Author Archives: Laura Hazard Owen

Jacket Copy Case Study: Come Sunday by Isla Morley

We chose three titles to be included in the Codex Group jacket copy survey. One was Come Sunday, which will be published in June by Sarah Crichton Books/FSG. Though Come Sunday had the weakest title and cover impact of the three books we tested, the added appeal of its jacket copy made it the book…Continue Reading

Sarah Crichton on the Jacket Copy for Come Sunday

“Writing the jacket copy for Come Sunday was agony! Here were the challenges: An unknown author; the plot hinges on the fact that a little girl dies in the first chapter, a fact which can drive away the very audience we’re trying to attract, and which might make the book sound like a downer when…Continue Reading

What’s New at BEA 2009

Last fall, BookExpo America formed its first-ever Conference Advisory Board and decided to increase the show’s focus on content and programming. “In the past, we had too many sessions that were all over the map and that were trying to be all things to all people,” says Courtney Muller, Group Vice President of BEA. In…Continue Reading

What’s the Story with Bookspan?

Despite its sale by the Bertelsmann Group to Najafi Companies last year, Bookspan’s 21 book clubs (including Book-of-the-Month Club, Doubleday Book Club, Quality Paperback Club, and Literary Guild) still exist. Given the company’s tumultuous past few years, how has it held up? (For news on other book clubs, click here.) Numbers don’t mean everything, but…Continue Reading

Book Clubs: They’re Alive

Say “book clubs” today and most people think Oprah and Twitter. (Yes, Twitter: Picador recently announced its new 140-character book club. Followers will be able to correspond with the featured books’ authors and editors and win free copies of the books.) But once upon a time, book club members didn’t win free books on Twitter;…Continue Reading

Publishing Business 2009: Cloudy with a Chance of Sunshine

Unlike the atmosphere at SXSW, the mood at the 2009 Publishing Business Conference & Expo was a bit subdued. It might have been the chilly New York weather or the beige Marriott Marquis carpeting—or maybe it was the panels reflecting the current state of the publishing industry, with titles like “Book Publishing and the New…Continue Reading

Twitter Trends on Trend Central

Trend Central is a great site that covers up and coming people and trends in music, lifestyle, entertainment, and media. Today their topic is what’s new with Twitter, including: Twitter Branding: Want to check out how the competition is using Twitter? A new directory of tweeting brands, Twitter Tracker, compiles real-time updates from companies using…Continue Reading

How TSTC Publishing Uses Twitter

Since our article on how book publishers should be using Twitter, some other publishers have chimed in with their own experiences. Here’s Mark Long, publisher of TSTC Publishing in Texas, on how Twitter can help small companies track larger trends: “For me, I think the best part of Twitter is being able to engage in…Continue Reading

Twitter Isn’t Stupid–But Publishers Need to Be Smart about Using It. Here’s How.

“Twitter is really the stupidest thing in the world,” Chris Brogan, blogger and social media expert, said in his Blogging and Social Media panel at the O’Reilly Tools of Change for Publishers conference in February. But he didn’t mean it. At first blush, Twitter does seem like a dumb idea. It describes itself as “a…Continue Reading

5 Things We Learned About Teens at TOC

At TOC on Wednesday afternoon, we attended “Youth and Creativity: Emerging Trends in Self-expression and Publishing,” a session by Evangeline Haughney (Adobe) and Bill Westerman (Create with Context). They hung out with real teenagers in their homes to get a look at their creative processes. When choosing which teens to follow, they looked for those…Continue Reading