Publishers Weekly – The Great Gray Bridge

Glad to Be Part of Publishers Weekly’s Coverage on Post-Corporate Life in the Book World

January 24, 2015/0 Comments/in Books & Writing, Personal history, Family, Friends, Philip Turner Book Productions, Philip Turner's Books & Writing /by Philip Turner

I’m glad to be one of three editors featured in a Publishers Weekly article about how editorial professionals with long careers in-house have re-made themselves post-corporate life. The other editors are Pat Mulcahy and Joan Hilty. It’s up online today, and will be a spread with photos in the magazine’s print issue on Monday. I’ll scan a copy of the print story to share on this blog when I get a print copy, but meantime here is a link to the story, headlined “Publishing, After a Life in Publishing.” In particular, I was happy to explain to PW reporter Calvin Reid the role that my blogs have played in my post-corporate career, which Calvin characterized it this way: “He launched a blog, the Great Gray Bridge, on his website, philipsturner.com, and got his first job, ‘by word of mouth.’ He credits the blog and his writing with bringing in work. ‘People come to my blog and find out that I’m offering editorial services,’ he said.”

Also very glad my author client Mike Orenduff and his superb six-book POT THIEF mystery series are both mentioned in the article, along with a mention of Open Road Integrated Media, the company where I licensed the books in 2013, to editors Tina Pohlman and Philip Rappaport. Until I get the print issue, Below are scanned images of each of the story’s three pages, and then a screenshot of the online story’s first six paragraphs. Please note I submitted three corrections for the story that have been input on the online version.

Readers of this blog, please note, I submitted three corrections for the story that have been input on the online version. For the record, they are: 1) In the 4th paragraph, while I was first “executive editor” at Carroll & Graf, I was “editor-in-chief” my last couple years there. 2) In the 5th paragraph, the author of the POT THIEF series is “J. Michael Orenduff” (not J. Michale Orendoff). 3) In the 14th paragraph, the correct quote about my writing is that I found I had the “psychic elbow room” to write, not “psychic space.”

Beginning of the End of Favoritism for Online Sellers?

November 9, 2014/0 Comments/in Books & Writing, Publishing & Bookselling /by Philip Turner

I’ve never observed a consensus on anything between Amazon and the American Booksellers Association, but a new initiative from a bipartisan group of 10 U.S. senators seems to have found that improbable sweet spot, at least for now. Called the Marketplace Fairness Act, according to Publishers Weekly, a new law would have the “goal of […]

First Reviews of THE BIG BOOK OF SWASHBUCKLING ADVENTURE: “An Excellent Read” & “A Brilliant Selection of Dash, Pluck, Skill, Yearning, and Fortune.”

October 10, 2014/0 Comments/in Books & Writing, Philip Turner Book Productions /by Philip Turner

And now the second pre-publication review is in for The Big Book of Swashbuckling Adventure, selected and introduced by my author client Lawrence Ellsworth, another very positive notice. It comes from Publishers Weekly, who commissioned author William Dietrich to review the anthology. Dietrich’s piece closes with this encomium: “Ellsworth offers the reader an excellent and entertaining survey of the genre’s roots, a brilliant selection of dash, pluck, skill, yearning, and fortune.” See below for more details on the book, and the first review, which came in last week. Thanks to Pegasus Books for preparing the handsome edition and congrats to editor Lawrence Ellsworth. There will be finished copies of the book in November. It’s setting up very nicely!

—

I first posted about this book project when I began presenting it to publishers in March 2013, and am delighted that Pegasus Books acquired it. They’re an independent press whose titles are sold to bookstores by W.W. Norton. Pegasus has done a great job getting the anthology ready for publication. You can see their catalog listing for the book via this link (or in the screenshot below). Yesterday, I was delighted to see the first review of it, by Cindy A. Matthews at Authorlink, which I quickly shared in its entirety on Facebook (embedded below). In the catalog copy, you’ll note an interesting sidelight about my author client Lawrence Ellsworth, who conceived of the anthology, selected all the pieces, wrote the introductions, and translated the Alexander Dumas selection that’s in the book: he was an original team member of the group that created the legendary role-playing game Dungeons and Dragons. The oversized quality paperback, illustrated with art from the heady period when these stories were originally published, between the 1870s-1920s, will make a great holiday gift.

Post by Philip Turner.

Publishers Weekly Makes a Key Correction to a Story about Ebook Rights

March 18, 2014/0 Comments/in Books & Writing /by Philip Turner

.@PublishersWkly correction for big math error made in @HarperCollins v @OpenRoadMedia story. http://t.co/QZ3Q77u7T7 pic.twitter.com/rikRzuX3oU

— Philip Turner (@philipsturner) March 18, 2014

Open Road Media lost this ebook rights case, but are not in jeopardy for damages anywhere near what PW had at first suggested. Although I don’t have a screenshot of Publisher Weekly‘s first version of their story, they had stated that penalties for willful infringement could run up to $150,000 for each copy sold of the infringed work, reporting that the damages could potentially run in to hundreds of millions of dollars. Later, they revised that to say the penalty could be “per work infringed.” As they put it now at the bottom of the story they ran this morning,

Correction: An early version of this story mistakenly put the damages as applying per infringement, rather than per work infringed. In fact, there is a single infringement involved here, not multiple infringements. Thus, damages could not run into the millions. We regret the error.

In a penultimate paragraph that also was not part of PW‘s first Web version of this story, they point out that in its filing Open Road Media had asserted that the author whose ebook rights were at issue, Jean Craighead George, author of Julie of the Wolves, would have preferred to publish an ebook of the book with HarperCollins, given her long print history with them, but she objected to the 25% net royalty on offer by them. Open Road offers 50%, and so George went with them, or so Open Road implies. The entire issue of ebook royalties–and the 25% difference between the sum offered by Big 6/Big 5 publishers and other publishers, such as Open Road–has been a flash point of disagreement for several years among agents and authors on one side, and the Big 6/Big 5 houses on the other.

For the record, this is a link to the full Publishers Weekly story, as it ended up late on Tuesday, March 18, including the penultimate paragraph and the correction.

The POT THIEF Mystery Series–Licensed to Open Road Integrated Media

May 28, 2013/3 Comments/in Books & Writing, Philip Turner Book Productions, Publishing & Bookselling /by Philip Turner

I’m happy to announce that as literary agent for author J. Michael Orenduff, in conjunction with the Silver Bitela Agency, my company Philip Turner Book Productions recently licensed the six-book POT THIEF mystery series to Open Road Integrated Media, a major player in digital publishing. The books, previously self-published by Mr. Orenduff, 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, The Pot Thief Who Studied D. H. Lawrence, and The Pot Thief Who Studied Billy the Kid. They will all be published by Open Road in print and digital editions beginning in 2014.

As a devoted mystery reader myself, I adore the POT THIEF books and have earlier written about them here. They are set in and around Albuquerque, New Mexico, featuring dealer in Native America pottery Hubie Schutz and his sidekick in sleuthing, wise-cracking Susannah Inchaustigui, a descendant of one of the region’s old-line Basque ranching families. They meet most afternoons at Hermanas Tortilleria, to sip margaritas and discuss their latest puzzler. After years running Undercover Books, a bookstore where I sold lots of mysteries, and as an editor publishing mysteries, I know the mystery market well and am particularly excited that the many readers of Tony Hillerman’s Jim Chee and Joe Leaphorn mysteries, also set in the American Southwest, will now also be able to discover the POT THIEF books. In their earlier editions, the POT THIEF books won numerous awards and raves from mystery readers, including this one from Anne Hillerman, the late mystery master’s daughter: “I inhaled this book. Witty, well-crafted and filled with unexpected plot turns, The Pot Thief Who Studied Billy the Kid will delight J. Michael Orenduff’s many fans—and win him new ones.”

If you haven’t yet heard of Open Road, I suggest you visit their website. They have more than 3000 active titles, including five books by my longtime author Ruth Gruber, as well as titles by dozens of important authors such as William Styron, Rachel Carson, Andre Dubus, and Mary Glickman, always in digital editions, and sometimes in print editions, too. They’ve been operating for three years, innovating and growing along with the emerging ebook market. The company was recently profiled in an excellent piece via this link at paidcontent.org.

I’m delighted for my author J. Michael Orenduff and also very pleased to be working with Ed Silver and Babz Bitela of the Silver Bitela Agency, who are representing the POT THIEF brand for film and TV rights. In fact, they are already sharing with producers an excellent screenplay based on the series, written by previously credited screenwriter, Robert C. Powers. Announcements of the deal I made with Open Road have appeared in Publishers Weekly and in PublishersMarketplace.com, both of which mention the Silver Bitela Agency (these may only be available by subscription so I’ve made screenshots of both to be sure they can be read by GGB readers). Happy I could share this great news the same week as Book Expo America (BEA), the book industry’s annual convention, taking place at NYC’s Javits Center May 30-June 1. Please click here to see deal coverage from the two book industry outlets.

Hurricane Sandy’s Near-Wipeout of NY Publishers

October 30, 2012/0 Comments/in Personal History, Family, Friends, Education, Travels, Philip Turner Book Productions, Publishing & Bookselling /by Philip Turner

Earlier today Publishers Weekly asked 10 publishing and bookselling companies if their offices were open–it was a total wipeout, not one managed to open this day after the big storm. While none of these establishments opened, I want to add for the record, that Philip Turner Book Productions LLC is answering its phone and has someone available for editorial and bookselling consultation. That would be me.

“Not surprisingly, Hurricane Sandy left most people in the New York City publishing world at home on Tuesday. Here is a list of different houses’ status. We will try to update this throughout the day, as more information surfaces. Please contact us with updates on Twitter @PublishersWkly. (Publishers Weekly’s email is currently down, and our Manhattan office is closed, but staffers with power will be monitoring Twitter and other social media.)

Macmillan is without power and email is down, due to outages in the Flatiron Building, where it is housed. (The publisher’s warehouse, however, remains open and operational.)

Random House email is working, but access to the office is limited due to the collapsed crane in midtown.

Penguin is currently closed and a decision has not yet been made about whether the office will open on Wednesday.

Hachette’s office is closed, but company email is working.

Bloomsbury’s office is closed, but company email is working.

Abrams is currently closed and company email is down.

Kensington’s office is closed, but an employee reports that the building has power. A decision has not yet been made about whether the office will be open on Wednesday.

Barnes & Noble’s New York City office is closed, and a decision has not yet been made on whether the office will be open on Wednesday.

McGraw-Hill closed its office in New York City, as well as in other cities, including Washington, DC.

Scholastic’s SoHo New York office was without power through Tuesday and the company is not sure when its headquarters will reopen.

Norton’s New York City office is closed, but the company’s warehouse in Scranton remains open.”
—-

Treasuring Early Natural History Books

May 4, 2012/2 Comments/in Books & Writing, Philip Turner's Books & Writing, Technology, Science & Computers /by Philip Turner

Always happy to see a story involving my old hometown Cleveland’s book culture–Judith Rosen of Publishers Weekly reports that an 1886 book of natural history and ornithology, Nests and Eggs of Birds of Ohio, a copy of which was discovered in 1995 in the library of the Cleveland Museum of Natural History, is now being republished by Princeton Architectural Press. PAP’s catalog listing for the book shows that the new edition has been retitled America’s Other Audubon by Joy Kiser, the librarian who found one of twenty-five remaining copies of the rare book.

The author, Genevieve Jones, an amateur naturalist of her day, was inspired to create the book after seeing Audubon’s Birds of America paintings at the World’s Fair of 1876. She created sixty-eight original lithographs in making her book, which contemporaries described as “the most beautiful book ever produced in America.” Sadly, Jones died before it was finished and her family labored seven years to see to its completion, then underwriting printing and selling it by subscription. Only 90 copies were produced, and among the subscribers were Theodore Roosevelt and President Rutherford Hayes.

I love old natural history books, such as The Journal of A Disappointed Man by W.N.P. Barbellion, to which H.G. Wells contributed an Introduction upon its publication in 1919–a few months before the author died of multiple sclerosis at age thirty. Two sample entries from Barbellion’s youth, January 3, 1903: “Am writing an essay on the life-history of insects and have abandoned the idea of writing 0n ‘How Cats Spend their Time.'” and March 18, “Our Goldfinch roosts at 5:30. Joe’s kitten is a very small one. ‘Magpie’ is its name.” I have an old Penguin copy of the book and a reprint published in 1989. Then there’s Fishes: Their Journeys and Migrations by Louis Roule, originally published in 1933, which I republished as a Kodansha Globe title in 1996, with a new Introduction by George Reiger of Field & Stream magazine. A reviewer of the original edition wrote, “Will please the nature student, the Izaak Walton enthusiast, or the reader who delights in believe-it-or-nots.” Living in an age of diminishing biological diversity with an accelerating pace of extinction, it is important to be aware of species and varieties that used to be common and are no more, or increasingly scarce, and I treasure these books for aiding that effort, decades after they were first published. That’s kind of miraculous.

#FridayReads, April 27–“The Inferno” and “Mickey Cohen”

April 27, 2012/2 Comments/in Books & Writing /by Philip Turner

May 28, 2012 Update: I was delighted to see this new, modern translation of the Inferno received a starred review in Publishers Weekly. They write, “This will be the Dante for the next generation.”#FridayReads, Mary Jo Bang’s splendid modern translation of Dante’s Inferno, with diabolical drawings by Henrik Drescher and fascinating, context-lending notes by Ms. Bang, being published by Graywolf this coming August. Also, Mickey Cohen: The Life & Crimes of L.A.’s Notorious Mobster by Tere Tereba–what a nasty killer.

Posts