FOREWORD THIS WEEK
09.24.08
1. PELICAN PUBLISHING CATCHES UP
The New Orleans-based publisher is back at work after evacuating for the second time in three years.
2. AN INDIE BACK STORY: EPICENTER PRESS, TYNDALE HOUSE AND THE SARAH PALIN SAGA
A Seattle publisher manages an overnight bestseller by smartly outsourcing the production and marketing that would take it to the next level.
3. EDITOR’S CHOICE: MACADAM/CAGE
Editors from leading independent presses tell ForeWord about their favorite titles from their company’s fall list. This week MacAdam/Cage Editor David Adams speaks out.
4. FAST FOREWORD
News, awards and announcements from our wire.
5. FOREWORD FOOTNOTES
Titles of note from our review stacks.
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1. PELICAN PUBLISHING CATCHES UP
While the rest of the publishing world was enjoying the Labor Day holiday, at least one publisher’s office was closed for an extra three days while its employees fled from Hurricane Gustav.
This is the second hurricane that has put Gretna, Louisiana-based Pelican Publishing out of commission. But unlike Katrina, this storm caused only minor damage to the building which houses both Pelican’s offices and its warehouse.
“Our power was back on Friday, September 5, in the afternoon. Everyone was back by Monday,” Promotion Director Kathleen Calhoun Nettleton told FTW. “We lost one skylight in the warehouse, so we lost a few books because of that.”
Gretna is a suburb of New Orleans, and the Pelican offices are only ten minutes from downtown New Orleans. All but one person on the thirty-three-member staff evacuated the city.
“Our weather policy is unique because it states that if anyone feels that they can’t come in at any time, they shouldn’t. And they should return at the time they’re able to do so,” Nettleton explained. “The reason is that we have people who live on both the north shore and the south shore of the lake. So conditions can be very different for everybody. There are also personal reasons that people have to return at different times.”
When Nettleton spoke to FTW, most of the businesses in the area around Pelican’s office were open, but grocery stores still didn’t have frozen food in stock. There was no flooding in their parish, though there was still flooding to the west, and in Orleans Parish to the east.
“But that flooding is not from Gustav, it’s from Ike, which was surprising,” Nettleton said. “The reason for this is that the storm was so strong, it pushed water out of the Gulf into the bayous.”
The Calhoun family, which has owned Pelican Publishing since 1970, are longtime residents of Louisiana, and Nettleton says that although it seems like the city has taken a beating the past few years, this was the first evacuation since Hurricane Katrina hit in 2005.
“Before that we went a decade without an evacuation, so it all just depends,” she said.
Now the staff is concentrating on Pelican’s fall and spring titles. The company’s lead titles for fall include Christmas Stories From the South’s Best Writers, edited by Charline R. McCord and Judy H. Tucker (978-1-58980-600-9) and Alaskan Night Before Christmas by Tricia Brown (978-1-58980-554-5).
“We got a quote from the current governor of Alaska—maybe you’ve heard of her,” Nettleton joked.
In the spring, Pelican will come out with Cookies to Die For by Bev Shaffer (978-1-58980-610-8) and Finn McCool’s Soccer Club: The Birth, Death and Resurrection of a Pub Soccer Team in the City of the Dead by Stephen Rea (978-1-58980-641-2).
By Whitney Hallberg, Managing Editor
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Cry of Justice
This handsomely bound and dust-jacketed hardback fantasy novel recently won the CSPA retailer vote for Best Novel of 2007! Ships from Central US warehousing with professional invoicing. Order from Atlas Books Distribution at 419/281-1802 (6883 fax), or via e-mail: order@bookmasters.com
Web page:
Cry of Justice at Bookmasters.com
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ISBN 9780977888405
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2. AN INDIE BACK STORY: EPICENTER PRESS, TYNDALE HOUSE AND THE SARAH PALIN SAGA
This is a story of enterprise in the independent sector and how market demands and opportunities can be almost instantly served by nimble new production and distribution networks.
When I learned that Epicenter Press was in the enviable position of having the only book in print about John McCain’s running mate, Sarah Palin, I posted my congratulations to publisher Kent Sturgis. I had visited Sturgis in his Kenmore, Washington, office three years ago when he was serving as president of the Publishers Marketing Association. I thought the instant success of the Palin book a well-earned prize for a man who has diligently built a regional publishing house, acquiring and developing good books of interest to an Alaska-centered market.
Publishing the now top-selling biography of Alaska Governor Sarah Palin was initially a par-for-the-course choice for Epicenter. When Sturgis first met Palin in Alaska in 2006, he was impressed by this rising political star. In early 2007, he thought that Alaskans and others would be interested in a biography of their new governor—the first woman to hold that post, and a politician who didn’t fit the mold.
How the book was published
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Kaylene Johnson
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Sturgis recruited author Kaylene Johnson, an award-winning writer who lives on a small farm outside Wasilla, Palin’s hometown. She would be able to add to the book’s atmospherics through her familiarity with Palin’s Alaskan outlook. Sarah: How a Hockey Mom Turned Alaska’s Political Establishment Upside Down (978-0-9790470-8-4) was published in hardcover in April.
With the help of a striking cover design by Victoria Michael, Sturgis’s daughter, the first printing of 7,000 copies sold out in a couple of months. Sturgis went back to press for another 3,000. Heading into Labor Day with 1,500 copies still in stock, Sturgis was gearing up for the fall promotion of his new list, fairly confident that he would move the remaining 1,500 copies by Christmas.
Then came McCain’s announcement on Friday, August 29. By the end of the day, Googlers had discovered that the Johnson biography was the only one in print, and his inventory was wiped out. In addition, major TV networks and cable producers were on the wire looking for author interviews and any other scraps of information that would shed light on this relatively unknown governor of the forty-ninth state.
A quick back-to-press and conversion from hardcover to paperback was needed. Epicenter had a long-standing relationship with Transcontinental printers in Quebec, but they couldn’t provide the schedule or budget for the size of printing Sturgis wanted.
Sturgis went to his distributors, Graphic Arts Center Publishers and Ingram Publisher Services. Ingram’s Tennessee-based digital printing service, Lightning Source turned out a 40,000 copy paperback offset printing in two days, using one of its long-run outsources.
Managing success to avoid failure
Meanwhile, the phones were ringing off the hook from national media--including NPR, CNN, Fox, and the Wall Street Journal—wanting interviews with the author. Sturgis, a former journalist who traded daily deadlines for seasonal ones in 1988 when he founded Epicenter, knew that his author’s media relations would need knowledgeable, short-term, full-time management. He retained Richmond, California, publicist Andrea Burnett, the former publicity director at Chronicle Books.
“Burnett hit the ground running,” Sturgis said. “She had the right lists for releases, and with publicity already there, what she needed was to manage the media and coach the author and arrange the interviews.”
Sturgis, whose company now has 120 titles in print, had enough experience and insight to see trouble ahead if he didn’t manage this incredible opportunity prudently. Still recovering from a severe cash flow hit he took several years ago, he also saw the opportunity for a financial turnaround.
And, indeed, opportunity arrived in the form of an unsolicited and substantial pre-emptive deal from Tyndale House, which began shipping a new edition (978-1-4143-3050-1) on September 10 from a first printing of 250,000 copies. This was soon followed by another 100,000-copy printing.
With his “turnaround” in the bag, and a book that threatened to overwhelm his operation, Sturgis said, “I was now able to get back to my life and fulfill my obligations to the other titles on my list.” That list includes a major selection of books featuring the Alaska Iditarod dog races and sledding books and posters—no small beneficiaries of the newfound interest in Alaska and in Todd Palin’s standing as a champion dog sled racer.
Two forthcoming titles that Sturgis will turn his attention to are North to the Future: The Alaska Story, (1959-2009) and Spill: Personal Stories from the Exxon-Valdez Disaster.
What did Tyndale House see in the Palin story?
Tyndale House’s interest in this book is an intriguing sidebar to this story. “Tyndale House does not endorse political candidates or parties,” Tyndale president Mark Taylor said in a press release. “But as a distinctively Christian publisher, we believe it is vital to promote clear thinking and thoughtful conversation about the intersection of faith and the public square. In choosing to distribute this Epicenter Press book about Sarah Palin, governor of Alaska, 2008 Republican vice presidential candidate, and professing Christian, and in providing an online discussion guide, we hope to stimulate both thought and discussion about the role of faith in politics.”
Tyndale House was founded in 1962 in order to publish the Living Bible (978-0-8423-2247-8). It has since added to its list the Holy Bible in various editions, a number of popular study bibles, and other resources for churches, individuals and families. It entered the trade bestseller lists with the Left Behind series,
The Tyndale House edition of Sarah prompted the publication of Faith and Politics: A Discussion Guide. The guide observes that “For better or worse (depending on your point of view), Americans seem to prefer leaders who are people of faith. And with some 83 percent of Americans identifying themselves as ‘Christian,’ candidates from both major political parties have lined up to convince believers—especially conservative evangelical Christians—that they share their faith and therefore are worthy of their votes…But do faith and politics really mix?” Readers interested in this issue can find the Guide at www.faithandpoliticsdiscussionguide.com.
Sarah itself is a short 160-page narrative, written in an engaging fashion with no pretense of critical analysis. The author presents her subject as a young populist reformer, a good-natured female David taking on the Goliaths in the world with pluck, confidence, and tenacity.
Palin’s religious affiliations and belief are covered in about four pages. Faith doesn’t seem to surface explicitly anywhere else in the book, although it is clear that the author sees her as a naturally unpretentious heroic figure—a woman sufficiently clear of purpose and simple of origin, who does not require the kinds of deeper analysis of motive and influences that frame most biographies of public figures.
Johnson concludes her epilogue by observing that “Sarah Heath Palin is at heart a sister, a daughter, and the little girl who learned how to work hard, stand up for herself, and never tell a lie.” It is a lovely picture, but we know there must be more, not in a mysterious or pejorative sense, but in the rich way that life experience tells us character is built—by struggles and challenges within as well as without.
The Tyndale acquisition of this title shows how a spiritual message of Christian faith in action can be delivered with little need for sermonizing or analyzing. Palin seems to confound because she has an expressive “live and let live” manner to which she attaches a private unconditional commitment to openness, probity, and faith. This seems to run contrary to expectations in much of the media. I would imagine it should invite some reconsideration of stereotypes.
By Eugene G. Schwartz, Editor-at-Large
3. EDITOR’S CHOICE: MACADAM/CAGE
This week, MacAdam/Cage editor David Adams talks about his favorite pick for fall. An excerpt from Our Lady of Pain is available for one week at our Book Club.
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Dave Adams
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Dave Adams, Editor
How long have you been with the company?
Three years
What is the book you are most excited by this season, and how did it come to your attention?
Our Lady of Pain, by Elena Forbes (978-1-59692-316-4).
My boss, David Poindexter, brought Elena’s first book, Die With Me, back from the London Book Fair last year. He was really excited about it, and asked me to give it a read to see if I agreed. The first chapter—written from the perspective of the story’s villain—convinced me that this was a book we had to do. The voice had just the right blend of the banal and the vicious, and the details of the setting and the crime were so imaginative and compelling that I knew the whole thing was going to hold together. It was clear we had the start of a promising series on our hands.
So we signed Elena up for a two-book deal, and published Die With Me to starred reviews and great bookseller response. Elena was already at work on the sequel, which she delivered to her UK publisher right on time. (We really ask a lot of these mystery writers.) I started Our Lady of Pain hoping that it was going to be as good as the first book, and was delighted to find that it was even better. The crime this time is the ritualistic murder of a young art dealer in London’s Holland Park; the lead investigator, Detective Inspector Mark Tartaglia, begins the case with one set of assumptions about the young woman, but gradually discovers that she was not nearly as proper as the superficial details of her life would lead one to believe.
Like all good mysteries, the plot is full of twists and turns, and once you start the book you feel that wonderful compulsion to finish. Elena’s greatest strength as writer, though, may be her ability to capture the fascinating nuances of human relationships. The members of the Barnes Murder Squad are full-bodied, credible characters, and the subtle dynamics of the relationship between Mark Tartaglia and his partner, Samantha Donovan, are particularly compelling. In that sense I see Elena as part of a great tradition of writers—Ruth Rendell, Donna Leon, Lynda La Plante, Tana French—who have brought a more sophisticated understanding of human relationships, and especially male-female relationships, to the police procedural.
What can you tell us about the author?
Elena lives in London with her husband and two children. She worked in portfolio management for a number of international investment groups before becoming a full-time writer. Her first book, Die With Me, was shortlisted for the 2008 John Creasey (New Blood) Dagger Award. She likes opera and Italy—Mark Tartaglia was inspired by a well-known Italian bass baritone.
Who will enjoy this book?
Fans of the TV show Prime Suspect. Readers of Ruth Rendell, Elizabeth George, Ian Rankin, P. D. James, etc. Mystery readers who like their plots to come with some real psychological depth. People looking to get in on the ground floor of a series with a great deal of potential.
What can you tell us about the excerpt published online?
The first two chapters of Our Lady of Pain are a great example of what distinguishes Elena in the very crowded field of crime writers. The book opens with a brief glimpse of our victim going for a jog in a snowy Holland Park—it is a descriptive, atmospheric beginning, and the moment of tension at the end is well done, if somewhat familiar. What is more unique, and really compelling, I think, is where we go from there—to Tartaglia’s sister’s house, where our main character is trapped in a rather probing discussion with a woman who has very obviously been invited to the family’s regular Sunday lunch as a potential romantic interest for the longtime bachelor Tartaglia. Their conversation and the family dynamics of the scene are awkward and all-too-real, and Tartaglia, polite as he may be, is visibly relieved to get the call that a young woman’s frozen body has been found in the park.
Download an excerpt (in PDF format) from the ForeWord Book Club.
Interviews by Heather Shaw, Editor-in-Chief
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4. FAST FOREWORD
Indie Brings Lawrence Schoonover Back to Print
Fountain City Publishing Company, a Knoxville-based publisher, is bringing back to print the historical novels of Lawrence Schoonover. Last published thirty years ago, Schoonover’s novels sold millions of copies and are still carried at more than 650 US libraries.
Queen’s Cross (978-0-9760867-4-1) is the first title to be released by Fountain city. The story of Isabella of Castile won praise from the New York Times and Kirkus when it was first published in 1955.
Library ‘Blob’ Creates Controversy in Czech Republic
Plans to build a new National Library in Prague have led to disputes and firings. A contest was held to select the design for the new building. The winning design, named in the spring of 2007, was a controversial green and purple building, nicknamed the “Blob.” It was later determined that the contest was not in accordance with the law. Last week, Vlastimil Jezek, the director of the Czech National Library, was fired. According to Architect’s Journal, “The move comes despite Jezek’s insistence in recent weeks that a deal to secure a suitable plot for the building, dubbed ’The Blob’ was imminent.”
Although the Blob seems unwanted in Prague, other cities are clamoring for buildings designed by architect Jan Kaplicky, who designed the building.
Latina Literary Prize Announced
Francisco Goldman, the author of The Art of Political Murder, has established the Aura Estrada Prize to honor his late wife, a writer and scholar who died last year in a surfing accident.
“The Mexican literary world is extremely macho, which is one reason we wanted so adamantly to do a female prize,” Goldman said.
According to the New York Daily News, The prize, exclusively for young Latina writers, will be formally announced at the Guadalajara Book Fair and will open for submissions in November.
Meijer Read This! Author Tour Brings Busload of Authors
Twenty-seven authors from the genres of romance, mystery, historical fiction, and nonfiction are traveling across Michigan by bus this week, visiting fans at Meijer supercenters. According to romantic suspense author Brenda Novak, each stop on the Meijer Read This! Author Tour is one to one-and-a-half hours long.
“‘They make it a party,’ Ms. Novak said of the stops. After the authors pile out of the bus, they sit at tables at the front of the store to sign their books and talk to shoppers. Stacks of their books will be for sale, of course,” the Monroe News reported. The newspaper’s Web site has the tour’s full schedule.
Several small presses are represented on the tour, which was coordinated by Levy Home Entertainment, a book distributor. Thomas Nelson authors Colleen Coble and Bob Liparulo, Bethany House author Deeanne Gist, and HCI author Chip St. Clair are on board the bus.
From staff reports. Share your news and information with Whitney Hallberg, Managing Editor.
This week at Publishing Matters, Eugene Schwartz talks about lesson learned in the Palin banned book hoax and offers some comments on a Publishers Weekly editorial.
At Shelf Space, Sarah Lovato talks about the loudly beating heart of your town's public library.
At Publishing Insider, Sara Megibow tells authors where they can have their manuscripts and query letters critiqued.
At Editor’s Notes, Editor in Chief Heather Shaw reviews books about open spaces, driving cross-country and languages.
Visit www.forewordmagazine.com for publishing news, book reviews, and the ForeWord Book Club.
5. FOREWORD FOOTNOTES
Body, Mind & Spirit. SHAKING: THE ORIGINAL PATH TO ECSTASY AND HEALING by Bradford Keeney (Sounds True, 6.25 hours, 6 CDs, $69.95, 978-1-59179-895-8): elder shaman and author of Aesthetics of Change and Shaking Medicine offers his wisdom teachings for the inner life; discussions include the “shaking medicine” of the Kalahari Bushman of Africa, the “church of experimental spirituality,” and “climbing the ropes to God’s Village,” which awakens the heart to receive spiritual lessons.
Business. HOME RICH by Gerri Willis, read by Pam Ward (Blackstone, 8.5 hours, 7 CDs, $63.00, 978-1-4332-0979-6, available from NetLibrary, Overdrive ): financial planner and host of CNN’s Open House examines most Americans’ biggest single asset; included are twelve key rules that encompass the best and safest loans, as well as tips for choosing the best real estate agent and deciding on the most lucrative home improvements.
Fiction. THE ENCHANTRESS OF FLORENCE by Salman Rushdie, read by Firdous Bamji (Recorded Books, 13.5 hours, 12 CDs, unabridged, $51.95, 978-1-4361-1937-5, available from Overdrive): stage actor who once played Othello in New York and has had guest appearances on TV’s Law & Order reads stories by the Booker Prize winner; recounted are the stories told to Emperor Akbar by Mogor dell’Amore, a traveler who tells of faraway Florence, a beautiful enchantress, and the exploits of the nefarious Niccolò Machiavelli.
Fiction. THE CISCO KID by O’Henry, “starring” Jack Mather (Nostalgia Ventures, unabridged, 10 CDs, $29.98, 978-1-932806-99-1): the Archive Collection (1950s) includes “Night Rider of Redrock,” “Dynamite in the River” where bad hombres change the course of a river to hide stolen gold bullion, and “The Fighting Deputies” where deputized Cisco and Poncho confront the Sibling gang that is forcing Winthrop to sell his ranch that sits on copper deposits; episodes begin with fast hooves, jingling bridles, and “Here’s adventure! Here’s romance! Here’s the famous Robin Hood of the Old West,” accompanied by the stirring Wurlitzer and south of the border sounds; complete with the original commercials and the classic ending tagline, “Oh Cisco, Oh Poncho.”
Fiction. FUNNY BOYS by Warren Adler, read by Tom Weiner (Blackstone Audio, 8 hours, 7 CD’s, $59.00, 978-1-4332-0999-4, available from NetLibrary, Overdrive): dialog director and voice artist for such TV programs as Buffy the Vampire narrates the story of a comedian mixing with the mob by the author of The War of the Roses and Random Hearts; a Jean Harlow-esque gangster-girlfriend befriends hotel casino host/entertainer in 1937 in the Catskills, leading to a mounting body count.
Fiction. BOSTON BLACKIE: PRIVATE DETECTIVE “starring” Richard Kollmar (Nostalgia Ventures, unabridged, 10 CDs, $29.98, 978-1-932806-98-4): the Archive Collection (1940s) includes twenty restored classic radio shows initially written as short stories by Jack Boyle with the main character as “Enemy to those who make him an enemy…Friend to those who have no friend” and narrated with mobster-like accents. Episodes include “The Murdering Cuckoo Clock,” “Granny’s Witchcraft,” and “The Skating Rink Murders” where a scream outside the roller rink catches the attention of Mary and Blackie who are puzzled as to why the $50,000 diamond ring was left on the dead woman’s body, which generates Blackie’s bon mots: “he was no cheap skate,” and later, “that ring on her finger also put the finger on him.”
History. THE LAST FISH TALE: THE FATE OF THE ATLANTIC AND SURVIVAL IN GLOUCESTER, AMERICA’S OLDEST FISHING PORT AND MOST ORIGINAL TOWN by Mark Kurlansky, read by Grover Gardner (Blackstone Audio, unabridged, 5 CDs, 6.5 hours, $59.00, 978-1-4332-1447-6, available from NetLibrary, Overdrive): winner of the a 2006 Audie Award reads Kurlansky’s exploration of the fate of oceans and their diminishing harvest; violin folk music begins the story, and references include Pole Walking, i.e., walking on a forty-foot vertical oily mast in Gloucester, Massachusetts; the fisherman of Sicily and their tradition of the Blue Fin tuna hunt where the “white caps glow scarlet”; and the rugged Atlantic town of Newlyn, Cornwall, where Walter Langley’s 1884 watercolor Among the Missing illustrates the “anguish and shock” of a Cornish village receiving news of those that go down to the sea.
Juvenile Fiction. CURSE OF THE BLUE TATTOO by L.A. Meyer, read by Katherine Kellgren (Listen & Live Audio, 14 hours, 11 CDs, unabridged, $29.95, 978-1-59316-134-7, available from NetLibrary, Overdrive): graduate of the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art as well as an Audie Award winner reads a swashbuckling story in the Bloody Jack Adventure series by the curator and exhibitor at the Clair de Loon Gallery in Bar Harbor; Jacky Faber has left the HMS Dolphin to become a proper lady at Boston’s Lawson Peabody School for Young Girls and has a bloody time of it, which includes triumphing over snobbish girls and avenging a serving girl’s murder.
Literary Collections. AUTUMNAL TINTS by Henry David Thoreau, read by Brett Barry (Silver Hollow Audio, unabridged, 1 CD, 72 minutes, $8.95, 978-0-9793115-2-9): former announcer for CBS’s Guiding Light narrates an essay by Harvard graduate, transcendentalist, and America’s first environmentalist; beginning with an October praise, Thoreau takes “extracts” from his notes such as “Fallen Leaves,” where he writes “the early blushing maple, the poison sumac blazing its sins as scarlet, the mulberry ash, the rich chrome yellow of the poplars, the brilliant red huckleberry, with which the hills’ backs are painted, like those of sheep.”
Literary Collections. FRANKENSTEIN, OR THE MODERN PROMETHEUS by Mary Shelley, read by Simon Templeman, Anthony Heald, and Stefan Rudnicki (Blackstone Audio, unabridged, 7 CDs, 8.5 hours, $70.00, 978-1-4332-1563-6): the eighteen-year-old author (1797-1851) wrote this Gothic tale of a friendless creature and “describes the spectre which had haunted my midnight pillow”; the story is shrouded in ominous Victorian music, and haunting parts include the monster’s warning to the doctor: “I shall be with you on your wedding-night.”
by Alex Moore, Book Review Editor