What Book Do You Wish You’d Never Read?

Posted on May 7, 2011 by Meredith Ann Rutter

Joseph Heller

A book I wanted to throw across the room by the time I finished it was Something Happened by Joseph Heller. I won’t tell you what the “something” was that “happened” in the book. Suffice it to say I could have done without learning about it. But I won’t get into the plot twist here. After all, you may be the sort of reader who enjoys finding out for themselves why someone would hate a particular book. I don’t want to ruin the surprise for you.

The most aggravating thing, the thing that made me want to throw the book across the room, was that when something finally did happen, it was after hundreds of pages of nothing much happening. In my opinion, it wasn’t worth the wait. I don’t care if it was Joseph Heller writing. (Now that I think of it, even though I did enjoy the movie Catch 22 very much, when I tried to read the book I was lost. I realize I may be admitting to a low IQ or something, but whatever.)

What book would you name as one you wish you’d never read? Why? (… if you can tell us without spoiling the book for someone else who might have an entirely different reaction to it …)

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New “For Fun” Tab/Page

Posted on May 6, 2011 by Meredith Ann Rutter

I’ve finally figured out how to insert some fun stuff onto the tab/page (in menu above) called “For Fun.” Whew. Take a look and let me know what you think. Any ideas for other items you’d like to find included there?

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Book Trailer – Demon Fish

Posted on May 5, 2011 by Meredith Ann Rutter

I’m a scuba diver, now and then. Each time it takes a few days to get comfortable again with the equipment and equilibrium, but the underwater world never fails to refresh and astound. Every now and then I get to see a shark. I’ve swum with the generally harmless white-tipped reef sharks and the known-to-be-unpredictable hammerheads and never had a real scare with one. Unlike my husband, though, I don’t “seek out” the sharks; when I do see them, it’s by chance.

By chance this morning (well, not totally by chance, since one of my favorite e-newsletters, Shelf Awareness, included it), I saw this book trailer on a new book I hadn’t heard about before: Demon Fish by Juliet Eilperin. I’m including it below. First, I want to comment on the spectacular book cover. Wow. It’s really hard to create a great book cover. This one was designed by someone associated with the publisher Pantheon, either as an employee or a freelance designer–sorry I don’t have the name. The book comes out June 14, in case you’re thinking it would make a great gift, which is my take on it.

I don’t watch a lot of book trailers, but the ones I’ve watched have certainly run the gamut between pretty-darn-awful and impressively-good. This trailer is in the latter category. (Caution: If you are given to nightmares about critters with teeth, maybe you should give this one a pass — but in fact, the only cruelty in this trailer is of the manmade variety.)

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V&B’s Current Owner = New Friend

Posted on May 3, 2011 by Meredith Ann Rutter

VanderWyk & Burnham (V&B) is the name of the tradebook publishing company I founded in 1994 and sold in 2009. Its mission statement was to publish books that promote learning, compassion, and self-reliance and make a difference in people’s lives. During the three or so months of negotiations with Angie Quick, the person who would, in fact, be the next owner of the company, I worked through a broker.
 
I knew I couldn’t worry too much about whether Ms. Quick was a good person or not. I thought she probably was, given the books in the company she was already shepherding, and given the types of books in V&B’s own list. But I couldn’t vouch for her personally as I would have liked to, to reassure the authors they would still be in good hands after the sale. All I knew during the pre-sale days was that she was smart; she was asking all the right questions.
 
After the sale and over the next few months of transitioning, I still never met Angie. Now, over two years later, we met this past Saturday. She was in a nearby town on the tail-end of a family vacation, and I knew this because she and I had become Facebook friends on the heels of the sale. When you are FB friends you get to learn a lot about each other just by seeing what each is posting, what the other’s other friends are posting, and so on. We know things about each other we don’t even know the other one knows. That’s how it works.
 
So, I learned when/where she would be and got in touch with her to see if we might have a chance to meet face to face. We worked it out. My husband was with me for the meeting, since he, too, had a reason to want to meet Angie (a different story!). The three of us met for breakfast, and now I, for one, feel like I really have made a new friend. We bonded over business management, book publishing, photography, and family love. I continue to be amazed at the power of social networking to bring people together in new ways.

Visit http://www.VandB.com and http://www.QuickPublishing.com.

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Borders Group Gets Chance to Reorganize

Posted on May 1, 2011 by Meredith Ann Rutter
Article first published as Borders Group Gets Chance to Reorganize on Blogcritics.

 

On April 27, 2011, United States Bankruptcy Judge Martin Glenn, the judge on the Borders Group bankruptcy case, wrote a memo. Actually, it was an Opinion. It was titled “Memorandum Opinion Granting the Debtors’ Motion for Authorization to Implement an Employee Incentive Program and Employee Retention Program.” If you are so inclined, you can read it for yourself at this link: Memorandum Opinion

Myself, I just skipped to the Conclusion in order to learn the bottom line. The judge determined that Borders Group’s incentive plan showed “proper exercise of business judgment.” The plan proposed by Borders will, they believe, allow them to hold onto employees during the reorganization effort to turn the company around and stay in business. The judge agreed.

We’re talking millions of dollars here, but I’m not going to second-guess the judge. In fact, I lean toward agreeing with the Opinion. I know when a company of my own was struggling to reorganize in time to save itself, my biggest concern was losing the very people that I was counting on to make it happen. If the key managers left, I would just have to throw in the towel.

My managers, however, stayed the course without asking for more money. True, our time period was weeks rather than months or years (whatever Borders Group’s forecast is). But I see the difference as related to the size of the company, how closely people were working together, depending on each other, trusting each other. Borders Group doesn’t have that “luxury.” Money has to do the talking.

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Karen ‘Writes the Book’ on Bully-Proofing, Part 1

Posted on April 29, 2011 by Meredith Ann Rutter

My friend Karen has always considered herself not to be a strong reader. This hasn’t kept her from getting a master’s degree in education, teaching reading and other subjects throughout her teaching career, and developing and now writing a book on a bully-proofing approach that works with all ages of children.

A couple years ago, when Karen started sharing with me how things were going with her fledgling bully-proofing program, her excitement and commitment were palpable. The more she talked about it, the more sure I became that she was creating something extraordinary, and yet she planned only to offer it in her local/regional school systems. She thought she needed to be present personally, making it happen directly.

That’s when I said, “Karen, you’re going to need to write a book about this and teach others how to be where you can’t be.” She shook her head, no. I persisted, “You need to be out there speaking on the subject and helping people ‘get it’ so they can help kids you can’t reach directly.” Karen was vehement. “Meredith, I’m never going to write a book.”

Over the next few months I did some investigating online. I checked out a ghostwriter I’d heard speak in a teleseminar who seemed like a possible match for Karen’s personality and approach to the world. Then I suggested the idea again to Karen, now with a person’s name and website attached to my comments. In the meantime, Karen’s local fame was increasing, she was becoming known for her program both locally and within the National Middle School organization, and she was seeing the potential power a book could add to what she was trying to accomplish on behalf of bullies and bullied. She became excited that someone could record her ideas and get her messages across as strongly in writing as she was already doing in person. Karen and her ghostwriter have now met on the phone and begun their work. Stay tuned, and I will say more as the project progresses!

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Adam Davies, Hard at Work and Loving It

Posted on April 27, 2011 by Meredith Ann Rutter

The book I bought

Yesterday I bought another book at Bookstore1Sarasota in order to have the author sign it after his appearance there from 6-7:00 pm. I bought Mine All Mine. I would have bought his book Goodbye Lemon as well, because I love the title and because it got good reviews by “those in the know,” but it was not in stock. The employee behind the cash register told me it had sold out, but I have a feeling there hadn’t been very many in the store to begin with. Otherwise, why would he have said, “What did you say the title was?” when I repeated it, and then have to look it up–even though the author was there to speak that day. 

image grabbed from The Review Revue

And then today I went to grab a picture of the cover, and even the publisher’s site (Riverhead Trade, part of Penguin) had no picture of it… I finally found this one on a blog of reviews (credited under the picture). I could have “grabbed” one from Amazon, for instance, but they have that “Look Inside” label that would have downloaded as part of the picture, and I’m not here to grab Amazon’s proprietary art or to promote Amazon over some other bookseller (especially not my beloved Bookstore1Sarasota).

Now I am, trust me, not ranting against the bookselling or publishing industry. I think both industries have all they can do just to keep up with all the demands on them at the same time as they are keeping up with all the new titles being promoted on a daily basis. But I imagine two scenarios that feel possible: (1) the book is going out of print or there is a new cover design underway, or (2) I may be seeing some evidence that publishers are now expecting authors to have their own websites, and in that assumption the publishers may be neglecting to keep their own sites completely up to speed.

Back to Adam Davies. (He has a website adam-davies[dot]com, but it could use some updating–I have a feeling he would rather put his time anywhere but there.) His debut novel was The Frog King, and that is the book he read from as part of the presentation yesterday. Davies is an entertaining reader of his own pages. You can tell he gets a real kick out of his characters and their situations.

photo possibly copyrighted but I don’t know by whom

Currently he is an adjunct assistant professor of creative writing and writer-in-residence at the New College of Florida and loving the job. Some of his students were in the audience, getting a different perspective on him than the classroom can deliver. I’m glad I met him, introduced myself, and had him sign my copy of Mine All Mine. I’m looking forward to reading a novel by a young man who enjoys writing about people and relationships but has a wholly different world experience than mine (including, I’m so jealous, living awhile in New York City) and with three novels successfully under his belt. From what I’ve read about him and his books, he is coming into his own and someone to watch.

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Fixing What’s Broke in Our Food System

Posted on April 26, 2011 by Meredith Ann Rutter

Husband Gary and his sister have co-owned a corn and soybeans farm in Iowa for years, and that’s as personally connected as I’ll probably ever be to a farm. I worry about what I eat, though, and what our agribusinesses do to get things done. If you care, too, read on.

I just watched the below video-trailer for a book about to be released, in June: Fair Food: Growing a Healthy, Sustainable Food System for All by Oran B. Hesterman, published by PublicAffairs. That is a reputable publishing company whose tagline is “good books about things that matter.” Because Fair Food is a how-to, policy book–that is, nothing sexy about it–it will need all the help it can get to achieve the visibility I suspect it deserves. 

If you are involved in the food industry or want to be active in its revamping somehow, you’ll want to check it out. My understanding is that this isn’t a book that complains about a problem. This is a book that provides practical ideas for fixing the problem. If you like it, let people know in whatever way you let people know things like that (pillow talk, phone calls, postcards, customer reviews, Facebook, Twitter…).

Read about the author and more: Fair Food – PublicAffairs description. And here’s the link to the video: Fair Food video. Remember, I’ve jumped the gun; the book isn’t out until June, but you can preorder wherever you tend to shop. (Disclosure: I know no one involved with this product and will receive nothing for recommending it.)

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Borrowed Book Falls into Tub

Posted on April 25, 2011 by Meredith Ann Rutter

You have probably noticed the tagline for this blogsite, in the upper right corner. The book I dropped in the tub was a hardcover copy of Graham Greene’s Travels with My Aunt. It was 1970 and I was working on a publishing-apprentice’s salary. (Can you say secretary?) If recollection serves, I was making $6900/year. So, you can imagine—a hardcover book was worth its weight in gold. This particular gold brick had been lent to me by a mentoring editor in the department.

Fully conscious of the careful handling required, I had to learn the hard way that you don’t read a hardcover book in the bathtub. I wasn’t even in the tub, but leaning over to check on the temperature before getting in. I knocked the book from its resting spot on the edge. My reflexes were excellent and I scooped that baby out of there in a split second, but the book was extremely absorbent and had picked up an amazing amount of moisture during its brief stay. It was half again as thick as it had been, and the pale lavender cover had bleached a bit over two-thirds of the front. Mouth-to-spine respiration wasn’t going to work.

I looked at the warped, thickened mess and my heart sank. I knew I’d have to pay for what I’d done. I also knew my colleague wouldn’t allow me to, so I didn’t tell him before I went out and bought a replacement copy. When I handed the book over, we talked about what we liked in our now shared reading experience. At the end of the chat, I told him the book he was holding had never been opened, and what had happened. He laughed and said all the right things about how I shouldn’t have felt obligated to buy the replacement, but I could tell he was happy to have it.

The damaged copy of Travels with My Aunt graced my bookshelf for many years, but I always got a little depressed every time I noticed it there. The feeling was a mixture of guilt and sadness, and there was an accusatory aspect. I can’t really remember what I finally did with that ravaged copy. Probably I lent it to someone and asked that it not be returned to me. I still will read in the tub, but just a paperback and preferably mass-market. Haven’t tried it yet with my Kindle.

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Final Manuscript as an Accomplishment and a Gift

Posted on April 24, 2011 by Meredith Ann Rutter
Article first published as Final Manuscript as an Accomplishment and a Gift on Blogcritics.

Here’s something I miss from my early days in the book-publishing world. I miss the symbolism and camaraderie that was inherent in the way a final-edited manuscript was packaged, at least in our company, for its production phase. I’m not quite as ancient as this will make me sound, but here goes. I’ll use “we” to mean any of us in the editor’s chair at the time.

We’d begin by catching our breath as we noticed how clean the double-spaced manuscript looked now that all those hand-written, smudgy changes had been transformed into perfect copy. It had taken three or four rounds of proofreading what the secretary had been retyping over several months’ time.  We’d exhale, smile, and then take hold of the now messed up pile—let’s say a ream’s worth—and start to neaten it. We held the pile upright on one end and slammed that two-inch-thick side against the wooden desktop. Then we’d turn the batch 90 degrees to slam it again, another 90 degrees to slam it again, and the final 90 degrees to slam it again. Usually it took two rounds, a total of eight shattering slams. If someone in the office looked up, it was to cast a congratulatory glance our way. We’d grin back.

With the neatened pile in front of us, we’d place the yellow transmittal sheet, carefully typed by the secretary or ourselves, on top of the pile. We’d find the wandering spool of blue cotton ribbon (Has anyone seen the blue ribbon?), measure off the right length, and cut it with the scissors from our desk drawer. Wrapping in blue ribbon symbolized the winning or creation of a first prize. We’d wrap the ribbon around the manuscript like a gift, and tie it like a kid’s shoelace so that the recipient in the graphics department could open the gift with one pull. We hand-carried it to the graphics’ secretary, perhaps lifting it up high on the way by the designer’s desk so she or he could applaud that it was being delivered on time.

“Forwarding of final manuscript” was a time for celebration, and we all acknowledged it on behalf of each other. Compare this process, admittedly a time-consuming one, to how a final-edited manuscript is packaged and delivered today. There may be a variety of cover emails, ranging from “Here it is” to a more descriptive set of information. Aside from that cover email (and not even that is created if the delivery is via ftp upload), here’s what happens: Alone in her or his cubicle or home office, the editor clicks on “send.”

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