About Young Publishers Today

Finally, read about the authors of this blog!  Go to our YPT PYTs page to find out more about us. 

Our “contact us” page will be coming soon as well.

-Emily

Friday Book Art – Takeshi Ishiguro

 Finally – a coffee table book that can be used in a practicle manner.  Although, really I don’t buy coffee table books for practicality; I buy them because they’re gorgeous.  So maybe a better way to put it is “a coffee table book with a hidden use” or something similar.

Takeshi Ishiguro, a Japanese artist/designer, runs his own studio in Tokyo.  But he doesn’t create just art – he also focuses on conceptual products as well.  In this piece – he combines the two.  And yes, this is now available to purchase.  :) 

The Book of Lights

 

It’s powered by a low voltage adapter.  Go to Unica for more info.

-Emily

HuffPost Book Section: A Publicist’s Thoughts

Well – I can tell you that there was a ton of buzz about the Huffington Post’s recent book section addition on my floor.  As I work in publicity, you can imagine how all those publicists took the news that a major publicity outlet was going to increase its book coverage.  And then we read Amy Hertz’s (Editor of HuffPost Books) post about how us lowly publicists can achieve a coveted spot for our books. 

She is very adamant that this new section is NOT a book review section.  That was number one on her list. 

Also on her list:

• We should all blog – publicists, authors, authors’ friends, and especially editors.  We have to prove that we fell in love with this book for a good reason.

I understand that blogging tends to be important (although only if you can create original content).  But, as you know, I can barely keep up with my own personal blogging.  And I guarantee you that I don’t have as much free time at work as I do when I’m off the clock.  If the book is important enough blogging should be part of the publicity campaign – but we deal with so many books at one time.  Right now I’m dealing with 6 books and I am, by far, one of the least busiest people on my team.  One can’t be expected to sustain a blog for each book and really, one post per book won’t make a huge difference.

• We can ask bloggers to review our books (but, let’s be clear, this is only if “you’re not willing to step out from behind your desk, if you’re not willing to let the world know how you feel personally about the books…).  And if you are going to pitch bloggers don’t send a generic pitch, personalize it – take a lesson from Jonathan Fields.

Uh – yes, I’m insulted.  The fact is: more blog reviews are better than one (even if it is my own blog doing the review).  I know that bloggers don’t respond well to generic pitches from experience.  I’ve done blog outreach and I sat down and personalized every single email.  Well, it was slow, I didn’t have any other books to work on and I’m an assistant.  This is not a practical solution so I would like all bloggers to please check their inflated self worth at the office door.  The following bit is from Jonathan Fields touting the need for personal interaction in today’s social media-evolving world:

When my book, Career Renegade, came out earlier this year… I hand wrote personal notes that were included in nearly every copy that went out. Then, I sent personal e-mails, not anonymous blasts, and DMed most on twitter. And…we only reached out to those I knew would be genuinely interested…

Was that hours of extra work? Yup! Was it worth it? (He goes on to say yes, it’s worth it).

What did I notice most in that paragraph?  The heavy use of “I”.  Of course he’s taking the time to send out personalized notes – it’s HIS book!  Expect it from the authors – not the publicists.  We send out press releases to gauge interest – (and, yes, we really do only send to those people we genuinely believe are interested) – and then we cultivate personal relationships from there.  Read his whole piece, I’m not saying he doesn’t have a point but I do think he’s being overly harsh on publicists.

• Forget the publication date.

It’s standard practice to time the majority of a book’s publicity around the publication date.  I agree that buzz starts early, especially on the Internet and that it’s good to start pitching even 2 to 4 months out.  This means that publicists will have to get especially creative since most of the time we just don’t have anything to show the media this far out if galleys (advanced reader copies) weren’t made for the title.

• “Start a conversation with our readers. …whatever you do, speak personally, authentically and from the heart because they can smell an adapted press release a mile away.”

News Flash – every press release I write is from the heart (for the most part).  I will sometimes spend hours, days on a press release making sure that the wording does the book and the author justice, that it truly tells the story and let’s others see why we chose to publish this book in the first place.  What more do you want from me!?  We come up with article and feature ideas, try to bring all the pieces together, make sure the media is happy, our authors are happy, the authors’ partners and friends are happy.  And you tell me it’s not enough?  My blood, sweat and tears go into my job – I love it!  And I’m the first to admit that there are things that could be better and that sometimes I slack on a title, but give me a break, the entire system, as has been suggested, is not broken. 

-Emily

Book Pricing Dilemma

What are your thoughts on book pricing?  We all know that Amazon has been selling at a loss, but now Wal-Mart and Target are joining the fray, selling big titles at pre-order discounts below $9.  This isn’t even considering the e-book pricing dilemma… what happens when Amazon doesn’t want to lose money anymore?  Do they up prices for the consumer or make demands of the publishers?

I don’t have any answers to these questions… but I’d love to hear your thoughts!  Leave me comments!!!

-Kristina

Slackers

Ok – thanks to Kristina for pointing it out.  Yes, we’ve been slacking – and I’m aware that the cardinal rule of blogging is updating, updating, updating. 

So, I’ll apologize now for my lack of posts and promise to get one up soon.

Thanks!

-Emily

Wild Things Review on PompOnline

I know, I know… we’re slacking on our posts. But fall is a busy time in publishing!  Right now I’m up to my eyeballs in author interviews, website design, and ad copy.  But last week I did make time to go to a screening of Where The Wild Things Are and wrote it up for Pomp and Circumstance.

See my review here, and get hooked on Pomp.  Rrrraaawwwrrr!

-Kristina

Friday Book Art-Cara Barer

Butterfly, Cara Barer

Cara Barer (I’d be willing to stake a bet that she’s been nicknamed “Care Bear” at some point in her life… do you think she loves it or hates it?) is today’s featured book artist.  Perhaps it’s cheating to use her right after Robert The… I found them from the same article from The Quarterly Conversation.  But I like her work so much I just couldn’t resist.

Although her website claims she is a photographer (which she certainly is)… She’s a photographer who sculpts books, then takes pictures of them.  Her statment shares how she stumbled upon the idea to give these books a new form (she discovered a copy of the Yellow Pages transformed on the street by weather).  Her own description (from her statement) says, “With the discarded books that I have acquired, I am attempting to blur the line between objects, sculpture, and photography. This project has become a journey that continues to evolve.”

Please take a look at her site (photos can be found under “Portfolio”).  My favorite series is 2006-2007, perhaps because there is more color included.  But all of her work is beautiful!  Here are a couple of my favorites:

 

Fairy Tale, Cara Barer

I love the suggestion in the title.  What do you see?  I see a gateway in a tree to a secret world.  Or perhaps a princess’s hair.

Wave and Fog, Cara Barer

Another great title.  Did anyone grow up in the foggy northwest?  Reminds me of San Fran in the early morning hours.

 

-Kristina

Friday Book Art: Robert The

 

The Art Crisis

You kill me with your words…

Is what I thought when I saw this picture.  The idea that language can be a weapon is nothing new, but here Robert The  (click for more images!) gives it a physical manifestation.  I love it and I want one.

The carves from books, giving new life to the pages–scorpions and cockroaches crawl out of the spine, airplanes fly from the pages.  Although a lot of book art seems to rely, at least slightly, on the title or content of the books, The’s doesn’t seem to.  Perhaps others can read into the metaphor of a roach carved from The World of Marcel Duchamp, but if it had been me I might have chosen Kafka’s Metamorphasis for the roach.  But maybe that’s just me.

For a lovely essay about The and his art, click here for The Quarterly Conversation.

Anyway, regardless of meaning, the art is superb.  Enjoy, and happy Friday! And, just so you know… this one is my favorite.  Perhaps because I heart fall so much.

Tractatus

-Kristina

YPG – I Can Has Book Deal?! Panel

Okay, I followed up on my word – I went to a YPG event (Young to Publishing Group – if you haven’t read my previous post bout this group, here it is).  The topic of the panel was how to get a book deal from a blog - aptly titled “ICan Has Book Deal?!

The three panelists were Ben Huh, owner of icanhascheezburger.com and other websites, Erin Maloney, a literary agent at William Morris Endeavor and Patrick Mulligan, senior editor at Gotham Books. 

Honestly, I asked myself if I’m too critical – myself answered no.

Some trivial mentions: The turnout was smaller than I expected – about 40 people were in attendance.  And I got a free book which is always a plus even though I already have access to an ungodly amount of free books.

Now, for those of you who don’t know icanhascheezburger.com is a ridiculously popluar site, despite the pain of typing the url.  And Ben has several book deals to his name (count them – four) all based on blogs.  Two are bestsellers, two are in the works of being published.  That’s a pretty good track record for anybody and hey, if he can start 4 blog books, why can’t everybody start at least one?  I’m not going to go into the other two panelists – just know that they’re successful in their own right too.

First off, I’m a publicist, not an author.  Even if I were an editor, I’d be an editor, not an author.  I’m aware that many people in the publishing industry have gone on to write books.  But that’s not why I joined this group – I want to know how to be successful in the industry.  Unfortunately, this panel missed this point.  What I learned:

• Every agent looks for what will sell
• Blogs are a good way to test a market for a book
• A viral blog has to have a strong personality 

It would have been different if the panel had gone into depth about how to handle a blog book – ie: publicize, edit, market etc.  And to be fair, I believe 3 sentences were dedicated to this topic.  Not enough to justify my attendance.

Final grade: F

-Emily

Association of American Publishers

To continue with our posts on the various publishing organizations, I’m going to try and tackle the AAP (The Association of American Publishers). 

 

Association of American Publishers

The AAP is the national trade association of the American book publishing industry.   It looks out for publishers’ best interests and tackles such issues as copyright, digital, Freedom to read, censorship, libel…even postal rates and regulations.  Basically – it’s the publishing industry’s heavyweight when going up against…well, anyone it needs to.

While it deals with general matters that affect the industry as a whole, the AAP also has committees that deal with specific market areas – higher education, mass market, etc.

With most of the major commercial publishers as well as the smaller and non-profit ones, it’s necessary to be aware of the AAP and its agenda.  Well – actually, if you are interested in the publishing industry, it’s necessary to be aware of the AAP.

Here’s their website – I’d check back every once in a while – see what’s in the news and what they’re up to.

 

-Emily