brianrayfiction.com Blog

Hey, kids, the recession is over. I'm the recovery.

The publishing geniuses have done it again. Cengage, a major textbook publisher, will offer their textbooks for rental this fall semester at selection schools. It works like this: you pay about half the cost of the book up front. They send you the book. You keep the book for the semester. If you don’t want the thing, then you mail it back or drop it off. In other words, you do exactly the same thing as if you bought the book at full price and sold it back. The only difference is that the unwanted text doesn’t fall into used-book market.

I guess professors are getting tired of writing second and third editions of their textbooks – which has been a longtime countermeasure against buyback season.

Maybe this is a good idea. On the other hand, I can’t help but think the publishing industries have something up their sleeve here. But maybe not. Maybe the publishing world is finally catching up to the Twentieth century, albeit a decade late. You can rent everything now.

And there’s news that the recession is over. I think we should do everything in our power to get our hopes up and jinx a possible recovery. I haven’t had to chop down any of my furniture yet and use it for firewood. I was so looking forward to doing that. For real. I was all set to start sewing ugly patches on the ass and knees of my pants, making soup out of my own hair, etc.

I’m moved into my new apartment. Has a bigger kitchen and an extra room. What else? Think I’ve finished the new mss I’ve slaved away on for nine months. We’ll see how the agent hunt proceeds. The last few days have been quite painfully full of line editing. Revision is fun when we’re talking forty pages. At 200 or more, revision becomes a very ugly obsessive thing. I look forward to spending a couple of hours away from my apartment – or at least away from my screen.

The book tour starts up again soon. I read in Spartanburg this coming Monday. A week later I’ll be in Greenville. Check my website for more info – and do consider picking up a copy.