The Last Don

BEA offices were buzzing today with news the Random House COO Don Weisberg was leaving the company. We were all surprised and then immediately disappointed. Many on the BEA team have worked with Don for many years and held him in high regard for his direct, honest and genuine insights into and love for the business of creating and selling books.

The first time I met Don was at BEA in 2006 after taking the position of director. He made it clear to me that his vote was for BEA to give Vegas a whirl in a future year. I then had the chance to sit down with him for an extended period this summer and his vision for Random House, BEA and this business in general truly struck me. I was challenged and inspired more than a bit.

While I did not work with him directly for a long period of time I did get to work with Random Housers like Ruth Liebmann, David Underwood, Jack Looney, Polly Schatz and Paul Kozlowski all who held Don in the utmost regard and who's own opinions I hold well above reproach.


If I'm still at the helm of BEA in 2010, there will be a pass waiting for Don Weisberg at the Las Vegas Convention Center - but he'll have to pay his own greens fees.

-L

Blogging on the Run

I figured out how to blog from my Blackberry, directly.  Now I can write blogs from bar restrooms, Metro North trains, or corporate meetings!

Just left a meeting with Karin Taylor the Executive Director of the Small Press Center (www.smallpress.org - sorry I can't link via the Blackbery) as we are plotting and planning some cool events and programs for independent publishers at BEA this year.  I have been impressed with Karin and the Press Center at every turn.  They provide great events, education and services to this vital (and cool) part of our business.  Check them out online or better yet, support the next event at the Small Press Center.

L
Lance Fensterman
Event Director BookExpo America
203-840-5507 (office)
203-417-3607 (cell)
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Sent from my BlackBerry Wireless Handheld

Regan and Bush

Rushed home today to grab the New York mag out of the mailbox and read more about the scandalous adventures of Judith Regan (we just can't get enough can we?). And I was a bit disappointed - kind of a friendly piece I thought and who really cares about her diet? However, the short piece by Christopher Buckley on Bush's subliminal State of the Union speech thoughts was damn funny! Check it out and only skim the Regan piece for the nasty quotes about men........

NY Mag, put me on the payroll........

-L

My Andy Rooney Moment

Just saw The Departed and sat through 30 minutes of commercials and previews before thr flick!  Ok, the previews I can deal with (The Simpsons Movie, yes!) But commercials?  Perhaps books should take the cue, and fill the first 15 pages with ads for Verizon and Citi Bank.........

-L
Lance Fensterman
Event Director BookExpo America
203-840-5507 (office)
203-417-3607 (cell)
--------------------------
Sent from my BlackBerry Wireless Handheld

New York ComicCon Video

BEA's sibling show is the ultra cool New York ComicCon (February 23-25 in NYC) has a cool new video, check it out! As a sibling show (I can't really say sister show because that just does not sound right) I'm going to pitch in. So what do they ask me to do? Light Stan Lee's cigars? Make sandwiches for Kevin Smith? Polish Darth Vader's light sabre? No, they ask me to manage to Comic Store - yup, once a bookseller, always a bookseller, it's tough to break out of the retails world I tell ya.

Check out the video, it's pretty clever.....

Funnier Than Haggar The Horrible

1/26

My favorite “networking” in Seattle at the ALA Mid Winter conference? Having lunch with Bill Barnes of Unshelved. If you haven’t seen it, he and his partner do a great daily comic strip just for librarians. He’s a clever guy with a quick wit, and I certainly don’t think of myself as a slouch either (whether I actually am witty or not is entirely up to you to decide) which means the waitress was ready to kill us by the end of lunch.

Check out Unshelved, and in particular the store, great, great T-Shirts, almost as funny as the one’s in sale from The Onion.

- Lance

Librarians Gone Wild

1/25

Last post about the Fray by The Bay (the BEA - Berkshire Publishing party at ALA Mid Winter), I promise. Here is a link to a group Karen Christensen of Berkshire set up on Flickr with pictures of the event. Yes, you’ll have to create a Flickr user account, but no, I’m not getting a kick back from Yahoo for driving droves of the curious to the site (I tried, but alas they don’t need my help I guess). I look like a complete goof in all of them, so they promise to entertain! Click here and then join the group to view shots of librarians gone wild: BEA-Berkshire Party Pics

- Lance

Librarians In Outer Space

1/24


Seattle was the place to be for librarians this weekend at the ALA Mid Winter Conference. I was privileged to co-host a party for librarians with Berkshire Publishing on Monday evening at the Seattle Public Library and let me tell you I have seen the future and the Seattle Public Library is it. I now know what a lunar library would look like – and it’s cool! In all seriousness, that library rocks, think Frank Gehry on acid – no maybe that is even too tame.


BEA and Berkshire (they have a great book out called Libraries We Love) hosted about 200 librarians at the party, and things got hectic enough that I jumped behind the bar and started slinging drinks. The best part of tending the librarian bar? The glasses only held about 10 ounces of beer, so in the name of the preservation of resources, I had to finish most of those beers – yup, all in a days work for the thirsty BEA Director…..



My hats off to librarians everywhere – you know how to have a good time; work hard, play hard and quantify it all out to the second decimal place.
- Lance

Do Brains Grow Hair?

1/23

3 days and counting in lovely Seattle hanging out with Librarians at the ALA Mid Winter Conference. I am unveiling a brand new program just for Librarians at BEA called Librarian Friendly and I must say, librarians have some big brains! My brother in law is a youth librarian back on the prairies in Minnesota, and he too dwarfs me intellectually (in spite of the relativity in that statement, it is a valid compliment!). I was handing out handmade dark chocolate hearts to librarians and they all knew exactly what elements of chocolate was good for you (it’s the anti oxidants), which I don’t think I would have heard form booksellers. From my bookselling friends we would’ve laughed about a Heart of Darkness play on words, or some joke involving the Telltale Heart, but antioxidants? I say again, librarians have big brains! My next question is, I’ve noticed a lot of the gent librarians grow beards – a higher number than the civilian population, could it be the big brains increase facial hair growth?

- Lance

A Writer Without an Audience – Paging PMA!

I feel like a first time author with this blog; just a guy who is passionate about what I do hoping my words find an audience! Alas, there is no great bookseller out there who is passionate abut my quirky style that will foist my words onto unsuspecting bookstore browsers – how does one hand sell a blog?

In the absence of hand selling, I’ll do what any debut author would do, I’m hitting the road to promote my BEA Blog. This weekend it’s Seattle to try and convince librarians at the American Librarians Association Midwinter Conference that my blog is better than reading the Unshelved comic every day (a losing battle as those guys have move wit in one sketch than I’ll have in a year of blogs). Next up on my blogapalooza is Portland, OR for the American Booksellers Association Mid Winter Institute. Booksellers are too smart to believe my promise of insights, wit and occasionally politically incorrect observations about our book world, but I’ll try, perhaps if I could give out an Advance Reading version of the blog they’d swarm to it! Just a few weeks after that I will take the blog global, hoping that perhaps those to whom English as a second language will find me insightful and charming. A tour through Western Europe with stops in the UK, Netherlands and finally Italy. Surely Rizzoli’s parent company will fall in love with my blog and create a beautiful coffee table book of it compete with images of me and my Blackberry blogging on the Mediterranean.

As you can clearly see, this blog may not yet have an audience, or perhaps never will, but I will spare no expense to try and find one.

- Lance