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As you may know, I spent a brief but producctive stint working for BookStream, an independent book wholesaler for the northeast and mid-Atlantic regions. It's a company staffed by smart, passionate, book-savvy folks, and dedicated to raising the level of discourse and profitability across the book industry.

To that end, BookStream geniuses Carolyn and Ken have once again cooked up a fabulous TitleWave event: author readings, staff picks, lunch, and free galleys! They've got some fabulous authors lined up for the August 4 event in Princeton, NJ. It's almost a mini-trade show or Winter Institute, and a chance for booksellers to get a look at the books coming out in the next season and learn how to sell them better. I've included Carolyn's press release below with all the details. I'm encouraging all of my colleagues to go, to support BookStream's efforts, and to take advantage of this chance for professional development. And there's no arguing with a free lunch!

BookStream's second TitleWave Event to be held on August 4

Following on the heels of the success of its first TitleWave on February 27, 2008, BookStream has announced a second TitleWave to be held on August 4, 2008, from 10:00am – 4:00pm at the Nassau Inn, in Princeton, NJ.

The purpose of the event is to familiarize booksellers with up-and-coming authors and titles using both author appearances and a presentation of picks-of-the-lists selected and presented by BookStream staff. The event is free and open to all employees of independent bookstores so that they may be part of an information exchange that will lead to more successful hand selling and knowledge of new titles.

Featured authors will be David Ebershoff (The 19th Wife, Random House), Laurie Albanese and Laura Morowitz (The Miracles of Prato, William Morrow) and Matt Lewis and Renato Poliafito (Baked, Stewart, Tabori & Chang). After each author’s appearance, booksellers will have a chance to meet them and receive signed copies of their books (and in the case of the Baked authors, samples of their delicious deserts!).

The rest of the day will include lunch, presentations, and a forum for booksellers to have peer-to-peer interaction, including a discussion of favorite titles and ideas that have succeeded in their stores. With this in mind, BookStream asks that booksellers arrive prepared to share at least one title that they’ve enjoyed reading recently.

The Nassau Inn, centrally located in Princeton, NJ, can be accessed easily by train or car. For directions, information on carpooling, and to RSVP for this free event, please contact Carolyn Bennett at [email protected] or (866) 416-1112 x209.



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And for your Monday afternoon cute/weird/clever dosage, check out the new blog Corpus Libris. That's my fellow Emerging Leaders Council member Emily Pullen with the fist in the inaugural post, demonstrating once again that Skylight Books is one of the coolest places in L.A. I may have to bust out the digital camera at work and send some photos to them myself. Have fun!

Carolyn Bennett, my coworker at BookStream (at least for the rest of this week) and fellow blogger, is a big fan of "link love" -- the affectionate exchange of linkage between bloggers who read each other, in order to increase traffic for all. "Comment love" is another aspect of this, one I admit I'm a bit weak on -- though I read (and skim) tons of lit blogs, I'm often very lazy about posting comments, which is probably why this blog is not so commenty itself. But I'm resolving to be better. And how better to start off than with a link to a new website/blog I helped create:

BookStream.com!

If you ever clicked on this URL before, you may recall a fairly staid page with contact information and company description. Now, however, you've not only got yer contact info and yer special title offers and yer bookseller terms -- standard company stuff -- BUT you've also got archived back issues of The BookStream Current, and book recommendations from Ken Abramson (reader extraordinaire) and Carol Chittenden (children's book reader extraordinaire), AND info on upcoming events like TitleWave and KidSplash. AND -- coolest of all for fellow bloggers -- the aforementioned fabulous Carolyn is posting juicy tidbits of Book News every day, especially that of interest to indie booksellers. How's that for link love?

The idea of this website was to combine the best of what a blog does, and the best of what a book wholesaler does: that is, become a conduit for information. Wholesaler gets books from publisher to bookstore; blog gets information from other sources to readers. And in both cases, it can go both ways. I love that BookStream is creating itself as an intermediary in more ways than one. And even when I'm not involved in creating content for the site, I'm going to be checking (and commenting!) regularly to see what Carolyn, Ken, Jack & Co. are bringing to the table from the world of books.

Take a look, and share the love!

Aren't we lucky, us book people, to have such a good built-in metaphor for change? The act of reading involves this moment of physical action where to move the story forward you have to cover up and leave behind what came before. It's not a renunciation or a rejection -- just a way to get to the next chapter.

Yes, I'm leaving BookStream, after all too short a stay on that particular page. I'm sending out the announcement today, and I'll be finished at the end of this month.

I wasn't expecting to win the Power Up! competition, nor all of the new opportunities that would come with it. But win I did, and come they did, and now I have to pursue and follow up on these opportunities or risk missing my chance to do the one thing that's been my goal all along: open an independent bookstore in Brooklyn. And I just can't do that in the free time I have now. Something's gotta give.

As I described it to the ALP, I feel like I've been expanding and expanding the things I've been doing, to get all of the experience and meet all of the people and gather all of the knowledge I could. And it's been wonderful. But now it's the time to bring it in, and start to focus on one thing.

I've still got a couple of projects I'll be wrapping up and passing along at BookStream: there's a new KidSplash event coming up, and another TitleWave this fall, and a very cool new website that should launch in the next couple of weeks. I'm grateful to have been able to put some things in motion that I hope will continue.

And I have every confidence that BookStream will continue to do what it does well. Providing added value to booksellers, through good relationships with its staff. Transforming the role of the wholesaler into something more: an intermediary between authors, publishers, booksellers, and book buyers.

They'll need someone to do what I've been doing, and more. A passionate book person, a writer, an organizer, a creator, someone in touch with what's happening in the book industry; but also someone who's able to do a bit more traveling, to engage more with booksellers and publishers, to work the customer service angle as well as the marketing angle. It'll be a dream job (and as usual, I half regret not being able to do it all). Jack and Carolyn and Ken and Lily and Felice and Carol and everyone else at BookStream are awesome coworkers, and they know how to make a job worthwhile. I bet somebody with the right kind of passion jumps at the chance.

And in a few months, or a few years, "Lord willing and the creek don't rise," as my mom used to say...

I'll be opening my bookstore, and placing my opening book orders with BookStream, and putting them first in the cascade. (If you're a bookseller who uses electronic ordering, you know what that means.)

As when reading a great book, it's tough to leave the good parts behind. But I'm awfully excited about the next chapter.

Well, our first TitleWave event at BookStream was a smashing success. I'm working on writing up the press release now, but I can tell you informally here that the whole thing was awesome. Around 30 booksellers, plus sales reps and other folks, were in attendance. Our three authors -- Richard Price, Steve Toltz, and Hillary Jordan -- were each completely compelling in different ways. And Ken Abramson did a bang-up job of presenting his "pick of the lists" for great literary fiction and nonfiction from all publishers for the spring and summer seasons. You'll be hearing more about it from me and Carolyn Bennett in the days to come. If you're a bookseller who was there, I'd particularly love to hear from you! Thanks to everyone who made this possible, and who attended and enjoyed. On to the next event!

This morning I'm scrambling, along with my BookStream colleagues, to pull together the final details for our fabulous TitleWave event this Wednesday, February 27, in Hartford, CT. If somehow you've failed to hear all about it, here's what several dozen lucky booksellers have to look forward to:

10:00-10:15 arrive at the Sheraton East Hartford (free parking! TitleWave is in the Junior Ballroom)

10:15-10:30 introduction by BookStream CEO Jack Herr

10:30-11:00 Pick of the spring lists by sales rep extraordinaire Ken Abramson

11:00-11:30 Picks from the rest of the BookStream staff, presented by Carolyn Bennett and Jessica Stockton Bagnulo

11:30-12:00 Pick of the summer lists by Ken Abramson

12:00-12:30 Presentation by Richard Price, author of Lush Life (Farrar, Straus, Giroux)

12:30-12:45 short break for book signing & galley pickup

12:45-1:30 Lunch

1:30-2:00 Presentation by Steve Toltz, author of A Fraction of the Whole (Spiegel & Grau)

2:00-2:30 Presentation by Hillary Jordan, author of Mudbound (Algonquin)

2:30-2:45 short break for book signing and galley pickup

2:45-3:45 Bookseller picks of the list: the best of what YOU’VE been reading!

3:45-4:00 Closing remarks & evaluations

The momentum is building for TitleWave, the awesome (free!) event for booksellers I've been helping to put together at BookStream!

Bookselling This Week has a nice writeup of the event...

Today's Shelf Awareness mentions TitleWave (though I can't seem to link to today's issue in the archive yet)...

And Megan at Bookdwarf gives it a mention as well...

For myself, I spent the last week missing subway stops reading Mudbound by Hillary Jordan, one of the authors who will be speaking at TitleWave. I was trying to explain to myself its addictive appeal -- it's not unusual structurally or formally, and the setup is almost Greek or Shakespearean in its simplicity: struggling farm, stoic husband, unhappy wife, charming brother, plus nasty racist father, plus bright black WWII vet, plus resourceful midwife and preacher husband, and a big storm on the way. But I couldn't put it down, nor predict just what would happen. Jordan writes effectively in every voice (except the father's, thankfully) and builds her story so carefully but so inevitably that you're panting for more.

I know Carolyn at BookStream is a huge fan too (see today's BookStream Current), and Jordan was buzzed about at Winter Institute. Don't miss your chance to hear her speak and share lunch with her.

And if that's not enough, you'll also have the chance to meet Steve Toltz, the Australian author of Fraction of the Whole (an early offering for brilliant upstart Random House imprint Spiegel & Grau), and the inimitable Richard Price (Clockers, anyone?), whose new novel Lush Life brings him back to a gentrifying New York City (the ALP gives that one his stamp of approval).

And if that's not enough, you also get to hear the one and only Ken Abramson, sales rep extraordinaire, talk up the very best titles coming out this February to June. And Carolyn Bennett and yours truly talking about the pop culture side of the things. AND more galleys than you can shake a stick at, plus bags to carry them home. AND free lunch. AND free parking. Honestly, what more could you ask?

It's all happening February 27 in Hartford, Connecticut -- it's free to any bookseller, but you do have to RSVP (and space is limited!). Click the links to email me or email Carolyn or email Ken for more info or to sign up. Hope to see you there!

The people who read the February issue of School Library Journal read my article Curl Up With A Cup Of Tea And A Good Blog and also saw this photo. (Edited to add: New! Startling! Revelations about the photo shoot at the bottom of the post.)

When SLJ said they needed my photo for the article, my first thought was I'd ask my sister to take a few photos. I didn't realize they meant a REAL photo. Or a real photo shoot. As happens with these things, it turned out that it was a week I could not take a day off from work; and a weekend when my sister (Pixie) and her husband (her husband) were out of town on business so I was babysitting Cheetah and PeterParker in their house.

Which meant that the photo shoot took place at their house, not mine.

Things I learned during my mini session as a star: it takes a long, long time to set up lights. Even longer than you think.

Children insist on being involved in everything. Until they get bored and go do something else.

This one photo was the result of about 4 hours and hundreds of photos. I am not making that up. The photographer, Will Taylor, was great.

I adore Nicholas Mosse pottery. You can just see the top of one of his mugs.

Because it was at Pixie's house, I brought a bunch of ARCs and books with me, partly for the photo shoot, partly for the kids to look at it, partly in the hopes of getting some blog work done. Me being me, I made a list of the books I brought. The ones in bold are the ones you can see in the photo:

Tips On Having A Gay (Ex) Boyfriend by Carrie Jones
Good Girls by Laura Ruby
Pale Immortal by Anne Frasier (this is on the sofa)
Bindi Babes by Narinder Dhami
The Fat Girl by Marilyn Sachs
Devilish by Maureen Johnson
The Monstrous Memoirs of a Mighty McFearless by Ahmet Zappa
Mommy? by Sendak Yorkins & Reinhart (this is a fave with Cheetah & PeterParker)
The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon: A Pop Up Book by Stephen King (illus. by Alan Dingman, paper engineering by Kees Moerbeek) (another fave of the kids)
The Day of the Scarab by Catherine Fisher
Ancient Egypt: Archaeology Unlocks the Secrets of Egypt's Past by Jill Rubalcaba (right by the laptop)
Goy Crazy by Rachel Lowenstein (between Egypt and the tea cup.)
The Fetch by Chris Humphreys
River Secrets by Shannon Hale
Chloe Doe by Suzanne Phillips
Julia's Kitchen by Brenda A. Ferber
Beige by Cecil Castellucci
The Braid by Helen Frost
Martha Ann's Quilt for Queen Victoria by Kyra E Hicks, illus by Lee Edward Fodi
Kali and the Rat Snake by Zai Whitaker, illus by Srividya Natarajan (PeterParker is reading it. I cannot figure out which book Cheetah is looking at.)
Santa Knows by Cynthia & Greg Leitich Smith, illus by Steve Bjorkman
Poetry Speaks to Children
One White Wishing Stone by Doris K. Gayzagian, illus by Kristina Swarner

I also brought:
Knopf Delacorte Dell (Random House) Young Readers Group Spring 2007 Catalog
Random House Golden Books Young Readers Group Spring 2007 Catalog
Book Page November 2006
Kane/ Miller Spring 2007 Catalog
Chronicle Books Children's Spring/ Summer 2007
Book Page December 2006

I think Cheetah was looking at one of these catalogs.

Edited to add: Robin Brande asks, Liz, you're such a celeb! Great photo!Did you do your own hair/makeup/stunts? If so, all the more impressive!

Oh, go on. No, seriously, go on!

Hair: As soon as I knew I was getting the photo taken (and it was a short time frame) I called the salon and BEGGED for an appointment to get rid of the gray (I started going gray in my early 20s) and get my hair cut & styled. De Jensen was awesome & fit in me in.
Makeup: I am not a big make up person. I use it, but as with everything, I take a minimalist approach. I used a combo of Benefit (I adore Dr. Feelgood) & Bobbi Brown products.
Stunts: I did them all. This is when I learned how the models & celebs have stand ins for things like setting up the lights; I'm the one who sat there, instead of a stand in.

And have I mentioned? I'm one of those people who dread getting my picture taken!