Beginning today, I will be in transit to New York City and the delights and horrors of Book Expo America.
I’ll be posting on the go, giving you an opportunity to see both what is happening and how poorly I spell without a spellchecker.
If you use Twitter, I’ll be making posts to my account (twitter.com/gdonaghy), and using the hashtag #BEA09.
I think it’s odd that on the same day I receive an email asking me to participate in PW’s annual Salary/Job Satisfaction Survey, I read that people who work in publishing are among the world’s heaviest drinkers.
With BEA coming up this weekend, this sounds like a dare!
(via Mobylives, where I also stole this photo)
I don’t know if it’s a case of they just launched it, or I’m just hearing about it now, but either way, this is pretty cool.
Over at Atria Books’ Galley Grab website, booksellers and media can choose up to three titles from sixteen of their upcoming releases.
It’s nice to know that you won’t have to lug home every galley that caches your fancy at BEA next week.
(via Publishers Lunch)
PW has posted an excerpt of Chris Anderson’s upcoming book Free (Due in July from Hyperion).
It makes for interesting reading; the notion of giving books away for free. However, I can’t believe that he didn’t mention the grand-daddy of free-books-as-viral-marketing Seth Godin.
Then again, the excerpt is really brief.
Guess he doesn’t want to give too much away.
The good news is that, according to a report released by Bowker, “on demand” publishing (aka POD-Print on Demand) grew by 132% last year, with 285,394 new books being published in this format.
This is compared to traditional publishing, which shrank by 3.2%, publishing a mere 275,232 new books.
The bad news is that for professional book buyers, the throngs of POD authors peddling their wares continues to rise, with varying degrees of quality.
(Via GalleyCat)
You may not remember buying the book The Link: Uncovering Our Earliest Ancestor by Colin Tudge (LB HC 9780316070089 $25.99), because it was originally sold as Untitled by Anonymous.
Remember how well that worked for If I Did It?
This book was kept under wraps in order to capitalize on the big announcement about a fossil named Ida that is the evolutionary missing link.
Sadly, this hasn’t exactly vaulted the book to the top of the most wanted list, as it is currently residing at #725 on Amazon’s rankings.
Maybe it will pick up when the History Channel runs a documentary on the discovery. However, it’s hard not to be cynical when it is all part of an orchestrated media blitz.
Sherlock Holmes, meet Tyler Durden
I have to admit that I’ve never been a huge Sherlock Holmes fan (Hound of the Baskervilles was okay), but I really want to see this film, which is directed by Guy Ritchie. It could be one wildly entertaining trainwreck.
Talk about a Baker Street Irregular.
(Via PopWatch)
More images from the set of Scott Pilgrim vs. the World.
I’m posting this for no other reason than the fact that I can. If you thought I was annoying in the weeks leading up to the release of Watchmen, you ain’t seen nothing yet.
(edgarwrighthere.com via the Beat via Comics Alliance)
According to PW, Amazon has taken ” its most significant foray into publishing” in acquiring the world English rights to a self-published authored by a teenager.
What, did they just reprint the press release?
Color me jaded, but the acquisition of a self-published fantasy book by a company the size of Amazon is hardly a ’significant foray’. I haven’t read the book, so I don’t want to make a judgment call on that. However, unless Amazon was using its financial clout to outbid bona fide publishers, it’s really hard to take this seriously.
If they make a ton of cash selling it to readers and other bookstores (hey bricks & mortar bookstores, hasten your demise by buying Amazon’s books), let’s just call it a smartly played, but ultimately low-risk gamble.
