#FridayReads, Jan. 25–Book Proposals from Prospective Author Clients

#FridayReads, Jan. 25–I’ll pick up a proper book or two this weekend, but today’s been devoted to reading book proposals by authors I may be working with as their representative under the banner of my company, Philip Turner Book Productions. I’m delighted to have come upon some good really book ideas, with proposals on such topics as 1) a treatable human malady that affects tens of millions and is often misdiagnosed; 2) a comprehensive investigative account of a notorious murder of a journalist, whose author lays knowledge of the crime at the feet of a well-known politician, now deceased; 3) a book about women’s empowerment by a well-credentialed female expert that has appeal to a large audience; 4) an anthology of classic fiction of a sort that’s never before been assembled in this fashion; 5) a graphic memoir by an artist/author with a singular and engrossing story to draw and narrate.

Yes, it’s been a productive and enjoyable day of professional reading.

Speakerfile, on Stage at Digital Book World

Thursday Update: Here’s a pic of Speakerfile CEO Peter Evans at the Digital Book World podium yesterday, just after the panel he was part of discussing innovation. Photo by Mercy Pilkington. Today I’ll be on the floor with Peter talking with publishers and agents about how Speakerfile can help their authors be discovered by more readers.DSC_0015

Wednesday Update: Speakerfile has sent out this press release on the wires about CEO Peter Evans’ appearance on a DBW panel later today about innovation:

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It’s not even the middle yet of what’s bidding to be a great week.

Today, Tuesday, I team-taught in a nonfiction book writing seminar at the CUNY Graduate School of Journalism.

Wednesday and Thursday I’ll be attending Digital Book World (DBW), third year in a row I’ve gone to this conference that showcases the evolution of the book world in the sometimes lurching transition into digital reading. What’s more, tomorrow Peter Evans–CEO of Speakerfile, a Toronto company I represent to the publishing industry–will be part of a DBW panel devoted to innovation in publishing. Speakerfile, which has a click-through promo near the upper right corner of this website, is a software platform and website that  connects conference organizers, meeting planners, and members of the media to author experts and thought leaders who do public speaking.

WideSkyscraper(Authors)I began working with Speakerfile in 2012, and one of the first clients I brought them was Movable Type Management (MTM), a literary management firm. Last summer MTM put two dozen of their author clients in to a mini-speakers bureau that resides on Speakerfile’s website, with the same bureau also appearing on MTM’s site. MTM president Jason Ashlock has just recorded a brief testimonial video about Speakerfile in which he says, “Within the first week we had a couple of bookings . . . we’ve now booked over a dozen events for our clients, each of which has paid our clients well and promoted them across the audiences that we’re really hoping that we’ll reach.”

With publishing clients I’ve introduced to Speakerfile finding many new speaking engagements for their authors, I am convinced that this smart Canadian company can become a dynamic engine of discoverability for publishers, bringing authors and their books together with motivated audiences. I’m very pleased that Peter Evans will have the opportunity to share Speakerfile’s story with the questers for innovation at Digital Book World.

Today’s Work–Teaching Journalism Students at CUNY Grad School

Enjoyed myself today, team-teaching in a nonfiction book writing seminar with a dozen students at CUNY’s Graduate School of Journalism on W. 40th Street. I first presented the evolving book world–digital and print–and filled in my book biz background, from retail bookselling to years as an editorial director at major houses publishing topical nonfiction. In the 2nd half of our session, the students presented book project ideas they’re thinking of launching into. With Prof. Glenn Lewis, who’s invited me to join him at least 5 years in a row, we listened to their pitches, hearing some really good ideas. Encouraged them to be in touch going forward, and hope to hear from them again, particularly a few.

Free Demos of Speakerfile

If you’ve been interested in learning more about Speakerfile–the company I rep to publishers, authors, publicists, and literary agents, that connects conference organizers with authors and experts who do public speaking–their CMO Cara Posey will be doing free Web demos on Wednesdays from 3-4 PM, limited to the first two dozen people who sign up. If you’d like to take advantage of one of these gratis sessions, I suggest you follow this link and register at the web page Cara’s posted.

If you’re just learning about Speakerfile for the first time, you may go to their home page by clicking on the promo placed near the upper right-hand corner of The Great Gray Bridge. It’s a robust Web platform with terrific SEO capability that can really drive discoverability of authors and thought leaders. The first client I’ve signed up for them–a forward-oriented author management company called Movable Type Management–got 9 bookings for their author clients in just the first few months after creating their own mini-bureau on the Speakerfile site, a bureau MTM also placed on its own website under the rubric ‘Author Booking.’

If you’re already engaged in public speaking, or you work with public speakers, I’ll be happy to explore with you how Speakerfile can help you and your associates get better bookings. Please let me know if you have any questions about Speakerfile.

#FridayReads, Nov. 30–“The Pot Thief Who Studied Billy the Kid”

#FridayReads, Nov. 30–Just starting The Pot Thief Who Studied Billy the Kid, by J. Michael Orenduff, manuscript of the latest mystery in the delightful Pot Thief series which I’m representing to publishers as agent. These novels, set in Albuquerque, New Mexico, feature protagonist Hubie Schuze, a pottery geek. Hubie loves digging in the desert for ancient pots and crafting copies of artifacts with his own hands. When not engaged in these activities, he is usually absorbed in reading a book, often a classic. He has a sidekick in sleuthing, Susannah Inchaustigui, a descendant of one of New Mexico’s Basque ranching families. They meet most afternoons at Hermanas Tortilleria, to sip margaritas and discuss their latest puzzler. The books are very funny and deserve a wide readership.

In the new book, Hubie is clandestinely digging for Anasazi pots in ancient cliff dwelling, when he grasps a withered human hand. He was hoping for an artifact, not a handshake and is puzzled by his discovery, since the Anasazi did not bury their dead in their living quarters.

Earlier titles in the series are The Pot Thief Who Studied Pythagoras, The Pot Thief Who Studied Ptolemy, The Pot Thief Who Studied Einstein, The Pot Thief Who Studied Escoffier, and The Pot Thief Who Studied D.H. Lawrence. While I am working to find Mr. Orenduff a major publisher for his books, the books are in the meantime available and sold at Amazon.com.

How a Community Makes a Book

I first met writer and literary journalist Robert Gray when I was Editor-in-Chief of Carroll & Graf Publishers and he worked at the splendid Northshire Bookstore in Manchester Center, Vermont. I loved that his email address at the time incorporated the phrase “marbleman,” as a personal homage to Vermont’s marble quarrying. We both later moved on but kept in touch, especially after he became a regular contributor to the daily book world read Shelf Awareness, and I started curating and writing The Great Gray Bridge. Robert’s pieces for Shelf Awareness are published under the rubric, “Deeper Understanding.”

Recently, I let Robert know about Rust Belt Chic: A Cleveland Anthology to which I’d contributed an essay, hoping the DIY energy that produced the book would appeal to him, and that he might want to cover it in his column. He took the opportunity to heart and today published a great piece, “Self-Pub, Sense of Place & Concentric Circles,” with passages like this:

“When you want to know about a place, ask the people who live there. When you want to read about a place, read the writers whose words reveal more than just the surface of a region’s past and present. What does that have to do with self-publishing? This: For a bookseller considering the possibility of stocking a self-published book, one reliable sign of a winner is a title with a tangible sense of place. Whether or not such a book eventually finds readers beyond the region, it must begin at the center–a pebble dropped in a local pond–before concentric retail sales circles can spread. In their introduction . . . editors Richey Piiparinen and Anne Trubek describe the project as “a community effort to tell the story of a city.” And that’s just what it is.” 

Later, Robert generously mentions my essay, “Remembering Mr. Stress, Live at The Euclid Tavern,” linking to an expanded version of it on this blog. I invite you to read Robert’s entire piece at this Shelf Awareness link, and my piece if you haven’t yet. Robert’s past columns can also be found at his website, Fresh Eyes Now.

I should add that the Nook, Apple, and Kindle ebook editions of Rust Belt Chic are currently being sold in their respective digital stores for the terrific price of $2.99 (link for Nook storeITunes store, and Kindle store). Finally, I’m also happy to report that the first Rust Belt Chic event in the NYC area is coming up, Thursday, January 3 in Brooklyn at Public Assembly. I’ll be there to read, as will other northern Ohio transplants in the NYC area. It would be great to see you there!

A Republican in Exile–Why FOX News Doesn’t Book Bruce Bartlett Anymore

Bruce Bartlett is a longtime economic conservative who worked for Republican officeholders going back to the first Reagan administration. He even worked in the company of Jude Wanniski, basically the originator of supply-side economics. He was, as is said, “present at the creation”–in this case of modern conservatism.

Beginning soon after George W. Bush’s re-election it became apparent if you knew Bartlett from earlier in his career that he was increasingly uncomfortable with Republican orthodoxy. For Bartlett, it arose specifically over Bush policies, especially the reckless spending he committed the country to, as in the 2006 Medicare drug bill. Bartlett voiced his opposition prominently in conservative media, and as he tells it in an important chronicle published Tuesday in the American Conservative, it got him called on the carpet at think tanks he’d written for and worked at, and dismissed more than once over the past several years. The ire directed toward him by true believers made things more difficult for him financially.

One nugget that’s gotten play in the media today is Bartlett’s contention that when he published the book, Impostor: How George W. Bush Bankrupted America and Betrayed the Reagan Legacy (2006), bigwigs at FOX let it be known inside the network that he was not to be booked on any of their programs. Greg Sargent reported on this today in Plum Line.  Sargent spoke with Bartlett’s then-publicist at Doubleday, Nicole Dewey, who explained that

“She . . . tried extensively to get him booked on FOX to discuss the book — to no avail. ‘It was surprising to me that no one would book him,’ Dewey told [Sargent]. ‘He had been a regular on Fox News prior to that. He had been interviewed on any number of Fox News shows before that.’ Once Bartlett published the book, Dewey confirms, ‘I was pitching him directly to probably most of the shows that were on Fox at that point. No one would book him.’ A Fox spokesperson didn’t immediately return an email for comment. Asked directly about Bartlett’s claim that she’d been told that ‘orders had come down from on high’ that the book was to receive ‘no publicity whatsoever,’ Dewey said she didn’t remember precisely what reason she was given by Fox for not booking Bartlett for any appearances—it was six years ago. But she said Bartlett’s description of events ‘rings true to me. My general sense was that they didn’t like the message of the book,’ Dewey said. ‘Bruce’s recollection of events sounds exactly like what happened.’”

In the hours since Sargent posted his interview with Nicole Dewey, there’s been a little pushback from FOX and the Wall St. Journal (updates that Sargent has appended to his blog post) where Bartlett thought he had also been shut out. However, an editor there, Gerald Seib, denied this after seeing Bartlett’s article. Bartlett concedes in an update to his piece that he may have been wrong about the Journal, but contends his main point about FOX remains true.*

I love that Sargent sought out the publicist, Dewey (who now works at Little, Brown), and am glad for my industry that one of our professionals had first-hand knowledge and was available to be consulted about a matter where current events and publishing coincide so intimately in an important news item.

The title of Bartlett’s article “Revenge of the Reality-Based Community–My life on the Republican right—and how I saw it all go wrong“, is a nod to Ron Suskind’s pivotal 2004 NY Times Magazine story, “Faith, Certainty, and the Presidency of George W. Bush.” Bartlett was quoted in Suskind’s story, after which he was “chewed out” by his boss. As important as Suskind’s article became in understanding the Bush administration’s divorce from reality, I think Bartlett’s will be judged equally important in understanding how life for many longtime Republicans has become untenable for them within their own party. Bartlett’s is piece is also a helluva read, kind of suspenseful and dramatic, with a lot of the author’s own self in it. I think this piece should be in all the round-ups of longform stories this week–even for the year 2012–whether longreads.com, longform.org, or the Daily Beast’s weekly round-up of imperative reads in narrative journalism. In fact, I think I’ll share this post with Lucas Wittmann, Books Editor at the Beast, and recommend Bartlett’s piece to him.

Disclosure: I am a Facebook friend of Bruce Bartlett (he’s got about 3,500 friends). We’ve never met or spoken.

*Update: David Frum, also the target of right-wing ostracism, vouches for publicist Nicole Dewey in a brief Daily Beast piece:
“I know Nicole Dewey, the source quoted by Greg Sargent in the piece linked, and she is indeed one of the best of the best in the business.”

The President and His Daughters Enjoy Buying Books

Just like last year around this time, President Obama and his daughters went shopping at a local bookstore today, on what is known as #SmallBizSat. They shopped at One More Page Books in Arlington, VA. No word yet from the White House, who tweeted out this picture, about which bookstore they were at (in Arlington, VA), nor what books the bookselling staff are wrapping up here. It sure is great to see the First Family buying books like this, a shot of high-profile bookbuying the book industry can really use.

Here are more photos from the Obamas’ visit to the bookstore. Photo credit for all these photos is “AP PHOTO/J. SCOTT APPLEWHITE”