Bookview

By PT Editors
April 1, 2007
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PEOPLE

March brought some big announcements from industry veterans:
Teri Kelly, President of the trade and reference division at Houghton Mifflin has announced that she will leave the company where she has worked for twenty five years, once a replacement is found. And after seventeen years with the Walker Group (most recently as COO of Candlewick) Mike McGrath, is leaving to join Quercus Publishing in London, founded two years ago by Anthony Cheetham and Mark Smith. He will again be COO. Meanwhile, David Ford and Brett Brubaker, having returned to London, have launched Brubaker & Ford Ltd. (www.brubakerford.com), a book packaging and publishing consulting agency. There will be a New York office as well.

Chronicle Books has hired Bill Boedeker as Children’s Publishing Director, a new position which follows Victoria Rock’s move to the role of Editor-at-Large and Founding Publisher. Boedeker was most recently VP of Marketing and Associate Publisher for Little, Brown Books for Young Readers.

Alice van Straalen has left Vintage Books, where she was an editor, for the non-profit world. She may be reached at avanst@yahoo.com.

At Reader’s Digest, Stacey Ashton has been hired as VP, Director of Sales and Marketing, charged with growing the retail and specialty markets. She was VP, Sales and Marketing at MQ Publications.

Marion Maneker, VP Publisher of Collins Business has left HC and may be reached at maneker@optonline.net. Meanwhile, Lisa Sharkey has taken the newly created position of SVP/Director of Creative Development, HarperCollins. Sharkey will be responsible for acquiring “current event and personality driven books” for the General Books Group and “will work with all publishers to position authors for maximum television exposure.” Most recently, she was President of Al Roker Entertainment. Earlier HC hired Margot Schupf as Group SVP and Associate Publisher for Collins reporting to Joe Tessitore, Schupf most recently was Editorial Director of lifestyle books and media at Rodale.

John Tintera has also left Rodale where he was Director of Sales, for Osprey where he holds the same title. Earlier this month Zachary Schisgal, formerly Executive Editor at Rodale, moved to Touchstone Fireside as Senior Editor. Michelle Howry has also joined Touchstone Fireside as a Senior Editor. She had been at Little, Brown/ Springboard. . . .Jessica Napp has left Touchstone for Rizzoli New York as Publicity Manager.

At NBN, Linda Sinisi has joined the company as Special Sales Manager. Most recently she was Director of Special Markets at Abrams, after working on Book Sense at the ABA.

David Schanke formerly Market Segment VP General Publishing at Banta has left the company in the wake of its acquisition by RR Donnelley. He may be reached at d.schanke@yahoo.com.

St. Martin’s has hired a new Editor, Jason Pinter, from Crown. And Courtney Snyder has joined the Crown Sub Rights Department as Senior Manager, Domestic Rights, reporting to Linda Kaplan. She had been at Scholastic where she was Manager of cross-channel sales and subsidiary rights.

David George has joined Bloomberg Press as Managing Editor and Art Director, reporting to Editorial Director Jared Kieling. He was formerly a Senior
Managing Editor at Prentice Hall, Pearson Education.

Jake Elwell has joined Harold Ober as an agent. Elwell acquired Wieser & Wieser three years ago and operated it as Wieser & Elwell. Yvette Romero is now Public Relations Director at Kaplan Publishing. Most recently she had been at Monteiro & Company.

Shanta Small has gone to Tarcher/ Penguin as Associate Publicity Director and Marketing Manager.. Small was at Random House Children’s.

Susan Bradanini Betz has been hired by the Chicago Review Press as Senior Editor for Lawrence Hill Books. Cynthia Sherry was promoted to Publisher of CRP.

PROMOTIONS

Erstwhile of Regan Books, Cal Morgan has moved to the Harper imprint as VP/Executive Editor, reporting to Jonathan Burnham. In a separate announcement, Morgan’s wife Cassie Jones has joined the William Morrow imprint as Executive Editor, reporting to Lisa Gallagher. Anne Marie Spagnuolo has been promoted to Group Executive Managing Editor, Avon Books.

Steve Weitzen has been named SVP of Business Development for S&S Children’s. Assuming his former spot as head of the Simon Scribbles imprint is Valerie Garfield who is now VP, Associate Publisher.

Julia Reidhead, a longtime editor at W. W. Norton & Company and a member of the board of directors, has been named to a newly created position of Editorial Director of the College Dept. Most recently she had held the title of Director of Editing, Design, and Production.

APRIL EVENTS

PEN American Center has announced the theme “Home and Away” program for its third annual PEN World Voices: The New York Festival of International Literature, which boasts 162 writers and cultural critics from 45 countries panels, lectures, tributes, readings, one-on-one conversations, and musical performances, April 24-29. Participants include Don DeLillo, Vikram Chandra, Kiran Desai, Neil Gaiman, Nadine Gordimer, Steve Martin, and Salman Rushdie in various locations around New York For information go to www.pen.org.
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The 3rd Annual New York Round Table Writers’ Conference takes place April 13-14 at The Small Press Center. Speakers include Inkwell’s Kim Witherspoon, ICM’s Lisa Bankoff, St. Martin’s Dori Weintraub, and keynotes Colin Whitehead and Richard Ford. For more detailed information go to www.writersconferencenyc.org.
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From March 31 – April 30 Poets House celebrates its 15th Annual Showcase at its Spring Street location, with its largest display to date: 2,000 titles on view including volumes by individual authors, anthologies, biographies, critical studies, CDs and DVDs. Executive Director Lee Briccetti claims it is the “golden age of poetry production.” In 2008, Poets House will relocate to new space in a new building in Battery Park City, with “free rent guaranteed through 2069” Go to poetshouse.org for more information.

DULY NOTED

DM News reports that Amazon’s Sam Wheeler was a keynote speaker at the Direct Marketing Association’s Insert Media Day (which, alas, conflicted with the other conferences that PT did attend). He said that Amazon offers an astounding 80 million package insert opportunities annually, as well as on-box ad space and, of course, online display ads. Wheeler and other speakers argued that inserts provide income to the host, as well as sales and branding opportunities to the marketer. However, too much focus on branding can deflect the focus away from sales. “We are in the response business and we have been invaded by the brand,” one vet warned. Amazon’s program started in 2003 (see PT November, 2003).

One time HC Creative Director Joseph Montebello tells PT that he now hosts a radio show, “Between the Covers,” that airs every Tuesday on WAPJ 89.9FM and every Wednesday on WVOX 1460AM in New Rochelle. Stay tuned.

Lots of anniversaries this year: Wiley celebrates its 200th anniversary–in 1807 Charles Wiley, strayed from the family distillery business and opened a print shop in lower Manhattan. Library of America celebrates its 25th anniversary this May.

Grand Central Publishing, is the final choice for the old Warner Books…. announced Jamie Raab, SVP and Publisher. The name change comes a month before the publisher’s move to new headquarters at 237 Park Avenue, New York, New York 10017-0010.

Congrats to Jane Isay on the publication of Walking on Eggshells – and to Will Schwalbe and co-author David Shipley, on Send: The Essential Guide to Email for Home and Office. Finally, Doug Stumpf’s Confessions of a Wall Street Shoeshine Boy is coming this July (from HarperCollins).

IN MEMORIAM

Axel Rosin, former president of the Book-of-the-Month Club (and son-in-law of its founder, Harry Scherman) and later the head of the Scherman Foundation, died March 27th at his home in Manhattan. He was 99. He was president of the Book-of-the-Month Club from 1960 to 1973, and chairman until his retirement in 1979.

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Prestige Fatigue: Book Awards- Marginal? Must-Have? Discuss.

By PT Editors
March 1, 2007
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In a prestige driven industry like publishing, scooping up a book award is often considered critical to sales success. But just as the book market has become increasingly fragmented over the past ten years, so has the awards market. Competition not only among books, but among the prizes themselves, is heating up – for every Sobol that falls by the wayside, a small army of Quill, Thurber, and FT Awards are there to step into its place.

As awards proliferate, the latest are niche (outstanding work about the Revolutionary Era anyone?), although some still adhere to the more-is-more mantra (hey, the people like choice). Either way, the basic formula hasn’t changed much: Drum up interest and marketing opportunities by drawing out the selection process (longlist, wait a month, shortlist, wait a month), and then celebrate the winners in a lavish ceremony (Televised Black Tie! Fireworks over the Potomac!).

Although “The Big Ones” (as many refer to the Booker, National Book Award, Pulitzer, and NBCC) remain influential and coveted by authors and publishers alike, even the NBA is doing some serious soul searching lately, according to Executive Director Harold Augenbraum. And Man Booker Director Ion Trewin said that even though the Booker “the” a huge success, he’s aware it can’t “sit on its laurels” with other UK prizes such as the Orange quickly gaining an “enormous reputation.”

While every little bit of marketing and publicity hype helps, some publishers are at a breaking point. Carol Schneider, VP Executive Director of Publicity at Random House, said that as books and awards multiply, and consequently “so few awards offer a boost in sales,” it’s difficult to justify the often time consuming (and expensive) submissions process. Alternatively, Jeff Seroy, SVP Marketing & Publicity at FSG, said that, “Awards are extremely important to FSG, and Hill & Wang in particular.” In 2006 FSG submitted nominations for over 140 different prizes. Seroy added that different awards serve different purposes – some influence sales immediately, some in the long term, some are about prestige, some boost the author’s future work, some come with sizeable purses which allow writers to pursue their work more freely.
In order to cover all of their bases, most publishers err on the side of overzealous submissions, which can add up over the course of a year. To defray costs as innumerable new awards crop up (and demands on publishers’ support increase), some publishers hinted at the possibility of putting their authors in charge of the process in terms of both money and energy.

Few awards programs formally track their own success (though unofficially they follow the impact on sales, see chart), but most agree that, other than evergreens like the Caldecott/Newbery, awards in the UK and Canada are much more successful than their American counterparts in generating interest and palpable sales. While the Brits and colonies might skew more literary, it is more likely that shrewd marketing, corporate sponsorship, and a healthy dose of betting (Booker Bookies, Guess the Giller) play a part.

Unlike many American awards, the Giller Prize is sponsored by a major corporation (Scotia Bank), doesn’t charge submission fees or sell tickets to its gala event, and works in tandem with publishers to market books (pubs are required to front $1,500 to the marketing of shortlisted titles). Similarly, Trewin noted that publishers must commit £5,000 to market the Booker shortlist.

Generally awards marketing is non-existent, rooted in tombstone ads despite print’s dwindling audience. Although Augenbraum doesn’t think the NBA will ever contribute to publisher’s co-op, he could see the NBA devising a contest for best window display, for instance, offering prizes to booksellers of $2,500, $1,000, and $500. “If you have an endowed award (e.g. Bancroft, Pulitzer), it’s a very different outlook,” Augenbraum said. “They’re not beholden to sales – they can pick whatever they want. We’re trying to keep our place at the table because we don’t have the luxury of $10 million in the bank.” Which begs the question, can a large non-profit award continue to thrive without outside sponsors? The farthest the NBA has considered going is saying “The National Book Award, sponsored by,” but even that seems a fairly distant reality at this point. “There’s a certain Puritanism in the US that wouldn’t allow for that type of sponsorship,” Augenbraum said.

Still, the transition to corporate sponsorship has worked well for Costa Whitbread, Man Booker and Scotia Giller. Scott Manning, Founder of Books For A Better Life (an award for self-help books whose proceeds benefit Multiple Sclerosis) said he remains convinced that the awards could be supported outside of the publishing community, and that it would be beneficial for companies with an interest in the cause, like health or financial services, to be associated. Manning said that BBL has gone after a number of potential sponsors with limited success. “It would be a big step forward to have non-publishing corporate sponsorship.”

Corporate sponsor or not, “A large purse certainly doesn’t hurt,” Adam Goodheart Director of the Washington Book Prize (worth $50,000) said. “It’s helped us gain the degree of visibility we have.”

Then there are, of course, the mysterious Quills whose existence baffles most everyone (including, it seems, the people at Quills). “We don’t have access to sales increases,” spokesperson Abby Raphel said, “We can’t see a direct correlation yet.” This year, the Quills is undergoing a major restructuring, presumably because the efforts of the past two years have left something to be desired. Although they can’t release any details until late March, Raphael hinted at new voting options (à la American Idol texting) among others innovations.

As Giller’s Elana Rabinovich says, though, “The debate about literary prizes has definitely become a bit of a cottage industry. We always felt ‘the more, the merrier’ in terms of new prizes coming on-stream, but there is a palpable prize fatigue among the media.”

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ONIX, Ebooks & Butterflies

By PT Editors
March 1, 2007
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Like a butterfly emerging from its cocoon, the passage to the digital realm can be a vulnerable and tremulous thing. Nowhere is this more evident than in the quantum mechanical realm of trade ebooks. The problem du jour: can ONIX, the electronic standard used for the last five years to send bibliographic data (title, author, price, etc.) to support the sale of physical books, also be used with the digital files known as ebooks?

ONIX (the acronym for Online Data Exchange), you will remember, was born in the late 1990s when online retailers were tearing out their hair as each publisher sent bibliographic data in different ways. After a short tiff with the AAP (who was seen as having rushed in and co-opted the standards development process in Europe), serenity was restored, and the international organization, EditEur, that originated and continues to manage ONIX, unveiled ONIX 1.0 in 2000.

Over the past five years, use of ONIX has noticeably reduced friction in the distribution, marketing, and online sale of physical books, so much so that even libraries are considering adopting it. It could do the same for ebooks, but like all things physical to digital, it’s not a slam dunk. Among the obstacles for the smooth transmigration of print to digital in trade books are: There is no stable business model for the commerce in ebooks: should they be treated as just another format, like hardcover and paperback, or as a separate product like an audiobook? There are incompatible digital file formats for ebooks: Adobe, Microsoft, Palm, Mobipocket (Amazon.com), that cannot be read across different devices, and, most of the people involved in the daily commerce of ebooks, whether publishers, distributors, or online booksellers, are far from the process of developing standards. The wrong or competing standards (vhs vs. betamax anyone?) can significantly depress market growth.

Any light at the end of the cocoon? This year the International Digital Publishing Forum took a giant step forward by creating an Open Packaging Format. Think of this as a common digital automobile in which Messrs. Adobe, Microsoft, Palm and Mobipocket can ride across the ‘Net and then each step out to be re-created as ebooks. One day there may even be a universally accepted file format that could be read on any device. This would take enormous friction out of the system. IDPF is working on this as well. And ONIX 3.0, more than able to accommodate myriad ebook metadata, will be unveiled shortly. But the trade book, in its passage from physical to digital, is still emerging from its chrysalis and it will be a little while until butterflies are truly free.

PT thanks Lightspeed’s Jim Lichtenberg for this piece.

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Museum Copyright Seminar

By PT Editors
March 1, 2007
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The increasing complexity of copyright law and the tortured definition (and abuse) of “fair use” provoked the Metropolitan Museum of Art to host its second workshop on the subject at the College Art Association’s annual NY conference in February. Co-sponsored by the CAA, it was followed by a highly instructive (albeit complex) panel on fair use tied together by two eminent copyright scholars: the Honorable Pierre Leval – author of the fair use opinion which guides much of today’s readings of the law – and Bill Patry, Google’s Senior Copyright counsel and Consultant to the Library of Congress. Although the two politely disagreed with one another, both declined to pick a fight.

Presiding over the seminar was the CAA’s Director of Publications, Eve Sinaiko, aided and abetted by Susan Chun, GM for the Met’s Collections Information Planning and Cristina del Valle, the Met’s Intellectual Property counsel.

Re-use of property created by others, explained Sinaiko, “involves risk assessment, which is part of rights clearance” but “uncertainty goes with the territory.” Sinaiko claimed that the artistic community perceives as “downright theft” the appropriation of another’s creation for reuse in some fashion, even when parody or collage is the intent. Cited were legal cases involving such artists as Sherrie Levine, Richard Prince and Jeff Coons, the latter of whom had two different legal decisions handed down at different stages of copyright interpretation, demonstrating how slippery the slope is. For instance, where does copyright infringement leave off and plagiarism begin?

While focusing on illustrated material rather than text, the workshop nevertheless confirmed that many issues are shared. The so called “orphan works” ruling that may become law in the near future, was discussed, highlighting “due diligence” (“What is sufficient research” in tracking down a copyright holder?), the increased complexity and opportunity for infringement posed by the internet as well as “perpetual archival use” as offered by such groups as JSTOR.

And, in cases where the rights holders have been identified and rights are clear, there’s still the complexity of credit lines for photo and picture captions where ownership, copyright and subject matter all seek and demand equal time and space.
As the law does not distinguish between not-for-profit use and, say, licensed refrigerator magnets the CAA is prepared to offer a similar workshop tweaked to reflect commercial concerns.

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Fellowship in Jerusalem

By PT Editors
March 1, 2007
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In November I found out I’d been chosen to be an Editorial Fellow at the Jerusalem International Book Fair. It would be a transformative experience, Flip Brophy, a former fellow herself, informed the group of U.S. Agent and Editorial Fellows at the orientation in January, but she could not say exactly how. Would it transform me spiritually, being in the cradle of three world religions? Would it re-inspire my love of publishing to spend time in the company of the other fellows? Or would it teach me something that I couldn’t predict because I did not yet know?

Let’s start with the thing I learned that I couldn’t predict. As a senior editor at an enormous company, I’ve never been required to attend an international fair and I didn’t really know what the fuss was about. In Jerusalem, I found out. Among the Fellows, I met like-minded editors from Spain, Italy, Israel, South Africa and the UK, a few so like-minded that we have authors in common. At my desk in New York, I can understand in theory that the agent has sold the Spanish rights to Christopher Caldwell’s book to Mondadori in Spain. It is something quite different to meet Miguel Aguilar, editorial director of Mondadori, over wine at the Museum on the Seam, and reassure him, yes, the book is exactly on schedule. Later I told an editor at Am Oved, about a book I had preempted a few weeks before that I knew would be just right for his list. Even as the web of international editors clicked into focus for me, I was also finding re-inspiration from an unexpected source. I came 5,000 miles for Martin Levin to charge me up with his presentation on My Eleven Greatest Mistakes. With wit and modesty, he reminded the Fellows that publishing is and always has been a game of risk, and that the rewards – in his case, publishing Erica Jong and Mario Puzo – can be breathtaking, even if the perils – turning down Ian Fleming and Martha Stewart – can be hard to live down. Larry Kirshbaum, in his keynote address to the Fellows, confided that, as CEO of Time Warner Publishing, he always looked to the editor’s passion for a book when making his decisions. Now, that should not be a shock, except that, as an editor, I too often feel like a humble supplicant to the sales department and the chain stores. Larry’s speech neatly reframed the scenario: the sales department, even at Barnes & Noble, are looking to me to ignite their passion.

The Fellowship program also provides an amazing opportunity to discover Jerusalem and its environs. I briefly considered converting to Judaism and insisting on my “right of return” but the impulse passed. So while I would not say I was truly spiritually transformed by my time as a Fellow, I did remember why I got into publishing in the first place (the people!) and am inspired to do my work with greater collaboration and unapologetic passion. That was a week well spent.

PT thanks Kris Puopolo, Senior Editor, Doubleday Broadway for sharing her experience as an Editorial Fellow.

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International Bestsellers: Translating Math for the Masses

By PT Editors
March 1, 2007
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What Jostein Gaarder did for philosophy, Tefkros Michailidis seems to be doing for mathematics, bringing the history of math to the mainstream in novel form. A high school teacher by trade, a translator of math-inspired fiction and non-fiction by night, and now a debut novelist, Michailidis, with Pythagorean Crimes (POLIS), continues a trend in Greece and abroad in which math plays a prime role in plot development or as a protagonist itself. Paving the way for the Greek math trend were bestselling novels Uncle Petros and Goldbach’s Conjecture: A Novel of Mathematical Obsession (Bloomsbury USA, 2001) by Apostolos Doxiadis and Turing: A Novel about Computation (MIT Press, 2003) by Christos H. Papadimitriou.

Pythagorean Crimes, set in turn-of-the-century Paris, mid-twenties Athens, and ancient Greece, explains complex mathematical principles through parallel murder mysteries which have at their root scientific jealousy and the search for truth. Stefanos and Michael are lifelong friends who meet in Paris in 1900. At a mathematics conference, a leading scholar announces one of the challenges of the 20th century: finding a method to prove a mathematical theory completely consistent. After years of work (and parties with the likes of Picasso and other math-obsessed Parisian artists), Stefanos discovers the answer, but before he can announce it to the world, he is murdered. Interspersed throughout the more contemporary story are the travails of Hippasus, another thinker who rocked the mathematical boat a little too much in his day. After discovering irrational numbers, the Pythagoreans allegedly murdered him. As one Greek critic says, “the mixing of imaginary and historical heroes in Tefkro’s book is one of his most delightful games.” All foreign rights available. For more information, contact Despina Verykokkou at polis@ath.forthnet.gr.

Another Greek high school teacher and author of a dozen novels, Argyris Pavliotis, explores mathematics through mystery in The Equation (Patakis). When a brilliant math student, Lucas Athanassiou, vanishes from Aristotle University, a top investigator is called in to work on the case. He soon discovers that at the time of his disappearance, the student was working on the famously complicated Navier-Stokes equation whose solution carries a one million dollar reward. Pavliotis uses a cast of characters including terrorists, real estate tycoons, math professors, and criminologists not only to solve the crime, but to shed light on the mathematical enigma. All rights available. Contact George Pantsios (foreignrights@patakis.gr).

Ancient mathematical intrigue surfaces in Spain as well in a novel to be published this month that’s already generating advance buzz among European publishers. Written by astrophysicist Enrique Joven, Castle of the Stars (Roca) has at its center the mysterious Voynich Manuscript, an actual book written in an indecipherable language that could possibly hold the scientific and mathematical secrets of Tycho Brahe, Johannes Kepler, Copernicus, and Galileo. Héctor, a Spanish Jesuit high school science teacher and the novel’s narrator, belongs to an online group of Voynich enthusiasts who try to uncover the truth behind the document. Their investigation is impacted by the publication of a popular science book, Heavenly Intrigue (Doubleday, 2004) by Joshua and Anne-Lee Guilder, which suggests Kepler murdered Brahe to take credit for his master’s mathematical discoveries. Héctor then finds out that the solution to the Voynich Manuscript mystery may lie closer to home than he ever imagined. When his Jesuit superior tells him that a foreign real estate speculator has been scheming to close the prep school, Héctor learns the speculator is interested because the Voynich Manuscript may have been hidden in the catacombs beneath the church next door to the school. As the plot thickens, more and more Voynich enthusiasts come to light, many of whom have connections to religious, quasi-religious, and political organizations based around the world, including in the U.S. For more information, contact Bernat Fiol at Antonia Kerrigan Literary Agency (bernat@antoniakerrigan.com).

Though his latest novel veers toward the enigma of love rather than the mysteries of math, Aleksandr Ilichevsky, a young mathematician and physicist, came to the attention of Russian critics with the publication in 2005 of a short novel called Butylka-Bottle (Nauka) that follows a mathematician through Cyprus after the collapse of the USSR. The protagonist must abandon his profession to make ends meet in any way he can, but his integrity and conscientious nature get in the way at a time when corruption invades all industries. In his latest novel, Ai-Petri (published electronically and to be published shortly in book form by Vremya), Ilichevsky writes of another young Muscovite, lovelorn and depressed, who begins an aimless journey through the Crimea. As he sets off on his wanderings, he intends to commit suicide, but the beauty of the natural world lightens his spirits and causes him to ruminate on his past rather than his death. While he contemplates his life, the memory of when he witnessed his best friend’s killing by a white sheepdog surfaces again and again, triggered by unusual reminders in the world around him. He thinks he hears his dead friend’s voice somewhere near him, and soon notices a girl of unusual beauty accompanied by a white sheepdog. After the young man befriends the girl, the dog attacks him, but the girl saves his life in a strange reversal of what had happened to his friend years before. The novel ends as the young girl inexplicably throws herself from the cabin of a funicular and falls to her death in the Ai-Petri mountains. A critic says “Ai-Petri is seething with primary forces previously unknown in our literary works.” For information on either of Ilichevsky’s novels, contact Thomas Wiedling (wiedling@nibbe-wiedling.de).

And away from math, topping the Swedish list once again is The Pigsties, the debut novel of Finnish-born author Susanna Alakoski and winner of the 2006 August Prize for best novel of the year. Though set in Ystad, the town in southern Sweden where many of Henning Mankell’s Kurt Wallander detective stories take place, The Pigsties focuses on the town’s social issues rather than its criminal ones. The story is told from the perspective of a little girl named Leena whose Finnish parents have recently moved them into an apartment in a new housing project on the edge of town. To them, their new home with three rooms, a balcony, and parquet floors is a palace compared to the poverty to which they had become accustomed. But to the rest of the citizens, the projects are “the pigsties,” filthy dwellings filled with poor immigrants. In Leena’s voice, the author brings out the subtle contrasts between how a young girl sees the world and how the rest of the world sees her. When they awarded her the August Prize, the jury said Alakoski’s “modern depiction of class society is an infernal, yet humorous journey through an adult world, where drunkenness and a disadvantageous position rule everyday life.” Rights have been licensed in Danish (Gyldendal), Finnish (Schildts), & German (Suhrkamp). Contact Susanne Widén (susanne.widen@bonniergroupagency.se).

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Graphic Novelties

By PT Editors
March 1, 2007
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At the second annual ICv2 conference on the Graphic Novel, held on the eve of ComicCon, speakers talked about what’s selling (non-fiction), who’s buying (more women), and where it’s being sold (twice as many through bookstores as comic stores). Comparisons between Japan and the US were made throughout the day, as the still nascent US looks to Japan’s more mature market as a guide. Japan sells comics/graphic novels about everything from how to quit smoking, and a variant on “What to Expect When You’re Expecting,” to a business history of 7-Eleven. The US market is increasingly mimicking this non-fiction trend through graphic novel memoirs (think Cancer Vixen) and graphic novels as learning tools, especially on history and current events (think Persepolis – now with student study guides – and the 9/11 Commission Report).

Marisa Acocella Marchetto, the Cancer Vixen author, argued that “overzealous research” and documentation are key – a sentiment echoed by the panelists Larry Gonnick, author of the various Cartoon Histor(ies) of the World, and Greg O’Connor author of the upcoming Journey Into Mohawk County. Still, Thomas LeBien, Publisher of Hill & Wang, and a ten year veteran editor of the genre, cautioned that publishers are still trying to figure out the genre. “The most consistent difficulty,” he said, “is that many [writers and artists] lack real expertise in the non-fiction graphic novel format.” Another issue that surfaced was category management, and the frustration that many authors and publishers feel when graphic novels are grouped together as a category rather than as fiction, non-fiction, children’s, etc. In addition to making books harder to find, mass shelving also leads to the problem of what is age-appropriate material. Publishers are in the process of revamping the ratings systems on their books so that kids of all ages can more easily find suitable material.

“I publish zombie, lesbian, flesh-eating, horror manga,” Tokyopop‘s Mike Kelley said. “I’m not the person to ask about ratings.” He went on to say however, that Tokyopop has recently adapted a ratings system made up of 43 indicators – similar to the movie and video industries – created by Michele Gorman, a YA librarian, consultant and fellow panelist. All expressed the importance of an objective ratings system to guide parents and librarians to appropriate material. But, as one audience member pointed out, there is still no shared universal system at this point.

Liza Coppola, Senior VP at VIZ Media said that hot-button issues in the US are very different from flag-raising content in Japan. Here, for instance, Americans are incredibly squeamish about sex and religion, while violence doesn’t seem to faze. With some of the more “mature” content, VIZ has changed the trim size (along with the look and price point), to make the difference visually apparent. Coppola also pointed out an interesting difference in terms of audience for certain genres. When Kodansha’s Tomoko Sugo mentioned that young men were the primary Majong enthusiasts in Japan, Coppola made the point that in the US Majong is synonymous with old women – a difference that can sometimes make adaptations difficult.

Buyers agreed that overall, it was a “tremendous” year across the board. James Killen, Graphic Novel Buyer for Barnes & Noble, said that B&N saw double digit increases in all product lines, and tripled growth online. One category Killen singled out as having the largest increase in unit sales was what he referred to as “slice of life” – American created, largely memoir, like Mom’s Cancer and Cancer Vixen. Killen also noted the trend – led by Stephen King with Dark Tower – for big name fiction authors to move to graphic novels, which he thinks will continue in the future.

Bill Schanes, VP Purchasing at Diamond (which stocks over 10,500 titles) mentioned that retailers with graphic novel sections substantially increased their backlist sales. Ed Madessa, Category Manager for Scholastic Book Fairs, says that although Scholastic carries only about 20-25 graphic novel SKUs at each fair, all are face out, and have sold about four million total since Spring 2004.

What do buyers want to see more of in the future? Many noted that the 13-18 year old market is thoroughly saturated and that everyone wants to see more good quality titles geared to younger kids (as in 10 & under) and adults. For the last 30 years, comics have been directed at teens and young adults. Gradually more titles are beginning to appeal to an even younger audience. As Milton Griepp, President of ICv2, said in his opening presentation, there is a “generational transfer” underway.

Schanes emphasized that he’d love to see more comic book specialty retailers share some of the risk with publishers and buy graphic novels on a returnable basis. “Although we need more kids books, we need more stores to try them too,” he said.

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Bookview, March 2007

By PT Editors
March 1, 2007
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PEOPLE

Sales was where the action was this past month, with big changes at Random House, S&S, Abrams and elsewhere. Mary Wowk, Director of World Wide Sales at Black Dog & Leventhal, has been appointed VP, Sales of HNA, which includes Abrams, STC and distributed lines. In a separate announcement, Katrina Weidknecht has been appointed Executive Director of Publicity for HNA. She was formerly Senior Director of Public Relations at Rodale.

David Rosen, former VP, Editor-in-Chief of Bookspan‘s Community Clubs, and most recently at Abrams, becomes Editor-in-Chief of Progressive Book Club (PBC), a new online book-club service to be launched later in the year. Contact: drosen@progressivebookclub.com. Also moving to PCB is Michelle Berger, another Bookspan alum.

Robert Baensch, who has long been involved in NYU’s publishing program, announced his retirement. Andrea Chambers continues as Director of both the MS and non-degree programs.

Editorial exits from Rodale include: Mariska van Alst, who is staying home after maternity leave, and Amy Super, who is moving to Pittsburgh.

Lisa Levinson has been appointed to the newly created position of Sales and Marketing Director for Time Out Guides, overseeing North America and Latin America. She was previously at S&S, most recently as Director of National Accounts. She can be reached at lisal@timeoutny.com. Time Out Guides are distributed by PGW. And speaking of S&S, Simon & Schuster Children’s, Justin Chanda has been named Associate Publisher, replacing Elizabeth Law and reporting to Rubin Pfeffer.

Julie Christopher has been hired as Associate Director of Marketing, for S&S Children’s, moving from Harper Children’s. Meanwhile, Mark von Bargen, National Accounts for children’s books at S&S has left the company. He may be reached at vonbarm@comcast.net. Lynn Smith, also previously at S&S Children’s, has joined Scholastic as Director of Licensed Publishing, reporting to Ellie Berger, SVP and Publisher. Corinne Van Natta has joined Scholastic as Director of Mass Market and Special Sales, reporting to Alan Smagler, VP of Sales. She too was previously Director of Mass Market Children’s Sales for S&S.

Also moving to Scholastic are Nisha Chakravarty, as Director of Finance, reporting to David M. Ascher VP, Finance. She was previously at Time Inc. Kathleen Rose has joined Scholastic as Marketing Coordinator, reporting to Lizette Serrano. She was previously at the Nielsen Media Company.

Ex-RH Dave Delano has moved to Toppan America’s New York sales office as an account executive. He can be reached at 212-489-7740 x514.

Luisa Weiss is leaving Bettina Schrewe to become a cookbook editor at STC. Anna Cory-Watson is leaving Franklin & Siegal for Harvey Klinger, where she will be building her own list.

Courier has hired Chris Kuppig in the new position of VP of Business Development, Publishing. He has spent the past 10 years as President of management consulting firm Stone Studio.

At Random House: Don Weisberg has left, where he was EVP and COO. Deputy Chairman Edward Volini was appointed to the additional corporate position COO, overseeing the RH Sales Group and Random House of Canada, as well as Financial, Legal, Administrative, and Human Resources areas.

Now reporting to Volini from the Sales Group are Jaci Updike, VP, Director, RH Adult Sales; Joan DeMayo, SVP, Director, RH Children’s Sales; George Fisher, VP, Director, Adult Mass Merchandise Sales; John Bohman, VP, Director, Sales Operations and Planning; Reed Boyd, VP, Director, International, Special Markets and Sales Services; and Dave Thompson, VP, Director, Sales Analysis. His new direct reports from RH of Canada are Brad Martin, President and Chief Executive Officer, and John Neale, Chairman.

Current VP and publisher of RH Reference and Value Publishing Sheryl Stebbins will be leaving the RH Information Group at the end of June.

Sales marketing manager Susan Hettleman will be responsible for RH Value Publishing, and publisher of Princeton Review and Living Language, Tom Russell, will take over the running of RH Reference. RH Proprietary Publishing will be led by Doubleday Broadway VP, sales director Janet Cooke. Kathy Weiss is leaving RH International.

iUniverse, has hired Kathryn Gordon as Director of Author Marketing, responsible for designing and launching a new business unit dedicated to providing marketing services to iUniverse authors. Most recently, Gordon founded The Book Hook, a company that provides freelance marketing services for authors and publishers. She was previously Editorial Director of S&S Online.

Editorial exits from Rodale include Mariska van Alst and Amy Super.

Gotham Senior Editor Erin Moore has relocated to London as her husband takes a new position there, though she will continue to edit and acquire for the imprint.

Dan Verdick, formerly Director of National Accounts and e-commerce at MBI is moving to ABDO as Director of Marketing.

Steve Quinn, formerly BGI Account Manager at Adams Media, has moved to Phaidon to head special sales.

Stephen Roxburgh has been named publisher of Boyds Mills Press, the trade publishing division of Highlights for Children, effective immediately.

Janet Palfreyman has been named Publisher of Allen & Unwin. She was Publisher at RH Australia and left the company in 2006.

Maureen O’Neal, who left ReganBooks last month, may be reached by email at mrnoneal@aol.com or by phone at 310-601-6235.

PROMOTIONS

At Rizzoli, Pam Sommers has been promoted to Executive Director of Publicity. Gerard Nudo, formerly Rizzoli bookstore manager, has joined the publishing side of the business as Sales and Marketing Manager, distribution clients.

Kim Wylie, who has been Director of PGW client sales, will remain in that position following its acquisition by Perseus.

ICM has promoted Sloan Harris to co-head of publications. Harris will share that title with Esther Newberg. Binky Urban, previous co-head, will focus on running the agency’s international book business, especially the London office.

Janet McDonald has been named VP of Client Acquisitions for Ingram Publisher Services. She joined Ingram in 1999 as VP and GM of Spring Arbor Distributors.

At HC, Josh Marwell promoted Kathy Smith to SVP, Sales Administration.
Alexandra Cooper has been promoted to editor at S&S Books for Young Readers; and Jordan Brown, to Associate Editor.

At Scholastic, Anne Henderson has been promoted to Director, Business Planning. She was previously Director, Planning and Analysis. Adrienne Vaughan has been promoted to Senior Manager, Pre-Publication Planning. She was previously Manager, Frontlist Planning. Yanira Castro has been promoted to Manager, Frontlist Planning. She was previously Sales Analyst.

At RH Children’s, Chris Angelilli has been promoted to Editor-in-Chief of Golden Books.

SVP and Publisher David Dunham announced the promotion of Joel Miller to VP Publisher for the Business and Culture book group at Thomas Nelson.

At Llewellyn, Bill Krause has been promoted to Publisher and Acquisitions Manager.

MARCH EVENTS

As part of the celebration of Small Press Month, New Press publisher Andre Schiffrin will appear at the Small Press Center on March 15 at 7 pm to discuss his new memoir, A political Education (Melville House), in a “public conversation” hosted by former NYTBR Editor John Leonard. Small Press Month is launching its first annual National Small Press Month Reading Marathon, to take place on Friday, March 16, 2007, from 6:00-11:00 PM, at Mo Pitkin’s House of Satisfaction, located at 34 Avenue A in New York. Presses include: Soft Skull Press, Akashic Books, City Lights, Litmus Press, and Seven Stories Press. For more information visit www.smallpressmonth.org, and click on the “events” section, or call the Small Press Center, at 212-764-7021.

DULY NOTED
The Frankfurt Book Fair is inviting young publishers from around the world to apply for its Frankfurt Fellowship Program, under which 18 people spend two weeks in Germany visiting key publishing cities. The program takes place September 29 – October 14 and ends with attendance at the fair, October 10-14. The deadline is April 30. For further info email: wolffdecarrasco@book-fair.com

Bookseller+Publisher‘s Weekly Book Newsletter reports that Australia and New Zealand both have new, dedicated online bookselling sites with the launch of TheNile.com.au and TheNile.co.nz. “The Nile aims to provide Australian and New Zealand consumers with domestic alternatives to Amazon,” Director Jethro Marks tells WBN. ‘Amazon may be considered the world leader in online bookselling, but they’re 10,000 miles away and do nothing for the local trade. We estimate that overseas sites may be taking hundreds of millions of dollars worth of sales out of the local industry every year.” Next up: LaSeine.fr?
********
Congrats to former publishers Bill Rosen and Juliet Nicolson for earning starred Kirkus reviews for their debut books, respectively, Justinian’s Flea and The Perfect Summer.

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Thomson Teaches Tech Through Twikis

By PT Editors
February 1, 2007
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Late last fall, Kenneth Brooks, VP Global Production and Manufacturing Service at Thomson Learning, decided to give his staff some homework. For a company whose target audience is under the age of 25, the majority of the staff’s tech knowledge was a little out of date. Everyone could throw around the term wiki (you know, that online encyclopedia), and tell you that their 13-year-old was on MySpace (some time waster that endangers child safety?), but actual computer use beyond email? Not a chance.

Brooks said he stumbled onto the homework idea by chance: “Really I just knew that we needed to be more grounded in technology.” Brooks – someone who has difficulty dealing with new technology without the experience of actually using it – told PT, “I thought that the homework would force people to engage.”

As it turned out, Asheesh Birla, one of the Production Tech Directors in the department had recently developed a wiki to manage communication between geographically dispersed Thomson employees (see chart for more info). “We wanted a way for us to collaborate,” Birla said. “We wanted to develop a platform conducive to open environment collaboration in order to get managers at the tail end participating.” So, he took an old laptop, downloaded free open source wiki software from www.twiki.org, and got people to log on.

Brooks asked that the online conversation could be expanded to include his senior management and then Brooks posted the following mission statement: “Enabling content to do anything you can imagine.” He followed this with a presentation of what he hoped to accomplish with the new communication tool, along with staff assignments. Then he encouraged them to go take a look.

The assignments resembled an average day in the life of an internet junkie – or bored teenager. Go to MySpace, open an account, and look at tagging; Go to Technorati and subscribe to a blog feed, then use Google reader to download and read it; Go to iTunes and download a podcast; Go to Moby Pocket and download an ebook; Text someone else in the office using your Blackberry. Brooks laughed. “I asked them to do things like Google ‘pizza Mason Ohio’ and see what came up. They had no idea. It was really remarkable.”

The biggest part of the assignment, however, was for every employee to learn how to navigate the wiki and use it as a platform to communicate with colleagues. Just to retrieve their homework assignments employees had to create an account and log on to the wiki, and then search around until they found what they needed.

In the beginning, Brooks said, it was painfully obvious that it was going to take older employees a long time to complete the homework. “Some took to it much more rapidly than others,” he said, describing how numerous threads sprung up to help staff members teach each other about the technology. “When new topics would come up, they would immediately turn to the wiki,” Brooks said. “Now, it’s pretty much taken root. It’s the place where we post and discuss all of our standard forms, white papers, meeting minutes, ideas, etc. It’s become the center for communication.”
With the current transition and sale of Thomson Learning, the wiki is shaping up to become not only the production department’s center of communication, but the company’s center of communication as well.

Both Brooks and Birla agree that the technology took hold much faster than anyone anticipated – only about a month and a half. “When Ken started using it, it grew exponentially,” Birla said. “We outgrew the one server that we originally used, and are now using one in Mason Ohio that supports 600-700 users.”

Now, employees on the editorial side are using Google spreadsheets to build indexes, cross references, bibliographies, and Google docs to collaborate (http://docs.google.com/). Thomson Gale – Thomson’s reference group – got into the conversation by establishing a controlled access wiki with authors. There are even certain parts of the site that are shared not only with Thomson employees, but with vendors as well.

When setting it up, Birla and Brooks decided not to put any restraints on the format. “It got pretty disorganized pretty quickly,” Brooks said. “But then everyone’s editorial inclinations led them to re-organize the site.” For companies looking to start their own wiki, Brooks advised against setting up a structure ahead of time because it makes it even more daunting for new users to adapt to the technology. Instead, he advocates organic growth. “We wanted the structure to evolve, and we wanted people to take care of it,” he said.

Birla said that one of the most interesting results is that they’ve gotten the junior employees to participate in the conversation since anyone can contribute to the online conversation and update the wiki.

Another upside is that the technology has dramatically cut down on the amount of time it takes to circulate, edit and collaborate on documents. “Before, you’d be using Word,” Birla said. “You’d have to complete everything, make sure your document is perfect, and then send it to the second person. Then they’d go through everything, track changes, and send it to the third person and so on, it would take 2-3 weeks. Now, with the wiki, someone posts, and immediately everyone in the group can respond and manipulate one document. We can get an RFP out in 2-3 days now.”
The open nature of the wiki also nudges employees to complete tasks in a timely manner. Before meetings, everyone attending is required to post their notes, presentations, etc. to the site. If they don’t, their name appears in red at the top of a list. “No one wants that,” Birla said.

Most important, the assignments enlightened the whole conversation that the company was having about taxonomy, folksonomy and the semantic web. “This notion of a wiki has educated our company on the potential of web 2.0,” Birla said. By better understanding the technology, Thomson employees are thinking about new products in light of new business models, and making the Kuhnian shift from print to digital.

“We want to create all types of media,” Brooks said. “It changed the way that the production department thinks of itself. Now we’re seen as a thought leader, which is rare for a production department. We’re proactively coming to the table saying here are ways we can accomplish things.”

Up next, the semantic web and Web 3.0. “We’re always looking for new things to try,” Brooks said.

Wanna Wiki (What’s A Wiki)?

The word “wiki” tends to confuse. Derived from the Hawaiian word for fast (as you probably know), a wiki is simply any website that allows visitors to easily add, remove or change its content. Although many believe the term to be interchangeable with Wikipedia, the popular online encyclopedia is only one iteration of a wiki in action. (Another point of confusion: wiki is also used to describe the individual threads or posts on a wiki site). Wikis work especially well as mass collaboration tools since everyone can edit the same material, all at once, in a single location.
As an intra-company portal, a wiki not only acts as a central repository to post documents, meeting notes, proposals, etc., but also as a message board where employees can discuss the posted material.

For example, if a group of 20 people has a meeting scheduled for Wednesday, a “Wednesday Meeting” wiki can be created. The wiki would list all of the meeting participants (with links to their contact info) and the agenda for the meeting. A day or two before the meeting, participants would post their contributions – discussion questions, additions, presentations, etc. – for review. During the meeting, the wiki could be brought up as a projection and further discussed. Post-meeting, minute notes are posted and again reviewed by the people in the meeting, and shared with others in the company.

Free wiki software can be downloaded from www.twiki.org. Once installed, the wiki is much like a blog – preformatted and standardized so that anyone can set it up.

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International Bestsellers: Prizewinners!

By PT Editors
February 1, 2007
Comments Off on International Bestsellers: Prizewinners!

The young German über-poet, Silke Scheuermann, makes her novelistic debut this month with The Hour Between Dog and Wolf (Schoeffling). Much as in her successful short story collection, Rich Girls (2005, also Schoeffling), Scheuermann employs her poetic facility to good effect as she renders the confusion and frustration her generation faces as it attempts to define itself. The protagonist, a young, unnamed woman who feels compelled to take her day-to-day responsibilities seriously, finds her world disrupted when her estranged sister, Inès, returns after a several year absence. Tired of being her wild sister’s keeper, she nevertheless takes care of the messes caused by Inès’s irresponsibility and artistic impulses. Despite her annoyance, a strange envy and fascination with Inès’s chaotic life takes over, leading her to examine her own brief moments of wild abandon. Her reluctant identification with her sister goes further when she takes up with Inès’s boyfriend, Kai, and feels a fractured bliss unlike anything she’s felt before. With a bevy of literary prizes already on her resume, Scheuermann is being hailed in her country as “a big talent, and one of German literature’s great hopes.” Non-Germans too are beginning to see the universality in her writing as she’s been a writer-in-residence at various institutions in Italy and the U.S., including a stint at NYU’s Deutsches Haus. For rights information, contact Kathrin Scheel (kathrin.scheel@schoeffling.de).

It took a while for Hans Münstermann’s The Enchantment (Nieuw Amsterdam) to catch on in Holland, but since winning the AKO Literature prize this fall, the novel has sold 60 times as many copies in three months than in the previous nine after publication. The prize has turned Münstermann, already famous for inventing the genre of the “provocative novel” with Jan Tetteroo in the early nineties, into an even bigger celebrity and he’s now in demand on talk shows, literary festivals, and events around the country. In this novel, he follows characters from his earlier effort The Happy Year 1940 (L.J. Veen). The story is told by Andreas Klein, the son of a German father and Dutch mother who married on May 10th, 1940, the first day of the German occupation of the Netherlands. Navigating between two warring nations makes a profound impact on the lives of the family, especially his mother. As Andreas sits at her deathbed years later, the story unfolds of the hot summer of 1960 when his mother leaves her husband and five children for another man and a more adventurous life. She returns not long after, forever disenchanted and changed. Several rights deals are currently underway for this hot Dutch title, but no contracts have yet been signed. Contact Marie-Anne van Wijnen (MvanWijnen@nieuwamsterdam.nl) for more information.

Though Marta Rivera de la Cruz didn’t win Spain’s most lucrative writing award, the Premio Planeta, coming in second after Álvaro Pombo was enough to send her novel, In a Time of Prodigies, to the Spanish bestseller list. The Galician author is no stranger to awards, however, as her two previous novels have won several. Favoring clear and entertaining plotlines over “literary tricks” and complexities meant to stump the reader, de la Cruz is establishing herself as one of the more accessible writers in Spain. In her latest, she writes of an unlikely friendship between two people who have nothing in common: Cecilia, a 35 year-old recently divorced woman whose mother has just died, and Silvio, her best friend’s grandfather and second-rate crime novelist. Over the course of many long afternoon talks, Silvio slowly unravels the story of his double life, something he has shared with no one else. Through other unlikely friendships, including one with the American Zachary West and his adopted black son, Elijah, Silvio has passed through some of contemporary history’s most important events and places. He traveled from a small Spanish town to Madrid during the Civil War to Paris between the wars to Warsaw before Nazi occupation and to New York during Franco’s dictatorship, along the way finding hope and seekers of justice despite the prevailing cruelty. For rights information, contact Bernat Fiol at the Antonia Kerrigan Agency (bernat@antoniakerrigan.com).

Hot in Iceland at the moment is young author Audur Jónsdóttir, recipient of the Icelandic Literary Prize, nominee for the Nordic Council Literary prize, and granddaughter of Nobel Prize winner Halldor Laxness. Her famous grandfather served as inspiration for a children’s book in 2002, but her multicultural experiences living in Barcelona and Denmark are the fodder for her latest novel. A story set in a nameless city in a nameless country, Love Token (Edda) deals with the seemingly ubiquitous issues of immigration and culture clash. Unlike other novels of “integration” which are often told through the eyes of the immigrant, Love Token speaks from the perspective of the already established. A middle-aged heiress finds her wealth dwindling after many years of a spoiled existence, so, to bring in some extra cash, she writes an article about homelessness. In her new knowledge she finds a way to generate income. She rents out three rooms in her family’s mansion to three women from very different backgrounds. The women find their new landlady a tyrant who eventually uses the young daughter of one of them in a power play that culminates in a startling finale. A critic from the leading Icelandic newspaper says Love Token is “poignant and beautifully styled, a well-thought out novel about major issues.” For rights information, contact Úa Matthíasdóttir (ua@edda.is).

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