33 1/3 Series of books

i wish i had time to do this. i guess i'd be interested in nashville skyline, shotgun willie, or rock bottom.

actually i'd love to do nashville skyline, but the book would have to be short like the album.

>John Mark Boling<

another prodigy shoegazing person surely!

can you buy them all for a penny on amazon? that's a true test of something or other. ― scott seward, Friday, January 27, 2012

would excitedly read about a book about cheap trick fwiw ― ban opinions (reddening), Saturday, January 28, 2012

Here's a book with a chapter on Cheap Trick, but you'll have to cough up 15 pennies on Amazon.

http://www.amazon.com/Wanna-Be-Sedated-Music-Seventies/dp/0920151167

See, after being explicitly told that my pitch was all right but that the series would NEVER publish a book about Cheap Trick, I kind of lost all interest. ― Display Name (this cannot be changed):, Saturday, January 28, 2012

Substitute Shoes for Cheap Trick, and I'm basically in the same boat--which is not to say I don't start thinking of stuff every time one of these calls comes up.

There will be royalties payable on all print and electronic editions of your book, as well as foreign rights deals, etc – but no advances will be paid against those royalties.

so you'll be working for free and unlikely to ever see much if any $$

tbf the sales baseline for generating royalties is probably considerably lower if there's no advance paid against it.

of course, all this depends on where that sales figure is in relationship to the publisher's self-declared goal/average (4-5 thousand).

if i were, uh, steve tyler i would have done what i mentioned above. by a couple thousand copies at cost and then sell them at my aerosmith shows.

i dunno, i heard a lot of his fans were put off by the decision to write about Get A Grip, to say nothing of writing the whole thing from the perspective of Alicia Silverstone

hahaha

the royalty rate in traditional publishing deals is low, 8-10%. most non/f books never earn back their advance. novels often get low or no advance

obv nobody writes a 33 1/3 book to get rich, it's a labor of love by def

still idk writers should get paid something for their trouble

did you guys read that novel about Haley Joel Osment and Dakota Fanning? It's called Richard Yates. pretty funny stuff. for some reason alicia silverstone writing about get a grip reminded me of it.

yes, we all read it. there was a very enthusiastic ILE thread about it.

really? cool. i didn't read it. but i looked at it in a bookstore.

reminded me of mark leyner.

i would totally read a 33&1/3 book by mark leyner.

I think some dude must be joking, b/c I can't find a dedicated Tao Lin thread anywhere.

"I Smell Lana Del Rey"

what bands haven't been covered by this series who would actually sell a bunch of books? looking over the list of already published volumes i'm drawing a blank.

looks like they're cool w/ different albums by bands who have already been covered -- there are two stones books out already.

Steely Dan?

okay, for people thinking about this, i looked at the wikipedia page and found:

books about solo female artists: 6

books about solo male artists: 18

books about all male groups: 51

books about groups with female members: 10

some suggestions then:

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_bMJI7arDPqw/SUAcvJ62J7I/AAAAAAAAJ6Y/IKzM-f9jgd4/s400/Ronettes%2520-%2520Ronnettes2.JPG

http://www.oedipus1.com/home/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/The-Shaggs.jpg

http://cdn.hmvdigital.com/static/img/sleeveart/00/005/470/0000547052_500.jpg

and just to push it over the edge:

http://www.ong8ba8.com/images/12GirlsBandEasternEnergyFront.jpg

I'd read any of those ones.

that's 81.17647058823529 all male action for you math fans.

the new talking heads book will skew that number somewhat. hopefully, there is a chapter entitled: I, Tina.

If I had the stamina to actually write a book at this point in my life, I'd try doing one of these for Nuggets. I always wished there were more info in the boxed set notes.

would totally buy a 'liliput' book no questions asked.

I think some dude must be joking, b/c I can't find a dedicated Tao Lin thread anywhere.

― jaymc, Saturday, January 28, 2012 1:06 PM (4 hours ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

lol made you search

Oh yeah I also pitched an Erykah Badu book but that got rejected too, with no ego-massaging nice words attached to it. I might re-pitch it with HEY ILXORS SAY YOU NEED MORE WHITE MEN WRITING ABOUT WOMEN ARTISTS. Y'all got my back right?

albums by women artists I would read books about:

Blue, Court and Spark, The Hissing of Summer Lawns
Bad Music For Bad People
Transient Random Noise Bursts with Announcements, Mars Audiac Quintet
pretty much any Kate Bush album
New Amerykah Part 1: Fourth World War
Blue Bell Knoll
anything by the Runaways/Joan Jett
anything by Broadcast
Maya
Nancy & Lee

seems like stereolab would be a good band for one of these books -- so many references in the music/art/lyrics to dig through.

Jayne County.

There's already a Court and Spark 33 1/3.

then I guess I will have to read it

One of the best books in the series!

Blue Bell Knoll

Oh hell yes! Would love that too

Do an Under The Pink book and lots of buyers will come out of the woodwork.

I wonder if the time is right yet for a Kraftwerk book. Already pitched twice, and know it's been turned down by a few other people pitching them too so it almost feels like it'd be a waste of time to try again.

I do wonder about their absence. Also Depeche's, but I would wonder about that.

another prodigy shoegazing person surely!
― keythhtyek, Saturday, January 28, 2012 4:38 PM

...aaaaaand we've got a positive ID! ha, ha...
Regarding Kraftwerk, there's this: http://www.continuumbooks.com/books/detail.aspx?BookId=133992&SearchType=Basic

has anyone done colossal youth??

Re kraftwerk - Continuum published a whole book of essays devoted to Kraftwerk a year or so ago. Not part of the series, but...

'sup JMB

atm otm

Weird. Howdy, atm!

who is atm?

he is a hippie dishwasher.

I'm too ADD to write 1,000 words on any topic, much less 30,000, but someone needs to take on Kris Kristofferson's first album.

atm's me, amateurist. EX-hippie dishwasher. jmb is an ex-arkansan (hope he doesn't mind the reveal). couldn't resist sayin hi. xp and carry on.

when i heard they reopened submissions i was like "finally, scott can write a book about katatonia's discouraged ones"

Addressing financial issues upthread:

I wrote one of these books, way back in 2005. I got the $3,000 advance, and after a few years, the book did earn out its advance and I started getting royalties. Not sure how much I've earned, as the cheques have come in in dribs and drabs, but it's in the $2,000-$3,000 range. So that's $5,000-$6,000 so far for 30,000 words. On top of that, I had some journalistic work specifically off the back of the book.

Certainly no one's going to write one of these books for the money, but I'd say that ultimately it does just about make financial sense as well, as long as you write about a fairly popular album.