We just love it when Times-folk become bloggers, because they get so damn bloggy. Dwight Garner, the Book Review editor who blogs about books 'n' stuff, says he thinks that Time and Newsweek now run fewer book reviews. We bet they do too! But who knows? Someday maybe one of us will get an intern to go through some back issues and actually count or something. [Paper Cuts]
"Simon & Schuster said it was a classic. If you go to their building at 46th Street or wherever it is, they got millions of books throughout that whole building, it's nothing but books, and they said that my book is a classic." Pimpin' Ken, king of the 48 rules, is the toast of the "literary world." [NYP]
This morning local ABC meteorologist Bill Evans popped up on "Good Morning America" to pimp his new novel, Category 7. Interviewed by Gawker Hero Sam Champion, Bill revealed that one of the main characters was, in fact, based on the lovable weatherman. We could care less about the weather or hurricanes or whatever—but there's Sam Champion slash fic in hardcover? We are running to the bookstore NOW.
Faced with looming ovary-shrivel in her late 30s, Colette Labouff Atkinson opted to finish her manuscript instead of using her creative energies to pop out a baby, she writes in an essay today on Babble. Fair enough! She even got a card from a friend: "Congratulations! It's a book!" Heh. Just one thing, though: where's Colette's book baby now? The internet doesn't seem to have heard of it, and there are no deals listed on Publisher's Marketplace. Maybe she put it up for adoption.
Well, you can stop overwhelming our inbox with pictures of straight male publishing "hotties." This is the definitive vote. Finally, we will learn who the least mangy and mentally ill mutt at the BARC shelter is for sure. Ladies and gentlemen, please choose the hottest straight man in publishing!
So galleys of First Daughter Jenna Bush's debut, Ana's Story: a Journey of Hope are floating around town, and all over town, people are dropping them in shock. Seems the book is not only "sexually frank" ("Whether or not you choose to wait until you're married or older to become sexually active, give yourself as much time as you need to make a well-thought-out and mature decision"), it's also... well-written? Maybe way too well-written?
We keep trying to come up with a new word or phrase for "slim pickings." Previously our term of choice has been "skinniest girl at fat camp" but that's not very femiladyist and also, we've said it about twelve too many times. "Shallow bench?" Anyway, this is the last semifinal round of "Hot" Straight Men Of Book Publishing. The winner of this round will face off against Overlook Associate Editor Aaron Schlechter and Chris Parris-Lamb @ The Gernert Company in the finals on Thursday.
Good news for book publishing! Sometime Gawker hottie, Grub Street writer and heretofore-uncredited coiner of the term "douché" Daniel Maurer has sold his first literary work, Brocabulary, in what Publishers Marketplace would call a "very nice" deal (so between $50 and $100K.) What is this new addition to the canon, you ask? It's a man-i-festo of dude talk and a dictionary of manly mots! You know, like douché. Also like: Guidon't : 1. (n) a Guido-related faux-pas. 2. (exclamation) A command given to a Guido that he cease his Guido-related behavior. Or Doug Booty: A hail mary pass made at a woman despite the fact that your game is clearly about to be over. Or Power tool: Someone who has achieved power, wealth, or fame despite being a total tool. You get the idea.
Literary agents: they're an interesting breed—often sort of pompous and self-involved, and their jobs basically require them to be good liars. So it makes sense that the "hot guy" and the "agent" circles of the Venn diagram overlap somewhat. (We're saying that hot guys are self-involved liars, sort of!) The winner of this round of the competition will face off against our Round One winner: Overlook Associate Editor Aaron Schlechter, who won by a bit of a landslide, and maybe someone else if we can dredge up enough likely specimens for a round three. Help a sister out!
Our mailbag runneth over with email about our effort to find the hottest straight man in book publishing, but actual photos of hotties are few and far between. What gives, ladies? Well, as it turns out, a lot of you just want to vent your spleens about how there aren't any cute straight men in publishing, and how the ones who do exist so totally know it and are such dicks. Gals, you don't know how good you have it! Try working in blogging—it is just as gay-infested, and there is no HR dept to stop them from IMimg you at 7:45 a.m. with the gory details of last night's conquest(s). Anyway. After the jump, we've got our first round of hotties for your perusal. Remember: we're looking for the skinniest girl at fat camp here, people. Oh, and please do continue to send us your submissions. Editorial only, please include jpgs!
So it's summertime, and let's be honest, that means three things: everyone is wearing fewer items of apparel, which means everyone's kind of horny, and also everyone has summer half-day Fridays. Oh! Right. Except us. Hmm, but you know when I did used to have summer Fridays? Back in the halcyon days of, oh, 9 or so months ago when I worked in book publishing. Hey, that gives me an idea! Let's have you send me your nominations for who you think are the hottest straight guys who work in book publishing. I know, it's like shooting fish in a huge, huge barrel with not so very many fish in it. But that's why I need your help.
Sunster Lenore Skenazy anxiously anticipates the release of the final Harry Potter book.
"Who has more readers than US Weekly, is snarkier than Gawker, and has changed the world of celebrity gossip the same way CNN changed the world of television news?" So begins the marketing pitch for "Bloggywood," blogger Perez Hilton's tome on gossip and how to get "thousands of dollars worth of swag" from publicists. (Hello, IRS! He's so going down like Al Capone!) The book is written with Jared Shapiro, the News & Entertainment Director at Life & Style Weekly, who will be working on it in his spare time, and is being handled by Folio's Scott Hoffman, who reps the Fug girls. How are they going to market this book, you ask? "Perez and Jared will also ruthlessly mine their contacts at the monthly magazines, from Men's Health to Men's Fitness, Glamour to GQ, and so many more. From guest writing celebrity fashion pieces for Marie Claire, to profiles in Heeb, these two will launch a publicity and press assault never before seen in book publishing." Sounds slightly violent! But what will they publicize? Well, let's take a look at the beginning of Perez's writing sample!
Hey, have you ever noticed that famous bestselling authors like Michael Chabon, Jonathan Safran Foer, Nathan Englander, Nicole Krauss, and Myla Goldberg all have something in common? That's right: Jewiness. I know, you're shocked. But did you also know that an under-the-radar Jewish organization called the Jewish Book Council may be somewhat responsible for these young heebs' rises to fame and fortune? In a column that will run in this Sunday's book review headlined 'Star Search' (heh!), Rachel Donadio explains the inner workings of the Jewish Book Network, which holds American Idol-style cattle call auditions, described as "somewhere between J-Date and a camel auction," for Jewish authors. The winners then get to tour Jewish book fairs around the country, which doesn't sound like such a prize until you learn, as we just did from a publicist, that authors can sell "up to 300 books" at each of these events, which is nothing to sneeze at. The Jew tour does have its perils, though, as one author learned: "Do not follow the woman who has just published a book on how all her children were murdered in Treblinka. It's much preferable to follow the woman who has 100 halvah recipes." Oh, those nutty Jews and their culturally-specific brand of humor!
The Wall Street Journal reports that Christopher Hitchens' God is Not Great is an unexpected best-seller.
Remember little David Seaman? He's the helpful kid who wrote to us a while ago defending his pal Ned Vizzini against charges of assistant-hiring sleaziness, and who capped his email by asking us, "So how would we go about working in a subtle plug for me on Gawker?" Then he went and concocted a fake save Paris Hilton protest. Now he's out with a new proposal for a book called How To Be a Publicity Whore, where he'll presumably share some of the hard-won wisdom that got his first book, The Real Meaning of Life (surely you've heard of it? According to Bookscan, it's sold 4,000 copies!) so much attention. He's going to be giving the advice that people most need to hear: About "how you can make cheap talk and scandal-mongering work for you, whether you have a cause to promote or not."
As part of a marketing initiative behind their book Take a Nap! Change Your Life, Workman publishing's employees have been mandated to engage in an intra-workday ritual more common among toddlers and Europeans: naptime. It kinda makes you wonder how the company went about preparing for the release of some of its health and sexuality titles! Actually, on that note, at least one Workman employee (he works in the art department, surprise surprise) is getting kind of sleazy with the naptime antics, if only in his mind. "Vago has been napping, on a company-provided yoga mat, in the designated nap area—a corner of the library that has been sectioned off by a shoji screen—and said that sleeping in semi-public did not bother him. 'Sometimes I would wake up and find someone next to me,' he said. 'Not for the first time.'" Ew, just like that weird kid in kindergarten who always used naptime as an excuse to play unauthorized games of doctor!
Lights Out [NYer]
