New Books Stack Up Fine Against iPod's Creepy Cousin, the "Cooler"
By Nicole Pasulka
In New York's Jacob J. Javits Center during this year's Book Expo America (May 28-31), a senior editor waved her hand across nearby publishers' booths. "All this is a stage," she explained. "It may look like someone's over there cooking dinner, but it's a set, it's not real. Most business at BEA happens just by hanging out with your friends when they stop by your booth to chat, and at the parties." My first time at BEA, and I was desperate for a role.
In the Javits Center lobby, people with something to do and somewhere to go darted toward escalators and clustered near the press table. By contrast, I ambled along a massive grid of stalls and brightly colored poster-board, and before long had surrendered to snap judgments and superficiality. James Patterson: ubiquitous; Danielle Steele: coiffed; Wordsworth Classics edition of Rob Roy: worth every penny of its $4.99 cover price. I chatted aimlessly with librarians and marketing directors. But did I really need to know the "pub date" of James Elroy's new novel? Publishing insiders do not ask questions like a bored journalist. This wasn't going well.
Isn't book publishing becoming less about actual books and more about digital technologies? Here was conflict and an angle: I'd ingratiate myself by sympathizing with booksellers and producers and vilifying technologies that threaten their profits. "What's up with this Kindle thing?" I asked an unoccupied associate publisher. Her eyes lit up: "Ooh, have you used one? I think there's a display here. I've been dying to try it."
The publisher and I set off for the Amazon booth, though it wasn't clear whether we were looking to size up the competition or research Christmas gifts. In the literary technology section, we passed a Borders TV studio, were corralled into taking a touch-screen survey on why we were here, and then stumbled across two women serving piña coladas in perilously low-cut bathing suits. Turns out the beachwear and booze were a marketing Hail Mary for an e-reader called "The Cooler." A sales rep gave us a demonstration next to a kiddie pool full of sand. The Cooler looked like an iPod's creepy cousin and scrolled with the ease and readability of a stone tablet. No amount of rum was going to make this thing user-friendly.
The Cooler reps didn't seem like publishing insiders, and they didn't have much of a product, but they were having a good time. If I didn't have a part to play, I might as well enjoy being in the audience. Nearby, a small crowd gathered around a dark-haired boy of about thirteen. His eyes were glued to a monitor while his fingers flew across an approximation of an electric guitar. It was Danny Johnson, the Guinness World Record holder for Guitar Hero--a video game in which players follow along with pop songs on a plastic guitar. The booth's posters claimed Johnson would be trying for a different record, but his dad explained that "he already broke all the records," and was "just playing around now." Danny Johnson didn't crack a smile while he destroyed his competitions. Watching someone else playing video games is slightly more entertaining than watching my dog nap, so I moved on.
Guitar Hero and drinking before 2 p.m. are technically fun, but in a convention center recreation can feel a little too staged. The Independent Publishers Consortium (Consortium Book Sales), in a far corner of the fair, was loaded with small publishing houses handing out DVD catalogues, stickers and, at the Feral Books table, packets of opium seeds to help you "harvest your own pain medication." And it was here that I found the real headliners at BEA--the books, scads of them. And a chorus of representatives from participating independent publishers was more than happy to explain the plotline of a graphic novel by Mario Van Peebles or pass along a copy of Marilyn French's posthumously published novel The Love Children.
I'm not sure whether publishing is changing, or dying, or thriving (I'd seen plenty of evidence to support all three conclusions) but books are definitely myriad and exciting and people still write them, read them, and make them look good in a convention booth. I left with more than I could carry.
By Nicole Pasulka
In New York's Jacob J. Javits Center during this year's Book Expo America (May 28-31), a senior editor waved her hand across nearby publishers' booths. "All this is a stage," she explained. "It may look like someone's over there cooking dinner, but it's a set, it's not real. Most business at BEA happens just by hanging out with your friends when they stop by your booth to chat, and at the parties." My first time at BEA, and I was desperate for a role.
In the Javits Center lobby, people with something to do and somewhere to go darted toward escalators and clustered near the press table. By contrast, I ambled along a massive grid of stalls and brightly colored poster-board, and before long had surrendered to snap judgments and superficiality. James Patterson: ubiquitous; Danielle Steele: coiffed; Wordsworth Classics edition of Rob Roy: worth every penny of its $4.99 cover price. I chatted aimlessly with librarians and marketing directors. But did I really need to know the "pub date" of James Elroy's new novel? Publishing insiders do not ask questions like a bored journalist. This wasn't going well.
Isn't book publishing becoming less about actual books and more about digital technologies? Here was conflict and an angle: I'd ingratiate myself by sympathizing with booksellers and producers and vilifying technologies that threaten their profits. "What's up with this Kindle thing?" I asked an unoccupied associate publisher. Her eyes lit up: "Ooh, have you used one? I think there's a display here. I've been dying to try it."
The publisher and I set off for the Amazon booth, though it wasn't clear whether we were looking to size up the competition or research Christmas gifts. In the literary technology section, we passed a Borders TV studio, were corralled into taking a touch-screen survey on why we were here, and then stumbled across two women serving piña coladas in perilously low-cut bathing suits. Turns out the beachwear and booze were a marketing Hail Mary for an e-reader called "The Cooler." A sales rep gave us a demonstration next to a kiddie pool full of sand. The Cooler looked like an iPod's creepy cousin and scrolled with the ease and readability of a stone tablet. No amount of rum was going to make this thing user-friendly.
The Cooler reps didn't seem like publishing insiders, and they didn't have much of a product, but they were having a good time. If I didn't have a part to play, I might as well enjoy being in the audience. Nearby, a small crowd gathered around a dark-haired boy of about thirteen. His eyes were glued to a monitor while his fingers flew across an approximation of an electric guitar. It was Danny Johnson, the Guinness World Record holder for Guitar Hero--a video game in which players follow along with pop songs on a plastic guitar. The booth's posters claimed Johnson would be trying for a different record, but his dad explained that "he already broke all the records," and was "just playing around now." Danny Johnson didn't crack a smile while he destroyed his competitions. Watching someone else playing video games is slightly more entertaining than watching my dog nap, so I moved on.
Guitar Hero and drinking before 2 p.m. are technically fun, but in a convention center recreation can feel a little too staged. The Independent Publishers Consortium (Consortium Book Sales), in a far corner of the fair, was loaded with small publishing houses handing out DVD catalogues, stickers and, at the Feral Books table, packets of opium seeds to help you "harvest your own pain medication." And it was here that I found the real headliners at BEA--the books, scads of them. And a chorus of representatives from participating independent publishers was more than happy to explain the plotline of a graphic novel by Mario Van Peebles or pass along a copy of Marilyn French's posthumously published novel The Love Children.
I'm not sure whether publishing is changing, or dying, or thriving (I'd seen plenty of evidence to support all three conclusions) but books are definitely myriad and exciting and people still write them, read them, and make them look good in a convention booth. I left with more than I could carry.
LOOKING AHEAD by Wally Dobelis
Collecting signed Ernest Hemingway books
In a recent trip, chatting with fellow-passengers about the books we carry, an Ohio schoolteacher denounced paper reading material as obsolete, and non-green. He only reads Kindle books and free newspapers on Internet (NYTimes was mentioned). His wife chimed in that library books spread germs.
All that made me sick, no fault of germs, and turn green (nothing personal, fellow environment cherishers). Old books have been part of my life, and libraries were my playgrounds. People collect old porcelain for its beauty and old paintings for their grace and history, and old books because that’s where knowledge resides. A New Yorker writer recently examined Kindle-available titles against his library and found very few meaningful authors electronically represented. A matter of time, you say? Eventually the libraries will be superfluous and un- necessary? Maybe, and so will be brains and thought processes, since all knowledge and opinions (qualified by polls or ayatollahs) will be retrievable from data bases and TV.
I admire books, old, particularly those signed, touched by the author. It is like shaking hands with the mind I admire. My particular mental puzzle is Ernest Hemingway (1899-1961), a man with a consistent handwriting, easily recognizable and forgery prone. What was in his mind when he turned the gun on himself in lonely Ketchum, Idaho? Whenever I visit a rare book show, I study the copies of his titles. He seemingly inscribed many books to unidentifiable friends and casual way companions, but had only one , his best remembered book, A Farewell to Arms, published in a 510 copy limited signed first edition, encased in a tight box, guaranteed authentic .
Speaking of boxed limited signed editions as a whole, they are pernicious to the survival of the book in a pristine condition; taking the copy in and out is destructive of the vellum or cloth spine. I never dare to do it without permission, for fear of making an inadvertent perilous move.
Speaking as a collector, of the 510 Hemingway’s 1929 first edition Farewell to Arms limited signed copies only a few have survived in fair condition, and only one in pristine condition, with the box fully complete, an important point. It is for sale at Glenn Horowitz’s book emporium in New York. I have wondered whether the book’s condition survived because the owner broke the edges of the pristine box and restored them more loosely, to gain access to his own treasure without damaging it. (Glenn Horowitz, incidentally, is an internationally known dealer who finds homes for Presidents’ and authors’ personal collections, accessible by appointment).
Alas, the pleasures of collecting treasures are scary in a recession environment. People are looking for values that will resist the inflation lurking around the corner that certain economists warn us about. I have a neighbor who talks of relying on gold, incessantly, in elevators and in the building lobby. Old paintings and porcelain are part of the thinking; many modern pieces of art have not been time-tested, and some of the most avant-garde ones are made of organic materials that deteriorate, and should really come with a restorer’s guarantee, essentially an insurance policy. I will stick with the old values, old books from the 1600s and 1900s are surviving pretty well. As foribraries, we must find ways to protect them.