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Link Madness (late edition)

I guess I was overcome by Labor Day laziness and forgot to blog on Monday, so here are some late and rather eclectic links.

* Author Alex Kuczynski has a somewhat smirky article in the NY Times about the contemporary book party, describing the "colossal blowouts" for books by Tina Brown, Holly Peterson, and Patricia Marx, as opposed to the warm-wine-and-skimpy-brie affairs of yesteryear. Her contention is that today's parties are hosted not by publishers, but by wealthy authors and friends of authors; hence the extravagance in hopes of garnering publicity. (Thanks to Ron at Galleycat for the link, and I'll second his notion that if it's media mentions you want, invite a blogger or two along with the glitterati!) I'm not sure I agree with Kuczynski; we've hosted some pretty swanky publisher-sponsored digs at the bookstore, and sold books offsite at several more, though there are still plenty of author-sponsored cheap wine and cheese soirees -- long may they live.

* Speaking of rich people and reading, the Times also has a slideshow of recommended wedding gifts for booklovers. Too bad this wasn't around when the ALP and I were sending out invites -- though some of these are pretty silly. We're happy with just books... or maybe some more bookshelves.

* Here's a more grassroots kind of project: the Delocator! Covered recently in Bookselling This Week (among others), the website is a tool for locating independent coffee shops, movie theaters, and bookstores in your zip code, and anyone can add a favorite. It's not a perfect system (I put in McNally Robinson's zip code and several bookstores were in there two or three times, and there were clearly some spam entries), but it's certainly a step in bring independent businesses into the internet age, and raising consciousness of the great stuff in our own communities. Give it a try -- add your favorite local spots, and discover some new ones (I just added Word, one of the newer additions to the Brooklyn bookstore scene).

* Latest in the e-book saga: Business Week reports on the Sony Reader, which is available in Borders and Best Buy, though Sony won't release sales figures, which suggests it's not doing so well. The main problem at this point, aside from some complaints about clunky design, is that e-books for the readers are only available through Sony Connect, the company's own website, and there aren't that many. Though that may change as Sony is "now planning to adopt e-book software from Adobe Systems" which will allow downloads from other outlets. What do you think, readers (small R)? Any interest in reading books on an electronic device, particularly this one? What would have to happen to make e-books relevant? And what would that mean? I love the way one commentor on this article puts it:

I am interested in where this takes us? How many trees can we save? How do authors fare or royalties when the print and production is taken out? how much cheaper can books be? They're big questions. Bring them on!

* I know one place people will be talking about these questions: the 2008 ABA Winter Institute in Louisville, Kentucky! Registration has just been opened for the January 24-27 conference and educational sessions -- it's the third annual Winter Institute, so Len Vlahos at ABA has dubbed it WI3, perhaps in reference to the increasing focus on technology. Holy cow, am I dying to go. I'll have to figure out some way to beg, steal or borrow plane and hotel fare to get in on those conversations.


Brooklyn Bookstore Visits
I had a very interesting week. I'm in the home stretch of trying to get my business plan ready for the September 14 PowerUp! deadline, and as usual at this point I feel both super-ready and like I need to go back to Square 1. So I spent some time this week visiting folks at two different (successful) Brooklyn bookstores to pick their brains a little, and enjoy the scene.

Word Books, Greenpoint
As I mentioned earlier, Word Books is one of the newest additions to the Brooklyn literary scene. Opened in March 2007 by Christine Onorati, it sits on the most Brooklyn-ish corner of Greenpoint you can imagine. Across the street is a public park with baby strollers and teenagers playing basketball; behind that is an old industrial warehouse with "GREENPOINT" stenciled in beautifully faded letters on the side; down the street is a church steeple silhouetted against the sky; a block away is the multi-lingual bustle of Greenpoint Avenue. Word occupies one of those enviable two-exposure corner lots, albeit on a quiet street in a neighborhood that's really only accessible by the dreaded G train (one of the few subways that only serves Brooklyn and Queens, not Manhattan, it's notoriously unreliable on weekends).

I asked Christine about that, expecting to hear that her business was mostly during the evenings and weekends when folks were home from work, but her knowledge of the neighborhood put my assumptions to shame. As she's discovered living a few blocks away, there are a lot of work-at-home folks around, and they are thrilled for the chance to shop local. The shop is open from 10 to 7, and business has been tripping along steadily for these first, often precarious months. To put it in perspective, Christine told me that she ran a bookstore in a small Long Island town for about six years ("practice" for the Brooklyn store, she calls it now), and while her rent in Brooklyn has doubled what she paid there, her sales have quadrupled -- and that's just in the first six months! She emphasized the importance of knowing your neighborhood, and knowing that there are folks who want to read what you read around you -- otherwise, she says, what's the fun of stocking your store?

The store has the aura of doing small things solidly and well. The window has a beautiful stencil with the store's name and specialties, and the window displays have won prizes (i.e. the Lonely Planet display contest). There's a graphic novel section that's possibly better than the one I buy for, though half the size. Discounted books are front and center; great fiction and nonfiction line the left-hand wall. A gorgeous display of hand-selected stationary and a wall of neat locally designed T-shirts round out the sideline offerings. And the back is a slightly segregated section of kids books and toys -- very savvy from a browsing and marketing perspective.

There's also great potential for the future. A child-proof gate blocks access to the basement, which is finished just enough to hold events (the store's Harry Potter party attracted around 200 locals). Christine has plans for expanding her event series, implementing a number of book clubs, and maybe adding more retail space. Talking to her, I suddenly realized the wisdom of thinking about a bookstore in phases. Maybe you don't have to have every element in place on opening day. Maybe it's financially and even emotionally more reasonable and satisfying to think of the store as a work in progress, something that will continue to improve and expand and refine and grow every month and year. I'm grateful to Christine for her insights, and I can't wait to see how Word continues to grow.



Book Court, Boerum Hill
Downtown Brooklyn's own BookCourt is at the other end of the spectrum in terms of bookstore life: founded in 1981, the store has done a fair amount of growing already, though more is on the horizon. I stopped in on a Friday morning to get a feel for the place and talk to founders Henry Zook and Mary Gannet and their son Zack, who now works in the store as a manager. The store is one of the success stories of indie bookselling in the last quarter of the 20th century: though they had some slow years in the 1990s, when the book business seemed to falter everywhere, their neighborhood regulars never failed them, and the owners were able to buy their original building and the one next door. Mary told me that when the Barnes & Noble opened a few blocks away in 2003, business at BookCourt actually got better. By that time folks had seen what tended to happen to small bookstores when the chains moved in, and they clearly told the owners of BookCourt that they weren't going to let that happen to their store. Mary and I agreed that Brooklyn is a good place for an indie: New Yorkers can tend to be more educated about economics and the effects of shopping local, and Brooklynites often have fierce loyalties to their neighborhoods.

BookCourt's operations were interesting too; they're open until around 11 most nights, because of the restaurants and nightlife in the area, and earlier in the morning to accomodate business from the nearby courthouses and city government buildings. I spent an hour or so receiving a shipment from Perseus (something I haven't had a chance to do in a long time), and learned about the store's staffing, computer systems, and discounting policies, which seem to fall somewhere between those of a small store and a large store, in keeping with the bookstore's 1800 square foot space. This encompasses the two store fronts and basement of the first building, and the store seems larger than it is, with lots of beautiful displays, staff picks, and local Brooklyn interest books. They're the exclusive seller of a Jonathan Lethem project, Patchwork Planet, and have lots of great relationships with local authors.

Things are about to change, though. Henry and co. are in the process of building on an addition in back that will more than double the size of the store, and that will serve as expanded event space, cafe, and increased retail space. To accommodate this increased volume, they're also finishing some basement space to serve as a receiving room and offices, and will streamline some processes. More books will be moved upstairs, the children's section will be relocated and expanded, and the store will begin to stock remainders. It's an exciting time, as the renovations should be complete in a few months, and the venerable store will enter a new phase of its life.

I sat with Henry and Zack in their office/living space above the bookstore after my stint on the floor, talking about history and future, plans and precautions. BookCourt is another shining example of knowing your neighborhood, investing wisely, and creating a space for books and authors that has obviously led to long-term success. I'm grateful to Henry, Mary, Zack, and their staff for their enthusiastic support of my own bookstore dreams, and inspired by the life they have created for themselves, and I look forward to seeing the bookstore continue to mature.

1. Become rich via librarianship (we're still working out the kinks on this one).
2. Visit every cool party involving children's literature around the country/world (depending on the level of "rich" we've achieved). This includes, but is not limited too, the TLA Conferences, the IRA Conference, and anything that occurs on the Pacific Northwest.

Usually when I've detached myself from an event that involved delicious food and kidlit chatter I like to give myself a few days to decompress before hammering out some kind of encapsulation of the event. That works especially well if no one at said event knows who I am. Yesterday, however, Sharyn November (editor extraordinaire, y'all) asked if I'd be blogging about the thingy thing I was attending and my reaction was peppier than I'd intended. I seem to have said, "YOU BET!" Then again, why not? Let's try the whole while-it's-still-fresh-in-your-mind approach. What have I got to lose?

So yesterday was the day the Scott O'Dell Award was officially bestowed upon author Ellen Klages for her book The Green Glass Sea. The bestowing, as it happened, occurred at a little restaurant called Choice. Inside, the place was reserved entirely for the O'Dellolites (well YOU try to come up with a name for them then) and I was happy. Roger Sutton was there. The charming Laura Lutz from Queens (who should seriously consider blogging, missy) was there. Rita Auerbach. TWO (count 'em) TWO Newbery committee members including Monica Edinger and my BPL homie Michael Santangelo. There were numerous others who will forgive me for not mentioning them by name, and of course, star of the evening, author Ellen Klages.

Let me tell you a little something about Ellen Klages. I love her. I'm not saying I didn't love her before I met her or anything. Sure, her book was well-written and a helluva lot of fun. And it certainly fulfilled every requirement a person could possibly have in mind regarding smart historical fiction. But see, the thing about writers is that you just never know. It would be nice if every book gave a clue as to how cool its respective author is, but this is simply not always the case. Ms. Klages, however, is the kind of person you want to sit down with over a cup of coffee for hours at a time just so you can pick her brain for a while. She was much in demand, however, so brain picking had to be foreshortened. I was able to ask her about the cover change The Green Glass Sea went through. As you might recall, Roger Sutton displayed the before and after of that particular image and it turns out that the girl in Cover #1 was from an old photograph owned by Ms. Klages herself. And yes, sure as shooting, people assumed that the kid was Anne Frank so the entire look was reworked before publication.

The presentation of the award was in fine fettle. Ms. Klages was introduced by, I believe, chair Hazel Rochman. She in turn gave props to her fellow committee members Roger Sutton and Ann Carlson. She also happened to mention some interesting facts regarding Mr. Scott O'Dell's Island of the Blue Dolphins. Many people turned the book down, it seems, because they wanted the lead character to be a boy rather than a girl. Huh.

Then Ellen Klages stood up to speak and she killed, brother. Killed. It was one of those speeches you wish Horn Book would consider reprinting in one format or another. Klages has the enviable ability of speaking naturally in front of a large group while at the same time never straying off topic, losing her train of thought, or being anything less than truly interesting. She described her fascination with the original glass sea, and how no one ever took a single color photograph of it before it was bulldozed out of existence. She mentioned that she has a piece of the glass which she carries around in her pocket within small black pouch. She used to carry it around in her own homemade lead container, but the glass tended to shatter that way. We then got a rousing explanation of how Ms. Klages melted down lead soldiers on her stove, then poured the lead into an Altoids container to create the box. Someone had apparently pointed out to her that the melting of lead was probably more dangerous than the radioactive glass, but she certainly took precautions. The conclusion drawn by one and all was that there was more than a drop of Dewey (the book's protagonist) in Ms. Klages. That's for sure.

Another thing I took away from the evening was that Ms. Klages has previously worked on adult sci-fi. This caused me to prick up my ears. Perhaps... perhaps she might consider writing some sci-fi children's books? I'm waiting for that particular trend to pick up and take wing, but so far no great sci-fi American children's author has appeared in the last decade or so. Perhaps Ms. Klages could fill this void.

The tables about the room were spotted with lovely roughened green sea glass which was just enchanting, if also mildly unnerving. The food consisted of tender meats, cheeses, wine, crab-like balls of something, wine, brownies, fruit salads, quesadillas, and wine. All in all, a brilliant little ceremony and proof positive that the Scott O'Dell Award is making some excellent choices these days.

Good morning, authors.

So. Book launch parties. Good times, eh? Let us say that your first book is coming out soon and you would like your blow-out bash to be properly magnificent. As it just so happens, YA author Cynthia Leitich Smith of Tantalize fame has the skinny on How to Throw a Book Launch Party. Lots of helpful hints are there that you might forget otherwise. For example, "If possible, pre-autograph the books. A couple of days before the party, it had taken me about two hours of steady effort to pre-autograph a hundred books." Ow.

Also, and I think this is a mark of true class; "I elected to highlight fellow Austin area novelists of 2007--Helen Hemphill, April Lurie, Jo Whittemore, and Brian Yansky. I did a giveaway of ARCs of their forthcoming titles and offered a handout listing each with their catalog copy and brief bios." SMART move.

Consider this your required reading handout of the day. Unfortunately you cannot comment on Smith's piece, so if you've any additional tips I wonder if you'd be so good as to list them here. She seems to have covered everything, but I'd like to hear about people who opt for new ideas of their own.