Um so yeah

Ok, you may have noticed that there have been no posts for over a month. EEK. Sorry. People have been laid off, and those of us still working have been a bit slammed. So, in the new year, we'll try to be back to posting on a semi-regular basis. In the meantime, I don't know. Check out the peeps on our blog roll.

Do tell,

The Editor

Publishing Holiday Happy Hour

Hey kids -

This week's literary event of the week is actually next week, but hell, it's Friday, so we might as well start early. Sarah Reidy over at Soho Press is organizing a massive happy hour at Kings Head Tavern next Thursday so we can all drink our publishing blues away. Word on the street is that beer pong tables have been reserved and drink specials procured. Mention Sarah's name at the door to get a wristband to ensure happy hour prices all night long.

Do tell,

The Editor

Alfred Hitchcock's Terrifying Sex Life

So, there's a new book out about Hitchcock called Spellbound by Beauty: Alfred Hitchcock and His Leading Ladies. Apparently, old AH has some real issues with the ladies and basically treated the actresses he worked with like crap, even driving more Tippi Hedren into "clinical shock" (whatever the hell that might be). But my favorite bit of info?

"Among the more astonishing revelations is that the filmmaker, who wed lifelong collaborator Alma Reveille in 1926, experienced sex but once in his life — and that occasion produced their only child, Patricia. This, the writer suggests, resulted in Hitchcock's compensating need to harass many of his lovely leading ladies."

UM. Yeah. World famous director. You're telling me there weren't tons of young wanna-be actresses willing to sleep their way into a movie? I mean, I know he started directing in the 30s, but for sure, by the 50s and 60s (ahem, Mad Men) this wouldn't have been at all strange. So, what's up Hitch? Underlying mother issues? Secretly gay? Perhaps an ED issue? I need more information! I hope Donald Spoto's next book is entitled Alfred Hitchcock and His Flaccid Penis. Now, that I would buy in a heartbeat.

--Paige Sexie

Hmm, you know what would be cool? If I were even the slightest bit tech-savvy and could figure out how to give each contributor their own little log-in, so this thing would say things like "posted by ladytron" or "posted by slunchie." Yes, I think that would be awesome. And that I wouldn't be responsible for posting everyone's things myself. And then I wouldn't get mean emails complaining that I neglected to post something and now it's out of date.

If you are smarter than me (not hard), please leave instructions on how I can do this in the comments or email me. Much obliged.

Do tell,

The Editor

W: The Memoir?

The AP has an article about the possibility of a Bush memoir...and what the best strategy for it would be. The consensus seems to be that he should wait. You know, until we all stop hating him quite so much. Because apparently, after a few years, we'll all forget what a horrifically bad prez he actually was. I think the only way I would read it would be if he focused on his early days...Bush getting wasted and doing stupid things? Fun to read about it. Bush lying to the American people and creating a shit torm that will probably takes years to get out of it. Yeah, I'm living it. No thanks.

But apparently, waiting is the strategy. For this reason:

"Bush has likened his fate to Harry Truman, highly disliked upon leaving office in 1953 but now virtually iconic in American politics. But it took years for him to gain such affection and Truman's two-volume memoir, published in the 1950s, is less remembered than a book about him published in the 1990s, David McCullough's million-selling Truman."

If we ever get to the day when people look back fondly on W, I'm going to lose a lot of the faith that I gained last night.

On an unrelated note, I just pulled a hair out of coffee. Sigh.

--Ladytron

RIP: Michael Crichton

Some sad news on this otherwise extremely happy day (for all us democrats, at least). Michael Crichton passed away yesterday, apparently after a bout with cancer. I have to confess, I have never actually read anything by him (I know, I know), but I've seen jurassic park many a time, and damn, I do love me some ER. Also, fun fact, Crichton was good friends with artist Jasper Johns, who's stuff is amazing, so that makes him even cooler in my book. RIP.

Vote!

This week's literary event has nothing to do with books...unless you figure Obama and McCain both have some. But seriously, people, just freaking vote. Today.

p.s. yeah, I know we haven't posted in awhile but for some reason, the economy being in the shitter has somehow equalled more work. bizarre. I haven't even had a chance to read the comic strips on my daily calendar. honest to blog. it's stuck on october 21st. so, yeah. hopefully, we'll get back on track soon with nice frequent posts but until then, um, go obama.

Jackie's gonna regret that...

Ah, Jackie Levin. Who hasn't placed constant emails, begging for placement on the Today Show for one of your authors? Yes, I know that you will never do anything with my little debut novelist, but hey, it's nice to try, right? And, really, I'm not offended that you rarely respond to my pitches. You are a busy lady, Ms. Levin, and I know that, one day, when you like one of my ideas, we will be friends. Or, at least when I work on Tina Fey's new book and you beg me for coverage (note: I do not actually work for the company that just paid millions for a non-existent book by Ms. Palin's doppelganger).

But, Jackie, I think you may of made an error in your recent interview with the 26th Story, when you said (in response to: Is it possible for a self-published author to get on the Today show?) this:

Absolutely...I have always said books are another vehicle for us to find great stories/segments, and if one happens to come from someone who published on their own, that's fine with me as long as all the facts in the book check out. If an author has the wherewithal to find me and pitch me, good for them, but at the same time, they have to be able to handle a "no" without having that buffer called "a publicist."

Oh my. See, here's a little secret. All authors would harass book reviewers, producers, etc. by themselves if they could. But we, as publicists, forbid it. Not because we want to do it ourselves. I'm happy to let other people do my work for me. It's simply that we are trying to protect you from the onslaught of inappropriate pitches, harassment from authors who have "nothing" to lose (we have your respect and our chances of ever getting ANY author on the show at risk), etc. We are trying to provide that extra filter for you. And how do we do that? By telling authors that you will ignore them. That you don't want to hear from them. That contacting you directly will HURT their chances, not help them.

But now, you've basically let them know that this is really just a free for all. And, well, I'm afraid that I just can't help you anymore. Godspeed, Ms. Levin, and I pray that your inbox does not implode.

--Ladytron

[This is a couple days behind the curve, but to be fair, Ladytron sent it to me on Monday. I just posted it late. My bad. --Ed.]

Witches, Demons, and Thieves...oh my!

This week's literary event is Witches, Demons, and Thieves, a Puritan Halloween celebration with authors Kathleen Kent and Hannah Tinti, and artist Michael Aaron Lee. Check it out tonight at Housing Works, starting at 7 pm.

I hear there will be pie...

Do tell,

The Editor

Oh noes...not Samantha!

Have you heard the horrible news? The American Girl Company is apparently doing away with one of the original dolls: Samantha Parkington. Now, I never had Samantha. My friend Katie did. And my friend Lauren had Molly. My friend Amanda had Kirsten. I had Felicity. Now, she wasn't one of the three, but she was the fourth! So, whatever. It counts.

Anyway, this shock led me to visit the American Girl website for the first time since, well, ever. I'm old school. I used to get those giant catalogues in the mail once a month, and put stars next to the ridiculously expensive accesories that I hoped my mom would get me for christmas. This was before you could get matching outfits or "bitty babies" (what the hell) or "just like you" dolls. Hell, I remember when the girls only had THREE books each (they have six now).

Oh, and I totally owned this. And this. And so many dresses like this. Omg, now I can't wait for Thanksgiving to tear apart my mother's neatly organized pile of "My daughter's crap I can't give to her because she lives in a tiny apartment in NY" looking for all of it!!

Whew. Ok, sorry. What was my point? Um...oh, yeah, the Samanth books will continue. They're published by, uh, oh, American Girl. Convenient. So, good. Eee, I love you, Felicity!

--Ladytron

The new LOL cats?

Someone just turned me on to the new tumblr, Upside Down Dogs. Could this be the new I Can Has Cheezburger? Paging Gotham Books...

--Promotron

Denis Leary vs Autism

Hmm, apparently the Autism Society of America is all in a tiff because Denis Leary's new book, Why We Suck: A Feel-Good Guide to Staying Fat, Loud, Lazy and Stupid, contains a rant on, well, autism:

"There is a huge boom in autism right now because inattentive mothers and competitive dads want an explanation for why their dumb-ass kids can't compete academically, so they throw money into the happy laps of shrinks . . . to get back diagnoses that help explain away the deficiencies of their junior morons. I don't give a [bleep] what these crackerjack whack jobs tell you - yer kid is NOT autistic. He's just stupid. Or lazy. Or both."

Ok, yes, sure, it's insensitive. I'm sure Jenny McCarthy is crying somewhere. But, come on, guys. It's Denis fucking Leary. Here are a few choice quotes from the man himself over the years:

“I think we should take Iraq and Iran and combine them into one country and call it Irate. All the pissed off people live in one place and get it over with.”

"We live in a country where John Lennon takes six bullets in the chest, Yoko Ono was standing right next to him, not ONE FUCKING BULLET! Explain that to me God!"

"That's why I'm glad Jesus died when he did. Because if he lived to be 40, he would have ended up like Elvis. He was famous already at that point. If he lived to be 40, he'd be walking around Jerusalem with a big fat beer gut and black side burns going, Damn, I'm the son of God. Give me a cheeseburger and french fries right now. "

So, um, Denis Leary isn't afraid of Jesus, the Middle East, or Yoko. I don't think the Autism Society is going to upset him too much.

--Promotron

Sloane Eats Cake

This week's literary event is the Sloane Crosley, Nathaniel Rich, and Sean Wilsey at Cakeshop (get it? CAKEshop? because, you know, I Was Told There Would be Cake. ha.). Apparently, there will also be music from the Neverbeens.

I won't be there as I will be home with a bottle of wine and the debate, but hey, I've deprived you guys of a literary event for a several weeks now, so here you go.

Don't say I don't love you.

Do Tell,

The Editor

Olsson's Gives Up

News came earlier today that Olsson's Dupont Circle had unexpectedly closed, but now, apparently, the company has announced that all stores are closed for good. I think Politics & Prose just got a lot harder to book.

--Paige Sexie

Shake-up at Penguin

A tipster just informed me that the Dutton/Gotham publicity department is being shifted around. Apparently, Gotham Books and Avery are merging under publisher Bill Shinker, and Lisa Johnson will head the publicity and marketing departments for both. Head of Dutton publicity and marketing will be Christine Aronson, joining the Penguin team from Crown.

No word yet on how the rest of the publicity/marketing team will be split. But perhaps this will finally slow down that ever-spinning revolving door?

--Slunchie

On a slightly lighter note...

....this is awesome.

Any loyal LOST fan knows that there have been consistent literary references throughout the series, from Watership Down to Alice in Wonderland to The Turn of the Screw. A lot of these hints went over my head, but hey, that's what Doc Jensen and lostpedia are for. But now, those crafty LOST writers have created the LOST Book Club.

Yep, that's right. And, it lists every book that has ever been shown, mentioned, or obliquely referenced, along with a synopsis, it's relevance to the show, and a link to the purchase the book. Pretty freaking sweet.

Now, what are the odds that I can actually read thru all of these before the show returns next year?

--Ladytron

ps. In case you don't want to click through, here are some of the surprising books on the list: Bonjour Babar, John Lescroat's The Oath, and Judy Blume's Are You Out There, God? It's Me, Margaret.

Publishing just can't win this week

From today's L.A. Times:

Sara Nelson, editor in chief of Publishers Weekly, believes that the reading public "feels stuff not worthy of them is being shoved down their throats." The difficult part, she says, is that the audience for "serious books . . . really doesn't want to be marketed to. But if you don't market to them, they don't know what to read."

As someone who has worked on a number of books that were considered "literary" but got less coverage than any celebrity memoir or Harlan Coben book, I feel that. The industry has become so focused on what will sell rather than what is good, that, at times, it feels as though we are destroying ourselves from within.

The article looks at reprints, with the basic argument seeming to be that people are becoming dissatisfied with the fiction being offered to them, so they are turning to older books that are now being reintroduced to the market. And that the big houses are in danger of losing the trust of readers by tainting their once respected name.

It's an interesting theory, but I would like to argue that there are plenty of good books still being published. The focus just isn't being given to them. And in order to publish the "good" books, it seems that publishers have to balance it out with the "commercial" ones that will bring in the money. Publishers hedge their bets on a couple sure blockbusters in order to keep them afloat so they can try out other books.

But doesn't it seem that maybe if we shrunk the scale, we could solve all the problems at once? Why do we have to have massive lists? Can't we throw all of our energy into books we believe in, rather than just try to market them in between fielding calls about Stephanie Meyer or Curtis Sittenfeld? And, it's not just publishers that are to blame. The media covering the industry doesn't seem to be interested in discovering a new writer...they seem to just want to talk about the author everyone else already is.

--Ladytron

it just keeps getting worse

From the NY Times Breaking News Alert:

Breaking News 4:08 PM ET: Dow Closes Down More Than 500 Points

Talk about publishing into a recession...jeez.

--Ladytron

What a depressing day for publishing

Ugh, publishing is doomed, and apparently, it's no longer fun.

First up, we have the hella long article in New York Magazine, which asserts that, basically, we're all screwed. Some choice quotes:
Yet in recent years, more accurate internal sales numbers have confirmed what publishers long suspected: Traditional marketing is useless.

“Media doesn’t matter, reviews don’t matter, blurbs don’t matter,” says one powerful agent. Nobody knows where the readers are, or how to connect with them....

Marketing a book these days is like playing a slot machine;
hitting one 7 won’t get you a dime. “There has to be this constellation of events,” says Daniel Menaker, whose departure was tied in the press to the low sales of Benjamin Kunkel’s much-ballyhooed debut novel, Indecision. “Not only a Times Book Review front cover but Don Imus talking about it and Ellen Pompeo actually reading the book on-camera. And Barack Obama has just bought it.”

Augh, so true! In fact, I think I have mentioned these points before in some of my rants. Not to mention, the book has to be in stores. The book can be reviewed everywhere, but if it's not sitting on a table at B&N, it's probably not going to sell giant numbers. Which brings us to point #2...

This matters because the following response from Barnes & Noble CEO Steve Riggio is only technically true: “We buy every title published—our business is a long-tail business—less than 5 percent is from bestsellers.”

Editors insist that plenty of books get skipped. Richard Nash, head of indie publisher Soft Skull Press, estimates that one in twenty are passed over, though ten to fifteen copies are shipped into their warehouses in case there’s a special order. Many more are getting smaller initial orders than ever. That’s a very long, very skinny tail.

I'm gonna agree with Nash here. Also, sometimes they might buy 500 of a book. But 500 copies for all of the stores? Not helpful. It means that book is either sitting in a carton in the warehouse somewhere, or shoved on a back shelf. Moving on...

It’ll be rough going in the meantime; some publishers will transform, some will muddle through, some will die. And there will, no doubt, be a lot of editors for whom even this diminished era will look like the last great golden age, when some writers were paid in the millions,some of their books produced in the millions, and more than half of those books actually sold. Book publishing is still a big-league business, and that’s a hard thing to let go of. “There’s something terrible,” says an editor at a prestigious imprint, “about admitting that you’re not a mass medium.”

Oh, god. This was the golden age? Not according to Al Silverman. His new book, The Time of Our Lives: The Golden Age of Great American Book Publishers, Their Editors and Authors, defines the golden age as the period between 1946 and the early 1980s, the period "when 'books were most beloved by a reading public.' Soon afterward, the great 'bookmen' stepped aside and the bottom-liners of business took over."

(NY Mag also references the decline when publishing became about conglomerates rather than taste: "In its heyday, publishing was a vast array of mom-and-pop shops, in which the pops tended to be independently wealthy. Their competitive advantage was not efficiency or low costs but taste....By the nineties, five big conglomerates were divvying up the spoils and their lucrative backlists. Many of the smaller companies that had been struggling, like FSG, Ecco, and Crown, were flush with corporate resources. But in exchange, they gave up final say in how they’d publish their books—or even what books they’d publish. And suddenly an industry accustomed to 5 percent margins was being run by media moguls aiming for double digits.")

Crap. I guess I was about 20 years too late. I imagine the old days of publishing were a bit like an episode of Mad Men. As Gawker puts it, "It can be difficult to know you're in a golden age. You might be too busy working. You might be too caught up in the hum of everyday life. You might live in Omaha. But here's a hint: there are usually a lot of white guys in bow ties smoking indoors." Now, that would have been fun.

--Ladytron

RIP David Foster Wallace

I have nothing snarky to say about this. Infinite Jest was always one of the books that sat on my bookshelf, taunting me because, as much as I wanted to read it, I just couldn't ever seem to undertake the huge task of it. Much like James Joyce's Ulysses. But, although I have never read it, I've heard from enough people who have to know that we just lost a great writer. RIP.