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January 30, 2007
Fresh Books News and Notes
We've inked! Fresh Books is now "Fresh Books, Inc." and in a few weeks your checks will come from our new corporate account.
Congratulations to Dan Gookin. His Windows Vista training DVD, Windows Vista Made Easy is shipping today, perfectly timed to the release of Windows Vista.
Congratulations to Cliff Truesdell, also known as a singer and guitarist for the Black Furies, on delivering his Mac Audio Tools, to be published by Sybex later this Spring.
Continuing a music theme, congratulations to Holly Day and Michael Pilhofer on delivering their manuscript and CD for Music Theory for Dummies, coming soon from Wiley.
And kudos and a big shout out to Cameron McPherson Smith. Cameron is preparing to leave on his solo trip to the North Pole this Friday, February 2. Yeah, you read that right. You can find updates on his page, Footsteps on the Arctic Ocean. Good luck, Cameron, we'll be thinking about you.
Posted by matt at 11:49 AM | Comments (0)
January 29, 2007
Sending an eQuery? Add the agent (or publisher) to your approved list!
I just sent out a rejection regarding a really neat idea that wasn't right for me. And I received a nice form letter in response, to whit:
I apologize for this automatic reply to your email.
To control spam, I now allow incoming messages only from senders I have approved beforehand.
If you would like to be added to my list of approved senders, please fill out the short request form (see link below). Once I approve you, I will receive your original message in my inbox. You do not need to resend your message. I apologize for this one-time inconvenience.
No, that's okay, really, but thanks for the query!
Seriously, do you really want potential agents and publishers to jump through hoops to contact you?
Posted by matt at 1:43 PM | Comments (0)
January 25, 2007
Great Advice from Cory Doctorow on Creating an Author Web Page
Cory Doctorow suggests that authors use blogging tools as their most basic web page management tools, in Blogging Without the Blog, in Locus Magazine.
He writes --
The secret is to have the site redesigned around a blogging tool, like Movable Type or WordPress. These run on your ISP's server — most ISPs offer one or both. When set up correctly, they can do more than just serve as a publishing platform for your online journal or blog: they can serve as a powerful content management system comparable to the ones used by newspapers, universities, and online stores like Amazon..
Well worth reading and worth trying for any tech phobic authors.
Posted by matt at 4:20 PM | Comments (0)
January 11, 2007
PGW RIP?
The AMS-PGW mess has been covered many places, and especially well by Michael Cader at Publisher's Marketplace, but Radio Free PGW has the perhaps the most poignant and personal take on the crisis and PGW's history, Publisher's Group West, 1976-2007.
I always liked PGW. I loved their broad list and diversity of publishers.
I saw many pioneering computer book publishers grow up in their stable (including Peachpit, No Starch, The Waite Group, and many more), and appreciated the fact that this west coast outfit was such a significant force in the publishing world at large.
Not to mention that they pretty much always had the best parties.
I hope as many publishers and authors as can escape unscathed. It looks like Avalon already has, per Galleycat, Today in AMS: Avalon Signs with Perseus, but that deal sounds like it was already coming.
Posted by matt at 1:04 PM | Comments (0)
January 4, 2007
AMS bankruptcy = hell for PGW publishers
AMS (Advanced Marketing Services) is a San Diego based distributor that helped publishers sell huge quantities of books to the big-box retailers like Costco. AMS experienced great growth in the 90s when big-box retailers were opening right and left.
But discount clubs are a small margin business and distributor profits depend to a great degree on what other services (i.e. advertising and placement fees) they can bundle for publishers. It also depends on huge volume. So of course AMS was always trying to find bigger margin business and found that to a degree in packaging books themselves, and eventually went on to buy well-regarded Berkeley distributor and sometime publisher PGW (Publisher's Group West).
Now that AMS has declared bankruptcy on the heels of numerous legal and financial problems, it spells potential disaster for PGW distributed publishers.
Galley Cat has decent overview coverage here.
It's scary. PGW distributes a great list of publishers, and this is awful news for them. And to me it's proof positive that consolidation is not always a good thing for the industry.
It also gives you something to think about. Many publishers use third party distributors and it's not unheard of to see small publishers go out of business when their distributors fail. Keep your fingers crossed for these folks.
Posted by matt at 11:23 AM | Comments (0)
January 3, 2007
Happy 2007, client news and notes
Congratulations to Chef Marie-Annick Courtier on the publication of The Saint-Tropez Diet, from Hatherleigh. Chef Marie contributed more than 100 wonderful recipes to this book, and the diet looks like a winner.
Congratulations to Dan Gookin on completing his Getting Started with Microsoft Windows Vista DVD-ROM for Class on Demand.
Dan also has a new blog. It's worth checking out Dan's Computer Predictions for 2007. Welcome to the Blogosphere, Dan!
Happy 2007!
Posted by matt at 11:43 AM | Comments (0)