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The Asian American Writers' Workshop is hosting "Page Turner," its first all-day literary festival, this Saturday at Brooklyn's powerHouse Arena—and on Friday night, the Workshop will present Sonny Mehta with its Lifetime Achievement Award in a ceremony that features an appearance by one of Knopf's literary stars, Michael Ondaatje. There are two levels of access to the Friday night event: $50 lets you in on a cocktail reception at 7 p.m., but for $500 you can stick around for the gala dinner afterwards. (Both tickets include full access to Saturday's events, which are also priced separately or on a day-pass.)

Full disclosure: GalleyCat senor editor Ron Hogan is one of many guest speakers Saturday; he'll be moderating a discussion about "Queering the Asian-American Coming of Age Story" with novelists Alexander Chee, Abha-Dawesar, and Rakesh Satyal that afternoon.

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We started the day at the MARIAB Northampton Book. I arrived at just about 10 am and the place was pleasingly busy. There were a good number of dealers present...pretty much the same as past years...with some fresh blood stepping into a handful of empty slots.

It is late and we have to be on the road reasonably early to get back to Portland. More to follow as I begin to be able to process this adventure...

Stage Three of my epic fall journey began as soon as I arrived back in Portland. Having survived, barely, the Seattle to Maryland trip, I spent a few days doing things in the MD area and visiting my in-laws. Fun was had by all. We left on Thursday, arriving back in Portland at about 430pm or so.Lucretia picked us up at the airport and brought us to the house where we unloaded, I gazed longingly at my bed while repacking and then we (just LB and I, The Suz had conflicting obligations) were off to the Northampton area for the weekend.

Our friends at mediabistro.com's design blog, UnBeige, told us late last week that Ai Weiwei, who was one of several dissident Chinese artists and writers invited to participate in Frankfurt Book Fair programming—which as you can imagine was not received well by the official delegation from the People's Republic, which is the "guest of honor" at this year's event—is now unable to attend due to health complications. Weiwei is still recovering from surgery on a cerebral hemmorhage which more than a few people suspect was caused by being beaten by Chinese authorities earlier this year. According to an Art Info article quoted by UnBeige, Weiwei's position is that ever were he able to travel, he has "no real desire for empty and pointless political debate."

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Just a quick post as I am in no condition to...well...be conscious. The final day of the fair was great. Seattle is really a pretty wonderful book town. Lots of people genuinely interested and engaged in a broad range of material. It is really a treat to be out here. The fair was well attended pretty much all day. Best of all, an ok fair (marginal/fair sales, great buying) ended strong with a very nice sale in the last half hour. The next few weeks will let us know just how good it was as those with interest percolate on things and...with luck...will call.

Day two in Seattle was great. This is a great book fair town. The crowd, slow at the very start, ramped up rapidly and stayed strong and steady nearly all day. A lot of people, engage, interested, inquisitive and, on occasion, buying. If 20% of those who left saying they wanted to see if x, y or z was already on their shelves return and buy tomorrow (as I expect), this tomorrow should be interesting.

Wanda Jewell (center) caught up with her brothers, Steve and Wayne, at last weekend's annual trade show for the Southeast Independent Booksellers Alliance in Greenville, South Carolina. According to Julie Schoerke, an independent publicist and occasional GalleyCat correspondent, attendance was up at this year's event, and the attendees were thrilled to see Jewell, SIBA's executive director, in such good health after undergoing breast cancer surgery earlier this summer. One of the highlights of the weekend, Schoerke adds, was a charity auction in which bookstore owners bid for dinners with guest authors at Greenville's best restaurants: "Unfortunately, one of the buses carrying the authors and winning book sellers to the downtown restaurants hit a car which delayed the party for a while," she tells us. (Nobody in the bus was hurt, though). "The trolley, carrying the rest of the group, got side tracked and some of the riders decided to take their chances, walking the rest of the way in the rain, which just added to the stories the next day on the tradeshow floor."

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The editors of GalleyCat couldn't attend the 25th Annual Gothenburg (Göteborg) Book Fair, but author and GalleyCat correspondent Scott Andrew Selby is filing dispatches from the four-day book fair.

Today, he saw four crime writers speak. Selby writes: "British crime writer Simon Kernick spoke about getting published, hanging out with criminals, and being selected by the Richard & Judy Book Club. Kernick (pictured) pointed out that 'in the UK we have festivals for the trade or the public, here there are both. It's amazing to see so many readers in one place.'

"When he sent out the first three chapters of his first book, Kernick said 'every last publisher/agent' in England rejected him. So he wrote another novel and 'the exact same thing happened. It had one good chapter out of 500 pages.' Taking that one chapter that he felt good about, Kernick came up with the basis of a third book. He sent one chapter and the first person asked to see the whole book. He then spent the 'next three months sending in parts, when I sent in the last bit, I got a letter saying he was not interested. I tided it up and got a deal. The moral of the story is you have to be patient if you want to write.'"

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This past Sunday was the Portland Antiquarian Book Book and Paper Fair sponsored by the Maine Antiquarian Booksellers Association. In many ways, it was a hard year. We had fewer vendors than we have had in recent years (very annoying, given that this fair is the *only* fair in Maine *and* is so inexpensive relative to other shows (a full booth costing less than a display case rental at most shows). The number of attendees was also off...for reasons that many have various opinions about and clearly an issue that we need to think hard about how to turn around.

show...especially given the soft turn-out and small vendor pool.

That said, I know several dealers had little or now sales, though one of those apparently bought well enough to feel good about the show in the short term. These shows, of course, should really be thought of as part of a "long game". For most of us, the "value" of any given show has a great deal more to do with advertising and becoming known among local bibliophiles. A conversation at a show may just be a pleasant diversion during the fair...but becomes something "real" 6 months (or years) later when you get a call from that same person about placing their books and/or their desire to track down new material.

It was unfortunate that so many Maine dealers choose not to do the show. One of the best elements of the show, historically, is the number of Maine dealers who do this

show and don't do others. It is one of the things that draws dealers/collectors "from away" and that makes the show so much fun (that is, seeing folks that you might not see often otherwise).

One of the shining exceptions to this miss by others was the arrival of The Maine Bookhouse at the fair for the first time. Harry and Joanna Reese allowed themselves to be cajoled into attending after only a couple of years of pestering at the very last minute. They took a single table and made the very most of it (see the last image, with Joanna hiding at the left side). They came with solid material and benefitted

greatly from Joanna's wonderful personality and passion for her books. I've been told that it was a good show for them... I'm very pleased that their first show went well.

Also doing his first book fair was Craig Olson of Artisan Books & Bindery. Craig has recently radically increased the volume of his stock by acquiring the sadly now gone ABCD Books in Camden. He is following up the Maine book fair with the shadow show of the Boston ABAA book fair in November. This was, of course, exactly what we did and clearly bodes of great things to come from Craig...

I, of course, spent more time setting up my booth (admittedly, a big double booth as I had a lot of history of Maine/Americana that displays best if not shelved together...the bane of the "ugly brown book"). I spent about 7 hours setting up for a 6 hour fair. Another 2 hours breaking down...it would have been 2 hours more had I not had SIX helpers (thanks to Suzanne, Eli, Kaitlyn, mom, dad, and Lucretia).

That said, the booth looked really nice (better than I, Utilikilt not withstanding). Eli was great fun in his skull and crossed bones bow-tie and belt. I met several new clients/potential clients and spent the day (and a half) with people I really enjoy seeing. A good time.

The economy is not great, the gate was off, the number of dealers was down...but overall, it was a surprisingly good show. Here's to next year being even better.

Sorry for the slight delay in posting, but after packing up the van (and unpacking it at the house), I left early Monday for NYC and a great conference at the Grolier Club. Back home now and reality is settling down...for a few weeks, when I leave for the Seattle Book Fair.

The Press Herald posted a few pictures from the fair. It would have been nice if the image of Moby Dick had been properly cited, but it is close enough... Full report on the fair with added pictures to follow...a two day trip to NY immediately following the fair has thrown all things askew.

Tom Bell, program director of the Decatur Book Festival, met "backstage" with former Denver Broncos linebacker Karl Mecklenburg

"Despite ominous gray skies and an huge football game in the Georgia Dome," Schoerke adds, "thousands of fans of the books were on hand Saturday standing in long lines to get copies of their books signed by their favorite authors." Charlaine Harris was another of the authors featured on the main stage for the festival, which has managed to become the nation's fourth-largest in just four years. (And it was a doubly literary weekend in the Atlanta area, as even more authors and fans showed up for the annual Dragon*Con convention, which also brought a lot of stars from the film, television, and comic book worlds. Anybody got any pictures from that to share?)

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This weekend, the Writers' League of Texas is holding its annual agents conference in Austin—we spoke there last year, and it's good stuff. (Frankly, we wish we were going back!) This year's keynote speaker is former William Morrow publisher Michael Murphy, who's been running a literary agency called Max & Co. for the last two years. When we heard that the title of his talk would be "Sitting in a Cardboard Box, Saying Voom Vroom and Pretending It's a Car," we wondered if it meant Murphy believed that some folks were playing at being publishing companies, but his take on the phrase was much more benevolent: "It was really meant to covey that we are all pretty much making-it-up as we go through this period of fundamental change in the book business," Murphy emailed us. "There are many rather smart people issuing completely divergent opinions about The Future of Publishing."

Those perspectives run from Barry Eisler's assertion that "the only thing keeping paper books going... is inertia," which was itself a response to a claim from NY Times tech columnist David Pogue that "in Technoland, nothing ever replaces anything," to Columbia University Press CFO David Hetherington's counterargument that "there's a fine line between vision and hallucination" when it comes to the digital publishing movement.

"[It's] sounding like The X Files: The Truth is Out There," Murphy continued. "But what that truth is is anyone's guess. I am very interested to watch experiments like Richard Nash's new venture, The Round Table. I am equally excited, but yet reserved, by all the enthusiasm being expressed by excellent small & mid-sized publishers like Counterpoint and b>MacAdam/Cage

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What follows is a quick overview of our first trip to the annual "Preconference" event held by the Rare Book and Manuscript Section (RBMS) of the American Library Association (ALA). It was a very interesting week. The event was extremely well run, especially given the numbers involved (368 attendees, 450 total with speakers and booksellers).

STATUS: I’ve got so many great notes to share with you folks. Just not enough time in the day to blog about it all. Thank goodness we have the rest of the week.

What’s playing on the iPod right now? LYIN’ EYES by The Eagles

I have to say that I’m very glad that I attended Book Expo this year. A lot of things are changing in the industry and it only makes sense that BEA is going to evolve, transform, change, or even disappear (although doubtful) in the years to follow.

I had heard that publishers were cutting back this year and now having seen it, I can tell you for certain that that is true.

Random House had a booth the size of a postage stamp.

Macmillan wasn’t even on the floor. They simply had meeting rooms in the basement—I mean the lower floor that held the conference rooms.

At past BEAs, aisles were so stuff with people, you had to do an interesting shuffle with a lot of “pardon me” to get through. This year, the open space was like walking down an uncrowded boulevard. I think the only time I felt packed in was when the new Balzer & Bray imprint had their champagne toast launch party in the HarperCollins booth. However, once all glasses were distributed, the bar magically disappeared. It was up for maybe 15 minutes total. The champagne bottles were not abundent.

At past BEAs, ARCs (otherwise known as Advanced Reading Copies) abounded. In fact, you couldn’t walk through a booth without tripping over one. This year? Scant would be the word I would use to sum it up. Unless there was an actual signing going on, very few galleys could be had. [Although I should have assigned my client Megan Crewe to be my stealth ARC gatherer as she totally scored with a copy of CATCHING FIRE (hot sequel to The Hunger Games) and a copy of BEAUTIFUL CREATURES (which is getting some solid pre-buzz).] She managed to snag about 60 ARCs.

However, in general, I can’t complain about this year’s Book Expo. The show was very good to my authors as the pictures below will attest.

Photo 1: Hank Ryan draws crowds in the Harlequin booth for the release of her third book in the Charlie McNally series--AIR TIME.





Photo 2: Now this is good editor support. Notice how Devi Pillai dressed to match the poster colors. That's going above and beyond the call of duty! (Actually, Devi hadn't realized that she had done so until I pointed it out to her.)




Photo 3: Gail Carriger signs her copies of her debut fantasy SOULLESS. One of the few ARCs that were out and about every day for the taking, Gail had some really nice lines--especially considering she's so new to the scene. In fact, in a funny related story, three separate people at random times came up to me during the weekend to tell me about this really cool ARC they had snagged. Imagine my surprise that at three different times, the book they pulled out to show me was of SOULLESS. I had to then 'fess up that it was my book.


Photo 4: Nice signage for the third book in the Gallagher Girl series that is releasing next week!



Photo 5: Ally signs in the Brilliance Booth

A surprisingly large amount of attendees roamed the BEA halls and conference rooms today. One of the big hits of today's events was the Tina Brown moderated, "CEO Roundtable" which featured some of book publishing's top CEOs.

They discussed the future of book publishing, the fear's of DRM, how ebooks and ebook readers are effecting the publishing landscape despite it's less than 5% market share. They also shared how their focus is split 50/50 between not only on maintaining the existing business operations but on what is happening in the near future digitally.

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If you're wandering the aisles at BookExpo America this weekend, you might notice a bit of a theme to the Hal Leonard, where they'll be promoting two books aimed at the 40th anniversary of Woodstock. Woodstock Vision features a bunch of pictures from the music festival's official photographer, Elliott Landy; Bruce Pollock's By the Time We Got to Woodstock actually encompasses the wider pop music scene of 1969, which the author believes was the most significant year in rock music's history. Both Pollock and Landy will be appearing at the booth, and Hal Leonard will be holding a drawing for a gift package that includes both books, DVDs of Easy Rider and Midnight Cowboy, a CD of the year's top songs, and a bunch of other stuff.

You notice how nobody's putting out a commemorative book for the tenth anniversary of Woodstock '99? Or even the 20th anniversary of the impromptu Woodstock '89? Heck, we would've settled for some 25th anniversary celebrations of the US Festival last year...