K-Fed

I'm in L.A. Today scoping out the location of BEA in 2008 and downtown LA is booming,  more on that when I have some time.  However more important than silly things relevant to my job is the fact that I saw Kevin Federline!  I was touring a hotel downtown and he was hanging out.  I offered him a slot on the BEA breakfast panel for 08.  And who says LA is not a literary town?

-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

Graphic Novel Sales and BEA Special Event Announcement Update

At the graphic novel conference on Thursday before New York ComicCon Milton Greipp announced that graphic novel sales for 2006 were almost $300 Million. Wow. Read my post From Thursday evening on this subject. This equals a 12% increase over 2005. These sales numbers are based on about 2,800 published book format comics and 2006 also saw the first year that book format comics outsold (in terms of dollars) standard comics.

While bookstore sales accounted for about $200 million of that total (and most of the remaining coming from comic stores) the report did not break down a percentage of chain versus independent bookstore sales. I would challenge you to visit your local Barnes and Noble followed by your local Booksense participating Independent bookstore. Compare the graphic novel and manga sections of those two stores and I think you’ll be able to tell (in an unscientific way) who is selling graphic novels, chains or indies.

Also, my brother asked me if my story yesterday about Kevin Smith was about THE Kevin Smith. And I realized that in my post ComicCon haze I did not write the best post, but yes, it was Kevin Smith the director of Clerks, Dogma, Mall Rats, etc. All great movies and worth checking out…..

Cliffs Notes: Good news! BEA special events should be ready to make public this week! Of course, you’ll get a sneak peak here first! I’m in the city for a friend’s play tonight and then off the West Coast for a few days on BEA business, I’ll blog from the road…..


- L

The Hardest Working Man in Comics - Stan Lee and some random ComicCon thoughts

3 days of New York ComicCon have left me blown away in every possible sense! I am exhausted, excited and a little ashamed (I think a wookie touched me inappropriately). My hat is off to the entire New York ComicCon team from my office, they built an amazing show for the over 60,000 estimated attendees. After a riotous inaugural show last year, they doubled in size this year and made the right moves to assure a great show for all.

Saturday morning the lines for the show extended down 11th Ave from 53rd street all the way back to 42nd street! But by noon all of those enthusiasts were in the Javits Center and actively consuming all that ComicCon had to offer.

My favorite ComicCon moment? Stan Lee's mad dash for a panel. Stan had been signing in the Marvel booth on the show floor and needed to get to a panel he was set to talk on at the other end of the Javits Center. Storm Troopers in full regalia from the local Garrison of the 501st Legion (a local chapter of Star Wars enthusiasts) surrounded and escorted him through the packed show floor. However half way to the destination he turned to the group and said, "this is not how you get to a panel on time" and took off sprinting though the crowd. So there is Stan Lee, the father of modern day comic books, at 83 years old running through New York ComicCon! The best part was the looks on people's faces, the very people that camped out in the cold at 5am for a chance to meet Stan Lee, as he flew past them!

Another ComicCon gem was Kevin Smith's talk on Saturday to a totally packed room of thousands. Basically nothing he said on stage can be repeated here, but damn he's funny. Before the event we took Kevin to the green room and opened the doors to a packed room of starlets left over from a previous panel about a forthcoming film that we won't name here. Kevin looked around and said that he'd rather stand on the loading dock and smoke than go in there - so that's just what he did!

My last Stan Lee story is proof of what a nice guy he is. He stayed all day to do 3 or 4 different events for his fans, then stayed and did interviews until after 10pm. My co-worker and fellow BEA teammate Steve Rosato stayed with him at the Javits. Afterwards Steve asked him to record a greeting to his family, so Stan did a great shout out to Steve's wife and kids via his phone video camera and then gave him a ride in his limo to the bar Mrs. BEA and I were waiting at. He is, at 83, the hardest (and nicest) working guy in comics.

3 16 hours days this weekend with the comic world have left me spent. I'll try and share a few more substantive and less fanboy thoughts in the next few days. Early Tuesday I fly to the west coast on BEA business, so expect some sporadic posts from the road.

Excelsior!

-L

Comic Conned – Are Publishers Afraid of Graphic Novels? They’re Just Pictures!

Bright and early tomorrow morning I’ll be heading into NYC to work the second annual New York ComicCon, which is run by Reed (the big company I work for) and conceived and created by former BEA Director Greg Topalian. Greg launched the show last year to results so dynamite that in the New York Comic world it’s become lore; “Hey, where were you when the cops showed up to shut down New York ComicCon?” Yeah it was the popular. The show is trade only for part of the day Friday and open to the public the remainder of the weekend with long hours. The show will double in size this year, and already, during set up day alone, people are nervous that the crowds will be more than double.

Publishing, for purposes of this discussion is a no growth industry, maybe 3% but that is not considered substantial growth. A major concern for publishers and booksellers alike is who the new readers will be, if there are any. And I look at a show like ComicCon and see the rampant enthusiasm for books and yet some members of the publishing community I’ve encountered dimiss Manga, Graphic Novels, Anime, and the like. I had one “publishing insider” say to me in reference to a graphic novel, “Those aren’t even books.” To be fair, that view is not held by all in the publishing community, but it was a big deal when “American Born Chinese” was nominated for a National Book Award this year, illustrating the outsider status this genre still occupies. Take a look at the sales numbers for graphic novels over the last 5 years (sorry, I couldn’t find 2006):

2001 -- $75 mil
2002 -- 110 mil
2003 -- 165 mil
2004 -- 207 mil
2005 -- 245 mil

Sales have more the tripled in graphic novel sales alone and the readership skews young. So, to summarize, we have dramatically growing sales to a new and emerging market and a product that is creative but could also be considered a “gateway” book (once younger consumers start reading they will only continue) and above all else: IT’S COOL! What’s the last FSG or Knopf title that Snoop Dogg endorsed?

I’ve been asked to serve as a “captain” at New York ComicCon (which really just means in exchange for a dirty hotel room near the Javitis Center, I’ll be on my feet for 12 hours a day Friday – Monday) and I can’t wait to watch and learn how books can create a tidal wave of enthusiasm that would require the cops to be called and in the process perhaps learn how books, as a whole, can continue to be cool , subversive and meaningful to a totally new group of readers.

Young people are reading books (albeit in a slightly different format than The Good Earth many of us read in high school), visit the Javits Center this weekend and witness the lines wrapped around the block for proof. What are we doing as an industry to engage that audience? What is BEA doing to capture that audience? I’ll be on my feet for 36 hours this weekend rubbing Yoda elbows with them, how about you?

-L

Happy Birthday to a Librarian with a Smart Mouth

Happy birthday to the boys from Unshelved who five years ago gave birth to a comic strip based on a “snarky” (there word, not mine) librarian named Dewey. Who knew then that 5 years later they would be making it to the big time of booksellers and librarians – BEA. OK, I kid somewhat, but an honest congratulations on making it 5 years on an idea fueled by wit, creativity and a belief that librarians are funny. If you’ve not seen the strip (or the blog for that matter) do check it out. I am also pleased that Bill and Gene of Unshelved will be presenting at BEA and creating a super cool comic strip for the show – look for details on the BEA web site soon.

Short post tonight due to a busy week, I trust you’ll forgive me…….

Lastly, I went to see a documentary on Iraq tonight (part of our never ending quest to find culture on the gold coast of Connecticut) only to find we had the date wrong by a week! So it was home to watch Manhattan on DVD. What a great flick, if for nothing else other than the shots of NYC and the line, “I can remember the last time I had Chianti from Warsaw.”

Controversy at BEA or Irrational Exuberance

Last week you blog readers got the news first that Alan Greenspan would be the conference keynote for BEA – meaning Dr. Greenspan would anchor our conference programming during the show. In an effort to find controversy (or something to write about!) the AP took the angle of what a conflict of interest it would be for Greenspan to be interviewed by his wife (and journalist) Andrea Mitchell. I really don’t mind getting into a debate over the programming at BEA, its value, selection process, bias, etc but this just seems to be a bit of a stretch. My take on all of this: Be patient, I’m certain to provide you with better fodder to second guess than this! And lastly, if Mrs. BEA were ever to interview me, I’d more be scared of what she’d ask me than a pussycat like Mike Wallace, Andrea Mitchell or any other professional journalist.

Cliffs Notes: Mrs. BEA just finished a National Book Award winner from the 40’s called How Green Was My Valley by Richard Llewellyn and raved about it through the whole read. It was a great find in the corner of the stacks at The Strand. BEA in NYC is almost completely sold out, can you believe that? We’ve got a few thousand square feet of space left, but not much. The show is almost 300,000 square feet in size and it’s almost all gone. I’ve got a great team here that works year round to build the 3 day extravaganza that is BEA. I picked up my on again off again slog through Post War by Tony Judt, I will not give up on this book, I just need occasional vacations from it.

-L

Librarians and Booksellers – Fellow Anarchists With Degrees?

I read The Times on Sunday to hear their take on the scandalous Newberry Medal Scrotum-gate affair (you can put “gate” after any scandal now, right? Plus, I think it’s even funnier when scrotum is the prefix). If you are not familiar with this story then I really sound crazy! Click here for The Times piece, but the gist of the situation is thus: The winning book for this years prestigious Newberry Medal for children’s literature includes the word “scrotum” in it and it’s opened up a debate about whether it is appropriate subject matter for kids. People, librarians in particular, are going nuts over it – hence The Times article on the subject.

The article references a librarian blog (misidentified by The Times as an electronic mailing list - what is that?) called Librarian.net which I subsequently spent hours reading. This is great stuff by an “anarchist librarian” named Jessamyn West – I kid you not! Please check it out, she is an amazing blogger and has a political and social perspective on libraries and librarians that will totally alter your view of that profession - or it did for me.

In one post she explains what it is to be an anarchist librarian and it struck me as a very similar description for what a bookseller might say about there chosen occupation, you be the judge: “In many ways, you have to be some sort of a radical to be a librarian. Start out super-smart, get a lot of education, then devote yourself to a low- to middle-paying social service job where even your friends make jokes about your co-workers -- if not you directly -- and think you can be replaced by a computer. It's no wonder a lot of us have something to say on the matter. “

OK, that sounds a little like some of the booksellers out there, doesn’t it? Certainly more than a few of them that I used to work with! Read the blog, you’ll not be sorry and as you may know this year BEA is trying very hard to make sure librarians know that the show is Librarian Friendly so I may just have to try and reach Jeesmyn, the Anarchist Librarian, to come do a talk at BEA…..

Cliffs Notes: I love the New York Review of Books, it’s such a treat getting it in the mailbox and poring through it immediately. I am always amazed by the quality of writers that contribute to the publication. But I also really love reading the personal ads way in the back. If you ever think love and romance are a thing of the past, read these ads. It’s mostly well educated singles over the age of 55 looking for companionship – it’s so cute. Another freakish reading habit of mine is The Times Sunday Style section. I like to read through Evening Out, a recap of the charity galas of note that week and pick out the most blue blood names in the lot, this week was Kipton Cronkite

Big Author Announcement for BEA!

Finally I can share with you one big announcement about the author related events we’ve been working on for BookExpo this year in New York. Former Federal Reserve Chairman Dr. Alan Greenspan will be our conference keynote speaker this year! This is pretty exciting as Greenspan received a healthy advance for his book, The Age of Turbulence from Penguin and the publisher plans to embargo the book which means BEA will be the first time that Greenspan will be speaking publicly in any forum about the book due out this fall. I am very, very excited for this opportunity. The event will take place Friday morning at 1pm and the room is sure to be jam packed. NBC News Chief Foreign Affairs correspondent Andrea Mitchell will be interviewing Greenspan – who happens to be an author herself and Greenspan’s wife.

Friday morning BEA will issue an official press release to the media with all the details, but it only seems fair that I get to share this news via my humble little blog as a sneak peak.

We created the conference keynote speaking platform this year as a way to highlight the great conference programming we do at the show. Not to be confused with the ABA Day of Education, BEA programs an amazing line up of panels and interviews highlighting issues and trends in the global publishing and book marketplace. This year we have a great lineup of conference events taking place that will surely be replicated by the other major book fairs around the world as they were last year (ok, that was a shameless plug for how good our conference is!). I’ll give you more details on conference topics soon, but look for compelling debate and presentations on both domestic and global issues that will have our business buzzing…..

OK I’m done with the shameless plugs, I promise. I also promise to keep you updated on all the other events we have been working on for the show as soon as I can. We almost have all of the breakfast, lunch and Saturday night events set we are just waiting on a few confirmations. However a late minute addition may have entered the race that we are working on and this individual would be a huge addition to the lineup. I guess you’ll have to check back on the blog to see what happens…….

-L

Fort Greene Rocks…..

I had coffee yesterday with Harold Augenbraum of the National Book Foundation and Johnny Temple of Akashic Books. The point was to discuss the Brooklyn Book Festival and how BEA can be involved, but it was also a chance to catch up with Harold and meet Johnny for the first time.

Johnny Temple is cool. He’s like the one cool kid in the Advanced Placement class you had in high school and you think, “man, he’s got it made, he’s smart and he’s like the coolest kid in school.” He used to be in a band called Girls Against Boys, which when I came home I punched up in iTunes, and they rock! He now runs Akashic Books out of Brooklyn and has his band as a hobby (and his hobby is touring Europe this month!). Akashic however has the best motto of any publisher out there, “Akashic Books - Reverse gentrification of the literary world.” Johnny is also deeply involved with the Brooklyn Book Festival and I’m exited about some of the ideas we came up with for how BEA can help support and sponsor the festival this year, it’s going to be a new direction for BEA and one that I’m really proud of.

As for Harold and the National Book Foundation, don’t forget that you can listen to the National Book Awards via the BookExpo Cast podcast and also check out the new podcasts from the foundation from there Eat, Drink and Be Literary series. If the podcast is too inconvenient for you, try going in person! They happen every month and the schedule is posted right here.

Is podcast two words?

6 Degrees of Carl

I want start to highlight a few of the new things I’ve been working on for BEA this year – mostly because I’ve learned that some of my bosses read this blog and I want them to think I’m productive. So even if it’s not true, please help me keep up the charade because I really like my job……

Check out the front page of BEA.com today as I just added a new feature call Book Industry Characters where I ask different personalities from the industry 15 questions. The first in this series is Carl Lennertz from Harper Collins, who if you don’t know, you can read his Book Industry Character profile and get to know him. Then try a 6 degrees of Carl and I almost guarantee that within 3 people you’ll find you have connection to him. The profiles are to call attention to the new social networking and show planning feature we are launching called My BEA. It’s going to be really cool.

My BEA will launch in April and you can create a profile, search for BEA events, panels, exhibitors, etc. It will also let you see who else is going to BEA from your area, who is attending the same panels you are planning to, you can connect with friends before the show via My BEA and even print walking maps of the show floor based on the appointments you enter into the program. I think My BEA is going to be a great tool for planning your time at BEA but event better it will let you connect with all the people you all see once a year before the show even starts. I think, much like BEA, it will be a great tool for doing business and a lot of fun to boot. So check out the Book Industry Characters and learn about My BEA, we’ll have a new profile every week, who knows, you could be next…… Plus it’ll help me stay employed!

-L

BEA in February? That’s What It Feels Like……

This is hard to believe, but a lot of BookExpo is getting set this week! Crazy, I know. The largest marketing piece we create is the Event Program, which is about 40 pages long and lists almost all of the author events, conferences, concurrent programs (meaning stuff that happens at BEA that we don’t actually create), floor plans, hours, etc, etc, etc. We mail this program to 110,000 people around the world which means it has to reach people a couple of months before the show so they can read it, get excited about what we’ve been working on and register to come! With that many pieces being mailed to that many places, it takes a while, so the deadline for the event program is this Wednesday!

It seems crazy that by Valentines Day we will have many of the exciting details of BEA set (or in theory set any way) – that just seems so early. However, I gotta tell you, things are shaping up to be pretty cool and I think this show is going to be absolutely amazing.

Wait until you see the authors we have confirmed for the breakfasts and lunches, and the Saturday night program will blow you away – I honestly believe that our Saturday night program will be the hottest ticket in NYC that week and no one can get it except for you guys!

Our conference sessions are going to be both global and local in nature, they will be compelling, controversial and entertaining. Not to mention the new conference key note event which will be filled by a huge personality who’s book has been embargoed so BEA will be the first place this individual will even speak about it.

We have new programs for cookbook authors, great events highlighting independent publishers, a kick ass opening ceremony for the show, and on and on.


OK, as soon as I can tell you all the details I will, but know that BEA is shaping up damn nicely right now and sooner than maybe you ever realized! Can you tell I'm excited? I've been working for 6 months already to create a great show and its starting to come together - more on those 6 months in a future post. Now I’ve gotta run and make sure we make our big deadline……

-L

IPG Passes on PGW – Suchomel Explains…..

In a blog post last week after NBN threw its hat into the PGW derby I wondered why Independent Publishers Group had not made an offer. I have come to respect President Mark Suchomel’s business sense a great deal and he has always struck me as a smart, aggressive and calculating businessman so I assumed there was good reasoning and logic why IPG had passed on the opportunity. Well, in a letter to IPG publishers on Friday he explained exactly why IPG chose not to make an offer to PGW clients. To sum it up in a sentence, “Strategically, there isn’t a compelling reason to combine the two companies.”

Suchomel further explains the decision not to make an offer to PGW clients thusly, “First and foremost, the disruption it would cause for our staff and our clients might result in a slippage of service to our existing clients and customers. We feel that the way to grow a distributor is not to see how many clients we can sign up but to offer a tremendous value for an important service, to continue to help grow the business of our client publishers, and to be selective with whom we work.”

In the end it seems clear that IPG prefers a model of smaller but “better” making sure that the company remains privately held, selective of whom they distribute and able to provide what they feel is superior service to those distributed publishers.

As an editorial aside, in a backhanded way it almost sounds as though IPG is answering some of the concerns of the PGW clients which is, “How will my titles get any attention when the distributor has so many clients?” IPG seems to be positioning itself as a sort of boutique distributor of boutique publishers (if you can be considered boutique when you are the 3rd largest distributor in the market, think of that phrase relatively speaking).

I’m not judging any of these distributors decisions as it’s far from my place to do so, but it is refreshing to hear someone say that biggest is not always best if it does not serve the organizations goals, employees and customers. To that end a parting shot from Suchomel’s letter, “Although we were projected to be the second largest distributor this year, up from the number three spot, we’re happy to remain third largest and the healthiest financially.”

-L

Hitt This......

I am a devout listener of This American Life from NPR via the handy Audible pod cast. In fact I'm a big enough nerd that I paid cash money to go see Ira Glass live and in "concert". How can a guy who hosts a documentary radio show get away with doing live appearance? He and his show are that good, that's how!

The show about three weeks back titled The Super, had a story by Jack Hitt about the super of a building he lived in in NYC - it is a simply amazing story. Too fantastic to be true, but true! I could never do the story justice, so check it out yourself. I had actually heard Hitt tell this story a few years back in New Haven at a storytelling event called The Moth (Jonahtan Ames also performed who is a hilarious storyteller and author). The Moth is still active in NYC and beyond and it's worth checking out. The Moth is like This American Life meets stand up comedy meets therapy and you'll get an idea......

-L

Lending Tree For Book Distributors?

How does the commercial go? "When banks compete, you win". With National Book Network entering the PGW fray and besting the offer to PGW clients over Perseus it sounds a little like that doesn't it?

On my plane ride home from Portland I sat next to someone from Perseus and we discussed the situation at length (we had the better part of six hours after all!). We were both surprised that neither NBN (at the time) or even more, Mark Suchomel's Independent Publishers Group had made an offer to PGW clients. Could IPG be next to make a play?

While it is very encouraging that PGW clients now have greater choice with the NBN offer it is more than a little disconcerting that the consolidation of our business continues. It has become expected that the major houses will gobble up small publishers when the trend strikes (a few years back it was spiritual publishers, now graphic novel houses) but to see the consolidation of distribution too seems unsettling. We are business that prides itself on our independence and if the customer is ultimately served, why worry I suppose.

This all reminds me of a conversation at had about a year ago with a Random House executive. I asked him what it was like working at Random House and he said flat out that it was incredible, but at times, he wakes up and realizes that he works for a gigantic global corporation - very at odds with the spirit of why he got into this business in the first place.

Let's hope that as consolidation continues on many levels of our business that the independent, creative and artistic spirit that drew many of us to this industry does not get eliminated as a redundancy in the process.

-L

Indy Bookstores - More Profitable Than GM!

"Bookselling is not real estate or oil but you can do better than General Motors."

American Booksellers Association CEO, Avin Domnitz.

The comments were made during a meeting at the Winter Institute last week in Portland announcing sales statistics from a sampling of about 100 independent bookstores.

For a complete recap of the meeting read Tuesday's Shelf Awareness, John Mutter recaps the meeting masterfully.


-L

Reading and Drinking

We all have passions in life and we all have skills and I was lucky enough to create an opportunity where both intersected. When I was General Manager of Bound to be Read bookstore in St. Paul (which all of us former booksellers from there now refer to as Bound to be Dead) I formed a book club called Books and Bars. The premise was simple - I'd like to be able to drink and talk about books (wait, isn't that also what BEA and The Winter Institute degenerate into after 5pm?).


I partnered with the local alternative weekly, City Pages, and one of my bad ideas saw the light of day. We met in a local bar once a month and the bar gave us free food for delivering customers on a usually slow Tuesday night. After a few months the club was drawing around 80 people and I'd typically sell about 100 copies of the book selected. It was a great chance to meet new people and talk about books you might never read. Populist by design it was as much about interactions as it was about the books. That was my favorite night of the month and one time I didn't mind hauling boxes of books across the Twin Cities until late into the night.


After Bound to be read closed and I moved away Books and Bars lived on and is still going strong to this day. Pretty cool, check it out: Book and Bars. They are meeting next week if you happen to be in Minneapolis! Could beer and books in the hinterland be my legacy? I can think of worse.....

Another time I'll share the story of the ill fated Banned Book Week, book burning BBQ event I hatched in conjunction with The Onion.

Quick Hit: So on the subject of booze and books; what will replace the legendary PGW parties at BEA? They always threw the best party of the big pubs. Maybe one of the more literary imprints will take a departure from its image and give the shindig format a whirl. Knopf party featuring the Brazilian Girls?

Portland, Succession Plans, the “Point of BEA”, Owls and Prince

Just back from the ABA Winter Institute in Portland and what an absolutely fabulous event the ABA has created. It’s two plus solid days of educational panels for booksellers covering everything from how to grow sales to how to design a better store logo. Great stuff. I mentioned the “buzz” books of the show in my previous post and please check them out. Raw Shark Text is quite impressive after a few chapters of reading on the plane.

I attended last year’s inaugural Winter Institute as a bookseller and was just on the cusp of needing a new job and the institute proved to be great networking in addition to the education. This year I attended 4 or 5 panel presentations and participated in one as well (which means I have presented on a panel at every Winter Institute in the history of the ABA – I think I can take most of the credit then for the success of the event! Sorry Len, I think I’ve earned this). See the picture of the huge nerd on the far right for proof. All was going well until a bookseller raised there hand and asked me, “So what is, like, the point of BEA?” I just turned and ran out of the room.

It was great to connect with bookseller friends over the week and even better to hear that there are a few of them in discussions to buy stores they work at. No one that can be named, but great booksellers and great stores – good luck and you know who you are!

I was also impressed with the presentation by author Daniel Pink about the rise of right brain thinking and creative skills in the work place (there is great recap on Shelf Awareness from Monday) frankly his argument is not all that original, but his presentation skills were outstanding and he had the perfect audience in independent booksellers. I also noticed that he has just sold rights to a new book.

It was good to be home after two West Coast trips in two weeks I’m looking forward to a little bit of time at home before hitting the road again.

2 Quick Hits:

Word was that a Great Snowy Owl could be seen along the Hudson River in Nyak, so Mrs. BEA and I made the 40 minute drive and hiked in freezing weather to find this owl. Amazing and well worth it. 4 foot wing span at least, about 2 feet tall, eyes like saucers, stunning and we saw it quite close up. Rare as the snowy owl is reclusive.

Prince at the half time show? Cool. Bought Purple Rain off I Tunes before kick off of the second half. As a fellow Minnesotan, I think I owe it to him.

Portland - City of Books(ellers)

I'm blogging from Portland where the ABA Winter Institute is taking place currently. I'll post more on my time here later, but today was interesting in that I spoke with Morgan Entrekin, Publisher of Grove/Atlantic Books who has left PGW (or did PGW leave them???) and actually sounded quite optimistic about the shake up, "The Perseus offer is actually going to create a more stable platform for independent publishers.....A lot of PGW clients are signing up as we speak." In regards to the PGW personnel that many independent booskellers have come to know and love, Entrekin told an assembled audience of booksellers, "Call Perseus and tell them how much you love your PGW rep....."

It was interesting to hear thoughts on the PGW situation from the publisher of one of the most respected (and largest) independent publishers.

On the book scene, I was most excited about a Grove/Atlantic title (Morgan does know how to sell a book!) called The Raw Shark Texts by Steven Hall. Also big hits his weekend are the Dead Father's Club by Matt Haig and The God of Animals by Aryn Kyle. In all three cases booksellers were extremely enthusiastic about the books, particularly The God of Animals. I grabbed galley's of each and can't wait to read......BEA, as an event, always struggles to find platforms for new writers such as these to feature there works, I am hoping we can find a way from them to be involved.

One thought on our business: I love that one of the biggest boosters of The God of Animals by Simon and Schuster is Craig Poplears, marketing Director for Algonquin Books - a competitor. I love that we work in a business that great work transcends corporate lines. Craig has raved about the book so much that S&S had to point out that the book is not an Algonquin title! That's like Ford advertising for a Chevy car! Point being we work in a unique and wonderful business where the art is still elevated above the commerce from time to time.

More from Portland soon, I promise, but it's late and Mr. BEA has a presentation to ABA booksellers at 8:30 tomorrow morning!

-L

The War

I was treated to an advance screening of Ken Burns new documentary The War last week. It's due out this fall on PBS with a book from Knopf due out at the same time. What an exceptional filmmaker Burns is and what a canvas to work with - PBS has committed most of its prime air time to The War this fall. The film documents World War Two from beginning to end in all theatres of battle. It's told through the people of four American cities; Waterbury, CT, Sacramento, CA, Birmingham, AL and Luverne, MN.

One of the more interesting observations from the extremely articulate Burns at the screening; While seeking archival footage from various governments, Germany and Japan charged precipitously more than any other country for access to the footage. Hmmmmm.

-L