bob tarantino

Pleased to Meet You - The New "Know Your Client" Regime

CBA PracticeLink has published my article "Pleased to Meet You - The New 'Know Your Client' Regime", which aims to be a primer on the new client identification and verification rules which have recently come into effect for Canadian lawyers.

Paternity Leave for Lawyers in Canada – Two Solitudes

Back in November 2008, the good folks at the Canadian Bar Association's PracticeLink published my piece "Paternity Leave for Lawyers in Canada - Two Solitudes".  The fact that three of my recently published articles have dealt with, respectively, quitting your job, taking a sabbatical and now paternity leaves is indicative of nothing, I swear.

stuff about writing you probably won't care about unless you want to write

Lore Sjöberg offers some helpful (and pithy) guidance on getting published:

The point is that you, the writer, do not pay the agent. You do not pay the publisher. Not for reading the manuscript, not for offering suggestions and certainly not for printing. The agent gets a portion of the money you've already made. The publisher makes a profit from sales. You do not write checks to these people.

As a writer, you're free to spend as much money as you want for your own purposes, like workshops and hand-stitched dream journals and magic feathers. You might even choose to spend some or all of your advance on publicity, once you have the cash in hand. But if an agent or publisher tells you that you need to shell out in order to make the deal happen, you should listen for telltale chittering and examine the person's spine for the subdermal squirming associated with literary scammers.

Yes.

When it comes to "what-havoc-will-technology-wreak-on-this-industry", the music industry tends to garner all the oxygen.  Which is too bad: since the question raises answers just as interesting, I like to think, when applied to book publishing.  Simon Chester, back in May, attended a Writers Union discussion which focused on the issue.

The issue that Canadian authors confront is how to adapt their work and their expectations to shifting business models for Canadian book and periodical publishing which are continually under threat by shifting market forces, and the new technologies. ...

The discussion was then wide-ranging, with particular emphasis being placed on the new announcement by Robert Miller, who recently announced that HarperCollins would be moving to an experimental, and highly disruptive business model:

No more authors’ advances, instead, higher royalties and profit participations.

No more returns. Returns are the dirty environmental secret of the book publishing industry. Of all books printed, between 25 and 35 percent are ultimately returned to the publisher, for a full credit and pulped, recycled, or dumped in landfill. HarperCollins believes that it can calibrate demand much more finely, and if shortages develop, rapidly print substituted goods.

No more additional fees for prime product placement in major book stores. Instead, HarperCollins believes that it can generate buzz in other ways.

Aggressive use of the internet for marketing and promotion, and to build collaborative networks of readers and enthusiasts.

Simultaneous publication in electronic downloadable and digital audio formats.

Speaking as someone who has had only the most fleeting of professional interactions with book publishing, it is a wonder just how reticent the industry is to embrace new delivery mechanisms and jettison existing business models - no more so than other industries, surely, but the public attention focused on those other industries has resulted in endless discussions about innovations which could be implemented on publishing - but little of it seems to have been adopted in a comprehensive manner.  It will be interesting to see if the HarperCollins approach bears imitation.

Keeping Them By Sending Them Away - Viva Voce

CBA PracticeLink has transformed my "Keeping Them By Sending Them Away - Sabbaticals and Lawyer Retention" article?into a rather nice podcast, which can be listened to or downloaded here.

Keeping Them By Sending Them Away

A good editor comes up with a title way better than anything you yourself could have managed - hence, "Keeping Them By Sending Them Away: Sabbaticals and Lawyer Retention", recently published by the good folks at the CBA's PracticeLink.

Shutting It Down

The good folks at Canadian Lawyer - Associates magazine have published my first cover story - "Shutting It Down - You've Decided to Quit. Now What?" in the Summer 2008 issue.  A full digital version of the magazine can be accessed here.

"sheer fecundity"

The good folks at This Magazine were nice enough to publish a piece I wrote about abandoned babies and abortion.  It's slightly less morbid than it sounds.

10% of nothing is still nothing

Canadian sci-fi author Robert J. Sawyer explains the economics behind those $4.99 hardcovers you've been buying from the big table at the front of Chapters.  Long story short: if you bear personal ill-will towards the author, buy them.

Where You At, Rock?

Back in November, when I decided to resume blogging, it was intended that this blog would function at least in large part as an exercise in narcissism self-promotion for various writing projects.  For a variety of reasons, but mostly due to laziness on my part, the extra-curricular writing hasn't proceeded at quite the pace I would have liked.  However, now that the release of Under Arrest is in the (relatively) near future, and having been inspired by a variety of sources (among them: James Bow's frequent progress reports on his latest book, and the news that Canadian sci-fi author Robert J. Sawyer's recent announcement of his inking of a six-figure (!) deal for republication rights to his previous novels), it's time to ramp up both the writing and the blogging about the writing.  Or something.  A few snippets, none earth-shattering:

• I had the pleasure earlier today of doing a seminar-style presentation on Canadian defamation law to the good folks at The Weather Network, at their offices in Oakville, Ontario; very cool building they're headquartered in, and the attendees had some perceptive and pertinent questions - hopefully I was able to provide some marginally interesting information
• Under Arrest - Canadian Laws You Won't Believe is evidently still on schedule for a June 30, 2007 release; as I navigate the creator side of the publishing industry (as distinct from the legal side) I'm learning some interesting tidbits; f'rinstance: amazon.ca lists the book (currently at #448,905 in sales! woohoo!) with a June 30 "release date" - but that just means the date the book is available for shipping from the warehouse - actual copies likely won't be in bookstores until early in July
• notwithstanding what I just told you, James Bow and I are finalizing plans for a big book-related blogstravaganza at the end of June
• I'm hoping to have a sample chapter from Under Arrest available for you to, er, enjoy (fingers-crossed) some time soon
• I found out earlier this week from my editor at Dundurn that Dundurn has followed through on plans to commission some illustrations for Under Arrest - I had initially been somewhat hesitant when the idea was presented to me, but I think it could work out quite well; I was somewhat concerned about the tone of the book being compromised by the illustrations - I tried to avoid having the book read like a "bathroom reader" of quirky laws, and the notion of illustrations seemed to weight the balance away from a more sober reading experience; in the end, though, while striking the right tone in the text was one of the most difficult tasks I confronted, I think I may have veered too far towards dustiness - so hopefully the illustrations will have the effect of correcting the sobriety of the writing; I'm expecting to see samples of the illustrations shortly and will report back here on the results
• here is the goal for the rest of the year: one short commentary piece on mechanical royalties in the Canadian online context; one long academic piece on copyright duration for Canadian film and television projects; one novel, currently entitled A Garbled Syntax; total progress on each to date: actually, this bullet point is pretty much it - time to go get started

"controversial since it was announced"

I have to admit, I'm baffled at this news:

The Sobol Award, a U.S. literary contest offering unpublished authors a $100,000 US contract, has been cancelled for lack of interest.

I had posted earlier about the Sobol contest here.  Fewer than 1,000 manuscripts were submitted - organizers had expected more than 50,000.  It appears that the US$85 entry fee for the contest, and a slew of criticism sunk the endeavour.  As I mentioned earlier, I'm a little puzzled as to what the concern was - there's no sanctity to the manuscript submission or publication process, so I'm not sure why the need to pay money would have made this any more suspect.

"mere book sales"

Over at Hit & Run, there's a link to this piece by David Weigel in the LA Times, which basically consists of Weigel sneering his way past some science fiction books and graphic novels:

These aren't my fantasies or nightmares. All of these vignettes are ripped from science fiction thrillers that have hit shelves in just the last 18 months. Sharia comes to the United States in Robert Ferrigno's potboiler, "Prayers for the Assassin." In Joel C. Rosenberg's "Last Jihad" trilogy, a steel-spined U.S. president nukes Baghdad, then combats a Russo-Iranian axis, all in fulfillment of Scripture (or so we're told in the nail-biting third book, "The Ezekiel Option"). Hannity and his stone-jawed sidekick, G. Gordon Liddy, battle the Clinton restoration in Mike Mackey and Donny Lin's comic book, "Liberality for All." The Second American Civil War is breaking out in Orson Scott Card's "Empire" (book out now, video game on the way).

If it all sounds a little strange and crazed, that's because it is. ...

... the new genre of culture war and terror war novel is different. In "Prayers for the Assassin," an awful and believable event — coordinated nuclear attacks on American cities, with Israeli terrorists framed as the culprits — kick-starts a future that's too ridiculous to be fearsome. Egged on by Hollywood celebrities, millions of Americans convert to Islam. Families haul their kids to the thrill rides at Palestine Adventures. Battleships are renamed for Osama bin Laden.  It sounds like satire, but here's the funny part: Ferrigno is serious.

I haven't read any of the novels in question, so maybe they are, in fact, terrible books.  No idea.  But Weigel's underlying point, that in a science fiction story, the presence of a wonky political premise somehow invalidates the entire novel is just... bizarre.  Set aside the notion that, in the context of science fiction novels we suddenly require externally valid suppositions, but even more strange is the notion that strong political slant is somehow some malignant innovation of the right-wing.  Based on what he's written here, we can safely assume he hasn't picked up, say, The Handmaid's Tale.

What prompted this all is that, just this evening, I started reading Robert J. Sawyer's Mindscan.  Sawyer, for those who don't know of him, is Canada's most successful science fiction writer, having penned more than a dozen novels, winning both the Hugo and the Nebula (the most prominent awards in the genre).  I really enjoy Sawyer's books (well, his stand-alone stuff - I've developed some sort of allergy for his trilogies); greatly enjoy them, in fact.  But, to put it mildly, I find his politics infantile.  He rocks the sort of statist, pacifist, left-liberal, Trudeaupian view of the world that, on a political level, I find hard to stomach.  And he's not shy, at all, about sprinkling his writing with his politics.  And that has no impact on the quality of his books, or the enjoyment I derive from them.  Nor should it.  Which is why Weigel's piece is so inexplicable: if any form of literary expression can stand to play with a bit of political derring-do, it should be sci-fi.  Permit me an example: by page 34 of Mindscan, set in 2045, we've been hit with the following:

When I'd been a teenager, I didn't care about money.  In fact, I agreed with most Canadians that the profits made by big corporations were obscene.  Even in supposedly egalitarian Canada, the rich were getting richer and the poor poorer, and I'd hated it.

...

Many of tonight's potential customers were probably Americans.  Immortex had found a much more congenial legal climate for its services in increasingly liberal Canada than in ever-more-conservative America.  When I'd been a kid, college students used to come over to Ontario from Michigan and New York because the drinking age was lower here and the strippers could go further.  Now, people from those two states crossed the border for legal pot, legal hookers, legal abortions, same-sex marriages, physician-assisted suicide and other things the religious right frowned upon.

As I said, that's just up to page 34.  On page 35, we learn that Pat Buchanan has served at least one term as US president.  David Weigel thinks the books he's read had "crazed" assumptions?  Puppy ain't seen nothin' yet.  There's an awful lot of presumptious statements of fact, naive assumptions and flat-out politicking in the quotes I've provided from Sawyer, which I won't go into.  But those doesn't matter - they can't, or else the notion of a criticism of literature as distinct from politics makes no sense.  It's nice that Weigel thinks the politics of the books he's read are moronic - it'd be much nicer if he took some time to talk about the value of the books themselves.

Ultra-Short Shorts

Find a bunch of famous writers.  Explain the rules: six words only.  Watch the fun unfurl in earnest.  And the winner is - Margaret Atwood.  It's the one about the squid. (Tip of the hat - James Bow)

"the recognition they deserve"

I'm surprised this hasn't received much more publicity than it, er, has:

A division of Simon & Schuster has agreed to publish the top three winners of the Sobol Award, a new literary contest that offers a $100,000 (U.S.) first prize, but also has been criticized for charging entry fees and requiring that it serve as the winners' agent.

As an aspiring writer, and knowing a few others here and there, I'm happy to say I'd generally give up a limb to get published and so, I imagine, would many others in the same position (speaking as my own contract reviewer-guy, I'm even happier to say that I generally won't, however, give much up in negotiations).  Throw in a $100,000 advance, a guaranteed publishing from Simon & Schuster and I'm startled that the Sobol Award contest hasn't attracted more attention (the contest is only open to US residents and "unpublished" writers (i.e., those who have not had a fiction work published).

The Sobol Award website (www.sobolaward.com) accepts up to 50,000 manuscripts, online only, with applicants required to pay an $85 entry fee. ... Sobol's executive vice-president of contest management, Sue Pollock, acknowledged that response has been slower than expected and that the date had been pushed back to March 31.  She declined to give an exact number of manuscripts received, but said it was more than 1,000 and that the contest had not been hurt by any criticism.

Sure, US$85 is pretty steep, but aspiring writers are a desperate bunch, so I'm shocked that the full complement of manuscripts hasn't been achieved.  As for the "criticism" alluded to, some of it seems genuine,

Numerous questions have been raised about the prize, especially its entry fee and stipulation that Sobol officials would serve as literary representatives of the winners; industry policy forbids agents from charging money to read manuscripts.

while some of it just seems ridiculous:

“I feel sorry for the people who had to pay to get into this,” Weil said. “If Simon & Schuster can generate a lot of excitement and make the books successful, that's great, but it also reflects a commodification of the business. It's just treating books like product.” [emphasis added]

Yeah, can't imagine where they got that idea.  Maybe the ISBN number threw them off.

Anyways, the one genuine concern I can see is the notion that the Sobol Literary Agency will be representing the author - but even that is a pretty marginal concern: the winning authors are only committed to them with respect to the winning manuscript (the representation agreement can be reached via the FAQ for the contest), and most first-time authors aren't going to be represented by agents anyways, so there isn't much of a loss (giving the terms a quick once, over, they seem pretty standard, including the commission rates).  And if Simon & Schuster has agreed in advance to publish the books, the potential for abuse seems even lower.  For any Americans out there with a manuscript lying around and a spare $85, this seems like an interesting opportunity.