (China).

According to Publishers Weekly, this year’s festival will also mark the launch of a new literary magazine and literary prize. Beginning in 1967, Whitman published three issues of his Paris Magazine over the course of more than a decade. Keeping his title, the new publication will be edited by Fatema Ahmed, formerly the managing editor of Granta. Shakespeare will also announce its sponsorship of a biannual 10,000-euro prize for a novella of 20,000-30,000 words. It’s exciting to see the continued vitality of this iconic Left Bank establishment.

According to its MySpace page, La Féline is “a trio that likes pop, epic folk, beauty, strangeness, instrumental music, and B movies” (“un trio qui aime la pop, le folk épique, le beau, le bizarre, la musique instrumentale et les séries B”). But I prefer this description that lead singer Agnès Gayraud gave in an English-language interview.

We’re three people. A dark-haired girl, Agnès. who sings and plays guitar, gently leading the band, a grey-haired boy, Xavier, who plays keyboards, and a brown-haired boy, Stéphane, playing drums. We all live in Paris. We’re all looking for something—without knowing exactly what. We only agree on the fact we’re looking for it.

La Féline’s music is sometimes in French, sometimes in English. This song is in both, creating a Franco-American mélange in which French pop tradition wanders freely in the folksy, Wild West.

Below are the lyrics and a translation of the French.

HibOO d’Live : La Féline “Mystery Train” from Le-HibOO.com on Vimeo.

Mystery Train

By La Féline
Je suis montée dans ton Mystery Train
A ton côté, innocente et sereine
Alors, tu m’as tout raconté
J’ai tout quitté en montant dans ce train
Moi je voulais partager ton destin
Alors, on a tout partagé

Everybody loves somebody someday, someday
Everybody leaves the one he loves, you said

Autour de nous filait le paysage
Dans ses reflets, je voyais ton visage
Alors, on a tout traversé
Dessus les ponts, au dessous des nuages
Au bord des gouffres, évitant les orages
La mort, j’ai voulu m’en aller

Everybody leaves somebody someday, someday
Everybody leaves the one he loves, you said

Je suis tombée de ton Mystery Train
J’ai basé mon camp dans la plaine
Alors, j’ai voulu t’oublier
J’ai tout quitté en tombant de ce train
Je t’ai laissé seul à ton destin
Alors, tu m’as tout reproché

Everybody hurts somebody someday, someday
Everybody hurts the one he loves, you said

A l’heure qu’il est poursuis-tu ta course?
A quelle distance du gouffre?
Voila où je veux te parler
Dans les couloirs désertés que tu longes
Si tu me croises au milieu de tes songes
Alors, tu m’auras pardonnée

Everybody misses somebody someday, someday
Everybody missed the one he left, that’s what I say.
I boarded your Mystery Train
Next to you, innocent and serene
Then you told me everything
I left everything getting on the train
Me, I wanted to share your destiny
So we shared everything

Everybody loves somebody someday, someday
Everybody leaves the one he loves, you said

Around us flew by the landscape
In our reflections I saw your face
Then we crossed over everything
Over the bridges, under clouds
On the edge of the abyss, avoiding the storms
Death, I wanted to go away

Everybody leaves somebody someday, someday
Everybody leaves the one he loves, you said

I fell off your Mystery Train
I set up my camp on the plain
Then I wanted to forget you
I left everything falling off this train
I left you alone with your destiny
So you blamed me for everything

Everybody hurts somebody someday, someday
Everybody hurts the one he loves, you said

Are you still racing now?
How far from the abyss?
That’s where I want to talk with you
In the deserted passages you pass through
If you meet me in the middle of your dreams
Then you will have forgiven me.

Everybody misses somebody someday, someday
Everybody missed the one he left, that’s what I say.

Some of the published titles are already well-known works, such as Natsume Soseki’s Botchan and Ryunosuke Akutagawa’s Rashomon and Seventeen Other Stories. The selected works cover a number of genres, including mysteries, poetry, short stories, and novels. Upcoming titles (for which, I believe, the publishing rights are still available), include an introduction to contemporary Japanese poetry, fantasy novel The Mandala Way by Masako Bando, historical novel Tokyo Seven Roses by Hisashi Inoue, and literary biography A Thousand Strands of Black Hair by Seiko Tanabe.

Thanks to the very informative Three Percent blog, which focuses on international literature, for clueing me in about JLPP! I’m definitely going to check out some of these books.

Tim Parks, who blogs for the New York Review of Books, had an interesting post recently about the pressure that writers (particularly non-American writers) feel to reach an international audience and the way this is affecting what and how they write:

There is a growing sense that for an author to be considered “great,” he or she must be an international rather than a national phenomenon . . . [M]ore and more European, African, Asian and South American authors see themselves as having “failed” if they do not reach an international audience.

Parks goes on to describe how this pressure has increased with the advent of electronic submissions, which enable an author to send a new work simultaneously to publishers all over the world, such that international rights may even be purchased before the writer has found a publisher in his or her own country:

An astute agent can then orchestrate the simultaneous launch of a work in many different countries using promotional strategies that we normally associate with multinational corporations. Thus a reader picking up a copy of Dan Brown’s The Lost Symbol, or the latest Harry Potter, or indeed a work by Umberto Eco, or Haruki Murakami, or Ian McEwan, does so in the knowledge that this same work is being read now, all over the world . . . This perception adds to the book’s attraction.

The disturbing side effect of this global market consciousness, Parks suggests, is that authors may be inclined to tailor their work for ease of translation and “remove obstacles to international comprehension,” particularly by keeping the language simple:

Kazuo Ishiguro has spoken of the importance of avoiding word play and allusion to make things easy for the translator. Scandinavian writers I know tell me they avoid character names that would be difficult for an English reader . . . What seems doomed to disappear, or at least to risk neglect, is the kind of work that revels in the subtle nuances of its own language and literary culture, the sort of writing that can savage or celebrate the way this or that linguistic group really lives.

It will be unfortunate if the proliferation of literature in translation can only happen through its homogenization.

Written in the aftermath of the 2005 riots in the Paris suburbs and published by La Fabrique in 2007, L’insurrection qui vient was denounced by the French government as a terrorist manual. The text first gained significant attention in 2008, following the arrest of its alleged authors, a group of youths now known as the Tarnac 9, on charges of sabotaging French train lines.

The English translation was published last year in the United States by Semiotext(e), a leftist California press known for publishing such household names in French cultural theory as Michel Foucault, Julia Kristeva, and Jean Beaudrillard. The Semiotext(e) edition had an initial print run of only 3,000 copies. Incidentally, too, the text is available for free online in both French and English. And yet the book is now in its sixth printing, and M.I.T. Press, its distributor, reports that it can barely keep enough copies in stock.

How has this fringe book become such a hot item? Some initial U.S. publicity for the book was generated by a guerrilla-style reading event in New York last June. But the real force behind sales appears to be the conservative commentator Glenn Beck, who launched a seven-minute diatribe against the book last July, which concluded with the inadvertent plug: “I am not calling for a ban on this book,” Beck explained. “It’s important that you read this book, [so] you know [what is coming,] and be ready when it does.” Recently Beck devoted an entire segment to the book, calling it “quite possibly the most evil thing I’ve ever read.” A Publishers Weekly article cites MIT Press associate publicist Diane Denner as saying that the book experiences a spike in sales every time Beck mentions it.

Ironically, while Michael Moore mentioned the book as his most recent read in an August 2009 interview with the Hollywood Reporter, his own “endorsement” had no such effect.

If you’re worried about the fate of the literary magazine in this hectic new era of apps and tweets, you might find solace in Electric Literature, a bold new bimonthly with a plan to capture and convert a broad and highly mobile readership to literary fiction. Founded by Andy Hunter, 38, and Scott Lindenbaum, 26, who met in the Brooklyn College MFA program, the magazine is available on every possible platform, including paper (printed on demand), Kindle, iPhone, and audiobook. Although many literary publications have begun to offer electronic delivery in some form or another, Electric Literature may be the first to blanket the whole field.

By limiting their paper printing costs to exactly the number of copies ordered, the magazine eliminates a sizeable upfront expense as well as the losses associated with unsold copies. Such economy makes it possible for Electric Literature to act boldly in another way—by paying writers an impressive $1,000 per story. As the editors say in their mission statement, the pioneering model is designed to set a simple but compelling precedent: more access for readers, and fairness for writers.

The magazine seems to be off to a good start, thanks to some innovative marketing ideas and their success in landing such big-name writers as Michael Cunningham, Colson Whitehead, Lydia Davis, and Jim Shepard in their first two issues. With some 4,000 readers and growing, according to the New York Times, it’s generating a much-needed spark of optimism across the literary landscape.

Storm clouds remain heavy over New York publishing, but the sun is shining in Austin, Texas, where Greenleaf Book Group is turning the industry’s traditional business model on its head: instead of counting on a few blockbuster titles to compensate for insufficient sales across much of their catalog, the company expects each title to earn its keep. Greenleaf offers no advances and requires authors to cover their own production costs. In exchange for assuming this risk, authors retain the rights to their work and receive a substantially bigger cut of the royalty on each copy sold. If a book sells well, the author wins; if it doesn’t, he or she absorbs the loss but is free to walk out the door.

Not just a glorified vanity press, Greenleaf has built a strong brand identity by accepting only about 3 percent of the submissions it receives. The lucky (and apparently promising) few benefit from Greenleaf’s reputedly excellent marketing and distribution services, selling on average between 3,000 and 5,000 copies in their first year. According to a profile in the September 7 issue of Forbes Magazine, the ten-year-old company saw revenues increase by 37 percent to $8.1 million in 2008 and is on course to exceed $9 million this year.

Check out the article to read how it all began in 1997, when founder Clint Greenleaf (then a rookie at Deloitte and Touche) decided to put out his own 30-page grooming handbook, Attention to Detail: A Gentlemen’s Guide to Appearance, to prove to his friends that writing a book is—well, just not that hard.

The Iowa-born actor came to fame playing Michael Kelso on the FOX sitcom That 70s Show. In 2003 he created a minor media sensation by hooking up with Demi Moore, who had launched her career on the ABC soap General Hospital when Kutcher was only 4. Also in 2003 he became the creator, executive producer, and host of the MTV series, Punk’d, in which hidden cameras catch celebrities at the receiving end of practical jokes.

Now Kutcher, whose Twitter handle is @aplusk, is becoming a star in the tech sector, too. In April of this year (just as Oprah was sending out her first Tweet), Kutcher won a much-publicized race with CNN to become the the first Twitterer with 1 million followers.  For a recap of the whole “feud,” see Kutcher’s 4/17 victory appearance on Larry King Live:

Some criticized Kutcher’s achievement as a little more than a PR stunt and questioned the means by which he’d amassed a million followers. Still, Kutcher seemed earnest about the democratic power of microblogging, telling King,

“We now live in an age in media that a single voice can have as much power and relevance on the Web, that is, as an entire media network.”

Kutcher also emphasized to King that the brilliance of Twitter is that it is not only a “send out” but also a “take in” medium, through which he is having a direct conversation with his fans.

Now approaching the 3 million followers mark, Kutcher highlighted the potential of Twitter’s “take in” feature recently when he sent out a Tweet asking followers to suggest a joke for a scene in his upcoming movie, The Killers. The jokes flooded in, and apparently one of them fit the bill. As reported by Fishbowl LA, Kutcher’s making no promises that the joke will survive the movie’s final cut. (Also, it remained to be seen whether the contributing fan would receive credit, or payment, for the joke.) Still, the incident must have made The Killers’s screenwriter(s), and perhaps writers everywhere, a little uneasy.

On the other hand, the algorithms of the Amazon brain (Customers Who Bought This Item Also Bought…) are no substitute for the informed, individual, hands-on customer service—the inspired and unusual recommendations—that you’re likely to get at your local independent (if it still exists). And the indies know it.

That’s why they’re rallying around IndieBound, an initiative from the American Booksellers Association (ABA), designed to champion the “buy local” movement. Members are banded together by a common logo and a fierce “Declaration” that opens like this:

When in the course of human events it becomes necessary for individuals to denounce the corporate bands which threaten to homogenize our cities and our souls, we must celebrate the powers that make us unique and declare the causes which compel us to remain independent.

Introduced a year ago, IndieBound is an expanded, rebranded, and reenergized version of BookSense, the ABA’s original vehicle for promoting the cause of independents. The new website features bookseller recommendations and best-seller lists, as well as copious DIY resources for independent booksellers to customize their IndieBound identities. By joining the community, users can create their own personalized wish lists, plug their favorite stores, and participate in social networking activities.

Big news at the BEA in May was the launch of IndieBound’s new iPhone application. Here are some of its features:

• Browse indie bookseller recommendation lists (The Indie Next List, The Kids Indie Next List) and best-seller lists (The Indie Bestseller Lists)

• Search for books from a comprehensive database of in-print titles

• Review detailed book information

• Buy books online from indie bookstores

• Find local, indie bookstores nearby or across the United States

• Find other independently owned businesses, like coffee shops, movie theaters, and bicycle stores

The application’s been downloaded more than 60,000 times in a month—which seems like a glimmer of hope in this otherwise dark night of the indie bookseller’s soul.

I was thrilled, then, to see this business card-bookmark hybrid printed by Pinball Publishing. It’s so clever and utilitarian! This particular business card is for a clothing store, but a bookmark business card would be appropriate for a bookstore or publishing house, wouldn’t it?

The sky is the limit when it comes to creative business cards. Maybe a balloon isn’t incredibly practical, but it’s fun and memorable. The rubber band business card, though? Definitely practical and fun! You can find both of these images, as well as a number of other nicely designed business cards, at this site.

I’m sure there are many more interesting ideas out there. How about business cards that double as coasters? Cards with valuable instructions on them? Any ideas out there? Do you have a multipurpose business card?

In the last few years academic and nonprofit presses have been leading the charge on the digital revolution. Since 2002 the volume of on-demand and short-run digital titles in print has increased exponentially.

On Tuesday Publishers Weekly reported that 2008 marked something of a tipping point for the fledgling industry, as more new books were printed in the U.S. last year with digital technology than with traditional publishing methods. According to statistics provided by Bowker (publisher of Books in Print), “new and revised titles produced by traditional production methods fell 3% in 2008, to 275,232, but the number of on-demand and short run titles soared 132%, to 285,394.”

There’s a lot of talk about the decline of the publishing industry and how people don’t read books anymore, but one country where reading appears to be alive and thriving is Japan. Part of this may be attributed to the popularity of cell phone novels, books written on cell phones. Anyone with a cell phone and a desire to share a story can upload their novels onto various community websites such as Maho no i-rando for readers to download onto their cell phones. Many of these novels are serialized, with chapters or even single sentences uploaded one at a time, and readers can leave comments about how they think the novel should progress.

So why the popularity of cell phone literature in Japan? Talking on cell phones in public areas such as on trains or buses is generally not allowed, and thus text messaging has become the primary activity. Japanese people spend a lot of time on public transportation in frequently crowded conditions, so the compact size and portability of the cell phone makes it an ideal vessel for various media.

Cell phone novels, known as keitai shosetsu in Japanese, have been in Japan for some ten years now, but they didn’t skyrocket into the mainstream until the late 2000s. Most popular with women in their teens and twenties, the unedited novels tend to gravitate toward themes of sex, love, and violence.

Now many of the popular cell phone novels are published in paper form and sold in traditional bookstores. Book distributor Tohan claims that by 2007 cell phone literature commanded a $240 million market in Japan. There is even an annual Japan Keitai Novel Award with cash prizes.

But in trend-obsessed Japan there are reports the cell phone novel has passed its prime—before the phenomenon has even reached the United States.

In a virtual office, where employees work in separate locations, “presence” can be more beneficent and comforting. Instead of working alone and having no idea if our colleagues are there, we can look at a program—Skype, Office Communicator, or something built into a larger application, such as Groove—to see if someone is at work. We can IM our coworkers, call them, or have a video conference, all from the same presence application. I have been working within a system of presence for some time now, and though I work alone most of the time, I no longer feel quite so alone.