Friday, February 16, 2007

Worth Reading

Check out Daivd Isaak's blog, Tomorrowville He's unpublished (at least in fiction) for a few more months until Macmillan New Writing launches his Smite The Water. He's irreverant, witty, and informative. And one of our main sounding boards.

Cover Design

We've made eighteen trips to the local B&N to check out book covers. Agreement has been reached on two points. First, some cover choices are truly bizarre. We asked "What were they thinking?" and we agreed on dozens of bad choices. Second, different things catch the eye of different people. Just because you think it's great doesn't mean the next person will even notice. It seems we've evolved a process here that is ultimately dictatorial - the owner makes the selects the cover from choices that are acceptable to many, including the author. We can't find total agreement.

Monday, February 5, 2007

Where is book selling going?

With the forthcoming closure of Book Soup in Orange County, we ponder the closure of other brick and mortar booksellers. Where is book selling going? For our fiction market, with new authors and a small, unknown house, what are the chances of getting a book on the shelf at B&N in Tustin? Small. Mighty small, me thinks. Does it matter? Even if we were a huge house and could muscle our way onto a shelf, would we get 80% returns in unsellable condition? Our better strategy seems to be maximizing our online selling ability and finding new niches into which we can cost-effectively insert our desktop book kiosks. Starbucks would have been a great outlet. Time for a brain storm. Please share if you have any special insight. Is there an opportunity for a new distribution model in here somewhere?

More on Obstfed and Kareem

Here's an update on a local appearance. Los Angeles City Councilmember Bernard C. Parks is going to honor Lakers' legend Kareem Abdul-Jabbar with a City Council presentation
in City Hall! Councilmember Parks will declare the date of the presentation (February 22, 2007) Kareem Abdul-Jabbar- "On the Shoulders of Giants" Day in Los Angeles. He will also permanently hang Mr. Abdul-Jabbar's jerseys from the Lakers and from UCLA in City Hall. Mr. Abdul Jabbar's presentation will be the culmination of the city's Black History Month events for the year. Book signing immediately after the event.