January

 


AnvilPub's Southern Review of Books is updated on the 15th of each month or the first business day thereafter. Back editions may be accessed by clicking on the "Southern Review of Books
wpe2.jpg (53816 bytes) Archives" hyperlink at the bottom of this page. The search engine for the current edition and archives may be accessed by the button at the bottom. The Southern Review is edited by Noel Griese. The author of 17 books and numerous articles on various subjects, he has been a newspaper reporter and editor and has taught English and journalism at the Universities of Wisconsin and Georgia. Elected to both Phi Beta Kappa and Phi Kappa Phi, he holds three degrees in English and journalism.

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Welcome to the
Southern Review of Books

an online newsletter for publishers, authors, book lovers and booksellers

Vol. 7, No. 1   January 2009
Index (scroll down for stories) 

  1. Looking to design a book cover? We rank five books that might help
  2. Breaking news from the book barons
  3. Bookstores challenged by economic slump turn to remainders
  4. News about bookstores, publishing, marketing and promotion
  5. Forthcoming book sets straight the history of ‘I Like Ike’ slogan
  6. Wiley taking over Meredith’s backlist, distribution and publishing
  7. Catholic publisher purchases Tan Books assets out of bankruptcy
  8. How bad is it? Latest on the economic slump and the book business
  9. Update journalism: Latest skinny on past Southern Review stories
10. Whatever happened to the pulp magazines?

11. Thinking of repulping? Forget it – the market has tanked!
12. Monitoring the ebook, graphic novel and etailing markets
13. On Demand Books introducing new Espresso Book Machine 2.0

14. Useful information and free services for writers
15. Amazon and Penguin announce second annual novel award competition
16. ‘Books = Gifts’ becomes central slogan of industry holiday campaign
17. Zondervan’s Bible Across America Tour gains media attention.
18. Memoir by media mogul Ted Turner garners massive media hype
19. Milestones: Records and news of note in book publishing
20. Company offers authors opportunity to sell into iPhones
21. News of chicanery, dishonesty and tort-feasing in the book business
22. Texas developer sues author, publisher, blurb contributor and reviewer
23. British mom sues daughter over book alleging childhood abuse
24. Graphic novels, comics important part of Miami Book Fair

25. 21st Annual Independent and Small Press Book Fair held in NYC
26. Major upcoming trade shows, book fairs and book festivals
 

1. Looking to design a book cover? We rank five books that might help

If you’re looking to design a book cover – or hope to understand more about the creative process that cover designers use – you might consider the following books.

We’ve rated them by their rankings on Amazon.com in late November. Keep in mind that Amazon.com rankings change hourly for the most popular titles. So if you check a ranking, it might be somewhat or even considerably different than the ranking that existed when we ran our checks. Remember also that just because a book is least or most popular in any table we run, it may not be the one that you would find the most helpful.

Author(s) Short Title Rank Format Price Date
Drew, Ned and Paul Sternberger By Its Cover: Modern American Book Cover Design

12,136

pbk

$26.95

2005

Powers, Alan Front Cover: Great Book Jackets and Cover Design

27,158

pbk

$14.36

2006

Hansen, Thomas Classic Book Jackets: The Design Legacy of George Salter

38,315

pbk

$27.30

2004

Baines, Phil Penguin by Design: A Cover Story 1935-2005

66,441

pbk

$16.50

2006

Hubner, M. and R. Clanton Fully Booked: Cover Art and Design for Books

890,859

cloth

$52.85

2008

2. Breaking news from the book barons

Reed Elsevier has terminated discussions with potential bidders for Reed Business Information ("RBI"), the magazine conglomerate that includes Publishers Weekly. Reed blamed the decision on “the recent deterioration in macro-economic outlook and poor credit market conditions, and after discussions with short listed bidders, the Board has judged it not possible to structure a transaction on acceptable terms at this time.” Keith Jones has been appointed chief executive officer of RBI. He was previously the CEO of RBI UK. The strategy of Reed Elsevier remains “to divest RBI in the medium term when conditions are more favorable.” The division includes Variety and Daily Variety, as well as the book publishing trade outlets Criticas, Library Journal and School Library Journal. For most of its history, Publishers Weekly, along with the Library Journal-related titles, were owned by R. R. Bowker. Reed Publishing purchased Bowker from the Xerox Corporation in 1985… Barack Obama's two books got a post-election bounce from his victory. USA Today's bestseller list, published on Nov. 13, showed The Audacity of Hope, his 2006 book on politics and faith, at No. 8, up from No. 43. Dreams From My Father, Obama's 1995 memoir, reissued in 2004, was No. 9, up from No. 56... J.K. Rowling’s The Tales of Beedle the Bard hit the shelves in the UK and elsewhere in early December. The Guardian dubbed Rowling's latest volume "the most eagerly anticipated title of the year, with a worldwide print run of almost eight million copies."… Malcolm Gladwell, the New Yorker writer who won acclaim with The Tipping Point and Blink, is back on the talk show circuit promoting his latest work. The new tome, Outliers: The Story of Success, has 640,000 copies in print and has been in Amazon.com's top 10 since it came out Nov. 18. An outlier is a person or thing that is way outside the statistical norm. Gladwell uses it to mean "men and women who do things that are out of the ordinary." One example of an outlier: MicroSoft’s Bill Gates.


Learn How To Become
a Successful Published Author
at the sPRING Book Show University - Saturday, March 7, 2009
Cobb Galleria Centre, Atlanta, Ga.

Look at this great lineup!

Jackie Kershaw Cooper, author and syndicated journalist, "How To Write Movie and Book Reviews for Fun, Profit and Free Tickets"

Anna DeStefano, novelist and president, Georgia Romance Writers, "How To Write Romances and Get Them Published"

Hollis Gillespie, author of three books, radio and TV celebrity, "How To Write Memoirs for Fun and Profit"

Russ Marshalek, marketing and publicity director, Wordsmiths Books, Decatur, Ga., the most receptive store in the Atlanta market for author signings, on “How To Arrange Bookstore Signings for Your Book”

Man Martin, author and Georgia Author of the Year nominee, "How To Write and Promote a Humorous Novel"

Ahmad Meradji, CEO, Apex Book Manufacturing, "How To Select a Short-Run Printer for Your Self-Published Book"

Patricia Sprinkle, author of more than 20 mystery novels and nonfiction books, "So You Want To Write a Mystery?"

Darlene Ford Wofford, rape victim turned fiction author, has attracted international attention to her writing in addition to generating local interest in the Atlanta media. Her presentation is entitled "How I Got Local and National Publicity for My Books"

ENROLL NOW, BEFORE SPACE RUNS OUT. FOR DETAILS, CLICK ON Spring Seminar 2.

3. Bookstores challenged by economic slump turn to remainders

Retailers are growing increasingly concerned about a bleak holiday selling season, and booksellers are no exception.

Net book sales decreased two percent in September 2008 to $1.062 billion, according to results reported by 80 publishers to the Association of American Publishers. Net sales for the nine months through September fell 1.5 percent to $7.718 billion.

In a special series advising independent booksellers on how to survive in the slumping U.S. economy, the American Booksellers Association tells retailers that buying remainders can help them get through tough economic times. The advice appeared in the Oct. 30 issue of ABA’s online newsletter Bookselling This Week.

Remaindered books are books that have had much of their run and whose remaining unsold copies are being liquidated by the publisher at greatly reduced prices. Because they’re often sold for as little as 10 percent of cover price, retailers can usually buy and then resell them for higher margins than they can new titles from the major publishing houses.

In both good times and bad, many booksellers turn to remainders as a way to supplement and complement their inventory without breaking the bank,” says Larry May of Bargain Book Bids, a Knoxville service that auctions remainders.

According to May, remainders in the U.S. are sold year-round by 100 or so dealers. They are also sold at several major trade shows. The first major remainder show upcoming is the Spring Book Show, scheduled for Friday-Sunday, March 6-8, at the Cobb Galleria Centre in Atlanta. Information on the show is available at www.springbookshow.com.

Educational seminars being held in conjunction with the show will be held in the Galleria’s salon area. Accommodations for the show are being offered by the Renaissance Waverly Hotel.

4. News about bookstores, publishing, marketing and promotion

Joe the plumber, whose real name is Sam Joe Wurzelbacher, is co-authoring a memoir scheduled for release in December. Titled Joe the Plumber: Fighting for the American Dream, the book is being published by PearlGate Publishing, which has only one other title out so far. That one is by the publishing house’s owner/publisher/author, Thomas Tabback, who is co-authoring the story of Joe the Plumber. Joe, popularized by the failed McCain-Palin GOP election campaign, doesn’t have a plumber’s license and is late in paying his taxes… Books-A-Million has opened its first two-story superstore in the new Houston Pavilions downtown shopping mall. Houston Pavilions, which opened on Oct. 16, occupies four city blocks. Books-A-Million, originally founded in 1917, is the third largest book retailer in the nation. The Books-A-Million Superstore at the new center is the first two-story urban concept store for the company. It showcases its extensive selection of books, bargain books, magazines, gifts and cards in an industrial-designed space. The store also features a Joe Muggs Cafe, a coffee and espresso bar and deli… The first part of the Random House reorganization under new CEO Markus Dohle was announced Dec. 3. President and publisher of the Bantam Dell group Irwyn Applebaum is leaving the company immediately after 25 years there. The Bantam Dell group is being absorbed by the Random House group, under Gina Centrello, along with the Spiegel & Grau unit that had been part of Doubleday. It puts the company's two big mass-market lines together in the same division. Doubleday is also being eliminated as a freestanding group, which means president and publisher Steve Rubin's job no longer exists. Knopf will absorb the Doubleday and Nan A. Talese lines, while the Crown group will incorporate Broadway, Doubleday Business, Doubleday Religion and WaterBrook Multnomah. The new Random House organization has four divisions. The sizable Random House Children's remains a separate unit under Chip Gibson.  


We can represent your book - cover out -  at the Spring Book Show in Atlanta March 6-8, 2009

The Spring Book Show is one of the Big Three remainder and bargain book shows in the nation. The 2009 show will be held Friday-Sunday, March 6-8. 2009, at the Cobb Galleria Centre in Atlanta. If you have overstocks, your titles need to be represented. More than 50,000 bargain-priced titles represented by 100-plus dealers will be up for sale.

Here's how our offer works. First, email us at custserv@anvilpub.com to let us know you're interested. We will respond with an email that tells you what to do in detail. We'll ask you for some information about your title(s). Then, ship two copies of each title you want represented to us, along with the information. It costs only $10 for each title we represent. You can pay by credit card, money order or check.

Our catalog for the Spring Book Show 2009 is currently loading. To look at the incomplete catalog as it now stands, please click on Spring 2009.

To look at our 2008 catalog for the Spring book Show, click on: Spring 2008

5. Forthcoming book sets straight the history of ‘I Like Ike’ slogan

Douglas R. Price, who was a member of Dwight D. Eisenhower’s White House staff in the 1950s, is writing a book that, among other things, aims to set the record straight on the origins of the “I Like Ike” slogan and campaign song.

In a letter to newspaper columnist Frederick N. Rasmussen about the book, tentatively titled They Liked Ike, Price says "The origin of the Irving Berlin 'I Like Ike' song dates back to a Broadway musical titled Call Me Madam, starring Ethel Merman with lyrics by Irving Berlin."

"In Act II of the show, there was a song titled 'They Like Ike.' It seems Irving Berlin adapted his 1952 'I Like Ike' song from his 'They Like Ike' lyrics of the 1950 Broadway hit," writes Price.

There is considerable disagreement about the origin of the “I Like Ike” campaign slogan, which some historians date to the 1940s. One likely explanation is the forthcoming Price account. According to him, two World War II veterans, Stanley M. Rumbough Jr. and Charles F. Willis Jr., became close friends after being introduced in the late 1940s by their wives, who had been college roommates.

The two Long Island, N.Y., businessmen became interested in the political possibilities of an Eisenhower ticket after Gov. Thomas E. Dewey failed to capture the presidency in 1944 and 1948, Price said.

Their efforts to establish Eisenhower clubs came to the attention of Thomas E. Stephens, who was secretary of the New York State Republican Party, and during a lunch in the spring of 1951, Rumbough and Willis sported "We Want Ike" buttons.

According to Price, Stephens told the two political activists that he had seen “Call Me Madam” a few nights earlier, and in the show was a song called "I Like Ike."

"He suggested that since the show might be a hit and get a lot of publicity, they change their campaign slogan from 'We Want Ike' to 'I Like Ike,' which they did and, of course, the 'I like Ike' slogan became famous throughout America and around the world," Price wrote.

Price cites a 1953 letter in which Eisenhower acknowledged Rumbough and Willis, saying that "their efforts - together with a lot of other contributing factors - resulted in my nomination in July 1952 as the Republican candidate for the Presidency of the United States."

6. Wiley taking over Meredith’s backlist, distribution and publishing

John Wiley will be the main agent aiding the withdrawal of Better Homes & Gardens publisher Meredith from the book publishing business.

Wiley has announced a five-year licensing agreement starting March 1, 2009, that gives it the rights to publish books using all of Meredith's brand names, including Better Homes and Gardens, as well as such marks as Family Circle, American Patchwork and Quilting, and Diabetic Living. Wiley will also take over as the exclusive distributor of Meredith's backlist of about 200 titles.

According to Meredith, they will "continue to create book content" from their offices in Des Moines and "retain all approval and content rights. Wiley will be responsible for book layout and design, printing, sales and marketing, distribution and inventory management. Wiley will pay Meredith royalties based on net sales.

Wiley will start publishing their first Better Homes and Gardens books in spring 2009, and expects to issue about 20 titles a year under the agreement. Wiley's vp and publisher Natalie Chapman will oversee the culinary books, and vp and publisher Cindy Kitchel will oversee the crafts, home decor and do-it-yourself books.


We can include your book in our Summer 2009 catalog! Your book will appear before more than 10,000 buyers! the catalog closes May 15, 2009!

If you'd like to promote your book - preferably with a copyright of 2006, 2007 or 2008 or 2009 - please consider our Summer 2009 Catalog. Here's how our offer works. First, email us at custserv@anvilpub.com to let us know you're interested.
We'll email you a form we use to collect informatio
n about your title for buyers. Then, return the form to us along with two copies of each title you want represented to Anvil Publishers, Inc., 3852 Allsborough Drive, Tucker, GA. 30084. It costs only $15 for each title we
represent. You can pay by credit card or check.

Here's what we do:

1. Your book - along with a color cover thumbnail and relevant data - will be added to the Summer Catalog page on our Web site. If you have a fiction title, for example, your book will appear with other fiction titles, listed alphabetically by the last name of the primary author. The page stays up until we publish a new Summer catalog in June 2010.

2. On June 1, 2009, we begin emailing promotional information to more than 10,000 buyers - independent bookstores, acquisition librarians, buyers for the major chains and discount stores and individual booklovers.

3. We provide a convenient Excel spreadsheet order form to select bulk buyers to make it easy for them to buy.

For whatever we sell, we bill you 10 percent - but not until our commission amounts to $10 or more. You get to keep everything before that point is reached. You bill the buyer for the full price plus shipping. Example: We get an order for 10 of your books at $15 each, or $150 total. You pay us $15 (10 percent of $150). We release the order to you. You ship the books and bill the customer $150 plus shipping. You're responsible for filling the order and shipping the books to the buyer.

7. Catholic publisher purchases Tan Books assets out of bankruptcy

A leading publisher of traditional Roman Catholic books has been acquired by Saint Benedict Press, LLC, a North Carolina-based publisher of Catholic Classics.

Established in 1967, TAN Books and Publishers has published more than 600 books distinctive for their preservation of the traditional literature of the Roman Catholic Church. In recent years, TAN has struggled to survive financially and most recently has been operating under the protection of the United States Bankruptcy Court.

The assets of TAN were purchased by the owners of Saint Benedict Press.

TAN Books and Publishers will remain an independent imprint within Saint Benedict Press, maintaining its brand identity and publishing direction under Vice President of Sales and Marketing, Brent Klaske, who will assume General Management duties. He will be based at TAN's Rockford, Ill. offices.

Among the books published by TAN are the Baltimore Catechism series, the Douay-Rheims Bible and dozens of biographical treatments by and about the Saints, including such favorites as St. Teresa of Avila's Conversation with Christ, St. John of the Cross's Dark Night of the Soul, The Secret of the Rosary by St. Louis de Montfort and The Dialogue of St. Catherine of Siena.

8. How bad is it? Latest on the economic slump and the book business

Sales at Barnes & Noble in the third quarter ended Oct. 31 fell 4.4 percent to $1.1 billion. BN reported a net loss was $18.4 million for the quarter, compared to a net gain of $4.4 million in the same period in 2007. Sales at stores open at least a year fell 7.4 percent. However, online sales at B&N.com rose two percent to $109 million. The company lowered predictions for the fourth quarter, saying it expects comp-store sales to decline 6-9 percent and for the full year to drop 5-6 percent… The Book Basket of Wetumpka, Ala., and Windows a Bookstore in Monroe, La., have closed. Both blamed the closing on debt burden and decreased sales… Hastings reported third quarter sales of $114 million, down six percent from a year ago. Sales of merchandise were down 5.1 percent on a same-store sales basis. Revenues at Hastings Entertainment in the third quarter ended Oct. 31 fell 6.5 percent to $114.3 million and the net loss was $3.7 million compared to net income of $100,000 in the same period in 2007. During the quarter, sales of books at stores open at least a year rose one percent compared to a gain of 2.5 percent in the same period last year. By comparison, third quarter comp-store sales of electronics rose 12.7 percent, cafe sales rose 7.9 percent, movies dropped five percent, video games were down 14.8 percent and music fell 19.5 percent. The modest gain for books was attributed to strong sales of new trade paperbacks as well as used trade paperbacks and used hardbacks, partially offset by lower sales of periodicals. In a statement, CEO John Marmaduke said, "Beginning with September, changes in consumer spending have created the most difficult retail environment we have ever seen. Obviously we are concerned about the fourth quarter in light of the current economic climate.”… The Raleigh News & Observer asked local merchants how they were coping. John Valentine, co-owner of the Regulator Bookshop, Durham, N.C., told the paper that clearance books, used books and remaindered books are selling well, adding, "Everybody wants a bargain, and it's even more true now. A book is a book in a lot of people's eyes. They know they want to give their mother-in-law a book, and they can peel the $5.99 sticker off, and there's a $12.95 list price in there."… Books-A-Million reported third-quarter comp-store sales dropped 9.9 percent. Net sales for the period ended Nov. 1 fell 5.7 percent to $111 million, and the net loss was $2.2 million compared to a net loss of $555,000 in the third quarter of 2007. Sales at stores open at least a year dropped 9.9 percent… Ann Patty told Galleycat that she had been "fired" along with "a lot" of other employees at Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, which also announced that it was suspending the acquisition of new trade books... Thomas Nelson CEO Michael Hyatt announced layoffs at the company. “We informed 54 of our friends and co-workers (about 10 percent of our workforce) that we have eliminated their jobs, effective Nov. 28, Hyatt said on Twitter. In April, Nelson eliminated "about 60" positions as it changed its business strategy. The new round of firings was purely a result of the slowdown in the economy," Hyatt said… Simon & Schuster has "enacted a reduction in staff in which 35 positions across the company were eliminated, from areas including our publishing divisions and international, operations and sales," according to a memo from CEO Carolyn Reidy. Reidy said "today's action is an unavoidable acknowledgment of the current bookselling marketplace and what may very well be a prolonged period of economic instability. In light of this uncertainty, we must responsibly position ourselves for challenges both near term and long."… HarperCollins "plans to delay pay increases until after July 1, 2009, a response to the U.S. recession, according to spokesperson Erin Crum. "HarperCollins hasn't decided whether to eliminate jobs, she said."… Pearson has a companywide freeze on nearly all raises, includes employees at its Penguin unit…  Similar to moves at Pearson and HarperCollins, Macmillan CEO John Sargent announced a salary freeze starting Jan. 1 for employees making more than $50,000. "All bonus plans will stay in effect, but all are sensitive to individual company profitability and individual performance. Thus the impact on individual bonus plans will vary."… John Sargent, chief executive of Macmillan, whose publishing houses include Farrar, Straus and Giroux and St. Martin's Press, said in a companywide meeting that he could not guarantee that everyone would have a job going forward… Houghton Mifflin Harcourt has initiated a freeze on buying new trade books. HMH is owned by Education Media and Publishing Group, a private equity company that took on massive debt to swallow Houghton Mifflin and then Harcourt, back when credit was cheap and freely available. The owners now have "about $7 billion in debt" with annual debt service of "about $500 million." The freeze does not apply to all divisions, just trade books for now.


Mixed skids added to Anvil book catalogs!

We invite book lovers, book sellers, chain and specialty store buyers, wholesalers, book distributors, acquisition librarians and K-12 media specialists to browse our catalogs. We're currently offering more than 1,000 titles - with more than one million copies in inventory with a retail value in excess of $14 million.

We list new titles, backlist titles, pristine remainders and, occasionally, lightly scuffed returns from book stores. Our Spring Book Show Catalog and Great American Bargain Book Show Catalog are devoted exclusively to remainders and returns. The Summer and Winter Catalogs are devoted to new and backlist titles, with an occasional remainder.

The following hyperlinks will take you to specific catalogs:

Mixed Skids Catalog (especially for people marketing books in online stores)

Spring Book Show 2009 Catalog (remainders catalog now loading)

Winter 2008-2009 Catalog (retail titles catalog now loading)

Great American Bargain Book Show 2008 (remainders and bargain books)

Summer 2008 (frontlist, midlist and backlist catalog)

Catholic Titles Catalog (Just added, with more than 400 titles, 500,000 books initially)

Spring Book Show 2008 (remainder and bargain book catalog)

Winter 2007-2008 Catalog (frontlist, midlist and backlist catalog)

Great American Bargain Book Show 2007 (remainder and bargain book catalog)

Summer 2007 (current, midlist and backlist catalog)

Spring Book Show 2007 (remainder and bargain book catalog)

Winter 2006-2007 (current, midlist and backlist catalog)

Fall 2006 Catalog (current, midlist and backlist catalog)

Atlanta Journal-Constitution Decatur Book Festival Catalog (current, midlist and backlist catalog)

Like what you've seen so far of the Southern Review of Books? Use the handy box at the bottom of this page to subscribe!

9. Update journalism: Latest skinny on past Southern Review stories

Remember our coverage of the firing of Judith Regan at ReganBooks? She was canned from the News Corp. HarperCollins imprint bearing her name in 2006. Now, we learn, she settled the lawsuit she filed against the publisher over her dismissal for $10.75 million. That confidential figure was revealed in a court filing by the law firm that represented her. According to Bloomberg, the amount appears in a filing in New York state court in Manhattan by Dreier LLP, a New York law firm that sued Regan for legal fees. The namesake of the law firm, Marc Dreier, has been charged by New York federal prosecutors with directing an unrelated $100 million fraud. In March, Regan was sued by her former lawyers who accused her of firing them to avoid paying fees from the settlement with News Corp. Regan’s lawyers declined to confirm or deny the settlement amount in Dreier’s court filing. In its complaint filed in New York Supreme Court in Manhattan, the Dreier law firm alleged Regan retained it to represent her in February 2007 and agreed to pay 25 percent of any money she recovered as a result of a judgment or settlement. “Regan terminated petitioners for the single purpose of attempting to avoid the contingency fee,” Dreier alleged in its complaint. “Upon finalizing the settlement, Regan terminated” the law firm “and has since failed and refused to pay them the fees and disbursements to which they are entitled.” Dreier sued News Corp. on Regan’s behalf. Regan and the firm’s first agreement called for her lawyers to receive 25 percent of any funds Regan got as part of a settlement. Both sides discussed modifying their agreement so that Dreier would get $125,000 plus 20 percent of any amount Regan received in excess of $6.5 million, the firm said. Regan never signed that agreement, according to the complaint. The law firm accused Regan in the suit of breach of contract and seeks to enforce a lien against her for any funds she’s collected in connection with the settlement. Bertram Fields, a lawyer who represented Regan in her settlement, was also named as a defendant in the suit. Dreier said in its complaint that its attorneys spent 1,240 hours on Regan’s case and learned through her new lawyers on Dec. 14 that the firm had been terminated by Regan. Regan settled the case for an undisclosed sum in January and was represented by Fields, according to the complaint. Marc Dreier, managing partner and founder of the 250-lawyer New York firm Dreier LLP, has been charged in an unrelated case with cheating hedge funds out of more than $100 million.

10. Whatever happened to the pulp magazines?

In past issues of the Southern Review of Books, we’ve run articles about pulp magazines, about the writers they helped to make famous and about their cover art, which now commands much higher prices than were ever paid to the artists who created them.

In one article, we saluted the late August Derleth of Sauk City, Wisconsin, one of the most prolific of the pulp writers. Arkham House, which Augie created, is still very much in existence, run by his daughter. Some of the early works published by the house, such as stories by H.P. Lovecraft, a master of the macabre, are now collector items commanding high prices.

So what happened to the pulps? Do they still exist?

They do, but only as a ghostly shadow of the prominence they once commanded.

As Simon Owens recently noted in his excellent online blog about the pulps, Locus Magazine every year publishes a review of the genre.

In their heyday there were dozens of pulps, ranging from the mystery to science fiction genres, with circulations of 100,000 or more. This is where Dashielle Hammett and Mickey Spillane, for example, got their starts. But the medium steeply declined through the '80s and '90s, with magazine circulations for all the publications plummeting to well below six figures.

By the 21st century and the advent of the Web, most of these once-great magazines - Amazing Stories, Argosy, SF Age - had died off, leaving only three speculative fiction magazines struggling to survive. The three sci-fi magazines still left are Analog Science Fiction and Fact, Asimov's Science Fiction, and the Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction.

Analog, the best performing of the three, has fallen to a paid circulation of 27,399, while Asimov's dropped to 17,581. The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction has declined to a paid circulation of 16,489.


WOW! More than 12,000 comic books for less than 20¢ EACH!

Books were Designed to retail for $3 to $13 on up

We're importing  up to 40 mixed skids of comic books from the UK.
 
The skids usually contain over 12,000 comics. Most of these will be standard-sized comics designed to retail for $3, but a few will be thicker than normal special editions (the equivalent of graphic novels) designed to retail for up to $13 each. Most will be Dark Horse, but some DCs and Marvels exported from the U.S. for sale in the UK will be  mixed in. Most will have copyrights of 1999 or later.
 
Typical comics feature Wonder Woman, Iron Man, Shadowman, Witchblade, Star Wars, Spy Boy, Xena Warrior Princess, The Jaguar, The Agency, Planet of the Apes, Kin, Obergeist and Buffy the Vampire Slayer.
 
The price is £1,200 (1,200 British pounds) per skid. At the exchange rate current when this was posted, that works out to around $2,350 per skid, or just under 20 cents per comic. Freight is in addition.
 
If you would like to see more sample covers from a typical skid, please go to the the Anvil mixed skids catalog page at http://anvilpub.net/Mixed_Skids.htm. Lots of other bargains listed there as well.

11. Thinking of repulping? Forget it – the market has tanked!

If you’re thinking about repulping that overstock rather than selling it as remainders, you might be wiser to just haul the books to the nearest landfill.

Only six months ago, we at Anvil were getting offers from countries like China and India (for 550,000 books we had for sale for repulping) of up to $85 per ton for the waste paper – for mass market and trade paperbacks. Hardbacks were bringing in less because they require more handling to repulp.

The nice thing about repulping is that the paper produced requires only 10 percent of the energy needed to make paper from trees. Further, repulping reduces material going into landfills.

The problem is that the bottom has dropped out from under the market.

On the West Coast, for example, mixed paper is currently selling for $20 to $25 a ton, down from $105 in October, according to Official Board Markets, a newsletter that tracks waste paper prices.

One reason prices slid so rapidly is that demand from China, the biggest export market for recyclables from the United States, quickly dried up as the global economy slowed. China’s influence is so great that in recent years recyclables have been worth much less in areas of the United States that lack easy access to ports that can ship there.

In New York, the city is getting paid $10 for a ton of paper, down from $50 or more before October. In Boston, one of the hardest-hit markets, prices are down to $5 a ton, and the city expects it will soon have to pay to unload its paper. But city officials said that would still be better than paying $80 a ton to put it in a landfill.

Harvard, for instance, sends mixed recyclables - including soda bottles and student newspapers  to a nearby recycling center that used to pay $10 a ton. In November, Harvard received two letters from the recycler, the first saying it would begin charging $10 a ton and the second saying the price had risen to $20. Rob Gogan, the recycling and waste manager for the university’s facilities division, said he did not mind paying as long as the price was less than $87 a ton, the cost for trash disposal.

Paper mills in China and the United States that have signed contracts requiring them to buy recycled paper are seeking wiggle room, invoking clauses that cover extraordinary circumstances.

Mills are also starting to become pickier about what they take in, rejecting cardboard and other products that they say are “contaminated” by plastic ties or other material.

12. Monitoring the ebook, graphic novel and etailing markets

As one more example of the declining importance of listserv forums, Jon Noring, founder of The eBook Community, a Yahoo group,  informed members on Nov. 14 that he’s considering closing the list down. Noring started the group in January 1996. It became the premier mailing list for discussion of e-books. “The last couple of years we've seen discussion in this group trickle off to essentially nothing,” Noring said in his notice. A poll of the group had disappointing results. While Yahoo shows the group with about 3,400 members, Noring’s poll found that the actual number of people who actively and eagerly follow the group is quite small, less than a hundred. “In addition, the number of notables in the digital publishing industry who follow this group is even smaller - most of the notables now follow and contribute articles and comments to various blogs
(particularly TeleRead), and to the private (by invitation only) and quite thriving Reading 2.0 list founded and run by Peter Brantley,” Noring wrote. “Thus, I am contemplating closing this group in a fashion similar to how John Mark Ockerbloom did for the Book People list: simply pulling the plug and not supporting/endorsing any successor group.” Noring held out one hope for members. “… I will consider turning over the reins of this group so it may continue uninterrupted, provided that a group of five or more people ‘formally’ band together into a ‘steering committee’ and propose to me, in writing, a cogent vision and marketing plan to reorganize and revitalize this group.”… Random House's U.S. division announced its "intention to make an additional 6,000-plus of its backlist titles available as e-books in the coming months," adding to the current list of 8,200 electronic titles. They are also further embracing the epub standard, "for the first time...offering its entire current electronic catalogue, as well as future titles" in that format. Random House's vice president for digital operations, Matt Shatz, told the Huffington Post that e-book sales have increased by "triple digit percentages in 2008, thanks in part to Amazon.com's Kindle reader." Still, e-books are estimated to account for only one percent or less of book sales.


Check out these great children's bargain books

LaLumiere, Michael, and Kim Messinger. Birthday Snow. Stagger Lee Books, 2007.

It has always snowed on Daniel's birthday. So he isn't worried when he wakes up on his fifth birthday and there isn't a cloud in the sky. Daniel puts on his snowsuit and mittens and pulls his snow tube up the grassy hill next door. While he waits patiently in the sun, his know-it-all sister, some older boys from down the street and the mailman explain to him why it can't possibly snow that day even if it is his birthday. Daniel begins to lose hope of seeing a single flake. Finally, Daniel's mother comes to help and together they tackle the problem of the missing snow. Birthday Snow is a story about a magical bond between a mother and her son.

Specifications: 8.6 x 11.1, hardback, 32 pp., ISBN 978-0979100611.
Cover price: $14.95, 1,000 available, 30 books per carton.
Price to individuals and retailers: 1-2 copies, $7.48 ea. (50% discount) plus $3.90 S&H, 3-99, $3.74 ea. (75% discount); 100-999 copies, 2.24 ea. (85% discount); 1,000 or more, 1.50 (90% discount).
Ships from: Sun City, AZ 85351
 

LaLumiere, Michael, and Kim Messinger. Princess Caitlin's Tiara. Stagger Lee Books, 2006.

One rainy morning, Caitlin tells her mom, "Watch out! I'm in a big old bad news funk!" Mom tells her daughter about a special tiara that cheered her up and made her feel like a princess when she was a little girl. Caitlin decides to make one for herself. She covers poster board with shiny foil, blue ribbons, feathers and glittery diamonds. And when the little girl nestles her new tiara into her strawberry blonde hair, she discovers that a princess can do just about anything. Caitlin races penguins at the South Pole, rides a sea horse deep in the ocean and flies around the world to have a picnic with Parisian pigeons on top of the Eiffel Tower. But the best fun comes when Mom finds her old tiara in a box in the attic. Together, the two princesses enjoy a slumber party at Buckingham Palace with the Queen and then, before they fall asleep, plan a trip through space to faraway Saturn. Princess Caitlin's Tiara is intended for children 4-8 years old.

Specifications: 8.6 x 11.1, hardback, 32 pp., ISBN 978-0979100611.
Cover price: $14.95, 1,000 available, 40 books per carton.
Price to individuals and retailers: 1-2 copies, $7.48 ea. (50% discount) plus $3.90 S&H, 3-99, $3.74 ea. (75% discount); 100-999 copies, 2.24 ea. (85% discount); 1,000 or more, 1.50 (90% discount).
Ships from: Sun City, AZ 85351

 

13. On Demand Books introducing new Espresso Book Machine 2.0

New York-based On Demand Books' newest version of its Espresso Book Machine is set to roll out early next year for initial testing.

The first Espresso machines were installed in 2006 at the World Bank InfoShop in Washington D.C., and the Bibliotheca Alexandrina in Egypt.

The new machine is smaller, less expensive and faster. At four feet tall, it’s the size of a copy-machine.

A user selects a book from a network of available titles, most of which are out of print. A short time later, the device, which currently runs at 112 pages per minute, prints, binds, trims and pops out a factory-quality book for the cost of about a penny a page.

On Demand's ultimate goal is to install the machines anywhere books are currently found, sold or needed.

All publishers need to do to have their titles available on the Espresso Book Machine is to provide a PDF of the titles to be printed.

On Demand Books plans to expand to incorporate more publishing and retail partners into its fold. On Demand already has selected partners to serve as beta test sites for the Espresso Book Machine 2.0, including the McGill University Library in Montreal, and the University of Waterloo Bookstore in Waterloo, Ontario.

14. Useful information and free services for writers

Can’t afford a lawyer to review the contract for your book offered to you by a publisher? Contracts can be riddled with traps for unwary writers. One inexpensive way to get a review is to join the Authors Guild. Guild attorneys will review your book contract before you sign, let you know whether it meets industry standards and tell you how it can be improved. Contract reviews are free for members. Dues are $90 for the first year - after that, dues vary according to writing income, but most authors continue to pay $90. Visit www.authorsguild.org to apply.


Looking for publicity for your book? Want news about your book to appear on hundreds of Web sites? For information on the public relations and publicity services we offer, please visit PR Services.

15. Amazon and Penguin announce second annual novel award competition

Amazon.com, Inc. and Penguin Group (USA) on Nov. 13 announced the second annual Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award, the international novel-writing competition. Writers around the world are encouraged to begin preparing their manuscripts for entry into the competition, which is scheduled to launch on Feb. 2, 2009.

Last year's inaugural Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award competition was won by Bill Loehfelm from a pool of 5,000 entrants. G. P. Putnam's Sons, a division of Penguin Group (USA), published his novel, Fresh Kills, in August 2008 to critical acclaim. The Associated Press hailed the novel as "the finest crime fiction debut since Dennis Lehane burst on the scene ... not just a crime novel but a psychological novel of impressive subtlety and complexity."

Between Feb. 2 and Feb. 8, 2009, writers with an unpublished English-language novel manuscript can submit their work at www.amazon.com/abna. Up to 10,000 initial entries will be accepted, from which Amazon editors will select 2,000 to advance to the next round. Expert reviewers from Amazon will then review excerpts of these 2,000 entries and narrow the pool to 500 quarter-finalists. Reviewers from Publishers Weekly will then read, rate and review the full manuscripts, and 100 semi-finalists will be selected. Penguin editors will evaluate the manuscripts from this group of 100 and choose three finalists. A panel of esteemed publishing professionals - including mega-bestselling authors Sue Grafton and Sue Monk Kidd, literary agent Barney Karpfinger and Penguin Press Editor-in-Chief Eamon Dolan - will read and post their critiques of the top three manuscripts on www.amazon.com. Amazon customers will then have seven days to vote for the Grand Prize Winner.

The winner will be announced on May 22, 2009, and will receive a publishing contract with Penguin, which includes a $25,000 advance.

Message boards will again be available on www.amazon.com for Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award author participants to connect with one another and discuss the contest.

CreateSpace.com, part of the Amazon group of companies will again host the contest entry platform, which includes a community for authors that will help them get their entries ready by staying up to date on the contest, soliciting feedback from the community and accessing online content that may be helpful in preparing their entries.

More than 5,000 registrations were received for the 2008 Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award contest, representing approximately 2,000 cities around the world and every state in the United States. Due to the tremendous response in 2008, up to 10,000 entries will be accepted for the 2009 contest. The contest will also take place over a shorter period of three and a half months, as opposed to six months last year.

The high caliber of the 2008 contest submissions resulted in the discovery of fresh new voices from among the Top 10 Finalists. Penguin Group (USA) has acquired four more Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award contestants' novels: Bad Things Happen by Harry Dolan (Amy Einhorn Books/Putnam, July 2009); The Wet Nurse's Tale by Erica Eisdorfer (G.P. Putnam's Sons, August 2009); The Butterflies of Grand Canyon by Margaret Erhard (Plume, January 2010); and Casting Off by Nicole Dickson (NAL, August 2009).

For complete terms and conditions for the 2009 Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award as well as more information about the contest, visit www.amazon.com/abna.

16. ‘Books=Gifts’ becomes central slogan of industry holiday campaign

A number of groups and people in the book publishing industry have signed on to a public relations campaign based around the slogan “books = gifts” in an effort to hype a holiday selling season that promises to be dismal at best.

Random House launched the "books=gifts" campaign that will run in a range of consumer publications such as the New York Times Book Review and the New Yorker as well as on its own websites and in ads on Facebook and YouTube and in e-mail blasts to various lists, including Random House's Special Offers list, among other vehicles.

Authors including Bill O'Reilly, Dan Brown, Deepak Chopra and Chris Paolini will be part of the campaign. Dean Koontz will say, "Books make great gifts because your friends and family need something thrilling to read other than their 401(k) report." Maya Angelou's message is: "Books make great gifts because they're a celebration of family and friendship."

As promoter and author M.J. Rose puts it on her blog, "We need to shout that books are still reasonably priced as gifts rather than whisper it. We can't just hope consumers get the message."

Through Authorbuzz.com, Rose is creating a holiday campaign to run for a month, starting right after Thanksgiving, that will "deliver a half a billion impressions across some of the most popular blogs and reach over 10 million people."

In her effort, 24 books will be featured, appearing on the blogs on a rotating basis and be highlighted in a variety of ways such as under the theme "perfect gifts for under $19." Anyone can run the ads or a generic version of "buy books." Rose plans to adopt the campaign to other holidays.

Backing her effort, several book bloggers have started a movement to buy only books as gifts for the holiday season.


Interested in buying a publishing or book-related business? Please contact us. Here are some of our current listings!

We currently have more than four dozen publishing properties listed or listing. For further information about our listings or about selling your publishing property, please click Publisher Brokerage

ESTABLISHED NEWSLETTER AND BOOK PUBLISHER: Lucrative newsletter dealing with hot current issue, with national and overseas circulation and peripheral information products for sale. In business for 34 years. Assets include copyrights to a number of books and reports related to the core newsletter, which covers privacy issues. Loyal following, 90 percent plus renewal rate. Revenues of $65K in 2007. Approx. value of inventory at cost: $9K. Asking $165K. Contact Anvil Brokers for prospectus and other information. Email ngriese@anvilpub.com or call 770-938-0289 or 1-800-500-FLAG.

ONLINE MARKETER OF INFORMATION PRODUCTS: This online marketer has built a highly successful business selling information online. Site vends four books and other information products aimed at individuals seeking a lucrative career path in mortgage brokering business. Business grossed $530K in 2006, with $300K of that profit. Sale includes websites ranked very well on Google and other search engines. Owner is moving overseas. Asking $1.1 million, all offers will be considered. To make an offer, contact ngriese@anvilpub.com or call 1-800-500-FLAG.

DEEP DISCOUNT IN ASKING PRICE FOR EAST COAST PUBLISHER. We have a listing for an East Coast publisher of 27 nonfiction titles, mostly in the self-help and general nonfiction areas, with some memoirs. Topics include aging, death & dying, education, health, family, and social or contemporary issues. Revenues last three years in $121K-$161K range. This publisher wants to follow a new career path in publishing starting immediately. Publisher has been asking $250K, but has drastically reduced the asking price in an effort to move the property quickly. The asking price is now $125K plus inventory at cost. The owner is also willing to finance up to 33 percent of the sale price. All offers will be considered. If you are interested, please email ngriese@anvilpub.com or call 770-938-0289 or 1-800-500-FLAG for further information.

FOR SALE: North American rights to manuscript by former European manager of major big pharma company. Explosive content about pill-mongering in the U.S. and worldwide pharma industry. Author, who was recently deposed in a U.S. class action suit, was responsible for bribing Swedish government official to pave way for European introduction of controversial drug Prozac. Describes dangers big pharma refuses to disclose about a wide class of therapeutic drugs such as Vioxx. Email ngriese@anvilpub.com or call 770-938-0289 if interested.

LITERARY AGENCIES WANTED: Successful East Coast literary agency seeks to expand by acquiring other agencies in the $5K-$250K gross revenue class. Candidates should be willing to disclose list of author clients, publisher clients, agency financial data. Contact Noel Griese at ngriese@anvilpub.com or 770-938-0289 or 1-800-500-FLAG.

FOR SALE: Financially sound West Coast publisher, 25 titles in print, with associated self-publishing operation. Gross revenues $1.045 million in 2007. Discretionary cash flow after expenses, taxes and owner draw of $42K was $302K in 2007. Organized as sole proprietorship. Includes approx. $49K in inventory at cost. Owner wants to devote more time to a nonprofit. Asking $1.0 million with minimum 50% down, security for balance. Won't last long! Email custserv@anvilpub.com or call 770-938-0289 if interested.

FOR SALE: Sub-S publisher with 50 titles in print (mix of mostly fiction, some nonfiction), strong online presence. Includes rights to one title being made into major movie this year. Titles distributed by Ingram and Baker & Taylor. Owner wants more time for his own creative endeavors. Revenue in 2004-2006 $75K plus. Sale price includes $25K in inventory at cost. Asking $229,800, but all offers will be considered. Owner willing to finance balance with 50 percent down. Email ngriese@anvilpub.com or call 1-800-500-FLAG.

My partner and I together have sold more than 100 businesses. We'd be happy to put you on our contact lists if you'd like to be notified of new listings. Just email us at either custserv@anvilpub.com or anvilpub@earthlink.net to let us know you'd like to be added.

 

17. Zondervan’s Bible Across America Tour gains media attention.

Christian publisher Zondervan has launched a Bible Across America tour to celebrate the 30th anniversary of the best-selling NIV Bible. The central focus of the public relations effort is to get 31,173 people to write by hand one verse of the 31,173 in the NIV Bible.

The tour launched Sept. 30 from Zondervan’s headquarters in Grand Rapids, Mich., with a special event for employees and the community. At the launch, former Zondervan CEO Bruce Ryskamp personally penned Genesis 1:1 to kick off the four-month tour that is traveling across the country in a 42-foot RV donated by Michigan-based Spartan Motors.

One month after the launch in Grand Rapids, the BAA tour was on a roll, literally. Over the first month, the BAA team, comprised of a young twenty-something married couple, has traveled more than 7,000 miles to 33 cities in 22 states to host writing events at churches, retail stores, community events, conventions, colleges, on a busy street corner in the heart of Midtown Manhattan and at a NASCAR race in Charlotte, N.C.

Through that month, the BAA team gathered more than 6,000 handwritten verses from people of all ages and walks of life.

In addition to capturing the local community’s attention at each stop, the BAA campaign has captured the attention of media across the country. USA Today, CNN, Time Magazine and the Associated Press are just some of the national media outlets that have covered the tour, in addition to hundreds of local newspapers, television and radio stations across the country.

“Going into this campaign, I expected to hear many amazing stories from the road, but I have been overwhelmed at how touched and blessed thousands of people have been by this project,” said Zondervan President and CEO Moe Girkins.

The BAA Tour has completed stops in the Northeast and the upper Midwest and is currently in the nation’s heartland with events n St. Louis, Kansas City, Topeka, and other cities before heading South and then out West.

The BAA team is maintaining a blog from the road featuring stories, videos and photos at www.BibleAcrossAmerica.com. Those interested in hosting a writing event can also make requests to rvteam@bibleacrossamerica.com.

18. Memoir by media mogul Ted Turner garners massive media hype

In case you didn’t notice the coverage, Grand Central has published a new memoir by Ted Turner.

The publishing house spent more than $5 million on Call Me Ted. It  printed 625,000 copies and shipped more than 500,000 as the media blitz hit, starting with the debut on “CBS 60 Minutes,” followed by Turner appearance on most of the major TV book venues.

Hillel Italie, who covers the book beat for the Associated Press, ran his story on the book on Nov. 8, giving him a day’s beat on the “60 Minutes” story. The AP said it had obtained an “early copy” of the book.

“ It wasn't religion that broke up his marriage to Jane Fonda,” Italie reported in his review of the book. Rather, Turner was upset when he learned of his wife's conversion to Christianity because she had not talked to him about it first, not because she had become Christian, the 69-year-old Turner says in the book.

The 433-page book, co-authored with former Turner Broadcasting executive Bill Burke, reviews the “Mouth of the South’s” loquacious, multi-pronged rise as yachtsman, baseball team owner, cable visionary and philanthropist.

Turner was collaborator Burke’s boss earlier in life. Three years ago, after leaving Turner’s enterprises, Burke wrote a 20-page article called “Leadership Lessons I Learned From Ted Turner.” Burke, a former president of TBS, e-mailed a copy to Turner’s assistant in Atlanta, who printed it out for Turner to read. Turner was on the phone with Burke within an hour. “I didn’t know you could write,” Turner said. “I want you to write my biography.”

Burke had never written a book, much less one in which the publisher, Grand Central Publishing, a unit of Hachette, had paid an advance of more than $5 million to Turner. But he comes from a line of media notables. His father, Daniel B. Burke, was president and chief executive of Capital Cities/ABC before it was sold to the Walt Disney Co. in 1996. His older brother, Stephen B. Burke, is president of Comcast.

After Harvard Business School, Burke was hired by the Turner Entertainment Group, where he developed the cable network Turner Classic Movies, which in turn propelled him, at age 29, to the position of president of TBS. A high-level digital job at Time Warner followed after Mr. Turner sold his company to Time Warner in 1996. He left Time Warner just before its ill-fated deal with America Online, and after a stint running the Weather Channel, Burke moved to Maine, where Turner recruited him to write his memoir.

Turner’s agent, Morton Janklow, of Janklow & Nesbit Associates, had considered a big-time author to do the writing. But Janklow came to believe Turner would be more likely to open up to someone he knew, so Burke landed the job.

Much of the book centers on Turner’s relationships with his wives, Jane Fonda in particular.

Fonda wrote at length about her marriage to Turner in her memoir My Life So Far, and Turner adds a similar take without referring to the infidelities alleged against him by Fonda. The two say they remain good friends.

Turner writes about their impulsive courtship, beginning in 1990 with his learning of her divorce from activist Tom Hayden. He immediately called her, a virtual stranger, for a date. She declined. He persisted. Six months later she accepted. They married in 1991.

Ex-President Jimmy Carter recalls in the book that he was in a boat fishing on Ted's 100-acre lake shortly after Turner read in the newspaper that Fonda was divorcing activist husband Tom Hayden. "Ted said to me, 'I think I'm going to call that woman up and ask her for a date,'" Carter remembers.

Turner recounts going back to their Montana ranch for the first time after their split and seeing that Fonda had taken all her belongings. "Our closets faced each other's, and when I saw her empty space I sat down on the floor between them and cried," writes Turner, who had two previous wives.

Billionaire Turner, who is America’s largest landowner and now the man behind the Ted’s Montana Grill restaurant chain that specializes in buffalo dishes from his ranches, admits in the new autobiography, that he's always been "better in business and sailing than I was in marriage... Monogamy for me has always been a struggle... My dad told me 'real men run around.'" That advice, which Turner says he's since abandoned, helped kill his marriages to his first two wives, Julia and Janie.

Turner says in the book that he has "very few regrets," vows to live long and well enough to fill a second book and wonders what should be inscribed on his tombstone. As a young celebrity, he wanted "You Can't Interview Me Here." In middle age, he liked "Here Lies Ted Turner. He Never Owned a Broadcast Network." As an older man and published author: "I Have Nothing More to Say."


Were the visions of this 19th century stigmatic and inediac authentic, or merely the explainable creations of her subconscious? Did she really have visions of the passion, crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth? You decide!

While he was still Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, Pope Benedict XVI advocated the cause for sainthood of a 19th century Westphalian nun who was a stigmatic (bled from wounds in her hands, feet and side), ecstatic (visionary) and inediac (lived on water and communion wafers).

In the 100-page introduction to a new edition of a religious classic, The Dolorous Passion, Atlanta author and historian Noel Griese writes about this nun whose piety touched the pope, and relates how Mel Gibson used the account of her visions to script more than 40 scenes in his "Passion of the Christ" movie.

The Dolorous Passion of Our Lord Jesus Christ is an 1833 work in which German author Clemens Brentano related the visions of the 19th-century nun, Anne Catherine Emmerich, regarding the Last Supper, Passion, crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth.

"Had Mel Gibson relied solely on the accounts in Matthew, Mark, Luke, John and the Acts of the Apostles, he would perhaps have had only two or three minutes of film," said Griese. "The visions of Anne Catherine Emmerich gave him many of the details that permitted him to create what is perhaps the most dramatic Passion Play yet produced."

Griese's introduction to the new edition of "The Dolorous Passion" links more than 40 scenes in the Gibson movie to the 19th-century German classic.

"People who saw the movie will recall Judas hanging himself over the carcass of a flyblown dead animal," Griese notes. "In the New Testament, only the Gospel of Matthew says Judas hanged himself, and it does not describe the locale. In Acts of the Apostles, a continuation of the Gospel of Luke, Judas is said to have met his end when his insides burst out. Gibson takes his cue for Judas hanging himself from Matthew, but his details of the locale are from Emmerich and Brentano."

Another example: one of the thieves crucified with Jesus is named Gesmas in the Gibson movie. The thieves, Griese notes, while not named in the Bible, have variously over time been identified in apocryphal material as Dismas and Cestas, Dumachus and Titus, Joca and Matha and Nismus and Zustin. Only Emmerich and Gibson identify the "bad thief" as Gesmas.

Similarly, the Roman centurion Abenadar in the movie, the 'right-hand man' for procurator Pontius Pilate, is an extrabiblical figure drawn straight from "The Dolorous Passion." Griese, a student of religious mysticism and the author of 17 books, says of Abenadar, "According to Emmerich, he was converted to Christianity as a result of his presence at the crucifixion. She says he took the Christian name Ctesiphon, and became an evangelist."

Emmerich and Gibson place Abenadar at the trial of Jesus before Pontius Pilate, the scourging and crucifixion. There is a historical record of a first-century Ctesiphon, Griese says. "This Ctesiphon accompanied the apostle James the Greater into Spain, where he helped to evangelize the Spanish at Verga. After James was martyred in Jerusalem, Ctesiphon is said to have taken his body back to Spain."   

To write The Dolorous Passion, Clemens Brentano sat beside the sickbed of ailing nun Emmerich daily from 1818 forward, recording the visions she experienced up to her death in 1824.

Brentano, a friend of Germany's greatest author, Johann Goethe, and of the Brothers Grimm of fairy tale fame, was a well educated author of poetry and plays who first gained fame as a collector and editor of German folk songs. Emmerich, whose visions he recorded, was a nun whose convent was closed in 1811 by Napoleon Bonaparte's brother Jerome Bonaparte, the king of Westphalia.

Brentano worked on his notes for nine years after Emmerich died in 1824 before publishing them as The Dolorous Passion. The book soon outsold even Goethe in Germany and became an international best-seller. However, it was all but forgotten until Gibson resurrected it to script his Passion movie.

The book is available in both cloth and paperback from Anvil Publishers and from local bookstores. It is distributed by Ingram and Baker & Taylor.

Hardback version with dust jacket, just $26.95 plus $3 S&H.
 

Paperback version only $16.95 plus $3 S&H.
 

19. Milestones: Records and news of note in book publishing

Pen USA has announced their literary award winners for 2008, including: Fiction, Daniel Alarcon, Lost City Radio; Creative Nonfiction, Julia Whitty, The Fragile Edge; Research Nonfiction, William Vollman, Poor People; Poetry, Juan Felipe Herrera, 187 Reasons Mexicanos Can't Cross the Border; Children's Literature, Ron Koertge, Strays; and Translation, Donald Revell, A Season in Hell by Arthur Rimbaud… Joseph Boyden won Canada's Giller Prize for his second novel Through Black Spruce, after having been favored to win the award three years ago for his debut, Three Day Road. Viking has the book scheduled for March 2009 release in the U.S.

20. Company offers authors opportunity to sell into iPhones

eBookApp.com in November announced that it was launching a new service designed to provide authors with worldwide exposure and readers with content that can be read on their iPhones.

The application allows authors access to millions of readers via iPhones.

The service converts existing books into iPhone-friendly reading material, which can then be purchased and downloaded from the iTunes store.

For a limited time, EBookApp.com is offering free service to authors who wish to take advantage of the technology at their main site - http://www.eBookApp.com

21. News of chicanery, litigation and tort-feasing in the book business

While the proposed settlement of two lawsuits against Google related to their Book Search library project have met with far from universal acclaim, the judge in the matter has tentatively approved the deal. Judge John Sprizzo set a June 11 date for a fairness hearing to "decide if the deal is fair, reasonable and adequate." 

22. Texas developer sues author, publisher, blurb contributor and reviewer

The developer of a controversial marina project in Freeport, Texas, has filed a lawsuit against the author of a book about the city’s use of imminent domain, Southern Newspapers and a former book reviewer for the Galveston County Daily News.

In court documents filed in Dallas County’s 44th District Court, Walker Royall argues Carla T. Main’s book, Bulldozed Kelo, Eminent Domain and the American Lust for Land, contained inaccurate and defamatory statements about him.

Royall is also suing the book’s publisher, Encounter Books, and Richard Epstein of Illinois, who contributed a summary of the book on its dust jacket.

In court documents, Royall argues Encounter Books knowingly published libelous material, and Epstein described the developer as being involved in the “machinations of an unholy alliance between city politicians and avaricious developers.”

Royall’s lawsuit contends a book review by Mark Lardas, then of The Daily News, contained false, inaccurate and defamatory statements about him.

“From the third paragraph to the conclusion, the review is false, misleading and defamatory,” court documents state. “The review not only republishes false and defamatory statements made by Ms. Main in her book, it also includes new false and defamatory statements about plaintiff that cannot be found in Bulldozed and are not rationally supported by any statements in the book. Southern also published the Lardas review on the Web site of the Galveston County Daily News.”

Since December, Royall has been subjected to repeated questions about the book from family, friends and business associates, according to court documents. The documents state Royall’s reputation has been damaged and that he has experienced mental anguish as a result of the statements in the book and the review. (Source: Nathaniel Lukefahr, The Facts, Nov. 16, 2008)

23. British mom sues daughter over book alleging childhood abuse

A British lawyer who wrote a popular book recounting a childhood of emotional and physical abuse is being sued for libel by her mother, who says the claims are fantasy.

Constance Briscoe, the author of Ugly, says the book title is based on the nickname she alleges her mother threw at her as a child.

Briscoe’s lawyer told London's High Court in November that the book contained some errors but was "quite properly put in the biography section of the bookshop, not the fiction section."

Ugly, of the “misery memoir” genre, has sold more than half a million copies in Britain since it was published in 2006. It was followed by a sequel, Beyond Ugly.

The child of Jamaican immigrants, Briscoe, 51, grew up in a poor part of London. She went on to become a lawyer and one of the first black women in Britain to be appointed a recorder, or part-time judge.

In Ugly, Briscoe alleges that her mother regularly beat and starved her before abandoning her when she was 13. The book claims Briscoe's stepfather once stubbed a cigarette out on her hand, and says that as a teenager Briscoe needed surgery on her breasts because of trauma caused by her mother's assaults.

Her mother, Carmen Briscoe-Mitchell, 74, says these and other harrowing incidents are fiction. She is seeking damages from Briscoe and her publisher, Hodder and Stoughton.

Briscoe-Mitchell's lawyer, William Panton, told the court the allegations of abuse were "nonsense" and said that as a child Briscoe had not complained to police, social services or teachers.

Briscoe-Mitchell wept on the witness stand as she refuted her daughter's account. "It was a happy family, a very happy family," she said. "My children were my pride and joy."

24. Graphic novels, comics important part of Miami Book Fair

Comics and graphic novels are now an important part of the Miami Book Fair International, and are expected to be a big draw, the Miami Herald reported during the show.

John Shableski of Diamond Book Distributors praised librarians' role in promoting manga, saying, "'For some 20 years, there has been a core group of librarians who understood the important role the graphic novel format holds. It draws new readers who are normally turned off of reading in general or discover a new love of reading through the graphic novel. In many cases across the country, the graphic novel collection of a young-adult section of the library can and will generate over 50 percent of the circulation for that collection.''

''The thing that was important to me was that I didn't want it to be just a few people on the weekend,'' said Lissette Mendez, program director for Florida Center for the Literary Arts and "a passionate comics fan." ''I wanted a whole program that showed the breadth and depth of comics. I wanted it to be multidimensional and educational. So we have superhero stuff, indie people, literary people, people who write on the history of comics, the stuff at the street fair.''
The fair, one of the largest festivals in the United States, features a daylong series of workshops for teachers, parents and librarians.

25. 21st Annual Independent and Small Press Book Fair held in NYC

The 21st annual Independent & Small Press Book Fair took place on Dec. 6-7 at the New York Center for Independent Publishing in New York City. More than 100 presses exhibited.

Programming included a session on the future of independent publishing, a literary trivia smackdown, how-to advice on memoirs and finding a literary agent, a read-a-thon, and conversations with authors and publishers.

Admission was free and open to the public.

For more information on next year’s event, contact the Center at indiebookfair@gmail.com or go to nycip.org/bookfair.

26. Major upcoming trade shows, book fairs and book festivals

 

2009 Trade Shows

January

Atlanta International Gift & Home Furnishings Market (Jan. 9-13) at Americasmart.

CBA Industry Conference .09, Jan. 14, at the Sheraton Hotel Atlanta, will set the industry’s focus into the future by demonstrating and walking attendees through the latest retail intelligence, consumer data, and digital marketing strategies for cost-saving and growth.

Inspirational Value Book Show (IVBS), Jan. 15-16, Nashville, Tenn., www.ivbshow.com
ChristianTrade Association International’s Marketsquare International, Jan. 15-17, Atlanta Sheraton Gateway Hotel.

ALA Midwinter 2009 in Denver, Colo., January 23 – 26,  www.ala.org

March

Spring Book Show - March 6-8, Atlanta, GA. Cobb Galleria/Renaissance-Waverly Hotel. SBS is one of the largest remainder and bargain book shows in the world. www.springbookshow.com

National Association of College Stores (CAMEX) – March 13-17, Anaheim, CA.  www.nacs.org
Bologna Childrens Book Fair- March 23-26, Bologna, Italy.

April

London Book Fair -  www.lbf-virtual.com

May

BookExpo America - May 28-31, 2009, New York -  www.bookexpoamerica.com

June

BookExpo Canada - June - Toronto, Ontario.  www.bookexpo.ca

The Australian Booksellers Association's -  Melbourne.

The American Library Association - Anaheim, CA.

July

The National Association of College Stores Conference.  www.nacs.org

CBA/The International Christian Retail Show. www.christianretailshow.com

ALA Annual Conference 2009, Chicago, Ill. July 9-15, McCormick Place Chicago, Ill. Committee and business meetings take place July 9-15, 2009 and Council Meetings run to July 15. Education programs take place primarily July 10-13. Exhibits held July 11-14 at  McCormick Place West. Programs and meetings take place at McCormick Place West and nearby hotels.

August

The Great American Bargain Book Show (GABBS) – August  www.gabbs.net

The New York International Gift Fair –  www.nyigf.com

The Beijing International Book Fair – Beijing, China. www.bibf.net/bibf

New Orleans-Gulf South Booksellers Association. betbooks@aol.com

September

CIANA – September 14-15, London. www.ciana.co.uk
Pacific Northwest Booksellers Association – September, www.pnba.org

New England Independent Booksellers Association - Sept. www.newenglandbooks.org

New Atlantic Independent Booksellers Association – September. www.newatlanticbooks.com

Mountains & Plains Independent Booksellers Association –September. www.mountainsplains.org

Midwest Booksellers Association –September. www.midwestbooksellers.org

Southern Independent Booksellers Alliance - Sept. www.sibaweb.com

Great Lakes Booksellers Association – September. www.books-glba.org

Beijing International Book Fair/ International Children’s Publishing Exhibit- September -China. http://www.combinedbook.com/2008-beijing-international-book-fair_4_307.html

October

Oct. 14–18, 61st annual Frankfurt Book Fair, Germany.

Northern California Independent Booksellers Association – Usually first weekend in October.  www.nciba.com

Southern California Independent Booksellers Association – October. www.scbabooks.org
Frankfurt Book Fair - Oct.. www.book-fair.com

Oklahoma Independent Booksellers Association – info@stevessundrybooksmags.com

CIROBE- October, Chicago Hilton. www.cirobe.com


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