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an online newsletter for publishers, authors, book lovers and booksellers

Vol. 7, No. 3   March 2009

Index (scroll down for stories) 

  1. Out of print novella published in 2000 is basis for Hallmark movie
  2. Workshop on skills for budding authors slated for Atlanta on March 7
  3. Breaking news from the book barons
  4. Great American Bargain Book Show to be held in Boston in August
  5. Rosenberg may have enlisted McNutt as Manhattan Project spy
  6. News about bookstores, publishing, marketing and promotion
  7. Bookstore sales fall precipitously in November and December
  8. Barnes & Noble cuts 100 headquarters jobs as sales decline
  9. Update journalism: Latest skinny on past Southern Review stories
10. ‘The Miracles of Prato’ annoys indie bookstore when on Kindle first
11. U.S. lawyer told to take erotic novel off net or lose job
12. Monitoring the e-book, graphic novel and e-tailing markets
13. IDPF reports e-book sales up 108 percent November 2008 vs. 2007
14. Amazon to drop Microsoft, Adobe e-book formats
15. Google and Amazon to put more books on cellphones
16. ‘Read an E-Book Week’ scheduled for March 8 -14
17. News of how innovative authors and publishers are selling books
18. How publishers use marketing, publicity and events to sell books
19. Book by Atlanta humorist aims to teach women to think like men
20. Joe Torre rips Yankees organization in well publicized tell-all book
21. Milestones: Records and news of note in book publishing
22. ALA announces Caldecott, Newbery, other children's books awards
23. Pastor Rick Warren riles gays, but his books are big successes
24. News of chicanery, dishonesty and tort-feasing in the book business
25. CPSC delays enforcement of CPSIA testing requirements for year
26. New York judge rejects Amazon suit for exemption from sales tax
27. News from trade shows, book fairs and book festivals
28. Major upcoming trade shows, book fairs and book festivals

1. Out of print novella published in 2000 is basis for Hallmark movie

Ginnie Siena Bivona’s novella Ida Mae Tutweiler and the Traveling Tea Party is finally getting some of the attention it deserves.

It’s a touching tale of two lifetime bff’s (best female friends), one of whom contracts a fatal cancer and tells the other she’s planning her death, and wants to be alone as she awaits the end. The stricken friend is flamboyant daytime TV star Jane Tetley, and the friend who refuses to desert her is the far more prosaic Ida Mae Tutweiler. Central to the plot is the comfort found daily in a hot cup of tea, served from a pot with symbolic significance.

Published in 2000, when Bivona was the acquisitions editor for regional publisher Republic of Texas Press, the book got favorable reviews from a number of publications, including the Dallas Morning News. Then, like many other noteworthy books, it languished and went out of print.

Now, it’s coming back as the basis of a Hallmark presentation scheduled for  March 7 national telecast on the Hallmark Channel with a new title, “Bound by a Secret.” The telecast will be foreshadowed by a March 5 special showing at a movie theater in Dallas, Bivona’s home town, with proceeds going to a breast cancer charity.

We won’t spoil the telecast for you by telling you too much about the plot. Suffice it to say, as did the Dallas Morning News, that Ida Mae Tutweiler is “An engaging story of the power of friendship and the endurance of love.”

Author Ginnie Bivona is now a grandmother and a great-grandmother, but she’s still active as the publisher at Atriad Press, based in Dallas, Texas.

In honor of the telecast, Bivona is publishing a "Special Limited Edition" of a book based on the filming of the Hallmark special, which she attended. Copies of the book, which features color pictures of her trip and narrative about her Hollywood adventure, are serially numbered in a limited printing.

Should anyone be interested, author-publisher Bivona is looking for a working associate publisher to join her at Atriad in Dallas – someone who will handle marketing and administration, freeing her to do more work in the acquisitions area.

In addition, she still owns all the rights to Ida Mae Tutweiler other than the drama rights, which were sold to Hallmark.

If you’re interested in either the associate publisher job or in rights to the Ida Mae Tutweiler book, email Southern Review editor Noel Griese at ngriese@anvilpub.com

2. Workshop on skills for budding authors slated for Atlanta on March 7

The Southern Review of Books newsletter has announced that eight outstanding authors and book professionals will teach a day-long seminar on writing on Saturday, March 7, at Atlanta’s Cobb Galleria Centre.
The workshop, entitled “Authorship 101,” will focus on writing, getting published and marketing fiction and nonfiction. It is being staged in conjunction with the Spring Book Show, being held at the same location.
Participating faculty members for Authorship 101, in alphabetical order, along with their topics, are:

§  Brad Cohen, inspirational speaker and author of Front of the Class, about his search for a teaching position that finally landed him in the Cobb County, Ga., school system, speaking on "From Book to Movie: How My Memoir Became a National Hallmark Hall of Fame CBS-TV Telecast."

§  Anna DeStefano, novelist and immediate past president, Georgia Romance Writers, "How To Write Romances and Get Them Published.”

§  Hollis Gillespie, Atlanta magazine columnist, author of three books and radio-TV personality, "How To Write Memoirs for Fun and Profit.”

§  Russ Marshalek, public relations director, Wordsmiths Books, Decatur, Ga., and consultant on book publicity and arranging bookstore signings, "How To Arrange a Bookstore Signing for Your Book."

§  Man Martin, novelist and Georgia Author of the Year Award winner for his novel Days of the Endless Corvette, "Writing humor."

§  Ahmad Meradji, president, Apex Book Manufacturing, "How To Select a Short-Run Printer for Your Self-Published Book."

§  Patricia Sprinkle, mystery and nonfiction author of more than 20 titles, "So You Want To Write a Mystery?"

§  Darlene Ford Wofford, series novel author, "How I Got Local and National Publicity for My Memoir Series."

Noel Griese of Atlanta-based Anvil Publishers, and editor of the Southern Review of Books newsletter, who organized the workshop, said that people attending get free admission to the Spring Book Show.

Registration details for the Authorship 101, “How To Become a Successful Author,” are available at http://anvilpub.net/Authorship_101.htm

Details on a partner workshop, Authorship 201, on “Writing for the Christian Market,” are available at http://anvilpub.net/authorship_201.htm

3. Breaking news from the book barons

Books to movies update: “Slumdog Millionaire” took top honors at both the Producers Guild Awards and Screen Actors Guild Awards, winning Best Picture and Outstanding Performance by a Cast respectively. Kate Winslet won in the supporting category for “The Reader.”… Books to movies also played a major part in this year’s Oscar Nominations. “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button," based on the short story by F. Scott Fitzgerald, was nominated for best picture, best director (David Fincher), best actor (Brad Pitt), best supporting actress (Taraji P. Henson) and best adapted screenplay. It led with 13 nominations, the ninth film ever to score so many, according to Variety. “Slumdog Millionaire,” based on the Vikas Swarup novel Q&A, was nominated for best picture, best director (Danny Boyle) and best adapted screenplay. Altogether, “Slumdog” garnered 10 nominations, including best original score and two of the three best original song nominations. “The Reader,” based upon Bernhard Schlink's novel, was nominated for best picture, best director (Stephen Daldry), best actress (Kate Winslet) and best adapted screenplay. It earned five nominations. “Revolutionary Road,” based upon the novel by Richard Yates, was nominated for best supporting actor (Michael Shannon), best art direction and best costume design. The Oscars will be presented on Feb. 22.

4. Great American Bargain Book Show to be held in Boston in August

The Great American Book Show, originally the Christmas Book Show held annually during the summer in Nashville, Tenn., and then moved to Atlanta, Ga., after its purchase by Larry and Valerie May, is moving this year to Boston, Mass., and will be held Fri.-Sat., August 21-22, at the Hynes Convention Center.

In the free Bargain Book News newsletter, Larry May said that Boston is an attractive site for the show because "the Northeast region is full of independent bookstores and they are geographically concentrated in a much smaller area than those in the Southeast," because Boston is not far from New York, making the show "easily accessible to the big buyers and the internationals," and because Boston is near "two of the largest bargain book vendors in the nation - Strictly by the Book and World Publications."

5. Rosenberg may have enlisted McNutt as Manhattan Project spy

Julius Rosenberg, who recruited his brother-in-law David Greenglass to steal atomic secrets, also enlisted a second spy to penetrate the Manhattan Project, the program that developed the atomic bomb during World War II, according to a new book by authorities on Soviet espionage.

The authors conclude that the spy nicknamed in decoded Soviet cables as “Fogel” or “Persian” was neither Robert Oppenheimer nor scientist Philip Morrison, as some investigators have speculated, but a Rosenberg recruit, Russell W. McNutt. McNutt was an obscure engineer who helped build the uranium processing plant in Oak Ridge, Tenn., that was part of the Manhattan Project.

McNutt, a graduate of Brooklyn Polytechnic Institute and a former assistant Manhattan borough engineer, died in 2008 at age 93. Though he had been identified as a Communist sympathizer, earlier American counterintelligence did not identify him as a member of the Rosenberg spy ring.

The book, Spies: The Rise and Fall of the K.G.B. in America, is by John Earl Haynes, Harvey Klehr and Alexander Vassiliev, a former Soviet espionage agent.

McNutt, who became an engineer for Gulf Oil, “turned out to have less commitment and value than originally believed,” the authors wrote. But Haynes added in an interview: “This was an atomic spy who got away with it while his protectors, the Rosenbergs, went to their death.”

In addition to asserting that Julius Rosenberg played a greater role in atomic espionage than was believed, the book suggests that his wife, Ethel, was complicit and affirms previous assessments that Alger Hiss was a spy and that Oppenheimer was not.

It concludes that “Perseus,” the code name for a Soviet agent who has never been identified, was in fact a composite fabricated to confuse the Americans and that no such individual existed.

The book, to be published this spring by Yale University Press, is based on the detailed notes of Vassiliev, who had some access to Soviet espionage files. Those files, copied by Vassiliev into notebooks, represent a fraction of the KGB. and military intelligence records that still remain secret. (Source: Sam Roberts The New York Times, Jan. 17,

6. News about bookstores, publishing, marketing and promotion

William Ackman, whose hedge fund Pershing Square Capital is the single-largest shareholder of the financially troubled Borders Group, has sold its entire stake in Barnes & Noble, which had amounted to 11.8 percent. Pershing Square disclosed in an SEC filing that as of Dec. 22, it sold its holdings in Barnes & Noble stock. Forbes.com commented: "It is unclear whether the billionaire activist investor believes that Barnes & Noble has taken a turn for the worse, or if he, like many money managers, is being slammed with redemptions and must exit positions even as the market sinks to new lows." Recently Ron Burkle's Yucaipa American Management bought more B&N stock and now owns about eight percent of the company… Meanwhile, over at Borders, Pershing Square executive Richard "Mick" Maguire will become non-executive chairman of the board of directors at Borders, taking over from Larry Pollock, the company announced. McGuire joined the board in January 2008 "in connection with his role as a partner at Pershing Square Capital Management," and he is leaving the investment firm now "to pursue entrepreneurial interests." Pollock will remain on the board, and Mike Archbold moves up to lead director. The New York Times says that new Borders CEO Ron Marshall was recruited by Maguire.
 

7. Bookstore sales fall precipitously in November and December

U.S. bookstore sales fell in November and December.

November sales fell 13 percent to $1.054 billion, according to preliminary estimates from the Census Bureau.

In October, bookstore sales fell 5.6 percent compared to the same period a year earlier.

During December, bookstore sales fell 4.7 percent to $2.051 billion, down for the fourth month in a row, according to preliminary estimates from the Census Bureau.
Under Census Bureau definitions, bookstore sales are of new books and do not include "electronic home shopping, mail-order, or direct sale" or used book sales.

8. Barnes & Noble cuts 100 headquarters jobs as sales decline

For the first time in its corporate history, Barnes & Noble has made major layoffs at its corporate headquarters, eliminating nearly 100 jobs.

Most of the cuts were "due to the reduction in store openings and consolidation of functional areas within its retail and online operations," the company said.

B&N has about 40,000 employees and 800 stores overall. According to the Wall Street Journal, the 100 people laid off constitute four percent of the B&N corporate staff of about 2,500.

B&N is providing the former employees with "an enhanced severance plan," healthcare benefits for the next 12 months, outplacement counseling and transition seminars.
 

9. Update journalism: Latest skinny on past Southern Review stories

We’ve reported in a number of recent articles on the rapid escalation in the price of college textbooks, which has led not only to outrage among students and parents, but to several states making attempts to reign in the price of the texts. Now, a company calling itself Flat World Knowledge has entered the fray, selling paper and hardback textbooks at discounts, but e-book downloads of the same texts for free. Flat Earth says of its business model, “We preserve the best of the old - books by leading experts, rigorously reviewed and developed to the highest standards. Then we flip it all on its head. Our books are free online. We offer convenient, low-cost choices for students – softcovers for under $30, audio books and chapters, self-print options, and more. Our books are open for instructors to modify and make their own (for their own course - not for anybody else's). Our books are the hub of a social learning network where students learn from the book and each other.”

10. ‘The Miracles of Prato’ annoys indie bookstore when on Kindle first

Set near Florence in Prato, Italy, in 1456-1457, and based on fact, The Miracles of Prato, a novel by Laurie Albanese and Laura Morowitz, recounts the love story of painter Fra Filippo Lippi and Lucrezia Buti, a beautiful young woman whose family misfortunes result in her having to join the Santa Margherita convent where Lippi, a priest, served as chaplain. Lucrezia becomes Lippi's model and inspiration, his lover and the mother of his children. The book was published by Morrow and went on sale Jan. 27.

However, apparently through a mistake, Morrow made the novel available earlier than that to Amazon Kindle customers. And that led book promoter M.J. Rose, whose ventures include Author Buzz, to publicize that she got a copy of the book early. And that led to a complaint from independent bookstores that it was unfair for e-books to be made available before bookstores have traditional copies, and a call for a level playing field for the indies, whose market share has shrunk to eight percent of the retail book market. And that, in turn, led to an apology from publisher Morrow.

So that’s the story of the house that Jack… oops, Kindle… built.

The project began when Morowitz gave Albanese a book about Lippi as a birthday present. Lippi's personal story intrigued them both, and Albanese wrote the first line of The Miracles of Prato.
The rest of the novel took two years to write.

The story is based on fact - a priest and nun living together and having a child - but Albanese and Morowitz toned down what actually happened. The full story is that there were five or six nuns and the prioress in the Santa Margherita convent, and they were all living with Lippi.

Some aspects of the true story were murky. Although Lippi and Lucrezia received a dispensation to marry, they did not wed, and after giving birth to Filippino, Lucrezia went back to the convent and renewed her vows, then had another child with Lippi seven years later. Eventually the pair moved apart.
The book is being promoted in a variety of ways, including a short video featuring the authors posted on Morrow's website. The publisher has been contacting reading group coordinators and is reaching out to online communities interested in art, art history, Italy, Italian history, the real history of the Catholic Church and bloggers of all kinds. As Tavia Kowalchuk, marketing director at Morrow, put it, "tons of people are blogging about art and their trips to Italy. We're letting them know the book is coming out."

Morrow will reach out as well through its Avon imprint, which has "a fairly strong platform to reach romance readers," Kowalchuk said. This includes the Avon blog, the newsletter From the Heart, and more. (Source: John Mutter, Shelf Awareness newsletter)
 

11. U.S. lawyer told to take erotic novel off net or lose job

A U.S. lawyer practicing in Russia has been ordered by her employer to stop publishing extracts from her raunchy novel on the internet because it is embarrassing her bosses.

Deidre Dare, a senior associate at Allen & Overy, the world’s sixth largest law firm, has been reprimanded for her saucy outpourings about sexual encounters with men of different nationalities.
Dare, who is understood to earn £150,000 (about US $225,000) a year, has posted several installments of her erotic novel Expat on her website.

It also shows photographs of her in various states of undress.

Dare, an American in her 30s, works in the Moscow office of the London-based firm.

Sources at the firm reportedly said that she had been told to stop publishing the novel because it threatened to bring Allen & Overy into disrepute.

Dare published 11 chapters of Expat on her Web site, but in the latest entry, she wrote: “The author has been forbidden from publishing further chapters for the time being. She will resume if and when she is allowed to.”

Expat, billed on the website as a weekly serialized novel about living in Moscow, has as its opening sentence: “There is something thrilling about being in bed with a Frenchman, even if he does have a small **** which he can’t get up.”
Another chapter begins in similar vein: “There is something thrilling about being in bed with a Russian, even if he is telling you things you were better off not knowing, I thought, as Andrei’s hand followed the line of my body down from my neck to my hip.”

The website features pictures of a woman reclining on a sofa in a skimpy nightgown and images of a woman’s torso clad in hot pink underwear.

On Allen & Overy’s website, she is listed as a senior associate who joined last year. It adds: “Deidre is an international finance and projects lawyer who has represented diverse clients involved in financings, equipment leasing and projects around the world.”

Allen & Overy is a place where partners earn more than £1million a year. It has 5,500 staff and last July broke the £1billion revenue mark. (Source: Sarah Westcott, The Guardian)

12. Monitoring the e-book, graphic novel and e-tailing markets

Amazon introduced its new Kindle 2 on Feb. 9. The device goes on sale Feb. 24, with customers who already have Kindle 1s getting priority if they opt for a Kindle 2. The price for a Kindle 2 is $359. The new Kindle is only a third of an inch thick; has a new five-way controller to improve navigation, which particularly helps for newspaper reading; features improved placement of the page-turning buttons; has a new E ink display with 16 shades of gray (but no color yet); has 20 percent faster page turn; claims 25 percent longer battery life and seven times more storage. The device was designed by Jeff Bezos' brother-in-law in his spare time and Bezos reportedly thinks it’s the e-book reader to end all... Several features of the Kindle 2 are controversial. Kindle 2 can read an e-book’s text aloud. Paul Aiken, executive director of the Authors Guild, told the Wall Street Journal that this was "an audio right, which is derivative under copyright law." An Amazon spokesperson sensibly countered that customers would not confuse text reading with an audiobook. Some publishers are objecting to Amazon’s pricing of most e-books at $9.99 – they think the price for an e-book should be as much as or close to the price of a hardback to trade paperback. And some bookstore owners objected to Amazon marketing (at least for a while) copies of Ur, a new work by Stephen King, exclusively for the Kindle 2… Northwest Missouri State University, Maryville, Mo., hopes to offer digital-only textbooks within the next few years, according to NACS's Campus Marketplace. Students at the school currently rent traditional textbooks from the school. Last fall, the school had a pilot program in which 200 students used the Sony Reader. The program will be expanded this spring to include e-texts that can be downloaded to a computer and to the latest version of the Sony Reader.
 

13. IDPF reports e-book sales up 108 percent November 2008 vs. 2007

The International Digital Publishing Forum (formerly the Open eBook Forum) recently reported that e-book sales were up 108 percent for the month of November 2008 compared to the same period in 2007.

The data is provided by the American Association of Publishers, and represent wholesale sales from 13 U.S.-based e-book publishers, so total reported sales figures considerably understate actual sales.

For the first 11 months of 2008, e-book sales were up about 64 percent, according to the IDPF.

E-book sales are surging while the entire trade book industry suffers a decline.
For the five years between 2002 and 2007, overall trade book sales averaged an annual increase of 2.5 percent, while e-books for the same period turned in a 55.7 percent average annualized increase.

14. Amazon to drop Microsoft, Adobe e-book formats

According to an article by Calvin Reid in the Jan. 26 issue of Publishers Weekly, Amazon.com has notified its publisher and author clients that it plans to stop offering e-books in the Microsoft Reader and Adobe e-book formats. In the future, the online retailer said, it will offer only e-books in the Kindle format for wireless download to its Kindle reading device and the Mobipocket format, both of which are owned by Amazon.

Amazon did not specify how long the Adobe PDF and Microsoft formats will continue to be available.

Very little content on Amazon is offered in PDF and Microsoft format. Amazon offers tens of thousands of titles in the Mobipocket e-book reader software, which allows e-books to be read on a wide variety of handheld mobile devices.

The company said it will now be urging customers to buy e-books through Mobipocket. Amazon also sells more than 200,000 titles for use on the Kindle.
 

15. Google and Amazon to put more books on cellphones

More electronic books are coming to mobile phones.

Google said on Feb. 5 that the 1.5 million public domain books it had scanned and made available free on PCs were now accessible on mobile devices like the iPhone and the T-Mobile G1.

Meanwhile, Amazon said that it was working on making the titles for its Kindle e-book reader available on a variety of mobile phones, but did not say when Kindle titles would be available on mobile phones.

In comparison to the Google offerings, Amazon currently makes available about 230,000 titles for the Kindle – most of them not for free. The Kindle library includes scores of newly released books, including many current best sellers.

Google said it would like to make other books available on mobile devices in the future, including out-of-print titles and current books it scans with the permission of publishing companies..

Unlike the version of Google Book Search for PCs, which displays scanned images of book pages, the mobile version simply displays text, allowing users to download printed material more quickly over wireless networks.

16. ‘Read an E-Book Week’ scheduled for March 8 -14

According to Rita Y. Toews, founder of “Read an E-Book Week,” the event will be celebrated this year from March 8 to 14.

This year, she is partnering with Sony Canada, author Warren Adler, Tor.com and E Ink to inform the public about reading e-books. The event Web site is www.ebookweek.com

The event objective is to educate readers on the benefits of reading electronically. To that end, the event’s Web site features pages on the history of e-books, the future of e-books and the environmental benefits of reading electronically.
 

17. News of how innovative authors and publishers are selling books

In addition to having their own Web sites and blogs, many authors are attempting to market their books through social networking sites such as MySpace, FaceBook and Twitter. Online microblogging services like Twitter are among the most popular of these, used by 11percent of online Americans, according to a research report conducted by Pew Internet & American Life Project in December. That’s up from nine percent of online Americans in November. In May 2008, Pew reported online microblogging usage at about six percent of online Americans. Twitter users are young, with one in five online Americans in the 18-to-24 group using Twitter. However, Pew said the median age of a Twitter user is 31, compared to 27 for MySpace, 26 for Facebook and 40 for LinkedIn… In the last issue of Southern Review, we noted that female financial guru and TV personality Suze Orman was going to introduce her new book on “Oprah,” along with an offer of a free one-week download of the e-book version. Well, she appeared, and the e-book offer was a big hit.  Spiegel & Grau reports that the weeklong Oprah-driven promotion resulted in 2.1 million English-language downloads of Orman's 2009 Action Plan, plus another 45,000 Spanish downloads. What’s the point of giving away a free e-book? Spiegel & Grau expects to sell a lot of the trade paperback versions of the book as a result. The publisher says it has printed 1.1 million copies of the trade paperback in anticipation of those sales… Unsuccessful New York Senate candidate Caroline Kennedy been far more successful as a children’s book author, “you know.” Kennedy has published seven books starting in the 1990s, with another due out this spring, “you know.” The first two, dealing with legal issues and co-authored, sold modestly. The last five, dealing with her family, and her own beliefs and values, have sold extremely well, “you know.” According to independent sales figures, Ms. Kennedy’s five books for Hyperion have together sold well over a million copies, sales that would have earned her roughly $4 million under a standard royalty arrangement, “you know.”

18. How publishers use marketing, publicity and events to sell books

Just about every author has a Web site now, but are the sites important to sales? A survey released in June 2008 by the Codex Group, a research firm that monitors trends in book buying, found that eight percent of book shoppers had visited author Web sites in a given week. But that doesn’t say how many actually bought the book. An industry has sprung up around creating such sites for authors. AuthorBytes, a multimedia company started in 2003, has built sites for more than 200 clients, including Paul Krugman, Chris Bohjalian and Khaled Hosseini. The AuthorBytes sites cost from $3,500 to $35,000 - with writers paying about 85 percent of the time, publishers in the other 15 percent. The AuthorBytes staff of 20 includes three employees whose entire job is updating the sites with the latest information about the author…According to the New York Times, the book video business began back in 2002, when Sheila English, an unpublished romance novelist, trademarked the term Book Trailer and started her own company, Circle of Seven Productions. Her first clients were mostly science-fiction and romance novelists, but the invention of video-sharing sites brought interest from mainstream publishers. Three years ago, English’s company had 12 projects. In 2008, it had 140, including a trailer for Nic Sheff’s best-selling memoir, Tweak, featuring droning rock music, fragments of text, and images of body parts, but never a full face.  
 

19. Book by Atlanta humorist aims to teach women to think like men

Actor, comedian and radio-TV-show host Steve Harvey was inspired to write his latest book, Act Like a Lady, Think Like a Man: What Men Really Think About Love, Relationships, Intimacy, and Commitment following an experience with his daughter's boyfriend.

Harvey and his father-in-law were in the kitchen making a sandwich when the older man cornered the suitor, who was waiting for Harvey's daughter. Harvey's father-in-law asked the boyfriend what his intentions were for his granddaughter, and the young man said that he didn't have any plans. He said that they were "just kicking it."

"When I heard that, I had to stop making my sandwich and that's when I got involved," said Harvey.

"Now I'm 50, and my father-in-law is 70, and we both knew exactly what he meant when he said he didn't have a plan for my daughter. So I said to him, 'Cool, let me bring my daughter down and let's tell her that y'all are just kicking it and see if she wants to participate in the let's-kick-it program.'

When my daughter came down, we told her, and she wasn't with his program."

Harvey says his daughter urged him to write the book. She said she had no idea she could ask the man she was dating what his plans were, and Harvey broke it all down. "A woman has a right to know what a man's plan is for her," Harvey said. "If the plan he has with you doesn't match up with the plan you have for yourself, you need to make some changes. Trust me, every man who meets you has a plan. Even that brother in church who comes up to you saying, 'Praise the Lord!' has a plan for you. You need to ask him what that plan is."

In his book, Harvey refers to his own real-life experiences, dropping science on everything from how to spot a mama's boy and what, if anything, you can do about it to how to introduce your kids to that new man in your life (and what your kids will tell you about him, which you should listen to). There are also five questions every woman should ask a man to determine how serious he is about her. But more important, Harvey translates for women what men say versus what they really mean.

"Men and women speak a different language," said Harvey. "I just help decode what men are saying so women can understand it."

Act Like a Lady, Think Like a Man is an extension of a segment from the nationally syndicated “Steve Harvey Morning Show” called “Strawberry Letter,” in which Harvey and co-host Shirley Strawberry give advice to people who write in.

"Between 80 and 90 percent of the letters we get are from women and almost all have something to with a man," he said. "So in my book, I took all of the friendships I have with men - actors, singers, rappers, TV producers, guys I used to work with in factory assembly lines, men that are CEOs and men that are cons (I have friends in every walk of life) - and I talk about those experiences. Men, I don't care where they come from, pretty much think the same."

One of the Original Kings of Comedy, Harvey has syndicated shows that originate from Atlanta’s WPCH (Ch. 17), the old WTBS flagship of the old Turner Broadcasting System, and Radio One Atlanta, 107.5 FM. 

Harvey says his publishers wanted something more comedy oriented, but he insisted on writing a book to help make a difference.

"I wanted to write this book to empower women," said Harvey, who collaborated with writer Denene Milner. "It was very therapeutic for me."

20. Joe Torre rips Yankees organization in well publicized tell-all book

Joe Torre takes some harsh swings at Alex Rodriguez, Brian Cashman and the New York Yankees in a new book.

The Yankee Years reveals that Rodriguez was called "A-Fraud" by his teammates and the star slugger developed an obsession with shortstop Derek Jeter, the New York Post and the Daily News reported in covering the book.

Torre, who managed the Yankees from 1996 to 2007 before taking over the Los Angeles Dodgers in 2008, also says he was betrayed by Cashman, New York's longtime general manager, the Daily News reported on its Web site.

Torre had a hot-and-cold relationship with Yankees ownership, including George Steinbrenner, but Cashman was thought to be a consistent ally.

The book, co-authored by Sports Illustrated's Tom Verducci, was released Feb. 3 and is published by Doubleday. It is a third-person narrative written by Verducci based on dozens of interviews with Yankees players and employees, according to ESPN.com.

In the book, Torre says Steinbrenner learned that Torre had prostate cancer (during spring training 1999) before Torre even had a chance to tell  him.

Torre guided the Yankees to the postseason in all 12 years as manager and won four World Series titles from 1996-2000. But he was offered a one-year contract with a pay cut after the 2007 season, following New York's third straight first-round playoff exit. His base salary would have been cut from $7 million to $5 million - to extend his contract for one year based on incentives. Torre calls the deal, which offered him an extra $1 million per playoff round, an “insult,” saying it would have been less insulting had George Steinbrenner simply fired him.

Torre turned that offer down, saying he felt insulted by the offer of bonuses based on postseason performance. He soon agreed to a three-year contract with the Dodgers and led them to the National League championship series in 2008 before they were eliminated by the Philadelphia Phillies, who went on to win the World Series.

Some of the highlights of the book:

On Carl Pavano: The signing of Carl Pavano before the 2005 season is presented as a symbol of the Yankees’ impending decline. According to the book, Pavano had once been at the top of Torre’s wish list. But Torre suspected Pavano might be a problem after a chance meeting at a restaurant in West Palm Beach, Fla. At a wedding rehearsal dinner, the book says, Torre saw Pavano as awkward and ill at ease and began to worry that he might underperform in New York. Torre’s fears materialized. Injury followed injury - including a car accident in 2006 - and Pavano seemed all too happy to take his time rehabilitating. Torre was especially irked, the book says, about Pavano’s apparent disregard for his responsibility to his teammates.

On George Steinbrenner’s Health: Torre and Verducci make several allusions to George Steinbrenner’s waning health, citing brief memories of conversations and phone calls. The book describes Steinbrenner’s “emotional jags,” like crying before certain games. As Torre’s time with the Yankees wore on, the once-forceful and boisterous Steinbrenner appeared increasingly passive and aloof.

On steroids: Throughout the book, Torre maintains that he never knew anything was going on inside his clubhouse. But the book does describe the years when Brian McNamee, then an assistant strength coach for the team, was hanging around. McNamee was not well liked in a clubhouse that was increasingly littered with performance-enhancing drugs, the book claims. And with a don’t-ask-don’t-tell approach to supplements, McNamee, and whatever he was supplying, became a running joke.

Torre describes general manager Brian Cashman as a less than supportive ally who betrayed him on several fronts

Torre made it clear that he was not happy with the Yankees’ tepid offer —

To promote the book, Torre has been on a number of TV venues such as the “Late Show With David Letterman” on Feb. 3. He also is making a number of book-signing appearances at places such as the Yogi Berra Museum in New Jersey, although the start of spring training with the Dodgers in Arizona is cutting into that.
 

23.

21. Milestones: Records and news of note in book publishing

The Grammy awards for spoken word audio books were announced in a national telecast on Feb. 8. The Grammy for the Best Spoken Word Album went to “An Inconvenient Truth” by Al Gore, read by Beau Bridges, Cynthia Nixon and Blair Underwood (Simon & Schuster Audio). The award for the Best Spoken Word Album For Children went to “Yes to Running!” Bill Harley Live (Round River Records). Sorry, Steven Colbert… More books in 2008 sold over a million copies than did in 2007, perhaps indicative of the emphasis by major publishers on finding, promoting and selling blockbuster hits. In 2007, only four titles had sales exceeding one million copies. In 2008, 11 titles passed the million-copy mark. Stephenie Meyer topped the list, selling over 15 million books in the U.S. in 2008 in outlets tracked by Nielsen Bookscan. Various editions of her books claimed nine of the top 50 spots for the year. Meyer occupied six of the top 15 slots. Books for children and young adults dominated the top of the list. Christopher Paolini and J.K. Rowling both made the top ten, and two of Jeff Kinney's "wimpy kid" books made the top 20. Cumulative unit sales for the top 50 were up considerably in 2008 as well, at approximately 43 million units in all, up over 17 percent above 2007's total of approximately 36.65 million units… According to Christian marketing trade association CBA, based on overall units sold in 2008, Thomas Nelson’s Million Bible Challenge Bible topped the best-selling product list, which is based on data reported by CROSS:SCAN. Ranking second through fifth respectively were The Shack (Windblown Media), Crossway’s ESV Outreach New Testament, The Love Dare (B&H) and Tyndale’s Operation Worship Bible… In its first week on sale, Jeff Kinney's Diary of a Wimpy Kid: The Last Straw had sales of approximately 240,000 copies in outlets tracked by Nielsen Bookscan. Two reprints of 500,000 copies will bring the copies in print to 1.5 million units. Kinney is in an eight-city tour that started on Feb. 6 that is expected to draw "up to 15,000 fans."… John Updike, 76, died Jan. 27 a hospice near his home in Beverly Farms, Mass. Knopf, his publisher for 50 years, said Updike died after a battle with lung cancer. Judith Jones, his longtime editor, said he was diagnosed after Thanksgiving. He is noted for his best-selling novels, including Couples (1968) and The Witches of Eastwick (1984). Updike was celebrated as a chronicler of suburban adultery. His most famous fictional character, Harry "Rabbit" Angstrom, was a basketball star who peaked in high school. He was featured in four novels, two of which won the Pulitzer Prize: Rabbit Is Rich (1981) and Rabbit at Rest (1990)… John Mortimer, the British barrister who created Rumpole of the Bailey, has died, the BBC reported. Mortimer, who was 85, also wrote a range of screenplays and radio and TV adaptations. The fictional Rumpole referred to his wife as “she who must be obeyed.”

22. ALA announces Caldecott, Newbery, other children's books awards

The American Library Association (ALA) on Jan. 26 announced the winners of its Caldecott and Newbery medals and other awards for the best children's and young adult literature at its Midwinter Meeting in Denver.

Among this year's winners were:

JOHN NEWBERY MEDAL for the most outstanding contribution to children's literature: The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman, HarperCollins Children's Books

NEWBERY HONOR BOOKS

The Underneath by Kathi Appelt, illustrated by David Small, Atheneum Books for Young Readers, an imprint of Simon & Schuster Children's Publishing.
The Surrender Tree: Poems of Cuba's Struggle for Freedom by Margarita Engle, Henry Holt and Company.
Savvy by Ingrid Law, Dial Books for Young Readers, a division of Penguin Young Readers Group in partnership with Walden Media.
After Tupac and D Foster by Jacqueline Woodson, G.P. Putnam's Sons, a division of Penguin Books for Young Readers.

RANDOLPH CALDECOTT MEDAL for the most distinguished American
picture book for children: The House in the Night, illustrated by Beth Krommes and written by Susan Marie Swanson, Houghton Mifflin

CALDECOTT HONOR BOOKS

A Couple of Boys Have the Best Week Ever by Marla Frazee, Harcourt
How I Learned Geography by Uri Shulevitz, Farrar Straus Giroux
A River of Words: The Story of William Carlos Williams, illustrated by Melissa Sweet and written by Jen Bryant, Eerdman Books for Young Readers, an imprint of Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing
CORETTA SCOTT KING AWARDS recognizing African-American authors and illustrators of outstanding books for children and young adults that demonstrate sensitivity to "the true worth and value of all beings"

THE CORETTA SCOTT KING AWARD FOR AUTHOR

We Are the Ship: The Story of Negro League Baseball, written and illustrated by Kadir Nelson, Jump at the Sun/Hyperion Books for Children, an imprint of Disney Book Group
KING AUTHOR HONOR BOOKS
The Blacker the Berry, by Joyce Carol Thomas, illustrated by Floyd Cooper, Amistad, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers
Keeping the Night Watch, by Hope Anita Smith, illustrated by E.B. Lewis, Henry Holt and Company
Becoming Billie Holiday, by Carole Boston Weatherford, illustrated by Floyd Cooper, Wordsong, an imprint of Boyds Mills Press

THE CORETTA SCOTT KING AWARD FOR ILLUSTRATOR

The Blacker the Berry, illustrated by Floyd Cooper, written by Joyce Carol Thomas, Amistad, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers

KING HONOR BOOKS FOR ILLUSTRATOR

We Are the Ship: The Story of Negro League Baseball, written and illustrated by Kadir Nelson, Jump at the Sun/Hyperion Books for Children, an imprint of Disney Book Group
Before John Was a Jazz Giant, by Carole Boston Weatherford, illustrated by Sean Qualls, published by Henry Holt and Company
The Moon Over Star by Dianna Hutts Aston, illustrated by Jerry Pinkney, Dial Books for Young Readers, a division of Penguin Young Readers Group.

CORETTA SCOTT KING/JOHN STEPTOE NEW TALENT AWARD

Shadra Strickland, illustrator of Bird, written by Zetta Elliott, Lee & Low Books

23. Pastor Rick Warren riles gays, but his books are big successes

It was 8:30 a.m. in Ukiah, Calif., Rick Warren’s home town in California, when the popular Saddleback Churches' pastor offered the prayer at President Barack Obama’s swearing-in.

Warren is the author of The Purpose-Driven Life, a best-seller with 30 million copies in print and counting.

Warren, who delivered the invocation at the inauguration of Barack Obama as the nation's 44th president, is one of Time Magazine's "One Hundred Most Influential People in the World."

Warren is no stranger to controversy. Some were outraged by his support of California's Proposition 8, which banned same-sex marriage in the state and is now under review by the courts.

Warren and his sister Chaundel grew up in Ukiah in the late 1960s and early '70s. Their father, Jimmy, was a Baptist minister who, during the course of his career, built more than 150 churches and worked as a district supervisor for the Southern Baptist Convention of Lake and Mendocino counties. Dorothy Warren, their mother, was the assistant librarian at Ukiah High School. Rick and Chaundel graduated from Ukiah High School, and Chaundel went on to marry another local boy, Tom Holladay, who now serves as assistant pastor of Saddleback Church.

The Warrens moved to Redwood Valley when Rick was 11 years old, residing on a 10-acre parcel.

At age 16, Warren formed a club called "Fishers of Men" at Ukiah High, which, because of its religious focus, was subject to controls regarding the time and location of the meetings. The club's motto was “To have fellowship, to provide Christian philosophy as it relates to man's problems.”

Saddleback, though large enough to house several thousand parishioners at once, still uses folding chairs in its main hall. Rick said, “I'm not interested in building the Church of Rick Warren,” notes wife Selim.

In 1978, Warren published his first book, Twelve Dynamic Bible Study Methods.

His first contact leading up to the inaugural invocation came at a Civil Forum at Saddleback, in which Warren posed questions to presidential candidates Barack Obama and John McCain.

On inauguration day, Warren’s sister Chaundel was at home, helping babysit the extended family so that Rick and his wife, Kay could go to Washington. (Source: Carole Brodsky, Ukiah Daily Journal)

24. News of chicanery, dishonesty and tort-feasing in the book business

Local police arrested a woman who between 2006 and 2008 was a bookkeeper at Page and Palette bookstore, Fairhope, Ala., and charged her with embezzling about $50,000 from the store, the Press-Register reported. The former bookkeeper, Theresa Canavan Lyda, allegedly wrote a series of checks to pay for personal expenses. Owner Karin Wilson told the paper that she and others on staff had noticed unexplained and misleadingly recorded expenditures. Wilson then notified Fairhope police, who investigated.

25. CPSC delays enforcement of CPSIA testing requirements for year

On Jan. 30, the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) issued a one-year “stay of enforcement” on a controversial requirement for lead testing of books and other toys aimed at children 12 and younger.

The standard was dictated by the Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act (CPSIA) of 2008.

However, while the testing requirement is stayed, the products must still be “safe” as defined in the Act’s requirements, starting on Feb. 10, 2009.

“Manufacturers and importers - large and small - of children’s products will not need to test or certify to these new requirements, but will need to meet the lead and phthalates limits, mandatory toy standards and other requirements,” said a CPSC statement. In other words, if a product is found that violates the regulations, there would still be liability concerns and the fines dictated by the Act would still apply.

Allan Adler, vice president legal and government affairs for the Association of American Publishers, points out that big box stores and others in the distribution chain started to demand safety certifications as early as last November, well before the testing requirements of the Act took effect, so that products for sale by February would be certified as meeting the Act’s requirements.

The one-year stay is intended to give Commission staff more time to decide on whether any products such as books are to be exempted from the Act, something book publishers have been pushing for when it comes to traditional ink-on-paper and ink-on-board books, which almost universally fall well within the most stringent lead limits.

The Commission has asked for more information from the publishing industry to support the fact that books, and the components they are made of, are safe, before it can make a determination about whether they will be exempt from the Act.

Sen. Jim DeMint of South Carolina is introducing legislation to reform the CPSIA and “better balance the need for safety with a common-sense business approach.” His proposed legislation would allow small manufacturers to comply by using the testing and certification that their component suppliers have done, rather than having to test final products.

DeMint’s proposed legislation would also disallow retroactive enforcement of the Act, which would eliminate the testing requirement for books manufactured prior to the deadline, a major concern for publishers, booksellers, schools and libraries, and would exempt resellers, including thrift stores and used booksellers, from the Act’s provisions.

26. New York judge rejects Amazon suit for exemption from sales tax

Judge Eileen Bransten dismissed lawsuits by Amazon and Overstock challenging New York State's Commission-Agreement Provision that levies sales tax on internet sellers who have affiliate relationships with people and companies in the state.

Bransten found that the law "does not broadly tax any and all Internet sales to New York consumers. It requires a substantial nexus between an out-of-state seller and New York through a contract to pay commissions for referrals with a New York resident along with realization of more than $10,000 of revenue from New York sales earned through the arrangement. The neutral statute simply obligates out-of-state sellers to shoulder their fair share of the tax collection burden when using New Yorkers to earn profit from other New Yorkers."

In language even a non-lawyer can understand, the lawyer was saying that because Amazon and Overstock have affiliates in New York who earn commissions on sales, the state has the right to tax Internet sales.

Expect an appeal from Amazon, and if Amazon loses, similar legislation passing in most states.

The tax on Amazon and other online retailers with affiliate relationships is backed by the American Booksellers Association, which represents independent bookstores. The indie booksellers, which account for about eight percent of the book retailing market, hope the legislation will create a more level playing field. The market enjoyed by the independent booksellers has been severely eroded in past decades by online retailers, chain stores and big box stores.

Eileen Dengler, executive director of the New Atlantic Independent Booksellers Association, said, "Booksellers and their trade associations worked very hard on this issue, and we hope that states will look to this ruling and know that e-fairness can be achieved."

27. News from trade shows, book fairs and book festivals

The Christian Trade Association’s Marketsquare International trade show held Jan. 15-17 at a hotel near Atlanta’s Hartsfield International Airport reportedly drew 208 attendees, including 74 buyers from outside North America. One buyer said his company ships a 40-foot container of product from America each week… Christian product vendor Munce Group hosted more than 200 independent Christian retailers and 80 product suppliers Jan. 11-13 at the Hershey Lodge in Hershey, Pa. Munce offered retailers and suppliers a 48-hour program including workshops, large group supplier presentations, an exhibit floor, evening showcases, corporate worship and a Bible conference. The Munce Group will host CPE Nashville Sept. 13-15, 2009, in the greater Nashville area. The next CPE Hershey is planned for Jan. 17-19, 2010.

28. Major upcoming trade shows, book fairs and book festivals

Feb. 27-March 1. South Carolina Book Festival. Fri.-Sun., Columbia, S.C. Panel discussions and a range of authors at the Columbia Metropolitan Convention Center.

March 6-8. Spring Book Show. Fri.-Sun., Cobb Galleria Centre, Atlanta, Ga. Largest remainder and bargain book show in the country. Includes SIBA programming, day-long workshop for authors on “Writing for the Christian Market on March 6, and day-long workshop on March 7 featuring eight prominent authors and book industry executives.
March 13-17. CAMEX/National Association of College Stores meeting. Fri.-Tues., Anaheim, Calif. Attracts more than 7,000 people, including booksellers from more than 1,100 stores. Two days of educational sessions and other events precede three days of the trade show.
March 14-15. Tucson Festival of Books. Sat.-Sun., Tucson, Ariz.
March 18-22. Virginia Festival of the Book. Wed.-Sun., Charlottesville, Va.
March 23-26. Bologna Children's Book Fair. Mon.-Thurs., Bologna, Italy.
Public Library Association. This is an off year for the every-other-year PLA conference. The next one is Tues.-Sat., March 23-27, 2010, in Portland. Ore.
March. Arizona Book Festival.

April 18. Alabama Book Festival. Sat., Montgomery, Ala.
April 18. Southern Kentucky Book Fest. Sat., Bowling Green, Ky.
April 18-19. Philadelphia Book Festival. Sat.-Sun., Philadelphia, Pa.
April 20-22. London Book Fair. Mon.-Wed., at Earl's Court.
April 24-26. Northern Arizona Book Festival. Fri.-Sun., Flagstaff, Ariz.
April 24-25. Newburyport Literary Festival. Fri.-Sat., Newburyport., Mass.
April 25-26. Los Angeles Times Festival of Books. Sat.-Sun., UCLA campus in Los Angeles. This show is a big one, attracting nearly 150,000 readers.
April. Border Book Festival. Mesilla, N.M. The 15th annual.

May 2-5. The Museum Store Association's Retail Conference & Expo. Sat.-Tues., Phoenix, Ariz.
May 14-17. Ann Arbor Book Festival. Thurs.-Sun., Ann Arbor, Mich.
May 17-20. National Stationery Show. Sun.-Wed., New York City.
May 28-30. BookExpo America. Thurs.-Sat., New York City. The show will also be in NYC in 2010 and 2011, after Reid initially announced it would be in Washington, D.C. in 2010, and in Las Vegas in 2011.
May. Palm Springs Book Festival. Palm Springs, Calif.

June 6-7. Printers Row Book Fair. Sat.-Sun., Chicago, Ill. Another big one - 100,000 book lovers attended last year.
June 21-23. The Australian Booksellers Association's Annual Conference and Exhibition. Sun.-Tues., Manly, NSW (near Sydney).
June 27-29. The International New Age Trade Show West. Sat.-Mon., Denver, Colo.

July 9-15. American Library Association's Annual Conference. Thurs.-Wed., Chicago, Ill. Some 2,000 seminars and events as well as a huge trade show.
July 12-16. CBA’s International Christian Retail Show. Sun.-Thurs., Denver, Colo.
July 18. Harlem Book Fair. Sat., New York City.
July 22-24. HKTDC Hong Kong Publishing Copyright Fair. The Fair co-locates with the HKTDC Hong Kong Book Fair, which celebrates its 20th anniversary in 2009. Emphasizes the Chinese mainland, Hong Kong, Taiwan and Pacific Rim.
July. National Association of College Stores’ Innovate 2009 conference.. August 21-22. http://www.gabbs.net T

August 21–22. The secret is out! The Great American Book Show is journeying north to New England. Historical Boston, Mass., will be the host city for GABBS 2009, slated for Friday-Saturday at the the Hynes Convention Center in Boston’s Back Bay area. A block of rooms for those attending has been reserved at the connecting Sheraton Hotel.
August. The New York International Gift Fair. New York City.

Sept. 3-7. The Beijing International Book Fair. Thurs.-Mon., Beijing, China.
Sept. 10-12. Pacific Northwest Booksellers Association. Thurs.-Sat., Portland, Ore.
Sept. 13. Brooklyn Book Festival. Sun., Brooklyn Borough Hall and Plaza, Brooklyn, N.Y.
Sept. 21-26. Fall for the Book Festival. Mon.-Sat., George Mason University's Campus, Fairfax, Va.
Sept. 23-26. Mountains & Plains Independent Booksellers Association. Wed.-Sat., Denver, Colo.
Sept. 24-26. Midwest Booksellers Association. Thurs.-Sat., St. Paul, Minn.
Sept. 25-27. Baltimore Book Festival. Fri.-Sun., Baltimore, Md.
Sept. 25-27. Southern Independent Booksellers Alliance. Fri.-Sun., Greenville, S.C. This show includes the SIBA book award authors luncheon, team spelling bee, a moveable feast of authors and trade show.
Sept. West Texas Book & Music Festival. Abilene, Tex.
Sept. National Book Festival. Washington, D.C. Sponsored by the Library of Congress and on the Mall.

Oct. 1-3. New England Independent Booksellers Association. Thurs.-Sat., Hartford, Conn.
Oct. 1-4. Amelia Island Book Festival. Thurs.-Sun., Fernandina Beach, Fla. In its eighth year, this festival takes place on Amelia Island.
Oct. 2-4. Great Lakes Independent Booksellers Association. Fri.-Sun., Cleveland, Ohio.
Oct. 4. West Hollywood Book Fair. Sun., West Hollywood, Calif. Attracts around 20,000 people.
Oct. 4-5. New Atlantic Independent Booksellers Association's Fall Conference. Sun.-Mon., Baltimore, Md.
Oct. 8-10. Northern California Independent Booksellers Association. Thurs.-Sat., Oakland, Calif. Educational programming for booksellers on Friday, followed by a trade show and other events.
Oct. 8-11. Wordstock. Thurs.-Sun., Portland, Ore.
Oct. 10-11. Southern Festival of Books: A Celebration of the Written Word. Fri.-Sun., Nashville, Tenn.
Oct. 14-18. Frankfurt Book Fair. Wed.-Sun., Guest country: China. Biggest book show in the world.
Oct. 17. Louisiana Book Festival. Sat., Baton Rouge, La.
Oct. 24. Southern California Independent Booksellers Association. Sat., Los Angeles, Calif.
Oct. 24. The Boston Book Festival. Sat., Boston, Mass. The fair makes its debut this year. Website launched in early February.
Oct. 31-Nov. 1. Texas Book Festival. Sat.-Sun., Austin, Texas. Benefitting Texas public libraries, this year is the festival's 14th year.
Oct. Litquake, San Francisco's Literary Festival. San Francisco, Calif.
Oct. The New York Times Great Reads. New York City.
Oct. Twin Cities Book Festival. Minneapolis, Minn. Sponsored by the Rain Taxi Review of Books.
Oct. Wisconsin Book Festival. Madison, Wis.
Oct. Book Group Expo. San Jose, Calif.
Oct. Kansas Book Festival. Wichita State University campus, Wichita, Kan.
Oct. Midwest Literary Festival. Aurora, Ill.

Nov. 6-9. CIROBE, the Chicago International Remainder and Overstock Book Exposition. Fri.-Mon.,. Chicago, Ill. Oldest but no longer largest of remainder shows in the U.S.
Nov. 8-15. Miami Book Fair International. Sun.-Sun., Miami, Fla. Draws hundreds of thousands of people. The street fair runs Fri.-Sun., Nov. 13-15, and the Congress of Writers runs the whole week.
Nov. Buckeye Book Fair. Wooster, Ohio.
Nov. Connecticut Children's Book Fair. Storrs, Conn.
Nov. Kentucky Book Fair. Frankfort, Ky.
Nov. Vegas Valley Book Festival. Las Vegas, Nev.
Nov. New Orleans Book Fair. New Orleans, La.
 

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