Author / Edward Champion

Posts by Edward Champion

Edward Champion is the Managing Editor of Reluctant Habits.
by Edward Champion

Mini-Roundup

by Edward Champion

Roundup

  • Lee Goldberg reports some potential legerdemain pertaining to Simon & Schuster’s new indentured servitude policy. The Authors Guild claims that S&S is more interested in a “revenue-based threshold” as opposed to a reversion of rights. The problem with such language is that this is precisely how Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons were screwed over by DC Comics regarding The Watchmen. As the famous story goes, Moore and Gibbons agreed to let DC Comics keep the rights to The Watchmen once it went out of print. Alas, DC Comics has never permitted The Watchmen to go out of print. Thus, Moore and Gibbons have not seen royalties. If “revenue-based threshold” is a replay of such diabolical tactics, then the Authors Guild (and any writer striking a deal with S&S) should probably pay serious attention. Writers may be little more than prostitutes to some moneymen, but even whores should stick up for themselves. I will look into this story later in the week and try to clarify these questions.
  • Another reason why technology is fun: You can track down the subjects of Dorothea Lange photos if you want to. (via Bill Peschel)
  • Ron Hogan has a detailed report on the Crisis in Book Reviewing panel, including a few minutes I missed. And it’s even more absurd than I reported: “When National Book Critics Circle president John Freeman finally got the show moving, he started off by announcing that the NBCC had decided to create a new award honoring book review sections as a class. (As Hail Mary conciliatory gestures to the newspaper industry go, I have to say I was rather underwhelmed, but I imagine section editors who are also Circle members will strive keenly to earn the shelf decorations.)” Take that, you corporate vultures! Self-aggrandizement from the inner circle! This is too close to some of Mailer’s stunts to be taken seriously.
  • I seem to have the same crap cough that Maud has. Can someone explain this respiratory perdition to a sudden East Coast transplant? I hope Maud gets well. She will be reading on Sunday, June 10, at 5:00 PM.
  • Cormac McCarthy isn’t the only one on TV this week.
  • Slushpile interviews Mark McNay.
  • More grim news at the Baltimore Sun.
  • Terry Brooks is heading for the big screen.
  • Again, Reuters gets it wrong about Andrew Keen. Various people have been rightly lambasting this decidedly unkeen specimen of the monkeys because he is decidedly not an intellectual. Keen is, as I observed a few months ago with considerable supportive examples, an indolent and idiotic thinker who wouldn’t know a nuanced argument even if James Wood holed up with him in a motel room for a week to “deprogram” him of his sophist tendencies. The only reason he gets column inches is because there is nobody else out there attempting a civil argument and because many print journalists have a vested interest in protecting their turf from the online upstarts. The real gonzo come lately is Keen himself.
  • Happy Antipodean observes that more books are being banned in Malaysia.
by Edward Champion

BEA Roundup

  • I am currently surrounded by many boxes, which arrived today. I cannot recommend FedEx Home Delivery enough, should you decide to move cross country. My trusty desktop computer, the box I’ve deemed the Command Center, is almost hooked up. (Apologies for grammatical gaffes to those who have been kind enough to point them out. The laptop, which I’ve been using for pretty much everything in the past week, is very much the secondary computer.) And I’ll be very close to boogeying here once the desk arrives this week. In the meantime, here is a roundup of BEA reports.
  • The Literary Dish serves up The Unofficial BEA Story, covering the African-American publishing end of the conference. (I don’t know if this content was aggregated from somewhere else, but I’m glad it’s posted somewhere.)
  • Patrick Carbidge has Part I and Part II.
  • Vegan Cupcakes.
  • Megan Sullivan is convinced that it’s all about long days and long nights. Plus, she managed to meet Philip Roth.
  • Critical Mass has posted a report on the crisis panel.
  • Buzz Girl has pictures. As does Mary Reagan.
  • Detailed diaries from Dan Wickett.
  • Jim Winter confesses he’s a trade show virgin.
  • World Unleashed’s list of hot galleys.
  • A BEA Omnibus from Mark, with links elsewhere.
  • Russell Simmons even showed up.
  • David R. Godine avoided conversations about baseball.
  • There are apparently budget hotels that are iPod themed. Whether podcasts were siphoned into each room through hidden speakers is anyone’s guess.
  • The Post BEA (Sausage) Links Edition.
  • Lou Anders: “BEA is lived on your feet, fueled by Starbucks, and endured by great conversations….”
  • I did notice more comics booths this year. The Beat has a roundup on that end.
  • More links from Oxford University Press.
  • I will try and go through upcoming titles at some point this week or next. This year, instead of interviewing publicists at the big publishers, I opted to spend most of my floor time around the smaller publishers. On Sunday, I grabbed every catalog I could. I now have half a suitcase filled with them.
  • The number of overly safe titles and lackluster galleys really surprised me this year. Perhaps it’s the shakeup from the Perseus restructuring or declining sales, but, while there were galleys that excited me (and I had no idea that I was as much of an enthusiast of Richard Russo until I saw the galley of his next book), there weren’t many that wowed me the way they had in previous years. Of course, the proof is ultimately in the books. I will say, however, that, of the larger houses, Bloomsbury and Grove/Atlantic seem to have the best pickings. And it was great to see Small Beer maintaining a booth this year.
  • More later.