This has nothing to do with books, but there is a monster of a worm making the rounds, and is set to do its worst damage today. It’s called Cornflicker.c, or the April’s Fool Worm.
This is a pretty good article about what to look for and steps you can take to insulate yourself from disaster.
(photo: Getty Images-swiped from cnn.com)
At this year’s SXSW conference, the panel New Think For Old Publishing disintegrated into an episode of Geraldo, minus the chair throwing.
Writing at PW, Peter Miller, director of publicity for Bloomsbury, was at ground zero, and offers some advice for those who would follow in his footsteps.
My favorite bit of advice is Don’t answer the question “what’s your hashtag?” with “Is that like my Zodiac sign?”.
Back in February, I posted a link to GalleyCat, that mentioned that in the wake of HarperCollins restructuring, one of their authors, Stephen Viscusi, was offering his resume-building services at a fifty percent discount to their recently laid-off employees.
I commented that I found it possibly charitable, but also kind of distasteful to make a buck off publishing’s fresh roadkill.
Flash forward to this weekend, and in the comments (amongst about eighty or so pieces of spam advertising Viagra and pornography) was a message left by Mr. Viscusi.
I approved the comment, but, worried that somebody might miss a response to the month-old ramblings of a publishing gadfly, I’m reproducing it (along with my rebuttal) below.
Hi Mr, Viscusi!
I appreciate that you took the time to comment on my linkage/snark. While nobody likes to be branded an opportunist, it was difficult to interpret the story I read otherwise.
Part of my general issue I guess stems not so much from the offer, but from my feeling that as a responsible employer, HarperCollins should have offered these services, whether they were provided by you or somebody else, free as part of their severance package. The fact that they sold former reps their old laptops (probably after writing off their depreciation from their taxes), rather than just letting them keep them fuels my general distrust.
You directed me to “look it up” in the New Yorker. I must have missed that issue, but if you provide me with an issue date, or better yet a link, I’ll gladly append it to my original piece.
Just to be clear, was the offer always free, or did it become free somewhere down the line? If you waived the fee after hearing from more than 50 former HC staffers (as the GalleyCat update indicates), then kudos to you.
The 2009 Pacific Northwest Book Awards were held this past weekend at the glamorous Heathman Hotel in Portland.
Good Dog Carl was in attendance, and I managed to get a picture of him (below-iPhones do a lot of cool things, take good pictures is not one of them). He was accompanying Alexandra Day as she accepted her Lifetime Achievement Award from PNBA.
One award winner who was not in attendance, sadly, was the late Terry Toedtemeier, co-author of Wild Beauty: Photographs of the Columbia River Gorge (1867-1957), who passed away in December while promoting his labor of love.
Congratulations to this year’s winners:
Guernica: A Novel by Dave Boiling
The Art of Racing In The Rain: A Novel by Garth Stein
Selected Poems 1970-2005 by Floyd Skloot
American Buffalo: In Search of a Lost Icon by Steven Rinella
Wild Beauty: Photographs of the Columbia River Gorge (1867-1957) by Terry Toedtemeier and John Laursen
If you want to see the short list of nominees, click here.
I’ve always enjoyed Douglas Rushkoff’s writings (Ecstasy Club, Media Virus, Coercion), and, when I had a chance to meet him at BEA one year, he turned out to be a really nice guy as well.
In this video, he tells us how publishing is basically signing its own death certificate. It’s gloomy, but informative.
His newest book is called Life Inc. : How the World Became a Corporation and How To Take It Back, due in June from Random House.
I’m surprised that this hasn’t created a lot more hay in the industry, or maybe I just haven’t been paying attention. The only reason I know about it is that somebody sent me a link to this blog post.
But, it seems that Hachette Book Group USA, one of the few mega-publishers that is doing well in this economy (thanks to Stephenie Meyer, David Sedaris, and Goodnight Bush) has decided to decimate their co-op program.
Hachette has decided to drop not only their newsletter and Emerging Voices co-op programs, they’re also eliminating their author event co-op program. Bad news for debut novelists.
According to Arsen Kashkashian, buyer at Boulder Book Store, this will cost the average independent bookseller around $3,000 (or about 1/23000 of what they paid Tina Fey for her book).
There are some publishers that I would expect this from, especially the ones that are struggling. But Hachette has, more than the others, willing to go out on a limb with independent booksellers to make a case for their books, particularly from new authors.
Oh well. Guess when the Hachette rep comes a-knocking, most book buyers will be acting like a Jehovah’s Witness is at the door.
Over at Jacket Copy, Lori Kozlowski has a great interview with Ralph Keyes, author of I Love It When You Talk Retro: Hoochie Coochie, Double Whammy, Drop a Dime, and the Forgotten Origins of American Speech (Macmillan HC 9780312340056 $25.95), which is due out next week.
This book looks like it’ll be a gas for trivia wonks.
Rumor has it that the original trailer for director Spike Jonze’s adaptation of the children’s classic Where the Wild Things Are was a bit too rough for kids, driving kids who saw it to tears.
Warner Brothers has released a new trailer, but, having not seen the earlier one, I can’t comment on how much tamer this one is.
I will say that the trailer looks so saccharine, all it’s missing is Peter Gabriel’s Solsbury Hill on the soundtrack.
I was wrong.
South Korean electronics giant Samsung unveiled the Papyrus, an e-reader, that while having a snazzy touch screen and a stylus, is downright homely.
Gizmodo has the stats.
On the plus side, it’s cheaper than both the Kindle and the Sony SR-700.
(Uncredited photo from original Gizmodo.com article)
Picador has started a Twitter book club, debuting with Yoko Ogawa’s The Housekeeper & the Professor.
GalleyCat has all the details.
While this book isn’t my cup of tea, I think this is a smart use of a social networking site. And it seems to be tailor made for debut fiction. While somebody like Stephen King would get carpet bombed with tweets, a hungry new author can cultivate fans for life if they play their cards right.
Still don’t know what Twitter is? Maybe this will light a fire under your butt to find out.
on March 29th, 2009 at 4:21 pm
I’m Stephen Viscusi, author of Bulletproof Your Job (HarperCollins). I want to clarify something: most of those fired from HarperCollins were in the editorial department – people I worked closely with who became dear friends. To be clear, I offered a consultation and resume to them free of charge – not for 50% off. There’s nothing tasteless about offering free consultations. But if you’re unemployed, what would be tasteless about getting even just 50% off anyway?
I spoke with and rewrote resumes for nearly 50 HC employees. The irony is that none of them were in the sales department, all editorial. It’s interesting to me that the creative people who actually buy the books get blamed because another department can’t sell them. Someone needs to keep better track of the publishers to see why their sales departments aren’t performing for them.
As a journalist, you should know that your report was inaccurate. You can look it up in the New Yorker and in many other sources.