I apologize to those who saw my last post, which I accidentally sent twice, and hurried to buy FIFTY SHADES OF TALMUD on Amazon for $3.10, only to find it back at the list price of $6.95. I rarely check how my books are doing on Amazon, but I happened to do so at 11:30 AM on Thursday when I noticed the sale. I promptly tweeted, blogged, posted on FB, updated my Goodreads & LinkedIn statuses, and sent messages to my Yahoo groups about it.
I don’t know if my efforts had an effect, but that evening at 10 pm, I was alerted by a reader that my book’s price was back up to $6.95. Not that Amazon informed my publisher or distributor about these price changes, nor me either for that matter. I assume they have their algorithms that decide these things and that mine is not to wonder why.
My political statement this week was to go see the new Ghostbusters movie in the theater rather than wait for it on Netflix. Such an excellent relief to laugh so much after sturm und drang from the RNC. It definitely helped to have watched the original Ghostbusters the night before on DVD; the new Ghostbusters is actually an homage to the first film. I actually preferred the new movie because the beginning scenes were such an improvement over the old one. Then the Bill Murray character is such a creepy scumbag and the scene does nothing to get the story going. Now we get some scary ghosts right away, not to mention some sliming.
For those who want a detailed list of how the new Ghostbusters riffs on the original movie, check this out
No matter who wins in November, it seems that lots of people may be interested in this "election insurance" in case they want to move to Canada.
Now that I’ve organized a busy fall book tour, some of the groups want to read Fifty Shades of Talmud in advance, so the audience can enjoy my talk more and be ready with questions. I appreciate that they ask me about this in advance and here is why.
The reason I generally don’t ask for speaking fees when I’m on tour promoting a new book is because I want to provide copies of my books to sell/sign at the event [or prior to the event for those who want to read it first]. It is usually a surprise for readers to learn that I make almost nothing from bookseller sales because those monies go to the publisher. I’m not complaining; Penguin paid me a nice six-figure advance for both my Rashi’s Daughters and Rav Hisda’s Daughter series. But that is an ‘advance’ against sales, for which I am credited 7% of the list price per book.
In other words, if my advance is $50,000 and the list price is $17, then each book sold is a credit of approximately $1.20. Thus over 40,000 copies would have to sell before I’d pay off the advance. Even after that unlikely event, I’d only receive $1.20 per book sold. Bottom line – the vast majority of authors earn nothing more than their advance.
Then why sell books BOTR [back of the room]? Because publishers offer authors substantial discounts when we buy our own books. Then I can sign these copies and sell them at list price after a book talk. So if the list is $17 and I get them at half price, I make $8.50 a book selling them myself. Obviously making a living this way requires good speaking skills and large audiences, but it can nicely augment any advance money.
If you want to see if I’m speaking anywhere near you this fall, click on
this link to my web schedule.
Two years ago, just before Enchantress was published, I tried a new publicity technique–an online book tour. That means I arranged for interviews, reviews and guest posts on as many websites as possible. I’d done this with Jewish sites for my previously novels, but hoping to break into a new, larger audience, this time I targeted sites that promoted historical fiction as well. Now the number of general historical fiction readers is indeed huge, but I can’t say if I gained many fans there or sold more copies of my novels, despite appearances on about 30 historical novel websites. My target niche remained Jewish women.
Now, with my nonfiction Fifty Shades of Talmud, I’m trying to reach out to Jewish men as well. Thus I did an interview in HUC blog, and a series of three Q&A sessions with Rosner’s Domain. I also wrote a guest post for the JOFA blog, which I mentioned last month, and I’m trying, without success, to break into some of the more mainstream Jewish online media. Alas, there are lots more websites devoted to historical fiction than to Jewish literature.
Recently I watched the movie "Bridge of Spies" on Netflix, which made me recall that Leon Uris, author of Exodus, had written a novel about post-war Berlin titled Armageddon. It was published in 1964, and I read it for the first time in the mid-1960's after discovering and devouring the same author's Exodus, still one of my favorite novels. I recall enjoying Armageddon back then [yikes, that was 50 years ago], so I decided to re-read it. And boy, was I disappointed.
Sadly the book really shows its age now. Yes, the plot is fast-paced and exciting, but the characters are completely one-dimensional. And pretty much all the women are sex objects, which I found rather offensive this time around. The Americans and British are nice and heroic, the Russians evil aggressors, and the Germans unrepentant Nazis. At least the historical details were mostly correct. [Spoiler alert] Leon Uris reuses his usual plot device where the young romantic couple never gets together because one of them dies at the end and the old romantic couple doesn't get together either because of baggage from the past. This was fresh and tragic in Exodus, but it was predictable and old hat here.
Usually I like rereading books I enjoyed in my youth; the All of a Kind Family and Little House on the Prairie series come to mind. But I guess I need to be more careful.
While at Limmud Bay Area, I attended a presentation there by a delightful, and sometimes hilarious, new duo called YidLife Crisis [aka Jamie Elman and Eli Batalion]. Based in Montreal, they do a web series where they debate and discuss all sorts of Jewish subjects, many involving food and bizarre circumstances, all in Yiddish. Their Yiddish conversations are fun enough, but the English subtitles are the really hilarious stuff, because they can be quite different from the Yiddish meaning, especially when the Yiddish involves something racy or rude. The more Yiddish you know, the funnier their shpiels become.
There are two seasons now up on Youtube, each with 4 short [less than ten minutes] episodes. I recommend watching them in order. In addition to the two seasons are episodes filmed during visits to foreign countries [NYC, London, Tel Aviv]. These are mostly in English, rather than Yiddish, and I found these less entertaining than the regular seasons. But you should decide for yourself at their YouTube Channel
After teaching and learning at Limmud Bay Area last weekend, I came to realize that many Jews don’t know the difference between Talmud and Torah. Part of this difficulty comes from two distinct definitions of Torah, one of which includes Talmud. Succinctly put, Torah primarily refers to the first section of the Tanakh–the first five books of the Hebrew Bible. But the term is also used in the general sense to also include both Judaism's written law and oral law, encompassing the entire spectrum of authoritative Jewish religious teachings throughout history, including the Mishnah, the Talmud, the Midrash, and more. The Talmud is a record of rabbinic discussions of Jewish law, ethics, customs, and stories, which are authoritative in Jewish tradition. It is the fundamental source for rabbinic legislation and case law.
Interestingly, when I googled “define Torah and Talmud,” I got: According to Jewish tradition, God handed down the Torah directly to Moses, who dutifully recorded it word for word. It is the Written Word. On the other hand, the Talmud is the Oral Word of God - handed down at the same time and repeated by generations. Now this is a VERY traditional, dare I say ultra-Orthodox, definition – one I personally do not subscribe to. Although I do agree that Torah generally means the Written Law while Talmud refers to the Oral Law.
Here is another explanation that may help you understand better. The Talmud is a massive collection of law, commentary, exegesis, philosophy, legend and myth. It is also a blend of unique logic and shrewd pragmatism, of history and science, of anecdotes and humor. The Talmud is the repository of thousands of years of Jewish wisdom. Passed down and expanded orally by generations of rabbis, and only committed to writing in the early Middle Ages, the Talmud became the ultimate arbiter of Jewish life and practice for communities from Spain to India. Today, almost without exception, Judaism is Talmudic Judaism. Even Jews who reject Judaism are in effect rejecting a religion cast in the Talmud’s mold.
Don’t even get me started on the two different Talmuds, the Bavli and the Yerushalmi. That’s for another post. Shabbat Shalom.