Congratulations to Brad Meltzer, whose new book Heroes for My Son will hit the New York Times Best Seller list next Sunday at #2!

“I’ve always had a problem with authority. When I was in the third grade at Lake Bluff Elementary School just outside Milwaukee, my teacher, Wanda Rood, knew that I hated to be called by my full name, Gregory. I have always been Greg to my family and friends, and whenever Miss Rood called me Gregory to humiliate or intimidate me, I shook with fury.

Finally, one day when I was talking too much to my friends, Miss Rood said, ‘Gregory, do you have something to say to us all?’ I replied, ‘Don’t call me Gregory, Wanda.’”

Here Greg and I talk about his book and tour. I can’t tell you how excited I am about this project. MUCH more to come:

1. When you started Bad Religion at the age of 15, did you ever imagine the band would be around for 30 years?

As a 15 year old, I didn’t even imagine where I would be in three years, so thirty years was inconceivable. The band started out as a channel for rebelliousness. We were creative non-conformists who relished provocation. We didn’t think there would be much of a future in that.

2. Why do you think your band has had such staying power?

Scientific knowledge has staying power and punk shares certain qualities with science, in particular, challenging dogma. Without the overturning of prior theories, science can’t progress. This was immediately appealing to me as a teenager, as it still is.

3. You write in the book that as a teenager, science kind of saved you. What do you mean by that?

Through my early reading in evolutionary biology and geology, the world began to make sense. I could answer the “big picture” questions that were lacking from my a-religious upbringing. I was never taught about the stories in The Bible. Science offered a fantastical narrative from which I forged my songwriting career, which also began in my teens.

4. What’s the best part about touring?

Visiting antiquarian bookshops all over the world. I spend more money on foreign postage sending books home from tour than I do on meals.

5. Will you promote the book during your tour? (Fans: pre-order here!)

I would like to meet as many people as possible who are interested in evolution and the worldview they take from it. For that reason, I hope to appear in many bookstores, coffee shops, and speaking venues on the same days that we play concerts in cities all over the world. What a privilege, talk about the issues during the day, sing about them at night. It’s a dream come true!

It was in that spirit that I wrote to Tom on his site, saying that I thought his success tips should be published as a book. To my amazement, Tom actually wrote back, inviting me to visit him at his farm in Vermont. A few days later, after driving through the snow and spending the day with Tom (and his colleague, Erik Hansen, and his wife, Susan Sargent, who provided us with the world’s most delicious sandwiches), my head was spinning with provocative thoughts about business, and books…and we had agreed to give it a try.

I suppose I should have realized that a guy who writes about excellence (“If not excellence, what?”) would push me and the staff of HarperStudio to question all of our book-making assumptions. Why not make the book bright orange instead? Why not do two-color endpapers so “The 19 E’s of Excellence” would have 19 red “E”s? Why not re-write the existing success tips and add new ones, and then re-arrange the whole thing thematically? Why not, indeed?

Tom pushed us to go the extra mile, and now we’re grateful. Because now we’re holding his new, bright orange, chock-full-of-inspiration book, THE LITTLE BIG THINGS, in our hands, and damn if he wasn’t right: a book that tells businesspeople that they should over-deliver should be a book that overdelivers. And this one certainly does so.

Thanks, Tom!!!

1) Try to expand my food repertoire by cooking a recipe from a cookbook once a week. I’ve already broken this resolution after my first few recipes were flops.

2) Get out in the real world more. Everyone’s talking about online marketing and social networking these days…but I want to give a plug for getting together in real life too.

Yesterday I saw two authors in the “real world” and it was worth more than a million emails.

Turns out Ellen Galinsky isn’t just the President and Co-Founder of Families and Work Institute as well as the author of the forthcoming book Mind in the Making — she also happens to be an amazing photographer. I had the pleasure of seeing her latest exhibit yesterday in Dobbs Ferry.

After being inspired by Ellen, it was off to meet upcoming HarperStudio author Sascha Zuger for dinner with her son and parents. We’ve been Twitter buddies for a while, and I’ve been psyched to read her memoir about her journey from a 9 to 5 office job to working on a commercial shrimp boat on the Great Barrier Reef and sailing across the South Pacific — but nothing compares to hearing her awesome adventure stories over a bowl of pasta. Having a kid hasn’t seemed to slow her down an iota (if I heard her correctly, I believe she said she’s traveled to 20 countries with her 7 year old son?). Crazy. Inspiring. Can’t wait to read her book even more now.

And speaking of the real world, everyone’s always asking me if the book tour is dead — and honestly, I’m not sure. I do believe there’s a bigger opportunity to make it successful using the tools available today on the internet as well as by being extra creative. Here are two book tours that I want to point out as food for thought:

Stephen Elliott wrote about The D.I.Y Book Tour in the New York Times about a month ago. It doesn’t seem perfect, but certainly interesting and seemed worthwhile if you ask me.

Gretchen Rubin has done (and continues to do) a big tour. I’ve been following along on her blog and it seems that there are a lot of “Happiness is a Great Book Event in…” posts — so she did something right. I know she asked the readers of her blog early on where they’d be interested in having her visit, and I believe part of the tour may have been sponsored by a magazine (I don’t know more details than that), but I’m dying for the full wrap up from Gretchen on what worked and why, and what to skip in the future.

And then of course there was Gary’s tour which was a huge success. Check out the Facebook pages he created which really helped spread the word and gauge numbers in advance.

Would love to hear from anyone out there about what you find working in the real world…

Whatever your point of view on this, the use of “monopoly” to describe a publisher’s control of its content is a bit overheated, no?  Maybe we can go back to calling it what we used to in the old days: “copyright.”

After months of questions and angst about the future of the publishing industry and whether it was part of my future, my answer came in the form of Baratunde Thurston. I’d heard him speak at the Web 2.0 conference and I wanted desperately to work with him. After tracking him down, he came to my office for a brainstorm, and it was during that meeting that I had an epiphany: There is nothing in the world I’d rather be doing.How cool is it that I get to go to conferences, hear really interesting speakers, then have them over to my office to figure out their book with them? And then I get to work on that book.

My fate became clear during that meeting with Baratunde Thurston. He’s writing a book for HarperStudio called How to be Black.

The next author to sign with HarperStudio was Kevin Rose, the founder of Digg.com. I’m a huge fan — have been following his blog, twitter, videos, etc. for some time, and think he’s one of the smartest tech entrepreneurs out there with lots of wisdom and experience to share .  He’ll be writing a book about the secrets behind his success called One to One Million.

Jill Kargman is a novelist. I saw her on Samantha Ettus’s show Obsessed TV six months ago and knew I wanted to work with her. We met a few times and completely clicked. The question was , what’s the “HarperStudio” book. In early December she came to my office to have another brainstorm and told me some terrible personal news. The thing was, she told the story with such humor and grace that instead tears and sadness, we were hysterically laughing…and it was in that moment that we realized that’s her gift: she sprinkles the funny everywhere, even on the tough times. Jill’s going to write two books for HarperStudio. The first is called Sometimes I Feel Like A Nut and will be essays about using humor as a tool to get through life –making the fun times funnier and the tough times bearable, in reference to Woody Allen’s magical math equation: COMEDY = TRAGEDY + TIME. The second will be a novel.

The fourth author to sign with HarperStudio during that lucky month of December 2009, was Ryan Tate from Gawker.  I’d been thinking a lot about merits and challenges of being a small company within a large corporation, and Bob suggested that there’s a book in that. Nick Bilton from the New York Times lead me to Ryan Tate at Gawker, and he is now writing a book for us called Skunkworks, which I can’t wait to read.

One more author who I want to mention who signed with HarperStudio, though it was slightly before that December epiphany, but still very much part of my process of realizing how much I love my job, is Melanie Notkin, the Savvy Auntie. She’s writing her Savvy Auntie’s Guide to Life.

So there you have it: now a total of five authors who make me so excited about my work and this industry that I feel like the luckiest girl in the world.

Ms. Grandin is currently reading a copy of Elaine Hall’s book Now I See The Moon (Elaine starred in the incredible HBO doc Autism: The Musical). I can’t wait to hear what she thinks!

(update! this just in from Temple Grandin: “Now I See the Moon provides insightful ways to teach and work with individuals with autism and severe disabilities.  It will give parents great hope.” Whoop! Whoop! JC)

But what if it’s non-fiction and the world is changing at breakneck speed and there’s potentially updated information that happens in the six months between when the print book was finished being written and is finally published?

When Gary proposed the idea to us last Fall that he wait to record the audio until December, six months after the book was finished so that he could incorporate the latest info, we thought it was genius.

I love the idea that the hardcover is the mother ship, and then the other formats can be derivatives. Vook would fall in this category too.

So here it is for your listening pleasure: Crush It! the remix.

It was published the first week of January and has been selling incredibly well despite the fact that I can’t seem to find anywhere except for a few tweets from Gary that there’s new information here. About every few pages, Gary stops reading and adds off the cuff stories. Even if you’d read the book, it’s enough new info that you might want to listen too.

Check it out…It’s on sale for now $7.49 (from $13.22). Totally worth the $7.49.

Over the holidays I caught up on some of my recreational reading and read Ender’s Game, the scifi classic written by Orson Scott Card and published by TOR in 1985. It only took me ten years to get to it–I first heard about the book in high school when my friend Dash gave a book report on it in Freshman English. Light years ago, right?

What surprised me most about the book, though, was how accurately Card predicted future technologies: all the recruits have desks (touchscreen laptops), when they’re not studying or practicing they have time for free play (video games), the school has a system the students can send messages through (email), and back on Earth people communicate across the globe on the nets (the internet).

If anyone still doubts the power of Twitter and the blogosphere, this passage from the book, where Ender’s siblings back on Earth, Patrick and Valentine, take up the personas of Demosthenes and Locke on the nets in order to amass political influence, reads almost as prophecy:

With false names, on the right nets, [Patrick and Valentine] could be anybody. Old men, middle-aged women, anybody, as long as they were careful about the way they wrote. All that anyone would see were their words, their ideas. Every citizen started equal, on the nets.

Of course they were not invited to take part in the great national and international political forums–they could only be audiences there until they were invited or elected to take part. But they signed on and watched, reading some of the essays published by the great names, witnessing the debates that played across their desks.

And in the lesser conferences, where common people commented about the great debates, they began to insert their comments. At first Peter insisted that they be deliberately inflammatory.

The responses that got posted were vinegar; the responses that were sent as mail, for Peter and Valentine to read privately, were poisonous. But they did learn what attributes of their writing were seized upon as childish and immature. And they got better.

Peter took careful note of their most memorable phrases and then did searches from time to time to find those phrases cropping up in other places. Not all of them did, but most of them were repeated here and there, and some of them even showed up in the major debates on the prestige nets. “We’re being read,” Peter said. “The ideas are seeping out.”

In an age when Ashton Kutcher has more followers on Twitter than CNN, this scenario couldn’t ring more true.

Gretchen turned out to be such a gift to have at the meeting because as I would speak to these authors and tell them what I thought they should be doing, she would chime in as a member of their tribe instead of the outsider (me) and give her own perspective about what was easy or challenging.

Over the course of that next year and half I followed carefully what she was doing and was always impressed. We got together in person a few times, and I would tell her what a great job she was doing, we’d compare notes about this and that, and she’d always say “but will it sell books when the time comes?”

Well, it turns out that it does work (I feel like a broken record ). Gretchen’s book, The Happiness Project, went on sale on December 29, 2009. On Wednesday we found out that it will land at #2 on the New York Times bestseller list for the January 17 list. I realize that Gretchen’s subject lends itself to blogging and twittering more easily than other books would, and it’s got a great jacket, title, and traditional publicity — but there is no denying, IMHO, that Gretchen Rubin worked hard, for a long time, establishing a relationship with the community, and it paid off.

Here are 5 things that Gretchen did right:

1) As I’ve said, it’s not a “campaign.” This is a long-term relationship with your readers. Gretchen understood that and started the relationship long before (as in years) it was time to “promote her book.”

2) She talked about her book…but she also talked about other people’s books, and in general, we got to see the world through Gretchen’s eyes and to know her. She posted frequently, linked them up in Facebook (often I found them on Facebook), and had GREAT content. I don’t think there was a post I didn’t love and I felt like I found a little present every time she put one up.

3) Once the book jacket was done she put it up on the site in a place where people could always see it so she didn’t have to always “promote herself.” I hear this a lot from authors: “I’m not comfortable promoting myself.” Gretchen didn’t promote herself; she was fabulously interesting, and when I would click through to read her posts I was always reminded by the book jacket that it was coming out.

4) She didn’t sit around waiting for a publicist to make her famous. Yes, there is traditional media as part of the mix; lots of it in her case. But it’s a healthy mix of traditional and social media and they riff off each other. It’s like having a well balanced stock portfolio…not to mention that she has a tribe with whom she can communicate about all of this media.

5) Here’s my favorite one: The Video. The video the video the video. Every author needs one (kidding); most are not good. The thing I LOVE about Gretchen’s is that it is simple beyond belief, and what it lacks in fancy production and editing it makes up for in spades with heart and soul.

I watched this video a few months ago and was so moved I’ve seen it about another 10 times. I think about it all of the time. Watch here.

UPDATE:  The Happiness Project was published by HarperCollins.

Q&A with Christopher S. Stewart:

Chris S. Stewart is The Deputy Editor of the New York Observer. His magazine work has appeared in GQ, Harper’s, The New York Times Magazine, and Wired, among others.

1) What is your book about?

The epic search for a lost city buried somewhere deep in the jungles of the Mosquito Coast in Honduras. The city is called Ciudad Blanca, or the White City, and explorers as far back as the Spanish conquistador Hernan Cortes tried to find it – with no luck. Some of the men never came out of the jungle; they died or disappeared. Others got lost. It’s one of the biggest and wildest and most impenetrable jungles in the world – known as the little Amazon. But in 1939, one man claimed he located the El Dorado-like city and this is where the book begins.

Theodore Morde was an American explorer and World War II spy. His story is as layered and enigmatic as the White City. But here’s the twist: he died under strange circumstances before disclosing the city’s location. There are people who actually believe that the spirits of the lost city killed him.

But to this day, the mystery remains: What’s out there? What was it that drew in these explorers, and at such terrific risk? This is ultimately a detective story. And some of the answers began to come when I tracked down Morde’s secret journals in North Carolina and then set out with them on my own journey to find this lost place.

2) Broadly speaking, what is considered to be a “lost city”?

Well, a lost city begins with a rumor – that there’s some spectacular and ancient world that vanished at some point in time and is waiting to be found. The city persists in legend and myth, stories passed along over the decades. Its size doesn’t matter much. But it’s likely encased in some impressive and mysterious history. There are lots of incredible lost city

tales: Atlantis, El Dorado, Z. And with these stories, there’s the ubiquitous riddle – if these in fact cities existed, what happened to them and where did their inhabitants go? I heard many end-of-the-world scenarios for the White City. Among them was the story that a volcano covered it up, another was that it was destroyed by an evil army.

But in many ways, a lost city refuses to be discovered. As I stumbled through the jungle and talked to people, the place I was looking for was always around the next corner, up the next river, over the next mountain.

For some of the indigenous people I met, the city wasn’t even meant to be found. They said it would continue to elude because the White City was a spiritual place, and that, like a specter, it constantly migrated from one unreachable location to another.

Oh yeah. Once I hit the jungle, there was no cell coverage anywhere. Even the satellite phone was unpredictable – to use it, I had to wait for a break in the near-constant rain and then find a hole in the sprawling sea of forest overhead. That kind of isolation, that being unable to reach the outside world was more than a little unsettling at times. I kept thinking, what if something goes wrong? I’m not a backpacker or a trekker. The last time I slept in a tent was in my parents backyard when I was 10. I live in New York City, so being in the the rain forest, for me, is a lot like being on Jupiter. I fretted about the deadly snakes, the airborne viruses, the bandits and river pirates. Even though I traveled with three others — two natives and an American archeologist — there were moments where all of my fears and the remoteness of the jungle overwhelmed me and I felt completely and utterly alone, like the rest of the world ceased to exist.

4) Did you have any Heart of Darkness moments down in the jungle?

Many. I walked for hours every day, up mountains, across rivers, with a fifty-plus-pound bag on my back and uncomfortable combat boots on my feet.

Sometimes in driving rain, sometimes using a machete to slash through thick jungle. I was never completely dry, not even at night. Almost every day, I heard warnings about wily forest spirits or gun-toting settlers or the smugglers coming up from Columbia. The military coup that dethroned the Honduran president while I was out there only made things more worrisome.

Twice, I saw dead men. It was one constant green nightmare. But the most frightening moment for me was the day I got into a dugout canoe with three armed men and headed down a river that felt like it was flowing towards the end of the world.

I remember Marlow describing his terrifying river experience as a “peculiar blackness.” These guys I met were rough, dressed in rags, chewed cigarettes dangling from their jaws. They said they’d been moving wood up the river, which was another way of saying that they were involved in trafficking of some sort. I was sick and tired and having malaria dreams at night. A couple hours down the river, the men said that the price we’d negotiated was no longer enough. And then they decided that they were going to stop for the night before they took us the rest of the way. There was nothing around us, but black jungle that shut out the sky and their little pirate hut on a cliff. Monkeys and invisible creatures provided a constant, eerie soundtrack. That night, I didn’t sleep. I worried that these men would kill me. And who would know where to look?

5) What drives people to explore?

Generally, I think it’s the sense that there’s still stuff out there that we don’t know about. It’s a romantic notion that there could be a richer world somewhere, perhaps hidden in a distant wilderness, or buried in the shadow of a remote mountain peak, or submerged in the deepest ocean. And that’s what I think propels the explorer — the possibility of discovering something lost or unknown. Is it really out there? They want to believe it is — because maybe it would actually overturn some important notions about our world. So they search.

“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to heaven, we were all going direct the other way – in short, the period was so far like the present period, that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its being received, for good or for evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only.”

- A Tale of Two Cities, Charles Dickens

Decades from now, when we look back at the book business in 2009, it seems likely that we’ll see it as a threshold year, one in which all of the signs were there for what followed. It was a year in which sales held steady (Nielsen Bookscan, which covers 75% of the market, reported that overall unit sales through December 20 were 724 million copies, only a 3% drop from last year—and adult hardcover fiction was up an amazing 3%), and a few authors were so successful (Stephanie Meyer, Jeff Kinney) that the fates of entire publishing houses were altered by them; however, it was also a year that saw publishing’s profit margins squeezed in perplexing new ways. It was a year in which some of the most highly-respected bestsellers (Audrey Niffenegger’s Her Fearful Symmetry; Andre Agassi’s Open; Edward M. Kennedy’s True Compass) were also apparently the year’s biggest money-losers for their publishers, due to their multi-million-dollar advances; at the same time, some of the books with the highest rumored advances (Dan Brown’s The Lost Symbol; Sarah Palin’s Going Rogue) were likely the most profitable. It was a year in which e-book sales increased exponentially, with the cherry on the sundae being Amazon’s announcement that they had sold more e-books on Christmas Day than p-books (though of course this was helped by all the people who got Kindles as presents and spent the day filling them); but it was also a year in which the prices charged for those e-books made them a threat to the health of the p-book retailers on whom publishers continued to rely, and possibly a future threat to publishers’ ability to make money on the e-book format itself, in spite of that format’s wonderful ability to eliminate the costs of production, distribution, and returns. It was a year in which the largest publishing houses slowed title acquisitions and reduced the number of titles they published, while one company—Author Solutions—increased its annual output to a remarkable 24,000 authors (even more remarkably, these authors were all paying for the privilege). It was a year in which review coverage of new fiction disappeared almost entirely, and yet one first novel (Kathryn Stockett’s The Help) sold more than a million hardcover copies thanks to word of mouth alone. It was a year in which publishers continued to spend exorbitant amounts of money on print advertising, in spite of data showing how ineffective such advertising tends to be, but also a year in which some publishers discovered the power of online media to reach niche markets at significantly lower costs.

What does this mean for the future? That for every trend there will be a counter trend. And since this is the time of year for Top Ten lists, here’s mine:

1. Trend: The large publishing houses will continue to reduce overhead as profits shrink in the years ahead. Counter trend: Publishers will be looking for mergers and acquisitions to compensate for those shrinking profits. The Big Six could be the Big Three within five years.

2. Trend: These companies will continue to focus more resources on fewer titles, using their strengths as large-scale marketers and distributors to publish brand-names. Title count at the largest houses could drop by as much as fifty percent over the next five years. Counter trend: At the same time, self-publishing (including partnerships like the one announced recently between Author Solutions and Harlequin) will grow exponentially.

3. Trend: Title reduction will be most significant for new talent, with the largest houses entrusting support of new authors to a handful of editorial imprints. The editors at those imprints–editors with proven ability to choose new material successfully–will increase in value. Counter trend: Editors whose job is to handle existing talent will find their roles diminished.

4. Trend: In terms of advances, the amounts paid for brand-names will continue to increase, with seven-figure or eight-figure acquisitions commonplace among authors with established track records. Counter trend: There will be an increase in five-figure acquisitions (perhaps with profit-share arrangements) for less predictable material. The six-figure advance—that dangerous neighborhood inhabited by books with lots of potential but few guarantees—will become a rare species within the decade.

5. Trend: E-book sales will grow exponentially, with the proliferation of new devices and applications for reading on smartphones, etc… Within five years, half of all reading will be done electronically. Counter trend: There will be a resurgence of appreciation for well-designed physical books, as keepsakes, gifts, etc… While e-books will create a downward pressure on pricing, there will be notable exceptions (as seen this year with Carl Jung’s The Red Book, in great demand at $195.00, or Thomas Keller’s gorgeous Ad Hoc at Home, a bestseller at $50.00).

6. Trend: As more consumers become e-book readers, demand will increase for the availability of e-books simultaneously with p-books. Counter trend: Publishers will try a variety of strategies to meet this demand while not undercutting their p-book sales, such as offering more expensive “enhanced” e-books at publication and plain vanilla, less expensive e-books several months later (the strategy recently announced by Macmillan) or by offering a variety of “bundled” discounts to purchasers of multiple formats (prediction: within five years, it will be common practice to give every p-book purchaser a “free” e-book version of that book at time of purchase, as is already the case in the music business, in which someone who buys a cd can also listen to that cd on other devices in digital form, without paying a separate fee).

7. Trend: Fewer and fewer books will be sold to publishers at “auction,” and that practice will disappear completely within five years, as more and more publishers realize that the “winner” in such auctions—the publisher willing to pay more to acquire a book than any of their competitors–is often actually the loser in the end. Sales will be made either by brand-name authors to their previous publishing company or by new authors to carefully chosen editors with strong reputations. Counter trend: Instead of auctions for the highest advance, there will be auctions in which a basic advance is established by the agent, with the auction winner being the publisher who bids the most in marketing committed to the book.

8. Trend: As the initial sale becomes less of the focus for authors, the agent of the future will become more of a business manager who handles every aspect of an author’s career, overseeing the author’s online presence, developing sources of revenue outside of book sales such as workshops and lecture tours, and acting as the author’s publicist in between publications. Counter trend: Publishers will create free-standing departments whose services can be purchased a la carte by authors, whether that author is self-published or published by a competitor who doesn’t offer such services.

9. Trend: As the Boomers lose their eyesight and their children become teenagers, demographics will favor books for young adults over books for adults. This is also the generation most likely to embrace a variety of online and offline formats, without feeling the need to choose one over another. Counter trend: While auctions and advances diminish for adult titles, they could heat up for young adult material as publishers bet big in search of the next Stephenie Meyer. (Prediction: publishing houses will soon have entire departments devoted to developing books about the undead.)

10. Trend: Every year for the foreseeable future, books will be purchased between Thanksgiving and Christmas about how to prepare high-calorie foods (a favorite from this year: Fat: An Appreciation of a Misunderstood Ingredient, by Jennifer McLagan). Counter trend: Every January for the foreseeable future, the bestseller lists will be dominated by books about how to lose the weight gained by eating those high-calorie foods. (Not much of a prediction, sorry…but I needed a tenth trend to complete the list!)

Nina Sankovitch, the author of Tolstoy and the Purple Chair, has compiled a fabulous gift list for all the readers in your life: The runner: What I Talk About When I Talk about Running by Haruki Murakami; The Optimist: On Kindness by Adam Phillips and Barbara Taylor; The Teenager: The Love of the Last Tycoon by F. Scott Fitzgerald. For the full list click here.

Not sure whether to laugh, cry, or applaud at Andy Spade’s new installation.

(via Suite 2046)

On the customer end, I went in and clicked to buy the book, uploaded a photo, wrote a message, and the book is now being sent to me. Free Shipping. Really seamless and lovely shopping experience.

How can this not be the biggest thing in book publishing since sliced bread? Wouldn’t everyone who’s giving a book as a gift want the opportunity to to personalize it for the recipient? I plan on trying many more of these!

As an aside, SharedBook can also seamlessly bring a blog to a book format. Check it out here.

Cara Eisenpress and Phoebe Lapine are the creators of Big Girls, Small Kitchen, the food blog that had our mouths watering for months before the pair came in to pitch their book. We were inspired by their sophisticated take on childhood classics like Pesto Mac ‘n Cheese and Pancakes with Pomegranates. Cara and Phoebe’s book will tell the story of their friendship (they’ve been cooking together since a middle school bake-off) complete with recipes and a foreword by Ina Garten. 

We’re super excited about this book — and so are our stomachs. What else can I say? It was love at first bite. 

p.s. Check out the recipes for Cara and Phoebe’s scrumptious book deal cookies. We chomped through those babies in less than two days and I don’t think the janitor was too happy about all the crumbs we left behind…

The younger Nabokov’s introduction claims that “despite its incompleteness,” “The Original of Laura” is “unprecedented in structure and style.” Brian Boyd recently made a similar claim to The Wall Street Journal: “The opening few words just blew me away. There’s a kind of narrative device that he’s never used before and that I don’t think anybody else has ever used before.” I just can’t see the evidence. The absence of a plot — what we have here is all setup for unknown events to come — indicates that we don’t know what structure Nabokov had in mind. So, in fact, does his son’s implicit invitation to reshuffle the cards. And what’s the unique narrative device in those opening words? “Her husband, she answered, was a writer, too — at least, after a fashion.” Does Boyd mean the device of beginning a novel in medias res, with a character answering a question we don’t get to hear? Virginia Woolf did the same thing in the first sentence of “To the Lighthouse.”

Even Nabokov, it seems, needs a sales pitch. But hey, can you blame them for trying? (That’s a serious question.)

Check the WSJ’s gallery of redesigned Nabokov backlist titles including covers by Chip Kidd and Carin Goldberg. Amazing:

Stacy you make magic happen and inspire me every day.

We’re excited that they picked three of our books to appear on the coveted INDIE NEXT LIST this December.

Crush It! Why NOW Is the Time to Cash In on Your Passion by Gary Vaynerchuk

(HarperStudio, $19.99, 9780061914171)

“Refreshingly free of BS jargon (that would stand for Business School, of course!) Crush It! explains exactly why your business should engage in the world of social media, and it tells you how to do it. Vaynerchuk (better known as @GaryVee — if you don’t know what this means you need to read this book) built a $60 million wine business largely using free Internet tools, and his book will convince you that you can too.” –Rich Rennicks, Malaprop’s Bookstore/Cafe, Asheville, NC

Double Take: A Memoir by Kevin Michael Connolly

(HarperStudio, $19.99, 9780061791536)

“Kevin Connolly was born without legs, but raised to believe he is no different from anyone else. He graduated with a degree in photography and now travels all over the world on a skateboard taking pictures of peoples’ reactions to him. Connolly is a great writer, and Double Take is entertaining, funny, and enthusiastic. I can’t stress enough how entertaining it is.” –Mary Jane DiSanti, Country Bookshelf, Bozeman, MT

Get Cooking: 150 Simple Recipes to Get You Started in the Kitchen by Mollie Katzen (HarperStudio, $24.99 paper, 9780061732430)

Indie Next Notable Pick

Stop into one of their stores and we’re sure they’ll lead you to a book you won’t soon forget.

He agrees to do a “Hudson Hustle Tour.” That would be 6 Airport Hudson News Stores in 24 Hours. Check it out on Facebook. Tell all of your friends who might be traveling on November 2nd and 3rd to come say hi…and follow along on Facebook and Twitter if you can’t make it.

Here are the airports: LGA, ORD, DFW, DEN, LAX, and EWR.

Pass it on!

2) Special Offers — Gary is the master great partnerships.

3) The Street Team — It’s like a political campaign

4) Tour Dates — This isn’t just the killer tour…note the RSVP buttons that lead to Facebook Fan pages where people RSVP for the events…and then the Recap feature at the bottom. Love.

5) About The Book — Not just boring catalog copy. It’s fun and energetic…but scroll down…don’t miss the “Myths” and “Learn” at the end.

The book cover Twitter avatars are pretty cool too.

If you can tear your eyes away from the photo for just a second, I would like to point out that Kevin Michael Connolly is taking his memoir, DOUBLE TAKE, on the road. Kevin has posted his national book tour schedule over on his blog, and he also provided a handy public Google calendar to give you a better look at where he’ll be for the next month or so. Check it out and see if Kevin will be stopping by a town near you!

Now back to the photo. Kevin isn’t doing handstands just for the heck of it (okay, maybe he is)…there is a bigger picture here. Kevin is challenging Stephen Colbert to a handstand contest, and he needs a little help:

there is one thing I desperately, desperately need your help with. I’m not trying sell anything here – buy my book or not, it’s entirely up to you – but what I do need from you is a small amount of your time to help lobby Colbert (of Comedy Central’s, The Colbert Report). People have begun lobbying Colbert to put me on his show under the challenge of a handstand contest (during which, I’m hoping we’ll talk about the book, of course). First one to fall has to eat a hardcover copy of Double Take.

So here’s what I need you to do:

Copy and paste the message below into the “Comment” field at Comedy Central’s site to see a Colbert’s first inverted interview! Oh, and don’t forget to select “The Colbert Report” from the drop down list. Here’s the link: http://www.comedycentral.com/help/questionsCC.jhtml

“THE HANDSTAND CHALLENGE: COLBERT VS. CONNOLLY

THE CHALLENGE: Holding a handstand for as long as possible. First one to fall has to eat a hardcover copy of the book Double Take. Winner gets eternal glory.

THE CONTENDERS:

Kevin Michael Connolly, 24-year-old legless guy and author of the new memoir, Double Take.

Stephen Colbert, anemic political satirist and host of The Colbert Report.

THE BOOK: Double Take http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w5MD7KHwLw4

Quit hiding behind that desk, Colbert!“

Please take a couple of minutes to submit a comment and challenge Colbert to a handstand contest with Kevin. I’m not taking sides or anything, but you know you want to see Colbert eat a book.

The other day my father called to tell me how great the Crush It! billboard is. He said it stopped him in his tracks while driving out of the city one day.

Crush It! billboard? Huh?

When I emailed Gary to get the scoop, this is what I got back:

So exciting to see what everyday brings!

Great job Martha! Can’t wait to see how it develops!

Read All Day Long

One word: Wow.

More about Kevin Michael Connolly’s upcoming memoir, Double Take, can be found here.

And if you love Kashi, the natural foods company (and what fan of their Cinnamon Harvest cereal doesn’t?), you’ll be excited to hear that Kashi will be promoting GET COOKING on the backs of 8 of their most popular cereal boxes this Fall!!! Kashi has also partnered with Mollie to create a fantastic new video-based website called Get-Cooking.com, which launches today. Check it out for terrific instructional videos that will have you making everything from polenta to pilaf in no-time.

The fact of the matter is, I need to break out my copy of Organizing the Disorganized Child and just start over, and read it again…and again and again.

(And by the way, the Food52 cookbook will be published by HarperStudio…)

The Book of the Shepherd: 10/27

Emeril 20-40-60: 11/1

Why are people so obsessed with the show?

Well, it’s high art but totally accessible. Top notch writing, complex characters, high stakes historical moment. It’s like a visual novel or a really sexy play. But it’s on TV so it’s relaxing to consume! Also, I think the narrative is engrossing because, you know, we’re so anxious right now! There are these slow rolling cultural shifts that are happening right beneath our feet. Similarly to rumbling Don and the feet of his cohorts.

Tell me about the book.

There all these historical elements floating around in each episode, adding to the overall mood and motif of the show. I want to grab them all and put them in one place, not just because I love the show but because I’m also fascinated by midcentury society, its social mores, politics, design, etc. So the book will use Mad Men as vehicle to explore and catalogue that time in our history. It will be handsome both in look and verse with tons of new stuff.

Most of the actors in Mad Men came from left field. Do you think the show would be the same if Don was played by a marquee name?

Ooo going with lesser known actors was a great move. I feel strangely uprooted when I see them out of their suits. They are also such fine actors that I never feel like they are acting!

What would Betty Friedan say about Betty Draper?

I’m sure she would shake Betts by the shoulders and scream, “is this all?!?” But I think Betty really just needs a friend more than a pamphlet. Oh, Betty! She’s the most complex character of the show, I veer between thinking of her as villain and victim.

Who does the best post show analysis? Slate?

Slate has wonderful dish, it’s a must. The AV Club is my favorite for commentary. Also Basket of Kisses is a kicky site that puts a great emphasis on the ladies of Mad Men. Also, artist Dyna Mo! She created the Mad Men Yourself site for AMC and does beautiful illustrations of a scene from Mad Men once a week on her flickr site.

Why is the date of Roger Sterling’s daughter’s upcoming wedding significant?

Oh dear. Events at a parade in Dallas are going to overshadow her special day and put a general damper on you know, THE COUNTRY.

Why Meditations in an Emergency?

Ah, what a glorious choice! Totally risky, right? But what a great payoff. So many reasons. Ok, let’s start with the title. It just taps right into the sense of slow moving dread and forced introspection of Don Draper and the whole mood of the show. Also, O’Hara’s verses are so wry and punchy, so easily digestible that it reads like the best ad copy and vice versa.

]]> http://theharperstudio.com/2009/09/maybe-we-should-ask-the-nurses/feed/ 0 http://theharperstudio.com/2009/09/dear-producer-please-stop-what-you%e2%80%99re-doing-and-read-this-book/ http://theharperstudio.com/2009/09/dear-producer-please-stop-what-you%e2%80%99re-doing-and-read-this-book/#comments Wed, 09 Sep 2009 15:21:20 +0000 Steffen http://theharperstudio.com/?p=4468 Dear Producer,

How many galleys do you have piled up on your desk? (Or under your desk.) How many PR blasts do you get a day from faceless publicists claiming such and such debut novel is a “masterly tour de force!!” or x work of nonfiction is “truly ground breaking”?

Actually, don’t answer that.

If I were writing a press release for the book I want to tell you about I would lead with: STARRED KIRKUS REVIEW! STARRED PUBLISHERS WEEKLY REVIEW! SARA GRUEN CALLS DOUBLE TAKE “DEEPLY AFFECTING” AND COMPARES AUTHOR TO JEANETTE WALLS!!

These reviews might mean something to you but I’m not writing a press release. In fact I wish I could strip away the meaningless adjectives and layers of fabricated publicity hype that infest your inbox day in and day out, and speak you directly, as a book editor, about a memoir I think is incredibly special. The book is called Double Take and the author, Kevin Connolly, is a 24 year-old born without legs who travelled the world on his skateboard and photographed over 30,000 people starting at him. Kevin is also a champion skier. I’ve never met anyone like him. If you watch a tape of Kevin Connolly or speak to him for about 2 minutes you will want to book him on your show. I guarantee it. This is a book that will change how you look at other people. (Click here to read the full glossed up description.)

Most books fall into oblivion unless they get a lucky break. Our first lucky break came when Edward Ash-Milby at Barnes & Noble read Double Take and loved it (and loved Kevin when he met him). This blog post is a heartfelt plea to try and get you to pull the galley of Double Take out from under your stack.

Watch the rest of Tamy’s crusade here and here.

via @somerset

If you manage to make it through without having a heart attack (congratulations!) then please Digg it. This Is Why You’re Fat goes on sale October 27, 2009, but you can pre-order it now.

ETA: Want to know what New York Magazine thought of the cover?  They break it down for you here.

Farrar, Straus and Giroux's No Impact Man by Colin Beavan

I read this article in The New York Observer yesterday about book jackets, and how some publishers are forgoing dust jackets in favor of stamping a design directly onto the cover boards. It got me thinking about how I read my books, and if I would actually prefer hardcovers without jackets. Sometimes I do remove the jackets before reading because they slip around when the book is opened, and they’re less likely to be torn or folded when set to the side. Other times though, I use the jacket as a bookmark, taking one of the flaps and inserting it between the pages. I tend to dog-ear paperbacks, but if I have a flap handy, I’ll use that. So, I personally value book jackets for the designs that I don’t want to ruin and the less obvious uses. The tell-tale designs also clue me in to what others are reading with a quick glance – if you’re on a Kindle or have removed the jacket, you’ve probably had people have to ask you what you’re reading before launching into a conversation.

The way most books are printed today, the actual boards are minimally designed with simpler fonts and two-toned material, with the understanding that there will be a jacket in place to please the eye. The jacket, which is easier and cheaper to produce, allows for range in the color, typeface, images, and even texture of the design. Printing or stamping directly onto the boards is limited, even if one were to design without a jacket in mind. Covers can still look attractive and appealing without jackets, but it’s more difficult to differentiate between books if manufacturers can only produce certain color boards and stamp certain typefaces. Since we all know that people do actually judge a book by its cover, jackets are still needed to make most books stand out.

This isn’t to throw out the idea of designing uncovered boards – in fact I really appreciate books that can offer an aesthetically pleasing and unique cover when the jacket is removed. (We added a little bit of flair to Who Is Mark Twain? by stamping Twain’s signature onto the board.) Maybe what we need is a happy medium, where books won’t be considered completely naked if stripped of their jackets.

http://inboxzero.com/

Madeline by Ludwig BemelmansHarold and the Purple Crayon by Crockett Johnson

For all of you out there who are just like me, spend a little time figuring out how to search books by playing the Google Books Game. The actual game ended last week (each day the top three submissions were rewarded with Sony Readers), but you can still play for fun and test your book knowledge. The questions are a bit challenging, but luckily, even if you don’t know the answer you can still take advantage of Google’s gold mine of literary references.

book animation from Ian Hammond on Vimeo.

Among the many discoveries last week was a site called Animoto. I heard about it from speaker Brian Boero.

Simply load your photos, choose some music (I used their music because I knew it was kosher)……and voila. Animoto makes magic. The whole process took about 3 minutes.

You’ve got to check out life on Animoto. Watch out……it’s addictive.

Jennifer Gilmore made this awesome trailer for her book using Animoto:

We were also excited to learn Double Take was selected as a B&N Discover pick for this fall!

So after finishing George Dawes Green‘s terrific new novel, Ravens, I immediately ordered his first one, The Caveman’s Valentine, a brilliant book that fully deserved its Edgar Award.

If my experience is any indicator, the downward pressure on price from e-books might very well be counter-balanced by something we can all feel good about, and hopefully find a way to make money from: a newly voracious appetite for page-turners (or page-clickers, as I guess we’ll now need to say).

Anyway, we’re publishing a book in a few weeks called ORGANIZING THE DISORGANIZED CHILD that will hopefully help alleviate some of the stress that comes with school. We just got finished copies in the office and it will be in stores on August 25, though you can pre-order it online now. We’ve got le crème de la crème of quotes for the book, and lots of magazine coverage lined up, including Parenting Magazine and a feature in Time Out New York Kids, which just hit the stands yesterday.

Marcella Moran, the co-author, has a great blog and twitter stream where she gives out helpful really helpful advice for parents of school children. If you’re a parent with kids in school, it’s a must read.

I stumbled upon these great ads that Penguin Books did, which gives me hope that great ads do exist, even in the summer.

Aubrey Lynch from Tor arranged a little get together last Wednesday night at Lily’s in the city. I had such a great time talking books and publishing with passionate book peeps. One of the many topics covered was why Aubrey loves Prairie Lights. I asked her to write a a post explaining what makes it such a wonderful place:

A few weeks ago I made a trip out to Iowa–the order of business, meeting my boyfriend’s parents for the first time–daunting, to say the least. But one of the things I was most excited about doing while I was in Iowa City was visiting the infamous Prairie Lights Bookstore. Infamous in that it has a reputation for putting on great author events and for being a conscientious and passionate bookseller. How could I resist? I am a booklover to the core and was, at one time, an aspiring writer. Of course I had heard of the Iowa Writers’ Workshop and the fact that Iowa City is the world’s third City of Literature (as designated by UNESCO). With so much to recommend the city as one of the world’s centers of literature, I was hoping to find the bookstore I’d always been looking for—and wow, did I find it. Here’s what I found.

• Prairie Lights Bookstore felt homey—almost like I was walking into a room in my own house (well, that is, if I had a nice big house and not a “cozy” apartment in Brooklyn)—I can’t explain it—something just felt familiar, comfortable and safe about it. Maybe it was the warm colors or the carpet. Maybe it was the lighting. It was quiet without being a library and the people who worked there seemed very happy to be right where they were.

• What was most impressive was that scattered throughout the store—in places where people would be most likely to see them, were lists of book awards and the titles of the books that had most recently won those awards. Talk about making things easy for a casual browser who might have thought about reading mysteries in the past but didn’t want to risk spending money on a book that wasn’t that great and that would forever be their first impression of the genre (I say this because I am often that cautious browser).

• When I went to find the science fiction and fantasy section, right there, right smack dab in the middle of everything, was an announcement for the release date of the Robert Jordan and Brandon Sanderson book in the Wheel of Time series that fans have been anxiously waiting for! Here was the exact date that the book would come out—in November! And no one is paying them to do this. No one asked them. It wasn’t a sponsored announcement—they did it because they love the books and they are fans. Honestly, these are the types of people I want to sell me books—people who are anticipating the next book in a series, just like I am—people who love the work of authors and who love to tell the world about it!

• Cubes of bookshelves that you could see over—it opened up the room a lot—I never felt like I had to wonder about what was around the next corner—everything felt very open—the perfect word for the way the books were laid out, to me, would be “organic”—like following the paths your mind would naturally take.

• A café in the bookstore—not a bookstore in a café which is how I sometimes feel when I walk into a store that’s trying to do both. The focus is on the books, not the drinks they are going to sell you. It was tucked away on the 2.5th floor. It was quiet, without obtrusive music blasting—leaving readers to quietly sip and read.

• The people—Wow—the people who work in that store really know their stuff—they are fans as well—they love to read the galleys so that they know what books they can recommend to people before they come out—they have very specific tastes and even if they don’t read the types of books that you do, someone very close by will be able to help you.

• The owner works on the floor. This is important. The owner talks to readers/customers every day—the owner knows what the customers want. The owner cares about you, the books, the authors. The employees and the store.

• A newsletter from the store and community postings. This bookstore is all about the community—but not in a “self-serving, we only want to sell you stuff” kind of way.

There is so much more about this store that’s incredible but I think you should check it out for yourself to see:

Prairie Lights Bookstore

15 South Dubuque Street

Iowa City, IA 52240

http://www.prairielights.com/

I’d love to hear from others about what makes a bookstore great for them — , and then I’ll compile a list of the top 50.

And Juliet Grames — I want a post on “Why I’m a Borders Girl.”

Here’s a clever short film from first time novelist Bill Folman. The book is called The Scandal Plan.

Here’s quick and dirty re-cap of what I read:

A Long Way Gone by Ishmael Beah — I loved it. I realize I’m late to the party on this one, but I never got around to it when it first came out, and now my son has to read for school. I sobbed and sobbed numerous times. I had one moment of thinking “is this all true?” — and when I looked up online and saw controversy, I clicked off quickly. I don’t want to know. To me it was real. Takes a powerful book to move me like that.

The Odyssey — Again, Summer assignment for my son. I read quickly, had trouble enjoying. Will go back and re-read when he gets home and try to find the joy (suggestions welcome). I did read this in college and remember the gist — I’m looking to find the joy though.

Lies My Mother Never Told Me by Kaylie Jones — This is a memoir by the daughter of the prize-winning novelist, James Jones that comes out on August 25, 2009 from William Morrow. I toggled between this and The Odyssey. It’s about a young woman’s struggle with addiction (her own and her mother’s) as well as her coming of age as a writer. Set in Paris, New York, and Sag Harbor with characters such as Bill Styron and Norman Mailer throughout the book, this is a lot of fun to read. (Full disclosure: I haven’t quite finished, but I’m looking forward to getting back to it).

Double Take by Kevin Michael Connolly — comes out from HarperStudio on October 13. I’d read this before on the fly, but wanted to re-read in the comfort of a hammock overlooking the ocean. Loved it every bit as much the second time around. This is the story of young man born without legs who traveled the world with his camera- and found out what it truly means to be human along the way. I think this is going to be big. Great quotes just in from Sara Gruen and Lee Woodruff.

Bagby, who has been interpreting Twain since 1991, is giving us an added treat by reading the piece as the American master, so everyone will get the full experience of a Mark Twain reading. If you won’t be able to attend, the reading and interview will be taped and shared online.

The event is scheduled for 2:00 PM on Saturday, August 15, 2009.

via the paris review

    Check out the history of the word Trousers (which also seems to be a case study on Victorian prudishness) here or click here  to learn more about the tumultuous history behind this gargantuan thesaurus

Mark Bagby Wins Writing Contest and Claims his Status as "The Next Mark Twain"

And he has a surprising career history…

HarperStudio and Borders are pleased to announce the winner of the I am the Next Mark Twain writing contest: Mark Bagby, of Bakersfield, Calif. His conclusion to the unfinished Twain essay “Conversations with Satan,” was chosen from among 100 entries as the most fitting ending to Twain’s satirical piece. Ten other writers have been selected as Honorable Mentions: Joshua Minuto, James Pendergast, William Colletti, Robert Frazier, Robin Chae, Janet Reeves, Howard Krulewitz, Kimberly Maloney, Chris Narbone, and Craig Cheney. Contestants’ biographies and locales were not revealed during the judging process. In a twist to this story, the Grand Prize Winner just happens to be a Mark Twain interpreter and has been performing one-man shows of Twain’s works.

The contest was created to coincide with the publication of Who Is Mark Twain? and to engage readers and fans alike in “finding” the next Mark Twain. The entries were read by a panel of three judges: Robert Hirst, editor of the Mark Twain Papers project, Dave Taffner, a member of the Borders Fiction buying team, and Julia Cheiffetz, senior editor at HarperStudio.

“One of the most exciting things about publishing the newly-discovered Twain pieces in Who Is Mark Twain? is to see how contemporary Twain still is,” Robert Miller, HarperStudio President reflects. “The terrific responses we received to the ‘I Am the Next Mark Twain’ contest are the ultimate proof of that. I’m sure that Twain would have enjoyed seeing how brilliantly his work was finished, almost a century after his death. We are grateful to Borders for teaming with us on this contest—it was fun.”

Mark Bagby, as the Grand Prize Winner, will receive a free copy of Who Is Mark Twain?, have his piece published on Borders.com, and will give a reading of his work at his local Borders store. Bagby will be able to invite friends and family to hear him read the winning piece and another selection from the book. The winner will also be video taped and interviewed for a segment to air on Borders.com and theharperstudio.com. The date and location of the reading will be announced.

“The fiction buying team here at Borders is thrilled to announce our winner of the ‘I Am The Next Mark Twain’ writing contest. There was an abundance of interest in this contest, and we were pleasantly surprised at how many wonderful submissions we received. We are looking forward to Mark Bagby’s appearance at his local Borders store to read his winning masterpiece and we wish him the best of luck in his writing endeavors,” said Anne Kubek, executive vice president of Merchandising and Marketing for Borders.

Congrats to Mark Bagby, the next Mark Twain!

1) For those who don’t you: Who is Ken Layne?

I run a political comedy website called Wonkette, where I’ve worked since 2006, and write for various publications, and also used to operate the websites Tabloid.net, Sploid and the L.A. Examiner.

2) What is your book about?

Here, we’ve got this nice blurb, the one you made me write: “Ken Layne’s THE LEFT COAST is a history of California’s culture, environment and politics framed by his bravely idiotic solo hike up the entire 1,000-mile coastline of America’s weirdest, most populous state.”

2.2) Why now? I mean, you’ve been approached before about writing a book.

Before this was a book idea, it was just something I planned to do after the completely exhausting 2008 campaign and election. And then I started thinking about how nice it would be to collect strange tales and stories at such a leisurely walking pace, in this fantastic setting with the pounding Pacific and the beach towns, the enclaves of the ultra-wealthy and camps of the homeless, the stretches of wilderness and military bases and railroad track, Mexican drug shipments rolling ashore on lifeboats, toxic harbors and sewage lagoons, and a million-dollar ocean sunset every day.

That’s a hell of a lot more fun than any other book project I’ve proposed or had suggested to me in the past.

3) Do you think your book will be written up in an article about the blog to book phenom? (That’s a joke, kind of.)

My timing is never good with these online fads, so probably not. Here is a true fact: I was the first historical human to cover the presidential nominating conventions, in Philadelphia and Los Angeles in the summer of 2000, as a damned Blogger. But nobody knew what blogging was, at the time, so I completely missed the historical 2004 election first covered by Bloggers.

Anyway, THE LEFT COAST isn’t a spinoff of a blog. I have, however, considered writing a fictional (or is he?) sidekick LOLcat character — constantly sending twee confessional postcards to himself (via Twitter), and just eating so much lasagna, and this is why he’s fat.

4) Tell me about David Geffen and his coastline.

I should not speak for David Geffen, because he has a clone army of lawyers, but published reports suggest that he would prefer California’s magnificent public oceanfront, which is supposed to be available to one and all, to be his coastline. For decades, Geffen fought access along a narrow corridor alongside his Malibu house — even though he accepted that corridor as part of a deal to expand the seaside mansion back in 1983.

In 2005, Geffen finally lost and the gates were unlocked. He’s not unique for wanting privacy at his beachfront house. His wealthy neighbors –  including my old boss, former L.A. mayor Richard Riordan — just want to keep the unwashed hordes and TMZ paparazzi off their beach.

Unfortunately for them, it’s not their beach at all. The socialist republic of California is not like Martha’s Vineyard or Jamaica, where the best beaches are private. We have coastal access laws here, and the entire shore is public property, up to the high tide mark at minimum.

Anyway, as my path runs from Mexico to Oregon, roadside access through a wall of Malibu mansions isn’t an issue. But it’s a regular conflict here because the rich and powerful and famous love to make their homes by the ocean, and the other 37 million Californians are mostly packed against that same beloved coast.

HarperStudio will publish Layne’s book in 2010.

What are your favorite covers? Share some with us in the comments section.

“I really feel like my problem isn’t piracy.  It’s obscurity.” – Cory Doctorow

The effort resulted in the following:

–WHO IS MARK TWAIN?: 1013 subscriptions

–BURN THIS BOOK: 529 subscriptions

–EMERIL AT THE GRILL: 751 subscriptions

And if anyone out there hasn’t tried a book on DailyLit, you really must. You’ll be surprised at how fast they go down.

I asked Susan Danziger, the founder of DailyLit, a few questions:

1) What’s the biggest surprise you’ve found about your readers?

Our readers tend to be passionate, engaged readers 60% of whom have read between 10 and over 50 books in the last year (more than I’ve managed to do without DailyLit!)

2) Are most people reading fiction or non-fiction?

Most people are reading fiction since we started with classic, fiction books and then introduced non-fiction with contemporary works such as business series from Tom Peters and Seth Godin, language courses from Berlitz, and recipes from Emeril’s cookbook.

3) What’s been your most popular book and why?

Pride and Prejudice (available for free) has been the most popular book; no surprise that it’s been a huge hit.

4) Are most people reading DailyLit on their phones or computers? (not sure you can tell this)

Most people have been reading DailyLit on their computers at home or at work. We have a number of folks who read books via email so that their bosses think they’re reading work-related emails; others who read on their mobile phone while at Starbucks or even while brushing teeth in their bathroom, and even one fellow who reads in bed to avoid sex with his wife!

5) When we first spoke a year ago, publishers were nervous about giving you these books DRM-free. Has that evolved at all?

Yes, publishers are definitely less concerned about the DRM issue these days. Since each of our books are divided into up to hundreds of installments, publishers have interpreted that as its own kind of DRM. Also, publishers realize that DailyLit is a great way to virally market their titles. For instance, we integrated with Twitter so that if you link your DailyLit profile to your Twitter account, books you start reading will be automatically tweeted to your followers. The first book we launched with this program in place, Who is Mark Twain?, let over 17,600 followers (from 33 tweets) know about that book in a period of 2-3 days (and according to my contact over at Powells.com, it made their bestseller list!)

DailyLit (www.dailylit.com) is the leading publisher of serialized books in digital form. DailyLit currently features over 1400 classic and contemporary books available for free or for a small fee. Short book installments are sent via e-mail or RSS feed and arrive in a reader’s inbox (or RSS feedreader), which can be read on a desktop, laptop or mobile device (including an iPhone or Blackberry) according to the schedule set by each reader (e.g. 7:00am every weekday). Installments can be read in fewer than 5 minutes, and additional installments are available on demand. DailyLit’s titles include bestselling and award winning titles, from literary fiction and non-fiction to romance and science fiction. Co-founded by a team of publishing professionals and technology experts, DailyLit is headquartered in Mamaroneck, New York.

A recent Times article “Kickin’ Down Madison Ave., Feelin’ Groovy” cited the election of Barack Obama as the driving force behind the shifting of the cultural tide (they also cited the musical Hair??).The piece quoted several marketing executives and advertisers who said things like “The ’60s era embodies the culture of thinking for yourself and taking a stand.” This made me smile. And, lo and behold, companies like Proctor & Gamble, Macy’s and General Mills all have 60s oriented campaigns -and let’s not forget this year’s Barney’s Holiday catalog!

That same day I read an amazing Esquire feature by Colby Buzzell that was evocative of the 60s in a very different way. (Colby is writing a book for us called OFF THE ROAD in which he travels across America and documents his experience.) His cover story, “Down & Out in Fresno and San Francisco” is a Kerouac-esque portrait of the crack filled Tenderloin district in San Francisco, a neighborhood he calls “the pot of shit at the end of the rainbow.” The article is dark and dizzying. I have no doubt that Colby’s book will reveal some deeper truths about contemporary America, because that’s what he does. And that is why I’m excited to publish him. But this Times article made me realize something: At the end of the day, I guess I’ll be selling the 60s, too.

Next to Keith Richards, I might add.

“Why write? As soon ask, why rivet? Because a number of personal accidents drifts us toward the occupation of riveter, which preexists, and, most importantly, the riveting gun exists, and we love it.

Think of a pencil. What a quiet, nimble, slender, and then stubby wonder-worker he is! At his touch, worlds leap into being; a tiger with no danger, a steamroller with no weight, a palace at no cost. All children are alive to the spell of pencil and crayons, of making something, as it were, from nothing; a few children never move out from under this spell, and try to become artists. I was once a rapturous child drawing at the dining-room table, under a stained-glass chandelier that sat like a hat on the swollen orb of my excitement.”

This short little letter Updike sent back in October is now its own piece of literary nostalgia (as is the much talked about interview with Cheever)

You can also join the fight against literary censorship by signing The Right to Read petition here.

Ross’s quarter of a million Twitter followers responded enthusiastically, and the book’s sales rose 7,000% over the weekend, according to Amazon, where it now sits in the second spot on the online bookseller’s “movers and shakers” chart.

It looks like Oprah has some comptetition…

“Why won’t guys cry in front of girls?” (A. “It’s not like we cry in front of guys either. We don’t really cry in front of anyone.”)

You can find out more in her new book…….

An enterprising mom makes her kid a Max costume from Where the Wild Things Are.

What do you think?

Illustration from The New Yorker

This week’s New Yorker has a terrific article about delayed gratification. It tells the story of an experiment in which children were given a choice between having a single marshmallow right away or having two marshmallows if they can wait a bit. It turns out that the kids who were able to wait grew up to be people who have exhibited a greater level of self-control throughout their lives—lives that are often more successful as a result.

We’re already familiar with this experiment because it’s one of more than a hundred studies that form the basis of MINDS IN THE MAKING: THE SEVEN ESSENTIAL SKILLS EVERY CHILD MUST LEARN—THE BREAKTHROUGH RESEARCH EVERY PARENT SHOULD KNOW by Ellen Galinsky, founder and president of the Families and Work Institute. Ellen’s book is important because it not only makes this massive amount of research available to parents, it shows them how to put the research to work with their children.

The book will be published in April, 2010…so you’ll just have to wait for it…

Slovakia/Ikar; Norway/Juritzen; Czech/Euromedia; Dutch/De Arbeiderspers; French/Michel Lafon; German/Pattloch (an imprint of Droemer); Hebrew/Matar; Italian/Mondadori; Japanese/PHP Institute; Korean/Munhakdongne; Polish/Proszynski; Portuguese in Brazil/Rocco; Portuguese in Portugal/Planeta; Russian/Eksmo; Swedish/Forum; Turkish/Dogan Kitapcilik

I am constantly asked for “strategies/’secrets’ for surviving the recession.” I try to appear wise and informed-and parade original, sophisticated thoughts. But if you want to know what’s going through my head, read the list below:

You work longer.
You work harder.
You may well work for less; and, if so, you adapt to the untoward circumstances with a smile-even if it kills you inside.
You volunteer to do more.
You always bring a good attitude to work.
You fake it if your good attitude flags.
You literally practice your “game face” in the mirror in the morning, and in the loo mid-morning.
You shrug off shit that flows downhill in your direction-buy a shovel or a “pre-worn” raincoat on eBay.
You get there earlier.
You leave later.
You forget about “the good old days”-nostalgia is for wimps.
You buck yourself up with the thought that “this too shall pass”-but then remind yourself that it might not pass anytime soon, so you re-dedicate yourself to making the absolute best of what you have now.
You eschew all forms of personal excess.
You simplify.
You sweat the details as you never have before.
You sweat the details as you never have before.
You sweat the details as you never have before.
You raise to the sky the standards of excellence by which you evaluate your own performance.
You thank others by the truckload if good things happen-and take the heat yourself if bad things happen.
You behave kindly, but you don’t sugarcoat or hide the truth-humans are startlingly resilient.
You treat small successes as if they were Superbowl victories-and celebrate and commend accordingly.
You shrug off the losses (ignoring what’s going on inside your tummy), and get back on the horse and try again.
You avoid negative people to the extent you can-pollution kills.
You eventually read the gloom-sprayers the riot act.
You learn new tricks of your trade.
You network like a demon.
You help others with their issues.
You give new meaning to the word “thoughtful.”
You redouble, re-triple your efforts to “walk in your customer’s shoes.” (Especially if the shoes smell.)
You mind your manners-and accept others’ lack of manners in the face of their strains.
You are kind to all mankind.
You leave the blame game at the office door.
You become a paragon of accountability.
And then you pray.

Time Out New York posted a few favorite New York reading spots, some with more actual “reading” potential than others.

Ivanka Trump prefers The Pond at Central Park, although we have yet to see her in US Weekly actually holding a book. Apparently, Spiderman settles in among the Chrysler Building’s gargoyles to read. He must be re-reading The Watchmen to figure out just where the movie went wrong. But the most inspiring example is the barista who reads while waiting in line at Trader Joe’s. Now, there’s a book lover. Most people don’t have enough patience to wait in the block-long lines to get into the store. Much less read while doing it.

I ran into him in the lobby this morning right after he finished 2 segments on The Today Show for his new books, How To Talk to Moms and How to Talk to Dads.

Several months ago, on a Saturday night out in the East Village, I stumbled upon what looked like the mangled remains of someone’s personal library. Being the obsessive recycler that I am, I couldn’t help but cringe at the sight of so many books going to waste. Everyone knows that the great thing about p-books (p as in physical…it’s come to that!) is that they are endlessly recyclable!

Why would anyone ever throw them away? or have them destroyed? (which is the unfortunate case when books are returned to publishers and can’t be re-sold.) Why not simply give them away?

In honor of Earth Day, and so that I don’t have anymore heart attack moments by witnessing perfectly readable books getting scrapped, here are a few places where you can donate your old books.

Give to your local public library. If you’re in New York, check with your nearest NYPL branch about donation guidelines or look here for libraries in Brooklyn, Queens, and Westchester.

Housing Works, a non-profit organization committed to ending the twin crises of AIDS and homelessness, runs thrift shops and a bookstore cafe in New York and other parts of the country. They accept advance reader’s copies, textbooks, and all other books in saleable condition.

Sign-up at BookCrossing and you can actually track your book as it changes hands. Mark the book with an assigned number, leave it in a place where someone else can pick it up, and then check online to see who’s reading it.

Donate books to Books Through Bars and help prisoners educate and rehabilitate themselves.

For even more places to donate, check out this list.

Happy Earth Day!

It turned out to be pretty complicated to combine physical and digital shopping carts to make these offers, since there are very few places (online or otherwise) set up to handle combined transactions. Even for the bundles sold from our website, we’ve had to advertise the discount codes separately from the purchase page. (For anyone reading this, here’s your code for 20 percent off and free shipping: 20H09C.)

We’re in the early stages, clearly, and we’re looking forward to feedback on this first attempt. We also hope that it won’t be long before both online and bricks and mortar booksellers start offering a range of combinations of physical and digital formats.

So, enjoy the book–however and wherever you read it–and let us know what you think!

Speaking of memories from the dental chair, this sketch from the Carol Burnett Show made us laugh.

In between wire walks Petit is completing his book on building a barn by hand (with 18th century tools), which we will be publishing Fall 2010.

We’re publishing Burn This Book in conjunction with PEN in May. It’s a powerful collection of essays that explore the meaning of literary censorship, an issue that PEN deals with in their pledge to oppose any suppression of freedom of expression.  Check out the book jacket below.

You can also join the fight against literary censorship by signing The Right to Read petition here.

Listen to John Wray read his novel on NPR.

However, it was when I heard him speak at the Web 2.0 Conference last September that I knew without a doubt that I had to work with Gary. Before he left the stage I’d shot him an email, and by the time I left the Javitz Center I’d already heard back.

“That’s Your Book,” I screamed over the blackberry. “You need to write a book about passion just like the speech you just gave.”

And so the six month long conversation began…..that brought us to this exciting moment.

You can check out the stories about the book deal on wsj.com and TechCrunch, but for me, the best part is to see the reaction on Search.Twitter.com.

Here’s the speech that inspired the deal:

Check out this Talk of the Town piece in The New Yorker  about Rossellini’s latest series of short films.  And if Rossellini talking about “Why Vagina” appeals to you, stay tuned for her book, Green Porno which goes on sale in September.

“He’s Hot.  He’s Relevant.  And He’s Dead”  ……and ninety-nine years after his death, he still justifies coverage in Vanity Fair

Last week I had the pleasure of attending an intimate screening of Isabella Rossellini’s second Green Porno series on sea creatures. Having worked on the book version of these short films, I knew pretty much what I was in for, but I still couldn’t help from laughing with the crowd at the impossibly absurd image of Isabella wearing a towering crown of limpets, stating matter-of-factly: “Then I die because we all have to die.” Or at the amused look of shock on Bob’s face as he watched Isabella reappear on the screen as a whale with a large dangling phallus.

Needless to say, we’re very excited about the book and the second film series, which premieres April 1st on the Sundance Channel. Since the first series was such an overnight internet sensation, you might find Green Porno not only on the web but also at your local bus station. Keep your eye out for a pair of love-making shrimp on a bus near you!

Keats died at 25. Are there lesser known poets of significance who also died tragically young?

Off the top of my head Shelley, Emily Brontë, Hart Crane, Samuel Greenberg who died on Ellis Island at the age of 23, Christopher Marlowe, Trumbull Stickney, Keith Douglas, Andrew Marvel

What was Yeats’ last poem?

Cuchulain Comforted

Why do you find the idea of editing this anthology appealing?

It has always been in my mind, child.

- Julia

“Bernie- whose office is in the the famously ovid Lipstick building- couldn’t bear curves. ‘He was paranoid about them,’ says one employee. In one office, he drank out of square drinking glasses, stored his pencils in square holders, tossed his trash into square cans. He insisted that the blinds align with window frames – ‘We used a tape measure,’ says one employee.’”

What’s with rainmakers and right angles?

We’re having a ball with Lianna’s book and would love to hear what you think of this cover.

She’s discussing ebook pricing in this clip, though she wrote to me later to say that she she was wrong about the number of books women who took the survey buy.  Turns out it’s two to five books per month.  You can check out the Booksquare blog for the wrap up of the TOC Smart Women Read Ebooks panel.

Kat may not have been perfect with the numbers this time………but she’s always a treasure trove of info, and her blog and tweets fun and informative.

I found this particular ad on Houston Street so compelling I actually snapped a photo: Could there be a more of the moment message for a billboard downtown, (one that no doubt costs hundreds of thousands of dollars to rent) than….POP? That it replaces a long standing Yahoo ad makes it all the more brilliant. Good work guys.

- Julia

Photo courtesy: New York Times

“This is what it means to be a nurse in oncology, a no-win situation where compassion routinely gets hijacked by grief.” - Theresa Brown

We were all moved by Theresa Brown’s recent Q&A Can Nurses Care Too Much? on the New York Times. Theresa is working on a book for us, CRITICAL CARE: One Year on the Floor, and brings such an honest, personal element to the question of what it really means to care about your work, and ultimately for another person.

When asked to compare Meyer to J.K. Rowling King said point blank “Both Rowling and Meyer, they’re speaking directly to young people…The real difference is that Jo Rowling is a terrific writer and Stephenie Meyer can’t write worth a darn. She’s not very good.” He continues, “People are attracted by the stories, by the pace and in the case of Stephenie Meyer, it’s very clear that she’s writing to a whole generation of girls and opening up kind of a safe joining of love and sex in those books.”  OK, there’s a lot to deconstruct here (the best part of the article is the comments section; there are currently 804 comments) but my main question is this:

Can a book be deemed “good” or “bad” based solely of the quality of its writing?

I haven’t read the Twilight books so I can’t weigh in on King’s assessment. But it seems to me that Stephenie Meyer has activated something profound in people- mostly teenage girls – and the ability to do that may be as rare as the literary gifts of a writer like… Stephen King.  Put another way: In terms of literary merit, Twilight may not be “good,” but that doesn’t mean it’s not great.

I am curious to hear what others think. Was Stephen King unnecessarily harsh?

- Julia

Philippe Petit on The Colbert Report on January 27, 2009

Philippe Petit on The Conan O’Brien Show.

Philippe Petit at Sundance 2008

Now Petit is attempting a new challenge: he is building a barn by hand, using only 18th-century tools. And he has signed with HarperStudio for his book about that experience, to be published in Fall, 2010.

1. Publish too many bad books, get your sales reps to stuff the channel with too many bad books, and then complain that returns are too high
2. Not realize that, like other intermediaries, publishers are heading to extinction unless they learn to add value
3. Suffer from the illusion that after being in the publishing business for decades without a consumer brand, they can suddenly wake up and become meaningful brands in consumers’ minds

Praveen asked for our “top three stupid things independent booksellers do” in exchange; so here’s a list from our senior editor, Julia Cheiffetz:

1. Assume their customers wouldn’t transfer their store loyalty to a store website

2. Underutilize the expertise of their staff to curate selections and develop robust areas of expertise for which they are known locally

3. Fail to stay connected to their customers via a store blog

We’d love to hear from other booksellers (and publishers) with their “top three” lists in response…

We must write where we stand; wherever we do stand, there is life; and an imitation of life we know however narrow, is our only ground. – John Updike (1932 – 2009)

We’re joining the rest of the world in mourning John Updike’s passing and we are honored to be publishing one of his pieces in our upcoming book Burn This Book. 

“It is as if the speech, rather than being a sustained performance with a cumulative power, was a framework on which a succession of verbal ornaments were hung, and we were being invited not to move forward but to stop and ponder significances only hinted at.

And if you look at the text – spread out like a patient etherized on a table – that’s exactly what it’s like. There are few transitions and those there are – “for,” “nor,” “as for,” “so,” “and so” – seem just stuck in, providing a pause, not a marker of logical progression. Obama doesn’t deposit us at a location he has in mind from the beginning; he carries us from meditative bead to meditative bead, and invites us to contemplate.

Of course, as something heard rather than viewed, the speech provides no spaces for contemplation. We have barely taken in a small rhetorical flourish like “All this we can do. All this we will do” before it disappears in the rear-view mirror. But if we regard the text as an object rather than as a performance in time, it becomes possible (and rewarding) to do what the pundits are doing: linger over each alliteration, parse each emphasis, tease out each implication” [NYT]

(Fish was in the office this morning for our social networking breakfast and is excited to get on Twitter.)

-Julia

The short answer is sell books. But it ain’t that simple.

If you stop and think about it, give or take a few bells and whistles (the ubiquitous flash intro page, for example), most author websites are exactly the same: Descriptive copy, an excerpt, author bio, possibly a trailer or Q&A, reviews, events & readings, and a link to Amazon and other book retailers. In other words: an electronic business card. It comes as no surprise, then, that a recent Codex study quoted in Courtney Sullivan’s article “See the Web Site, Buy the Book” found that 8% of book buyers had visited author websites in a given week. 8%!

So what would engage the other 92% of the book buying market? What are the elements of a successful author/ book website? (On Friday Debbie is hosting a breakfast for our authors to discuss these very questions so more to come on this subject from the rest of the HS gang). For now, here are some of my unscientific observations. I would love to hear yours….

A good author website:

- Is interactive and speaks to a distinct community

- Is inherently entertaining

- Engages someone who has never heard of the book or author

- Gives the reader a reason to come back

- Can be found easily on Google

Here are 5 authors who are getting it right.

John Hodgman: http://www.areasofmyexpertise.com/

Tim Ferris: http://www.fourhourworkweek.com/blog/

Chris Anderson http://www.thelongtail.com/

Sloane Crosley http://sloanecrosley.com/

Cory Doctorow http://craphound.com/

(note the savvy publicist Sloane Crosley is the only author here who has used her name rather than the book title)

- Julia

Have you ever had a sentence from a novel reverberate in your head days after you finished it? In Yates’ novel Revolutionary Road Mrs. Helen Givings, the meddling Realtor who sold April and Frank Wheeler their suburban home, learns over the course of a phone call that the Wheelers are, in fact, not going to sell their house and leave the community:

“When she put the receiver back it was as if she were returning a rare and exquisite jewel to its velvet case.”

You’ll never look stupid with a drink in your hand again.

“What also seems to happen is that I read a page not necessarily word by word, but by capturing pages in sequence in my head. The words and phrases appear diagonally, like I'm absorbing the text all in one gulp, and then I move on to the next sequence I can absorb by paragraph or page. It's like I'm reading from a whole-language standpoint instead of phonics”

Incredible.

“As the photographic industry was the refuge of every would-be painter, every painter too ill-endowed or too lazy to complete his studies, this universal infatuation bore not only the mark of a blindness, an imbecility, but had also the air of a vengeance. I do not believe, or at least I do not wish to believe, in the absolute success of such a brutish conspiracy, in which, as in all others, one finds both fools and knaves; but I am convinced that the ill-applied developments of photography, like all other purely material developments of progress, have contrib­uted much to the impoverishment of the French artistic genius, which is already so scarce….Poetry and progress are like two ambitious men who hate one another with an instinctive hatred, and when they meet upon the same road, one of them has to give place. If photography is allowed to supplement art in some of its functions, it will soon have supplanted or corrupted it altogether, thanks to the stupidity of the multitude which is its natural ally.” [On Photography, from the salon on 1859]

I suppose one could argue the Kindle is hardly a populist device at $399 a pop, but then again neither was the first camera. It was the potential to go mass that frightened Baudelaire who, it seems, now has 50,662 friends on Facebook.

 No, I don’t. And neither do you.

 Ever since I subscribed to themediaisdying on Twitter I get dozens of updates a day reporting layoffs in print media, radio, television, advertising, you name it. Updates based on anonymous, unconfirmed tips:  A dozen layoffs at WGBH! The SUN-TIMES MEDIA is closes printing facility! 80 Jobs to go at MTV UK! A magazine editor friend of mine who used to poke fun at Twitter said she’s been “gobbling it up like candy.”  Well, so have I and, like a kindergartner the week after Halloween, I’m sick to my stomach.

Apart from the obvious irony of learning about layoffs in print media through a social networking platform, and the fact that we’re already saturated with bad news about the economy which contributes to our tooth-grinding dreams (or lack of sleep), themediaisdying feeds a kind of mob mentality that is unproductive at best. Did journalists at the Cleveland Plain Dealer worry about people at the Los Angeles Times during the Great Depression? Maybe they did. But nowadays when I log on to Facebook and see a so-and-so “is stressed” I immediately wonder: Did they get sacked? Should I call? Send a tweet? 

I’m grateful for the kind of grass roots mobilization that platforms like Twitter and Facebook enabled during the election season, and I love reading – in real time- about my friend’s baby’s first bath, but when it comes to the death of the media, I say all 7,339 of us Twitter subscribers hold hands and press “remove.”

Besides, as our favorite Twitter-rock-star-entrepreneur Gary Vaynerchuck said recently on his Twitter feed: “u can’t cry u just have to HUSTLE”

- Julia

frontispiece, first edition, 1843

“This book helped me create my identity,” said Naina Syed, 14, a high school freshman in Coventry, Conn.” [NYT]

Seventy-five years ago a slim, agile, quick-witted, self-assured young man, identifying with but transcending his ethnic minority, was summoned to save a nation from financial ruin. As the nation’s new president he brought together a team of rivals, a band of brothers. And those brothers’ names: Pinky, Chicolini, and Lt. Bob Roland. And that leader’s name: Rufus T. Firefly.

It was a movie, and what a movie: Duck Soup, the Marx Brothers at their most intense, in their finest hour. In Hannah and Her Sisters, Woody Allen’s character, Mickey Sachs, is considering suicide when he happens to see a bit of Duck Soup and has an epiphany: How can anyone even think of killing himself when this world affords such high-low comedy as the Brothers’ spectacular musical number, “The Country’s Going to War,” in which the call to arms involves, among many other rousing elements, takeoffs on gospel (“All God’s Chillun Got Guns”) and the Virginia reel. I feel confident in asserting that there is nothing anywhere else in the history of American culture quite like Harpo’s contribution to the do-si-do.

Duck Soup came out in the midst of the Great Depression, which to be sure would not end until the U.S. went to war, but who knew, then? The general public did not find Rufus inspiring enough to make the movie a box-office success, but critics, without any exception I am aware of, have pronounced it the Marx Brothers’ finest.

You can’t write a whole book about how funny a movie is. But this is a movie that can be opened out in lots of directions. The parallels to current politics are obvious. And then there are links to be made involving Woody Allen and mirrors (the Duck Soup scene in which Harpo pretends to be Groucho’s reflection is famous, but there’s a little-noted Allen mirror scene whose autobiographical resonance is startling), George W. Bush and projectiles, Margaret Dumont and moms, Groucho and Karl, Jews and Irishmen.

One reason for Duck Soup’s excellence was the flamboyant but underappreciated director, Leo McCarey, who left us a wide variety of iconic-to-semi-iconic movies (the first thing he did in the business was bring Laurel and Hardy together) without ever becoming an icon himself. This is one of the least sentimental movies ever made, and McCarey directed some of the most sentimental moments in movies, some incomparably moving, others embarassingly mushy.

“Despite their anxieties, a growing number of women view negotiation with more moderate Taliban elements as the only way to bring the country some measure of peace." [CSM]

Gayle has been in Kabul the past several months researching her book The Dressmaker of Khair Khana.

Here’s one person’s response: 

“My name is Gina.  I am a senior at Temple University in Philadelphia double majoring in Dance and Psychology.  I found Man on a table in the Honors Lounge and just started reading. I found the story quite touching, particularly the segments that described specific things the character remembered from each period.  As a choreographer I am often trying to use gestures, memories and intimate details to bring people into my dances; I feel like this is what made Man successful.”

[Adweek]

The New York Public Library recently added some of their collections to Flickr including Albert Fernique photographs of the Statue of Liberty, some amazing Civil War era photographs, and the work of one of my all-time favorite photographers, Bernice Abbott.

Is it just me or does this feel major?

Penguin is generating a lot of buzz on Flickr for their gorgeously designed classics. Will more publishers start posting book jackets/ interiors on Flickr?

photo credit: Abbott, Berenice: Low winter sun
illuminates Seventh Avenue and the harbor brightly, buildings along
avenue almost silhouettes. Repository: The New York Public Library. Photography Collection, Miriam
and Ira D. Wallach Division of Art, Prints and Photographs.

As you might have seen in today's WSJ, at least one major book chain is giving non-returnable a try. We're hoping others follow suit…

- Bob

How much does packaging matter for books?

The old adage of “never judge a book by its cover” is becoming totally irrelevant. As the Kindle and other e-reading technology goes mass (yes, it is inevitable), what you’ll see is a polarization of the book-reading experience. Just as mp3’s killed the CD but oddly enough revived records and mixtape nostalgia, books will split into two camps: the cheap digital format to satisfy our need for disposable convenience, and the increasingly rarefied format of ink and paper to satisfy our need for beautiful objects and “authentic” experiences. The aesthetics of the physical book are increasingly important because it’s becoming fetishized. Like have you seen the hardback Penguins designed by Coralie Bickford-Smith? Just gorgeous.

Research shows that women represent about 70% of the book buying market. Why do you think that is and how can publishers target men more effectively?

One of the most obvious reasons is simply that women are more socially communicative, so they do things like join book clubs, and tell other friends about what they’re reading. I think this is changing somewhat due to online social networking. Not many men will join a book club, but what they might do is add an app like iRead or Visual Bookshelf on Facebook and passively (and selectively) communicate to their friends what they’re reading.

I’ve also noticed that a lot of men are very interested in the Kindle and e-Readers. Not just because it’s a gadget but because the convenience and privacy of it is very appealing. I think the fact that you can be reading it anywhere without a flashy cover displaying what it is you’re reading is actually a big advantage for guys who tend to be more shy about sharing their lit predilections in public. I mean, you don’t necessarily want everyone to see you’re reading a self-help book or a lesbian vampire novel! I’m Japanese and it’s interesting to me why more people don’t cover their books here, because in Japan any book you buy at the bookstore is covered for free at the register. I know it sounds like a marketing disaster, given that you’re covering up free advertising, but I feel like there’s something to that. Reading is a very personal activity for most of us.

Someone once said “hiring a consultant is like paying someone to tell you what time it is- with your watch. Only after the project is finished, they walk away with the watch.” Should publishers enlist the services of firms like McKinsey / BCG to hone their strategy?

There are so many consultancies out there with different approaches to problem-solving, it’s hard to say without getting more specific. In general, if you’re talking about fixing the way publishers run their business from an operational perspective, I would think that the services of a management consulting firm could be beneficial. The number of books returned to be pulped is outrageously wasteful and the astronomical advances for certain authors have proven to be unsustainable in light of falling sales. And while I recognize that everyone is tightening their belts now, the extended run of freedom that publishing people had with their corporate Amex was completely out of touch with the realities of running a profitable enterprise—remnants of a glamour-industry approach that was long obsolete! I don’t think you needed to be a management consultant to see that something was rotten, but really taking a scalpel to it oftentimes requires external intervention because it can be so painful. And to your point about walking away with the watch, I definitely think that consulting fees need to come way down for the relationship to make sense.

Can you point to any one marketing campaign for a book that particularly stood out as being excellent?

To be honest, I really can’t think of a single book marketing campaign that has really stuck with me.

What can publishers do to make books “cool” to a younger generation? 

Assist the Obama administration in its efforts to improve education. You can’t brush your teeth if you don’t have running water.

-Julia

When I first read the manuscript to Who is Mark Twain? * -  the collection of 24 previously unpublished pieces by Samuel Clemens we’ll publish next spring-  I couldn’t believe how contemporary it felt.  To that end it seems perfect to have the New Yorker publish the piece “The Privilege of the Grave” in their December Fiction Issue. New Yorker Fiction Editor Deborah Treisman said:

“We felt that the piece was both sharp and funny in its satire and timeless in its take on the notion of free speech in western culture. Coming at the end of a difficult election year, it seemed particularly prescient.”

 * In the piece “Frank Fuller and My First New York Lecture” a young Twain spies two men hunched over a poster publicizing his talk at Cooper Union. (Twain is terrified no one will show up.) The one guy says to the other: “Who is Mark Twain?” The other responds “God knows- I don’t!” Hence the title Who is Mark Twain?

Julia

As if I needed further proof books are a beautiful, beautiful, thing.These Penguin Waterstone editions of the classics are g-orgeous and further evidence that the physical entity of the “book” is irreplaceable. I know what's at the top of my holiday wish list this year!

p.s My favorite is the Dorian Gray cover

-Maggie

The song has already inspired a website where fans talk about the things they wish they could accept in their lives. And next May, HarperStudio will publish a book based on the song in which LeAnn, Darrell and fans talk about what the message means to them. The book will also include a CD of the song…so does that mean our book just got nominated for a Grammy?

Debbie

A Holiday Poem, 2008

'Twas a month before Christmas, and all through the house

Not a consumer was spending, not even with mouse.

The goods were placed by the cash wrap with care,

Though a very bad season was the big fear.

The anchors were talking, alarmed in their chairs,

While visions of breadlines added to cares.

And Mom with her list, and Dad with his frown,

Decided to cancel their trip into town.

There will be no gifts, it was determined this year,

The bull has gone missing; here comes the bear!

Yet a cry went out from all those that live:

There must be something, something to give.

From across the land there rose quite a cheer,

Let's find a gift that isn't so dear!

Let's find a gift that people will want

In Ariel, Baskerville and other cool font.

Let's find a gift that gives a reward,

That all can enjoy—even the bored!

For it's books that make the best gifts of all,

For every season from summer to fall.

For Christmas, Hanukah, Diwali and Eid,

Books are must gifts for all that can read!

Now, Edgar! Now, Lennon! Now, Marley and Wally!

On, Collins! On, Wicked! On, Fancy! On, Nancy!

To the top of those lists! To huge POS!

Now sell away! Sell away! Sell away all!

Let's not give up hope for the season now here.

Books are winners, so don't shed a tear.

Consumers are coming back very soon.

Happy holidays to all, and to all Goodnight Moon!