(Via Publishers Lunch)

Amazon Bought Two Locks to Keep LOST SYMBOL Secure

The New York Times won’t be obtaining any copies of Dan Brown’s new book from Amazon, where the e-tailer’s home page carries a note promoting the new release from Jeff Bezos–who insists that “even inside Random House, only a half dozen employees have been allowed to read The Lost Symbol in its entirety.” (Is it supposed to be reassuring that almost no one at the publisher worked with the author on preparing his book for publication?)

Amazon has “agreed to keep our stockpile under 24-hour guard in its own chain-link enclosure, with two locks requiring two separate people for entry.” All they know about the book is that “it takes place over the course of twelve hours” and features Robert Langdon. Of course if you want to pre-order it for delivery to your Kindle the morning of release, go right ahead. The print version is No. 1 at the site; the Kindle pre-order is currently No. 64 on the Kindle list.

Of the many coffee-spitting phrases I loved from this article the best, in my humble opinion, is the editorial commentary: “Is it supposed to be reassuring that almost no one at the publisher worked with the author on preparing his book for publication?” No, no it is not. I must admit- the attitude in the industry on this one is, of course they aren’t printing advanced copies or showing it to anyone before publication: it’s Dan Brown, it’s the follow up to The Da Vinci Code and even if it is as horrible as most people I’ve spoken to are predicting, it will still sell 200,000 copies minimum in its first month.

Happy Labor Day all- especially to the 6 people at Random House who have had to hold their tongues for the last 10 months. It’s almost over.

And in the name of full disclosure: I will of course be reading it at some point- Dan Brown is the perfect airplane read- and this will be out just in time for my 8 hr trip to Frankfurt next month.

As I was trying to think of a justification to buy the Amazon kindle when I already have a perfectly good Sony Reader, I noticed three excellent placements- The Story of Edgar Sawtelle, The New York Times, and Malcolm Gladwell’s Outliers were each given a screen shot in advertising the kindle on Amazon.com, and I had to wonder- how much did that cost them?

Paid placement these days can be a tricky business- a celebrity carrying around your product to your standard newspaper or magazine ad. Prices range from cost per impression to mass one time payments for period long associations. A Facebook ad is going for more than a Google ad, but can be better targeted (women who have religious views as Christian, between the ages of 25-42, living in the Midwest is completely doable). Personally, online ads annoy me. I skim over, minimize, and scoff at them regularly, but the genius of placement in the kindle ad should be applauded.

Whether it was placement given gratis as a co-advertising venture, or they are being charged a onetime fee for inclusion for the length of the campaign, I would love to even be up for consideration. No matter what you think of the kindle, or any of the products highlighted in its ads, you have to admit- love it or hate it- the placement is brilliant.

If anyone is looking to have a cover shot of a book in their next ad campaign- call me, I will find a way to work something out. The placement that people don’t think you are paying for is always the most effective. And though I tend to stay away from the Oprah book picks until the initial dust storm has settled I must admit, having seen that Edgar Sawtelle cover everywhere these last few months has returned it to my reading list. Repetition works- its finding the right location that presents the challenge.

Today is my last day as the Beaufort Books intern. I’ve been here nearly 3 months and can now re-enter the pool of job applicants with the confidence of actually having work experience! No more scrounging through my high school experience to dredge up something that sounds productive and professional.

I’m going to close this brief venture into blogging the same way I began it: what are you reading?

I just finished The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald. While I was recently watching the second (third?) season of The Wire, a prison book group reads The Great Gatsby and one of the members has a monologue about Jay Gatsby that I knew was rich with foreshadowing and parallels that I wasn’t understanding because I hadn’t read the book. So, obviously, I had to read it.

The book wasn’t what I was expecting. It has a delicate mood and a calm, organized approach to the material that I found appealing, if underwhelming. It certainly lends some insight into D’Angelo Barksdale of The Wire, if nothing else.

Only five more days until the new season of Mad Men! When I was lamenting the end of the school year, I consoled myself with the idea that Mad Men would be on all summer and that I would have something to look forward to every Sunday. Alas, it was not to be, and the premiere date was set for middle of August. In despair, I even went to Banana Republic to try on their line of Mad Men clothing.

For those who don’t know about Mad Men, it’s an AMC series focusing on the employees of a small Madison Avenue advertising agency in the early sixties. More broadly, it’s a look at the changing culture of the early sixties.

The summer has blown by, and finally the next season is upon us. I approach it with some trepidation; the directions the show might take offer a depressing, perhaps too timely, array of ideas. The delicate, elegant culture that the characters inhabit has a limited lifespan. Pop culture and politics of the time are approaching an upheaval: the Hollywood studio system is essentially over, The Beatles are coming(!!!), along with assassinations, riots, and Vietnam.

All current parallels and philosophical ramblings aside, dramatically the show could become very, very interesting.

Like everyone else, my college started to panic about the failing economy this year. In the spring, they released a proposal to eliminate about 10% of the operating budget in order to preserve the rapidly diminishing endowment. The largest budget-cut, and certainly the one that sparked the loudest din and debate, was the closing of one of the libraries.

It was the performing arts library – a collection of original musical scores, scripts, taped dance performances, reams of sheet music, and countless musical recordings. The administration hoped to distribute the collection among our neighboring schools, moving the bulk of it into the main library, and begin to put everything into electronic form.

Fuming and itching for a fight, the performing arts faculty began to plead for their course materials in class. Students bitterly recounted experiences with belligerent library staff at other schools. However, the most controversial aspect of the proposed change was the part about going digital.

While everyone was reliant on the internet for everything, everyone was reluctant to make that final step: we loved books, we loved holding them, we loved everything about them. The recent revelation that E-Books are subject to the whims of Big Brother only promotes the idea that nothing can replace the ownership of a physical book.

By the end of the year, the plan to close the library in my school was disbanded and the debates faded out, unresolved.

I was going to list everything wrong with the Emmy nominations announced this morning in this entry under the reasoning that all pop culture happenings are interrelated and, therefore, television awards are totally relevant to a publishing blog.  Instead, I’ll write about a book, and settle for telling everyone to go watch the first three seasons of Friday Night Lights.

The big thing with all my Smith College peers in recent days is the new book, Commencement, written by Smith alum J. Courtney Sullivan. We all went out and bought it and are in varying stages of readings and re-readings. I finished the book yesterday and was ultimately disappointed. It held the thrill of recognition – like the four heroines of Commencement, the phrase “freshman” has been entirely wiped from my vocabulary and I now accidentally say “first-year” when talking about ninth grade – but otherwise, it probably too broad and too sentimental.  But it had it’s moments of insight, of  genuine emotion, and it makes me eager for the beginning of another year at Smith.

I’ve spent the bulk of  my time today linking, researching, listing, and now writing blogs. All this begs the question, does it work? Does it matter?

As a way to disseminate information – perhaps. A creative outlet, certainly. Validation, only if people read it. But in business?

Personally, I have followed just one blog. It was about Lost and I was heartbroken when it was closed. However, it didn’t really achieve anything concrete – I never bought anything (it didn’t sell anything), I watched the show religiously anyway, and I disabled pop-up ads. Such is the glory of the internet.

So, when I started interning, I was (and still am) bewildered by the emphasis on blogging in publishing. It makes me think that the internet will either be seized by corporations who force you to look at ads and pay for things, or that business will dissolve altogether and that the world will essentially evolve into Star Trek, where “the acquisition of wealth is no longer the driving force in our lives.”

Neither, however, seems very likely.

As I plowed through my little list of intern-type duties this morning, I began worrying about what to blog about. I spent last week visiting relatives in New England and the weekend watching the first season of The Wire, so I was going to have little new to say about the state of publishing.

Luckily, skimming through the blog entries written in my absence, I read the aforementioned list of “1000 novels everyone must read,” and have actually just read one of the books: Possession by AS Byatt. My best friend has been promising to lend me her copy since we were 14, but lent it to someone else when we were in high school and never got it back.  At long last, I found an ungainly hardcover copy at my grandmother’s house that I lugged back to New York and finished at one this morning.

I had seen the movie when it came out (2002? 2003?) and was surprised that that modest, understated film came out of such a majestic novel. Even at such a length, and even with the density of all the very long Victorian-style fairy tales and poetry embedded within Possession, I loved it and would recommend it to just about everyone.

Now, I’m attempting to read Nabakov’s Pale Fire – another book on the list.  After reading and loving Lolita a few years ago I wanted to read anything and everything Nabakov ever wrote – a desire that abruptly cooled when I tried to read Ada. After about ten pages of Pale Fire I’m pretty sure I’ll never finish it either, and will again be in need of something else to read. Any suggestions?

– Sylvia

The LA Times article “77 novels for 60 years” celebrating the 60th Anniversary of the National Book Foundation and its 77 award winners sent me off on a task I take on once every few months: googling “Must Read Books” or “Top 50 Books of All Time” or “Books to Read Before you Die.” This search yield: a great article from January’s Guardian “1000 novels everyone must read: the definitive list”. I dutifully went through this mamoth, checking and circling books, conveniently divided by subject, but by the end I had to wonder what it is I’ve been spending my time reading…. woefully all my checks (read it!), circles (own it or on the to read list), and strikeouts (a combination of the movie version ruined it already, or I started it and will never pick it back up) left a huge list, some titles of which I didn’t even recognize.

The obvious first excuse came to mind, The Guardian is a BRITISH paper, so obviously my AMERICAN self had not been exposed to some of the titles. But really- we all know that is complete crap, especially in my own case as I have actually lived in London. So back to the drawing board.

I realized, sadly, that those circles indicated many books that have been on my to read list for YEARS. With all the hoopla of each next season of books- my BEA stash for this year is already well tapped- it gets increasingly difficult not to read the highly recommended new thing (Jonathan Tropper- This is Where I Leave You LOVE IT!), as opposed to the book you have been trying to read for the last 10 years (The Name of the Rose- Umberto Eco).

Solution: I am going to hold strong, pull out the pile of books I have been collecting (Fingersmith by Sarah Waters– purchased December of 2003, as yet unread) and start making a dent. While the offerings this year have been great, and I have been raving to any who will listen about more than a few, I must admit, there is nothing worse than realizing, as is so sadly true, that I have never actually read ANY, of Jane Austin. I think I just failed publishing 101. First on the list:  Persuasion… to be followed by my book group’s selection of Pride and Prejudice and Zombies.

Thoughts?

In the July 12 issue of the New York Times Book Review section, which was happily plopped onto my desk 20 minutes ago, I found my new favorite Letter to the Editor.

It reads:

“I continue to be amazed at the number of advice books listed each week in the Book Review as best sellers. I have led a long, productive life based on only two pieces of advice, both of which I learned as a preschooler some 80 years ago. First, I try to place nicely with everybody; second, if I am crabby, I take a nap. What more does anyone need to know?” – Eleanor Blumenberg of Santa Monica, CA

All I can say is, with jems like that, Ms. Blumenberg- are you by any chance looking for a book publisher? Call me.