Trapdoor Books

How important are Amazon stars?

You know the old saying that men buy and women shop - i.e. men are goal-oriented in their purchasing behavior, while women are happy to browse - they enjoy the process? Whether that particular stereotype is true, I wonder how it applies to people's book buying behavour, in-store versus on-line.  Personally, I enjoy browsing through books in a shop, but when I go online it's usually to execute a purchasing decision I've already made.  True, Amazon are pretty good at "if you bought that, you'll love this" promotion.  But, generally speaking, I'm online to buy, not shop. Given all that context, I'm curious to know the importance Trapdoor readers place on Amazon reviews and ratings.  Are most people like me in going online to buy rather than shop?  Is the presence or absence of positive or negative reviews powerful enough to change a buying decision?  Given that the process is so open to manipulation, what level of credibility do postings have?  Or is this all a generational thing - do Boomers and Xs exhibit different online behavior to Ys and Zs?

Maybe Obama isn't that courageous ...

If a picture says a thousand words, here's the picture ... http://timesonline.typepad.com/comment/2010/02/dalai-lama-and-the-white-house-rubbish.html Who would treat an honored guest this way?

Write, blog, twitter

I came across this quote the other day: 'Those who can, write.  Those who can't write, blog.  Those who can't blog, twitter." It brought to mind the opposite sentiment once expressed by - I think - Oscar Wilde, along the lines 'Please excuse the length of this letter, but I don't have time to write a short one.' Writing, blogging and twittering are inherently different.  And it's true that expressing yourself succinctly can be a lot harder than in a more expansive form.  But is the rise of texting, blogging and FaceBooking, with all the linguistic shorthand, and the virtual extinction of letter writing, producing a less literate population, or just a differently-literate one?

'Outside in' versus 'inside out' approaches to happiness

I can thoroughly recommend an article in today's UK Times - http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/health/features/article7016914.ece  This explores the 'outside in' approach to happiness, represented by changes in public policy, and the 'inside out' approach, represented by Tibetan Buddhist practices.  The possibility of convergence is interesting.

China parades its insecurities about the Dalai Lama - again

The Chinese Government is getting worked up because President Obama wants to meet His Holiness the Dalai Lama when the Tibetan leader visits USA later this month. This angry condemnation is standard procedure for Beijing - they issue stern warnings every time an international leader agrees to meet the Dalai Lama.  Some of the most spineless, like the President of South Africa, cave into Chinese demands.  Most, including the Prime Minister of Australia, whose economy is extremely exposed to China's, tell Beijing to butt out. The reason China gives for its on-going disapproval of the Dalai Lama is that he is supposedly a 'splittist' and wants Tibet to become independent of the Chinese motherland.  In fact Tibet was independent of China until they invaded it in 1959 - a dynamic which provides one of the storylines in The Magician of Lhasa. Tibet had its own language, religion, culture, social and political structures.  Desperate as the Chinese Government is for their rewritten version of history to be accepted, the reality is that this is one Chinese manufacture which no one in the West wants to buy. Even though the Dalai Lama would be justified in wanting an independent Tibet, for many years he has said he'd be happy with limited autonomy for what is now a Chinese province.  This seems a modest requirement from someone who, from the perspective of worldly power, has had his country taken away from him. But Beijing isn't having any of it.  Despite their wish to be well thought of, as was clearly evidenced by the spectacular style with which they hosted the Olympic Games in 2008, they don't want to see the Dalai Lama back in Lhasa, even though this would deliver a PR coup much bigger than anything the Olympic Games did for their reputation. The problem is that, after years of saying terrible things about him, for the Chinese Government to let him back would involve such a terrible loss of face that they simply can't bring themselves to do it.  Loss of face is a big thing in that part of the world.  Even though we, in the West, see a preparedness to admit our past mistakes in order to put relationships onto a better footing as a sign of self-confidence, humility and maturity - all attractive traits - China isn't there yet.  Large, powerful and increasingly prosperous though it may be, the Chinese Government still has all the insecurities of a small boy in shorts, stamping his foot in fury every time mother speaks to that hated child from down the road.

I guess a vacation in Shanghai is off the cards then

I have just been reading about the fate of Chinese documentary maker Dhondup Wangchen who has been jailed for six years.  His crime?  Making a documentary in which Tibetan people spoke favourably of the Dalai Lama. (www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/asia/article6978798.ece)  Evidently in China it's an outrage for people to show support for certain Nobel Peace Prize winners - and there is a law against it.  Given that 'The Magician of Lhasa' says some pretty favourable things about the Dalai Lama, and not such nice things about the Chinese invasion in 1959, I guess a vacation in Shanghai is off the cards for the moment.    

Better than Dan Brown? The best Christmas present a Buddhist could wish for.

Buddhists have the reputation of being a fairly gentle, tolerant lot, but this relaxed, collective demeanor should never be mistaken for the absence of a critical faculty.  After all, it was Buddha himself who said that anyone who believed a word that he said was a fool - unless he tested the teachings for himself and found them to be useful. So when a Buddhist reviewed my thriller (http://thebuddhistblog.blogspot.com/2009/12/magician-of-lhasa-book-review.html), which is set in the world of Tibetan Buddhism, and pronounced it better than Dan Brown it was the best Christmas present I could hope for! Well, perhaps that's a small exaggeration.  A stern denunciation of blasphemy from the Vatican would no doubt have had the printing presses running hot.  A fatwa invoked by a fist-shaking Ayatollah would arguably have been even better. But seeing that I don't particularly want to go into hiding for the next ten years, with a round-the-clock bodyguard shadowing my every move, a favorable mention on the Buddhist blog will do me just fine!

Borders UK crash a sign of new world order for publishing?

As the American contingent of the Trapdoor community tucks into their well-earned Thanksgiving dinners, spare a thought for the UK publishing world, rocked by the news that Borders (UK) is on the brink of Administration. Although Borders UK has nowhere near the size and scale of its former US parent, it was a major player in Britain, and it seems just incredible that such a large and established operation could go belly-up.  The reason?  "The ravages of the internet and supermarkets" according to the UK Times newspaper.  Further evidence that we're entering a new world order in publishing - the raison d'etre of Trapdoor Books.

What is reality?

One of the recurring themes in The Magician of Lhasa is the way that both contemporary science and Buddha's teachings arrive at the same point in describing the nature of reality.  This is a subject that continues to intrigue me. To give just one example, I was recently looking for a scientific account of why it is that two people can see the same landscape, eat the same dessert, not to mention read the same book, but have such completely different responses.   The reason we may be puzzled about this is, I discovered, because most of us wrongly believe in what neuropsychologists call direct-perception theory - i.e. that our brains act as mere receptors for sensations channeled to them through our eyes, ears, and other sensory doorways. This view has been abandoned as simplistic by neuro-psychologists.  To use the cognitive visual system as an example, it is now known that some 80% of fibers to that part of the brain processing visual imagery comes from the cortex - which governs functions including memory - and only 20% from the retinas.  Only 20%!  Our eyes may receive images of furry, moving fragments behind our neighbor's fence, but we 'see' their poodle chasing the mailman.  Our eyes may receive the profile of a two dimensional piece of china with a handle, but we 'see' a cup.  As Professor Gregory, one of UK's most eminent neuropsychologists explains:  "We carry in our heads predictive hypotheses of the external world of objects and of ourselves.  These brain-based hypotheses of perception are our most immediate reality.  But they entail many stages of physiological signaling and complicated cognitive computing so experience is but indirectly related to external reality." (My italics). Far from our brains being simple receptors of images, depending on what stimulation we receive through the sense doors, our brains draw on our meory, and other brain functions, to project a predictive hypothesis onto what we're seeing.  In fact our perceptions may be up to 90% memory.  "This startling notion," says Professor Gregory, "that perception is projecting brain-hypotheses outwards into the physical world - endowing the world with colour and sound and meaning - has surprising implications." Prof Gregory's explanation concurs exactly with Buddha's teachings, specifically on the point that things depend on mind's participation, or a mental projection.  Although we walk around thinking of ourselves as experiencing a reality which exists quite independently of ourselves,  it's more accurate to say that the way we experience everything depends on our mind.  We are, to a much greater extent than we generally imagine, the creator's of our own reality.  Which is why the Buddhist solution to dealing with disatisfaction is to change not the world, but the way we experience it.  As the Buddhist sage Shantideva famously suggested, instead of trying to cover the who world with leather, to avoid stepping on prickles, we can choose instead to wear a pair of shoes.

The 'glacier' of online writing

This year’s Frankfurt Book Fair apparently revealed the alarm of many mainstream players in publishing  about online writing.  Some likened it to an unstoppable glacier heading towards the book industry.  With many millions of people so desperate to be published they’ll offer their work online free, are we facing a future in which there are more writers than readers? Amidst all the hand-wringing, however, was a presentation by Shanda Literature, one of the world’s boldest digital ventures based in China.  Apparently Shanda has a relationship with wireless company China Mobile, which has 600 million customers.  They typically pay a few yuan cents in ‘micropayments’ for books.  The money is collected by China Mobile, and Shanda pays authors generous royalties of 20% - 50%.  So far Shanda has over 100 authors earning more than $14,000 a year, with their best-selling author, Zhang Wei, grossing around $367,000. Would the same concept work in other markets with sub-1 billion populations?  And, given that Zhang Wei was a best-seller in China before he wrote for Shanda, does that mean that only the usual, big names in the West could make a living out this medium?

What makes a novel great?

Like all writers, and a lot of readers, this is a subject to which my thoughts often turn.    By ‘great’ I mean a novel which makes a big impact on a lot of people – one which has sufficiently moved readers to want to talk about it and recommend it to others. It seems to me there are three quite separate qualities to look for.  Any one of these three alone can make a novel great.  A novel which delivers on two out of three is extraordinary.  As for three out of three, well, it would be interesting to have some feedback from the Trapdoor community on which books they believe fit that bill. The first of these qualities is great storytelling.  Does the novel grab you by the scruff of the neck and keep you asking ‘what next?’as you turn the pages.  For me, examples of great storytellers are novelists like Dan Brown, John Grisham, Harold Robbins and Jeffrey Archer, each of whom keep millions of readers up late into the night, so hooked by the plot that they can’t bear to go to sleep … just yet. The second is great writing.  Does the writer use language in such a way that you are utterly absorbed by the world they create?  Isabel Allende, Geraldine Brooks and Irene Nemirovsky are also authors who have kept the midnight oil burning for many readers, but for reasons which have more to do with the compulsive intensity with which they describe events and people, than for the events and people themselves.  They could describe the process of paint drying and you’d still find the book mesmerising. The third quality is great thinking.  Does the writer present you with such original thoughts and extraordinary ideas that you continue to live with concepts sparked by the book long after you’ve finished reading it?  George Orwell (Animal Farm, 1984), Bernhard Schlink (The Reader) and James Hilton (Lost Horizon) are, for me, three authors who do just that.   Interestingly, many of the greatest storytellers are the most wooden of writers.  And the stories of some of the most celebrated writers would make for very dull reading in less capable hands.  Similarly, writers with great ideas can get away with lapses of both plot and expression, such is the power of their central vision.