by Evan Karp
A new literary series might not be news to some … aha! I started with an inside joke. It’s rare that humor enters this column; maybe I should change that. (Then again, that wasn’t very funny …)
Click here to read the full article – contains video clips too
Sausalito, January 14, 2010
A blast from the past, circa 2007.
Scott James, the author of The New York Times’ Barbary Coast column, is probably the most cutting edge journalist to penetrate the Bay Area media scene in some time.
He’s blown up the blogosphere and riled various segments of the community with his columns that have captured some controversial quotes, most notably from Vallejo Mayor Osby Davis, a devout follower of Assemblies of God. In his Nov. 20 column about the influence of evangelical churches in local politics, James quotes Osby talking about homosexuals: “They are committing sin and that sin will keep them out of heaven. But you don’t hate the person you hate the sin that they commit.”
What Scott James readers might not know is that he is also the bawdy fiction writer, Kemble Scott, who has allured readers with his descriptive passages of bareback sex scenes and S&M in his two novels, SoMa and The Sower.
Startup’s one-stop publishing gives writers a new avenue
By Scott Duke Harris
sdharris@mercurynews.com
Updated: 10/09/2009 08:51:31 AM PDT
The Scribd Store, the San Francisco startup’s new e-book marketplace, was jump-started this spring by “The Sower,” a satirical biotech thriller by Kemble Scott about a man who has curative powers that can be delivered only through sexual contact.
Scott, who had a regional bestseller with his 2007 debut novel “SoMa,” turned to Scribd after a major publishing house — he declined to say which — offered him a contract for “The Sower” that was, he said, “absolutely criminal.”
Scribd Author’s e-Book Goes into Print
By E.B. Boyd
Sep 30, 2009 03:51 AM
A couple of weeks ago, we told you how San Francisco author Kemble Scott’s e-book was debuting at number five on the San Francisco Chronicle bestseller list. Now the book has made it into print.
Scott tells All Things D’s Kara Swisher that, following the news about The Sower’s success, he was contacted by three different publishers.
His main concern? The story is relevant now. He didn’t want to wait the usual 18 months to see it on store shelves.
Scribd E-Book Writer’s Jump to Mainstream
by Kara Swisher
Posted on September 29, 2009 at 2:34 PM PT
Earlier today, BoomTown posted a video interview with Scribd CEO Trip Adler about the online publishing start-up.
Now, here is a video of a chat I had with Kemble Scott, an author who has made use of the service in an innovative backwards effort at traditional publishing.
While the San Francisco writer published his last novel via a traditional publisher, he did not want to wait as long for his next, titled “The Sower.”
So, he published it on Scribd for a few dollars a piece and it was a modest success, even more so since he also garnered a lot of fans via sampling the book.
But it was enough to attract Numina Press, which then rushed the book into print. Now, it is doing well both online and offline.
Here is my talk with Scott about the experience, one sure to be replicated more and more in the future:
Book Marks
by Richard Labonte
October 5, 2009
The Sower, by Kemble Scott. Numina Press, 224 pages, $23.95 hardcover.
In this smart and slyly provocative inversion of the horror of AIDS, Kemble posits a wildly subversive world in which a single man can cure anyone of any disease – but only by passing on his seminal fluids. The plot conceit is deliciously outlandish: Bill Soileau, a San Francisco sexual hedonist of the first order, is infected while abroad with a manmade super virus that is said to miraculously heal all infections. Talk about being an object of attraction. Kemble is too nimble (and political) a storyteller to make sex the focus of his story, however. What gives this imaginative tale its heft is how the author surveys the world’s reaction to the shocking appearance of a world savior, with all of the religious and cultural implications of such an almost God-like power. Fundamentalist arguments against sexual behavior are shattered – sex with everyone is suddenly something that could be fundamentally good. This page-turner is part potboiler (Vatican henchmen, an American president suddenly eager for “gay” sex), part parable (with its Biblical antecedents) and pure entertainment.
By Bridget Kinsella — Publishers Weekly, 9/15/2009 7:54:00 AM
Just a little over a week after The Sower by Kemble Scott was published in a limited hardcover edition by San Francisco independent publisher Numina Press and distributed exclusively to Bay Area independent booksellers, it debuted on Sunday in the fifth spot on the San Francisco Chronicle bestseller list.
The Sower has had one of the most unorthodox publishing trajectories in these changing publishing times. Since Scott uploaded the e-book edition of his second novel on scribd.com in May, three publishers of various sizes approached him about doing a print edition. At the same time, Praveen Madan, co-owner of The Booksmith in San Francisco contacted Scott about doing an e-book event in the store. Together, Praveen and Scott examined the author’s print book offers and hatched the plan to launch the hardcover edition of The Sower with Numina Press in Marin County and distribute its first printing exclusively to Bay Area independent booksellers.
