Buzz Worthy News

In this week’s Buzz Worthy News: authors become booksellers, Malcolm X’s diary put on hold, librarians dance around, and Avon hosts student contest.

Buzz Worthy News is Cuddlebuggery’s weekly news post bringing you all the best information about the book and blogging world, particularly for the venn diagram of people who overlap between the two. For new releases and cover reveals of all the best Young Adult fiction, check out our Sunday post: Hot New Titles.

Hello, Cuddlebuggery Readers!  I hope you had a happy Thanksgiving, filled with turkey or tofurkey or something else vegan or gluten free or organic or whatever ever fills your belly with that warm, pleasantly full feeling.  I am even now drowsy from my turkey dinner, and it’s been like four days.  🙂  The news is short and sweet this week.  No controversies, perhaps because everyone was busy celebrating with their families.

Authors Turn Into Indie Booksellers

More than a thousand authors became volunteer booksellers on “Small Business Saturday”, the last Saturday in November. This year, Sherman Alexie helped authors support more than 400 bookstores across the country with his own literary version called, “Indies First.”

In an open letter to other authors in September, Alexie, best known for his semi-autobiographical novel, “The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian,” urged “book nerds” to become booksellers at a local bookstore on Small Business Saturday.

“We will make recommendations,” he wrote. “We will practice nepotism and urge readers to buy multiple copies of our friends’ books. Maybe you’ll sign and sell books of your own in the process.”

Some of the awesome authors involved: Wally Lamb, Dave Barry, Cheryl Strayed, Sarah Dessen, and Ridley Pearson.

Dan Cullen of the American Booksellers Association says “it’s been completely a grass-roots promotion, spreading largely via social media.”

Source

Librarians Dance!

I think we all know that librarians are cool.  I wanted to be a librarian so bad when I was a kid, until I realized that librarians aren’t just people who get to sit in a library and read all day.  They have to go to school for years and years!

So anyway, you may know that librarians are cool, but this week their cool factor gets bumped up a few notches as they make their way to the Biblioball. Put on by a local organization known as The Desk Set-a group of librarians, bibliophiles, and archivists (as well as other book enthusiasts)- the Biblioball strives to raise money for local book and reading related charities.

The Desk Set’s largest endeavor, the Biblioball winter formal, began in 2009 at Glasslands and was followed in 2010 at the Bell House. Featuring live bands, DJs, performances by a foot juggler and a trapeze artist, Biblioball 2010 was an enormous celebration of book culture, a raging dance party, and a hugely successful fundraiser for Literature for Incarcerated Teens.

The 2013 event promises to be the best so far (judging by that awesome poster).

This year’s theme is ‘Overdue Romance.’ The literary affair features books, dancing, DJs, a photo booth and a raffle. It will take place on Saturday December 7th at the Bell House in Brooklyn. Proceeds from the benefit go to Literacy for Incarcerated Teens, a non-profit who works to teach incarcerated NYC teens how to read, as well as BOOKlyn Shuttle, a community book bus that delivers books to low and middle income families in North Brooklyn.

Sources HERE and HERE.

Malcolm X’s Diary Publication Date Gets Pushed Back

Federal Judge Laura Taylor Swain in Manhattan extended an order Friday that she signed two weeks ago to block the sale of human rights activist Malcolm X’s diary. She acted after heirs of Malcolm X sued to stop a Chicago company from publishing the activist leader’s diaries.

Citing the temporary restraining order, principals on both sides of the case declined to speak to PW, but according to a source with knowledge of the suit—who spoke with PW on the condition of anonymity—the plaintiffs with X legacy, “are probably [Ilyasah’s sisters] Attallah, Quibilah, and Gamela Shabazz,” noting that “Malikah Shabazz has self-exiled herself from the family.” Another sister, Malaak Shabazz, supports Ilyasah.

At stake in this suit is the publication of the diary, which is part of a collection of Malcolm X’s papers, housed on loan at the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture in Harlem. Considered by scholars to be a document of incalculable historical importance, the diary chronicles the black activist’s trips to Africa and the Middle East in 1964, after he left the Nation of Islam, and one year before he was assassinated in 1965.

The heirs say they plan to release the diaries in two years on the 50th anniversary of Malcolm X’s 1965 assassination.  This sounds like a fascinating read, and personally, I think it will get a lot of buyers when it finally does get published.

Sources HERE and HERE.

Avon Looking For Students To Fill Publishing Void

The romance coffers around Avon must be looking pretty empty these days, since they’ve decided to look to students to fill them.

Partnering with HarperCollins’s academic marketing division, Avon (which is a trade imprint at HC) is opening its editorial doors to submissions from undergraduate and graduate students. The imprint is calling for students to submit 50 pages of a romance novel–open categories are new adult, romantic suspense, super sexy contemporary, trilogies (and longer series), and serialized erotic romance–for a chance to earn a personal feedback session from an Avon editor.

Are you a student looking to write the next big romance?  Or maybe you just want some feedback on your work?  This is what Avon is looking for:

Speaking to what Avon editors will be looking for in the submissions, Amanda Bergeron, at Avon Impulse, said: “First and foremost, we always want a fresh voice and an ability to create real-to-life characters. Beyond that, we are looking for writers who have an understanding of what’s working in the current market. And if you can make us laugh, cry, or go absolutely weak-kneed, that certainly doesn’t hurt. Know your strengths when you write – and trust in a great editor to make your manuscript even stronger!”

The contest deadline is April 15th, 2014 and you can enter HERE.

Source

Teens Still Prefer Print Books In The U.K.

This one came as a surprise to me, given the way the YA’s tend to embrace digital media, but it turns out that in Britain, at least, people from the ages of 16-24 still prefer print over e-books.  Or so says a survey of 1,420 the aforementioned given by Voxburner.

The main reasons that the respondents prefer print are that print books are a good value, and that readers have an emotional connection to books. Fifty-one percent of participants said that they liked to hold the product. Twenty percent said that they are not restricted to a particular device. Ten percent responded that print is easier to share. Six percent said that they can sell a print book when they are done with it.

It is true, if you ask anyone who has read both all of the above seem obvious.  Books are easier to page through for a specific section.  If you mess up and move your finger the wrong way on a Kindle touch, sometimes you skip forward by chapters.  Let me tell you how annoying that is.  Still, digital books are convenient.  I’ve got about a hundred of them in one tiny place.  Makes it easy to pack for vacations when you’re looking for the best things to do in Pigeon Forge now.

I wonder what the numbers are for the US.

Source

Children’s Book Art Auction

If you love the illustrations of Eric Carle or Alexandra Boiger, this could be your lucky day.   The American Booksellers Foundation for Free Expression is having a charity auction that runs until tomorrow, for art enthusiasts, and supporters of the charity.

The Holiday Children’s Book Art Auction, a project that supports free speech for children, is running on eBay through December 3rd. The auction is the online version of an annual auction that takes place at BookExpo America.

Over the next few days, more than 70 pieces of children’s book art are up for auction. The collection includes works from artists: Eric Carle, Chris Raschka, Judy Schachner, Bob Staake, Tom Lichtenheld, and Alexandra Boiger.

Some of these are truly amazing, and it’s for such a great cause.  Don’t forget, the auction ends tomorrow!

 Source

Funny Man’s Daughter To Write Memoir

George Carlin’s only child, Kelly Carlin, is going to pen a memoir that highlights her relationship with the comedian.

St. Martin’s Press, part of Macmillan, acquired “A Carlin Home Companion” from Ms. Carlin, left, who said that the book developed from her one-woman show by the same name. “The man you knew as George Carlin, I called Dad,” Ms. Carlin said in a statement. “I want to offer readers a rare glimpse of the George Carlin they’ve never seen or heard about before.”

The publisher hopes to release it by fall of 2015.

Source

Comic Book Writers And Artists Find A New Friend

David Hyde, former Random House and DC Entertainment executive, has announced the launch of his new marketing company, Superfan Promotions.

“Superfan Promotions’ mission is to collaborate on creative promotional campaigns that resonate with a mainstream audience but also engage passionate superfans,” said Hyde, who left DC Entertainment in 2012. The company’s first clients reflect the diversity of the kinds of projects that he is looking to champion, Hyde said. Hyde said Superfan Promotions will provide “scalable promotional models to fit the different needs of clients and their projects,” as well as “marketing campaigns, events, and social media engagement for authors, artists, conventions, festivals, stores, entertainment companies and publishers.”

It’s exciting news for fans of comic books, who might see greater diversity and riskier projects as a result of the coming collaborations.

Hyde’s initial clients include acclaimed Montreal-based graphic novel house Drawn & Quarterly where he is working on campaigns for cartoonist Art Speigelman (Co-Mix) and writer and magazine editor Tavi Gevinson (Rookie Yearbook Two). Hyde will also work on the publicity and marketing for comics artist Dan Goldman, whose webcomic Red Light Properties will be released in print in early 2014 by IDW Publishing. In addition Superfan Promotions is working with novelist Samuel Sattin’s League of Somebodies, a paperback original released earlier in 2013 by Dark Coast Press and has just released as an audiobook by Audible.

Source

Apple Computer OSX Finally Has iBooks! (Yay!)

I’m not sure what took them so long.  Maybe because iBookstore was originally created for Apple’s various mobile devices?  But Apple has announced that their new Maverick OS X operating system will now include iBookstore.

The new iBooks application comes installed on new Apple laptops with the new OS or will be added when consumers upgrade to the Maverick OS. Thanks to the cloud-based infrastructure offered by iBooks, any Apple consumer with a Maverick OS laptop can use their regular Apple ID to log into their current iBooks account and all the books they may have purchased for their iPhone or iPad will be available to read on the laptop. According to Apple, the iBooks store on Maverick will sync everything on all the consumers’ devices.

Now, people who already have iPad or iPhone might be thinking, ‘What’s the big deal.  Why would you want it on your laptop?’  Well, Apple has an answer for that.

iBooks on a Mac laptop also offers some functions that the iPhone or iPad cannot: it’s easier to multi-task and reference multiple e-books open at once on the larger laptop screen; interactive textbooks originally designed for the iPad are available to access on the laptop; all notes and highlights are pushed to all devices; and giant full screen reading as well as traditional two page layouts are available. And, of course, laptop users now have easy access to the iBooks store and its two million titles.

Source

Interesting Links

Here are some stories that I thought were interesting, but I didn’t have time to write about. Enjoy!

More proof that George R. R. Martin is a heartless bastard.

Discounting the fact that Hunger Games isn’t fantasy, this is still an interesting article.

Free Samples of  The Washington Post’s Favorite Books

Look, Tumblr Makes Writers

A question I’ve asked myself many times.

The Most Money Ever Paid For A Book