Confessions of an Idiosyncratic Mind

Smatterings, the LBF Edition

One of these years I do hope I can swing a trip over to London in time for the Book Fair, which kicked off earlier today. Then again, considering how crap the US Dollar is against the Pound, this may happen later rather than sooner...

The Bookseller has pretty much all your LBF News needs, but some of today's more interesting highlights include Australia wanting to break away from Commonwealth rights, challenges for the Arabic book world, McSweeney's landing a UK publisher, the buzz surrounding Fatima Bhutto's memoir proposal, and Miss Daisy Frost's amusing blog post. And if you look through the virtual edition of the Bookseller's LBF Daily, don't miss Brian Freeman's back-page essay on the ten ways authors can make themselves useful at the Fair.

Publishing News is already doing a bang-up job out of the LBF coverage gate, too, especially with regards to deals. Of note from a crime fiction standpoint: Eric Garcia's REPOSSESSION MAMBO will not only be a movie starring Jude Law, but will be published by Arrow in 2009 (no US deal that I can find on it yet.) Also, Matt Hilton's new police series has found an American home, just sold to David Highfill at William Morrow. And LBF's official magazine, the Deal, is edited by Danuta Kean.

The BBC has video,while the Evening Standard previews the rest of the week's offerings. And Kirsty at the OUP blog delivers her first impression of LBF: "Wow."

How to Translate a Publishing Press Release

Publishers Marketplace reports that Janet Silver, Houghton Mifflin's former publisher, will join  Nan A. Talese/Doubleday as editor at large. As per Doubleday Broadway president Steve Rubin, "the addition of Janet to the venerable publishing tradition of Nan A. Talese not only marks the convergence of two extraordinary sensibilities but also signals our deep commitment to the tradition of literary excellence that has always defined Nan's publishing program."

In other words, "Finally, we get our mitts on Philip Roth on the hardcover side, too." And since Roth's next book, INDIGNATION, has only been announced as selling to Penguin Canada's Nicole Winstanley, look for a few more announcements on that front soon.

What the Jackal Says

I have my issues with Portfolio, Conde Nast's business mag, for all the usual reasons, mostly wondering if it will actually survive beyond a year. But then it publishes pieces like Lloyd Grove's lengthy Q&A with literary agent Andrew Wylie and I'm left to wonder what other rabbits will emerge from the magazine's hat. Here's a small sample:

L.G.: Who's giving you, at this point, the greater cash flow—your dead authors or your live ones?

A.W.: Probably live—yeah, I'm sure it's live. But there are some considerable estates that we represent. Our business, the best piece of it, is all about figuring out—when a writer is young—whether they will, in the course of time, write many books which will remain in print, in many languages. And then to get those writers into the right hands, internationally, country by country, so that their revenues and their presentation internationally will be maximized. In the case of older, more established writers, who come to us later in their careers, what we find is that usually agencies in this country have not a very thorough knowledge of foreign markets and don't have a lot of access to those markets directly. They operate as subagents. So they don't really understand the difference between one house and another. And furthermore, they don't really know the people involved. So, because I have traveled so much, and concentrated so much on this aspect of the business, I can pick up the phone and tell [leading French publisher] Antoine Gallimard that I think this writer is very important, and because we know each other and he knows that for 20 years, I haven't done this every few months, that there must be a reason for it, then it's probably worth paying attention to. And so we also look at getting a writer's rights renewed on a regular basis-redesigned, re-presented, so we're quite a lot more diligent at that side of the business than I think all of our competitors are. Because I think their focus is more national. So our bet, financially speaking, is that if you are going to represent quality, you must do so internationally, and it must be a long-term bet. So all our representations are representations made in the belief that the people we represent will last and will be published internationally.

Read the rest, especially about how repackaging Philip Roth's backlist made him a star internationally.

Not the Way to Keep a Viable Business Running

The saga of PFD has rightfully dominated UK publishing trade press, what with a new managing director, a failed buyout, mass agent exodus lamely disguised as firings, and a new agency, United Agents, in the works to debut in January. So what does David Buchler, Chairman of PFD's parent company CSS Stellar, do now? Set up a company with almost the exact same name as the breakaway agents, reports the Bookseller's Joel Rickett:

CSS Stellar chairman David Buchler has set up a company called United Agents Group, a name almost identical to that chosen by the breakaway PFD agents for their new venture. Buchler's move is believed to be a spoiler tactic to further destabilise the agents, who quit PFD after he took control of parent group CSS Stellar in the summer.

The departed agents, including books chief Caroline Dawnay, incorporated United Agents Ltd at Companies House on 25th September. Its directors include Peter Bennett-Jones, chairman of television producer Tiger Aspect. They are still finalising funding and new premises.

On 9th October another company was registered as United Agents Group Ltd. The address given matches PFD's headquarters on Russell Street WC2, and Buchler has now been appointed as the sole director of United Agents Group. On the documentation the former Tottenham Hotspur FC vice-chairman is described as a chartered accountant; a list of his other directorships includes the English National Opera.

Can we say petty, boys and girls? Oh, I think so. Or as Michael Cader just put it in Publishers Lunch, "sounds like a great way of reassuring the people that PFD is supposedly recruiting to fill all the empty seats that they're going to work for a great guy, doesn't it?" You bet.

Making Connections

November 7: HarperCollins reports on a "lousy quarter", as last year's sales fell 6% and earnings dropped 21% in the first quarter, and in the period ended September 30 this year sales fell 11.5%, to $330 million, and operating income plunged 52.8%, to $36 million.

November 13: Judith Regan files a $100 million lawsuit against her former employers, CEO Jane Friedman and parent company News Corp., accusing the parties of "willfully, systematically and maliciously defaming Regan" on 24 causes of action.

Sometime before the end of 2007: Settlement in the works.

How Will the Writers' Strike Affect Publishing

At a book party last night, I was talking to an agent about this very subject and she brought up an interesting point: that unlike literary agencies, who at least generate considerable revenue stream from the backlist, Hollywood talent agencies depend heavily on frontlist and new proposals - and a strike, especially a long one, will bring about a significant drought in salable materials.

The LA Times' Josh Getlin gets into this a bit but concentrates more on how the strike affects publishing proper:

Some observers already see signs that the books-to-film pipeline has been affected: "I don't think there are going to be any major negotiations concluded, maybe not even any offers tendered, while the strike is on," said Richard Curtis, a New York literary agent.

The one exception, he and others suggested, is that studios will still be in the hunt for the rights to literary blockbusters, should they come on the market during the strike. Given the potential payoff, Curtis said, "someone will always find a smart way to get around it [the strike]. It will be a handshake between a studio and an agent, an understanding that basically says, 'We'll have a deal [on optioning film rights] subject to the conclusion of the strike.' "

If all else fails, many Hollywood writers may be looking to New York for steady work. Indeed, the publishing world is gearing up for an influx of proposals for new book deals from screenwriters.

"Writers are writers, after all, and there's nothing stopping them from dusting off that novel they've meant to get back to when they had time," said Simon Lipskar, an agent with Writers House in New York. "Obviously, they now have the time."

This is where I wish I had an active Lexis account or that Publishers Marketplace existed back in 1988. Was there a similar flux of novel submissions from screenwriters back then? What books might not have been published had a strike not happened for so long? More to the point, how else could this strike affect the book industry?

Dollar Parity Not Reflected in Publishing

Having spent the past week in Canada, I'm all the more aware of how the Canadian dollar has strengthened to the point where it's now just about on par with the American dollar - but Canadian book pricing is still way out of line as a result of the industry's institutional inability to alter pricing as quickly as the dollar shifts up or down. Which is why you're seeing a lot more stories along the lines of what the New York Times' Ian Austen reported last Friday:

Elene Fromanger saw little evidence of the Canadian dollar’s new might when she went shopping for health care books on Friday afternoon.

All of them were marked with separate prices for Canada and the United States. With the Canadian dollar now at par with the United States currency, no calculator was needed to discover that Ms. Fromanger paid $18 more before sales tax than an American shopper would have for the same three books.

“It’s ridiculous,” she said outside a downtown Ottawa bookstore. “They still charge more, but the dollar has been going up for two years. I find it inexcusable.”

...As Ms. Fromanger’s shopping trip demonstrates, the anger toward book publishers largely stems from the fact that theirs is one of a small number of products, including newspapers and magazines, that typically display prices for Canada and the United States.

“We’re always the lightning rod when the dollar goes up or down,” said Dave Hill, the manager of Munro’s Books of Victoria, a large independently owned shop in Victoria, British Columbia. “But it’s a lot more complicated issue than the customers perceive.”

And so there have been price cuts, implemented as the Canadian dollar gained more strength against US currency, but there's still a long way to go:

Diane J. Brisebois, the president of the Retail Council of Canada, said Canadian shoppers should be patient.

The merchandise now on the shelves and racks in most stores, she said, was ordered and priced at wholesale earlier this year, when the Canadian dollar was worth about 15 percent less than it is now relative to the United States dollar.

But she also cautioned that price differences reflect more than just one exchange rate. Economies of scale, different tax and cost structures, and exchange rates with third countries all play a role, she said.

“For Canadians to believe that our prices will be at par with American prices under any circumstances is not realistic,” Ms. Brisebois said. “Americans have 10 times the purchasing power. That’s the reality.”

Something that certainly won't change anytime soon.

Logrolling in Our Time

Last Sunday, the Denver Post's Robin Vidimos looked at the time-honored practice of blurbs - and found that they have surprising effectiveness:

Cathy Langer, lead buyer for the Tattered Cover bookstores, said that blurbs serve any number of useful purposes. As a reader, she said blurbs "really influence how I see things," and she believes the store's customers see things similarly.

"I have the opportunity to observe people as they are browsing, almost invariably people will read the cover, read the blurbs," she said.

It is when she's making buying decisions, though, that Langer finds blurbs most useful. "My actual buying is not so dependent on my reading as it might be on my blurb reading. I read a particular kind of book, but I buy every kind of book. So I look at a blurb that is from X (a given) mystery writer about a new mystery writer to get a sense of who the book is really for, who the audience is. Also, I will up-buy to aggressively hand-sell a writer who has been blurbed by someone I love," she said.

Then there's Michael Connelly's take:

Connelly takes blurbing seriously and is selective about those authors he chooses to blurb. He said a blurb is most useful in the early stages of a writer's career, and that's where he focuses his attention.

His publisher and his agent send manuscripts they'd like him to read. He said, "I don't blurb everything that comes from my own publisher. I might have a harder level of acceptance, the threshold might be higher for stuff sent by my agent. ... I've never done a favor, or asked them to do one for me." He said he'll sift through more than 100 books a year to arrive at the 10 he'll endorse.

I tend to go with Langer's point of view but that's because as soon as I see who blurbs a book - or the number of blurbers - I have a ballpark estimate of how much the publisher is supporting the book. Even if it's only one or two people, the quality of writers chosen is still a pretty good indicator of how much weight said publisher is throwing behind the book. But reading blurbs is fun as a means of guessing semi-hidden relationships, whether the blurb was, in fact, written by the associated writer and other less-than-above-board things.

NYT Splits Paperback Bestsellers in Two

For such a major change to the way paperback bestsellers are computed by the New York Times, the chatter's been fairly quiet thus far. I first heard about it when I read Ed Gorman's blog on his amazement that so many mass market paperback bestsellers debuted the same week, and Sandra Ruttan's correction which pointed to Tess Gerritsen's post on what really happened.

Starting with the September 23 editions released last Wednesday, the NYT will separate the paperback fiction bestseller list into two different lists, one exclusively for trade paperback fiction, and the other for mass-market paperback fiction. As Gerritsen (who debuted at #7 on the new mass market list with THE MEPHISTO CLUB) points out, "this is a good thing for those of us published in mass market, because it effectively doubles the number of slots on the bestseller list." More so, in fact: each list now has twenty slots, plus an additional fifteen extended listings.

It's also good news for those publishing more literary efforts, as the trade list, according to the notice accompanying the advance lists sent out last Wednesday, "gives more emphasis to the literary novels and short-story collections reviewed so often in the Times (and sometimes published only in softcover)." Though a source close to the NYTBR wouldn't go on record about the list changes, this rationale was essentially confirmed in an email this morning.

If there is a downside, it's that the lists, which now number eight, encompass a great deal of books - so being an NYT bestseller is both easier and perhaps less meaningful (of course, one could argue that ascribing meaning to a list is an exercise in absurdity, but that's besides the point.) And mass market fiction, already subject to something of a ghetto, will be that much more of one as the trade list gets all the "glory" from having books in there that more closely match what's included in the Book Review (and would it really be so bad to, say, have a column devoted exclusively to mass market paperback fiction, since that might be of considerable benefit to NYT readers?)

But then, a quick look at the inaugural trade list shows many multiweek stalwarts (Gruen, Hosseini, Nemirovsky, Edwards, Eugenides, McCarthy) a number of commercial offerings (Weiner, de los Santos, Picoult several times, Monk Kidd, Giffin, Harris) and very few "purely literary" titles (Messud, Powers, Allende, Haddon) - not quite in line with the NYT's rationale, but depending on titles released and of course, sales of such, that may change considerably over the course of the next few weeks or months.

So authors and publishers, rejoice: NYT bestsellerdom got that much easier.

The Criminal Type

    On my recent trip to the UK for the Harrogate/Let's Drink Heavily Festival I read Lemons Never Lie, a Hard Case Crime reprint by Donald Westlake writing as Richard Stark.  This is not a Parker novel.  Instead it features Alan Grofield, a robbery expert who pulls heists to finance his theater in Indiana.  Grofield is not above committing acts of violence, especially when he or his loved ones have been wronged, but violence does not come quite as easily to him as it does to Parker.  As expected from a book by Mr. Westlake, the prose is clean, the dialogue laced with dry humor, the action comes hard and fast, and there are glimpses into the other side of life that are logical but insightful (if your'e going to steal plates off a car, steal only one; the owner will probabaly not report the theft to the police, but will instead get a new plate from the MVA).  It is also the only crime novel you will read, most likely, that features a hopped-up AMC Javelin as its getaway car.

    MIdway into the book there is a conversation between Grofield, the theater manager, and one of his coworkers, Tebelman, a criminal who is also a talented commerical artist:

   There was a little silence then, until Tebelman said, "You know, there's a school of thought that says the artist and the criminal are variants on the same basic personality type.  Did you know that?"

   Grofield was sorry now the conversation had gotten started at all.  "No, I didn't," he said.

   "That art and cirme are both anti-social acts," Tebelman said.  "There's a whole theory about it.  The artist and criminal both divorce themselves from society by their life patterns, they both tend to be loners, they both tend to have brief periods of intense activity and then long periods of rest.  There's a lot more."

  "Interesting," Grofield said.

  Depending on the work habits of the typical novelist, it is not unusual for a writer to be locked in the house for months at a time.  Authors work, for the most part, alone, without the daily give-and-take and human contact of the office life that most experience.  Novel writing is to some degree a socially retarding experience.  So is it, then, an anti-social profession?