A Highly Controversial Subject

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We do not shy away from controversy…with good reason. How, tell us, how can you publish a list of recommended books for six- to eight-year olds and omit all-time Booksquare favorite Where The Wild Things Are? We believe Wild Things is so critical to a child’s development that we helpfully provide a copy to every parent-to-be we encounter. We are very popular at baby showers and first birthday parties. Eight. We believe eight coincides roughly with third grade. That was the time of Helen Keller and Katharine Lee Bates. Clara Barton. Florence Nightingale. Red Shoes. The Boxcar Kids. Caldecott winners […]

Square Pegs

Continuing With Genre and Proud

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In our defense, we rarely recommend the prologue to interviews. Usually these pithy(ish) introductions puff up the interviewer, not the interviewee. However, when the interviewer manages to make us envy and possibly dislike (in a healthy, normal way) the interviewee, we cannot help but suggest that reading the prologue is as critical as reading the interview. There are many genre fiction authors who fear their slot in life. That’s fine, but genre isn’t bad. It simply means structure. We hate to keep dragging out the haiku analogy, but if ever genre poetry existed, there you have it. Perhaps this is

Square Pegs

Promotion for Beginners

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We imagine that bootcamp for writers are filled with luscious wines and deep conversation. Or lots of intensive work. We suspect that the Book Promotion 101 workshop (recommended by Beatrice) falls into the latter category. If you’re a Los Angeles area writer and have a published book coming out soon, you need to become a promotion machine. Let Bella Stander get you in fighting shape. Los Angeles Workshop Info (see site for more details): Saturday, May 14, 2005, 9:00 a.m. – 4:30 p.m., The Orlando Hotel, West Hollywood; Class limited to 8; Registration deadline: April 30; Price: $395; includes lunch

Tools and Craft

The Post That Changed The World

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Our personal nails-on-chalkboard phrase is “the first time since…”; it is almost inevitable that this phrase will be used in a sentence like this: This is the first time we’ve celebrated Wednesday since last week. In our never humble view, the only appropriate use of this construction when the event is truly extraordinary: This is the first time dinosaurs have been spotted walking the canyons of North America since the last Ice Age. We live in a era where everything must be an event. Or maybe it truly is that publishers suffer a lack of confidence. Hard to tell. It

Publishers and Editors

On The Subjective Nature of Humor

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My publisher forwarded this amusing thing from Gawker.com the other day — it was reporting on the review of my book in the New York Times Book Review. It really was quite revealing. It was written by a young woman who said she was a recent graduate of Yale. And she said that as she was reading that long, three-page review by Clive James, her eyes glazed over because it was about poetry. And I thought, Oh, my God — if this isn’t a testament to what’s gone wrong in the Ivy League! Warrior for the word: Camille Paglia slams

Quote of the Week

AgentSpeak: Distinguished Editorial Heritage

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We appreciate it when an agency makes things easy. For example, Sanford J. Greenburger Associates handle just about everything under the sun. Except young adult and diet books. Why those exceptions, we cannot say. The five agents — Matt Bialer, Faith Hamlin, Heide Lange, Dan Mandel, and Peter McGuigan — each have their specialties (yes, you must read the article) and favorites. A word of warning: if you query Lange with the next Da Vinci Code, you’d better be right. She sold the first one. Vitals: Sanford J. Greenburger Associates, Inc., 55 Fifth Ave, 15th Fl, New York, NY, 10003,

Agents

Once The Transaction Is Completed, Selling Your Soul Isn’t So Bad

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Kathleen O’Reilly (who is not as sweet and innocent as she looks) shares the backstory to her latest book Diva’s Guide to Selling Your Soul. Now that we think about it, of course the devil is a gossip columnist. It explains so much*. O’Reilly tells us how she made peace with her new hometown via her character, learning: . . .that celery isn’t that awful for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. * – Paris Hilton, for example Kathleen O’Reilly’s Backstory for Diva’s Guide to Selling Your Soul

Books/Mags/Blogs

Almost Too Strange To Describe

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Maybe it’s because we’ve lost an hour of sleep this week (no, we are not letting go of this — it is wrong to deprive us of even a minute of our favorite activity), but the Guardian story linked below may very well be the strangest thing we’ve encountered in years. If we have the whole thing straight, it goes something like this: Naomi Klein writes essay. Essay is licensed for republication. Something happens and essay is included in anthology. Other authors become involved. Other stuff happens and the anthology cover lists Naomi Klein’s name, creating a false impression. Even

Books/Mags/Blogs

Adding A New Buzzword To Our Vocabulary

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Nothing gets us more excited than new buzzwords, unless it’s a good guessing game. Please try to guess the phrase-of-the moment in this announcement about Amazon’s acquisition of BookSurge: BookSurge offers its inventory-free book fulfillment network to publishers through BookSurge Publisher Services and to authors through BookSurge Publishing. In addition, retailers, wholesalers and distributors can leverage the BookSurge Direct wholesale platform. Other than that, we’re quite excited about the possibilities of the activity formerly known as print on demand. Amazon.com Acquires BookSurge LLC

Publishers and Editors
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