Publishing Insider

Caravan

I drove a Dodge Caravan for 10 years until it finally gave out. For the last 5 years, it was missing a small door piece on the driver's side, its abscence revealing the white plastic pieces onto which this long, narrow panel had been clipped. Thought it was just something wrong with my van. Nope. I have now counted at least 15 other Dodge Caravans on the road these past few years with the same ailment, same mark of shame. Makes me smile every time.

Too funny

One of my pet peeves is the use of it's when it should be its. Even saw it wrong in the NY Times once. Now comes a blog item that reports that an onscreen subtitle on Lost last night said you're when it should've been your. Maybe this upset those of us in the world of words more than most, but we are both appalled and a little thrilled by ABC’s faux pas.

John Barleycorn

An author of ours, John Barlow, has a very thoughtful writing blog going. His new book from us, Intoxicated, is wonderful and it's a Book Sense Notable Pick. (Intoxicated. John Barlow, John Barleycorn. Get it? I know; it's sad, me and my Traffic CD's. Hey, Jim Capaldi's niece is a bookseller. I'm rambling.)

Hear, no see, this

I've long been a fan of audiobooks, as are many of you have written in to me about your favorites. My colleagues at Harper Audio produced this cool video about the joys of listening to books; it's fun. Check it out.

A secret no more

I think my very first blog posting was about how the book Postsecrets was such a hot seller in December that we were sold out of this hard-to-reprint book. But it's been back on the shelves for awhile, and flying off again. And now, it has won five Weblog Awards. The Bloggies™ were announced at the annual SXSW in Austin.

Boogie on reggae rabbi?

My colleague May points out that Matishyahu (a popular Hasidic Reggae artist) just released an album with Epic Records and the title track on the album, Youth, was inspired by the chapter “Youth” in our book Toward a Meaningful Life. Matisyahu will be publicizing the connection of his album with our book, both in live performances and on his website. Here's a clip of Matishyahu talking about the connection between his song and our book.

A must to avoid

I used to believe the myth that store brands were just as good as the name brands, that the name brand was just more expensive due to advertising and that the big companies made the store items anyway.

Nuh-uh. On my official never-to-buy-again store brand list: plastic wrap, aluminum foil and q-tips. What's on your list?

Gremlins

I don’t mind the critters that steal socks from the laundry, nor the ones that put extra wire hangers into the closets. But if I get my hands on the one that takes the simplest cords, like headphone ones, set simply aside ‘til the next day, and puts a knot in them....why I oughta... How could this possibly happen on its own? It is just not possible without some gremlin sneaking in to one’s gym bag to do this. And take a sock on the way out.

At least knots in wires may have some quantum physics value.

Spool of thought

I was telling a colleague of mine at our just-finished sales conference about my favorite movies of late, and he noticed they were all documentaries. I hadn’t realized that myself. And it made me wonder if this was linked to my recent tilt towards non-fiction reading.

I’ve already mentioned Paper Clips, Wild Parrots of Telegraph Hill, and Mad Hot Ballroom in previous postings, and, of course, there are those penguins. (The ending of Wild Parrots will make you smile for days, once you get past the upsetting false ending.) And I recalled that one of my favorite movies of last year was Festival Express, about the Dead’s cross-Canada train tour with Janis, the Band, and others. Watch it just for the liquor-store emptying scene and the guys just mooning over Janis like schoolboys.

More Moore

The manic and wonderful Christopher Moore is on tour starting tomorrow for this new book, Dirty Job. (And to think that his bestselling career was rooted way back in such happily titled books such as Island of the Sequined Love Nun.)