Ok, let’s admit it. Jane Austen has not been allowed to rest in peace. Quite the contrary! That poor woman has had “Janeites” pouring over her personal letters, peeking into her dresser drawers, and analyzing every word she ever wrote until her death in 1817. When it comes to knowing everything knowable about Jane Austen, as Mick Jagger said about his excesses: “Too much is never enough.”

I Felt So Guilty Reading Jane Austen’s Personal Mail

But somehow I got over that. What a treasure trove on display at the Morgan Library exhibit “A Woman’s Wit: Jane Austen’s Life and Legacy.” And what a crazy quilt of sentences filling every inch of the page. First left to right and top to bottom. Then the paper turned upside down and sentences written in between the first sentences. Then the paper turned sideways and more sentences written cross-wise across all the other sentences. Yet, this “cross-hatching” technique is completely readable. Amazing! When I think of the paper we waste today. Jane (may I call her that? Everyone else seems to) puts us to shame.

Yell: FIRE! Pull the Alarm and Run Screaming from the Theatre. It’s Cornel R. West and Fran Lebowitz Opining About Jane!

Tucked in the corner of the exhibit and hidden behind a catty-corner screen ran a short documentary about Austen titled “The Divine Jane: Reflections on Austen.” The “noted Italian” director Francesco Carrozzini was specially commissioned to film interviews with artists and scholars such as Siri Hustvedt, Sandy Lerner, Colm Tóibín, Harriet Walter, and . . . Cornel West and Fran Lebowitz???!!!

West is, per Wikipedia: “the American philosopher, author, critic, actor, and civil rights activist, as well as a prominent member of the Democratic Socialists of America.” This self-professed “Jane Austen freak,” teaches in the Center for African American Studies and in the department of Religion at Princeton University. Who is he to hold forth on Jane Austen? (You remember West? Didn’t he storm out of Harvard after President Lawrence Summers questioned grading standards in West’s Black studies courses? ) West has zero credibility with me on the subject of Jane Austen. She isn’t even remotely in his subject area. Yet, for some reason that eludes me completely, he opens and closes the documentary and expounds on her “diverse corpus.” I’m thinking Sparknotes.

Was this an attempt at a PC choice? Black and male? If so, surely there were other more appropriate people with a well-known appreciation of Victorian (whoops, Regency Period) “sensibilities” than Cornel West. We’d be better served if Cornel West pontificated about David Mamet’s play, Race, now on Broadway.

And I’m not too crazy about the selection of American author Fran Lebowitz, either, to hold forth on “our” Jane. Here’s what Wikipedia says about Lebowitz: “Born and raised in Morristown, New Jersey, Lebowitz is best known for her sardonic social commentary on American life through her New York sensibilities. After being expelled from high school and receiving a GED, Lebowitz worked many odd jobs before being hired by Andy Warhol as a columnist for Interview. This was followed by a stint at Mademoiselle. Her first book was a collection of essays titled Metropolitan Life, released in 1978, followed by Social Studies in 1981, both of which are collected (with a new introductory essay) in The Fran Lebowitz Reader.”

For more than twenty years she has been famous in part for not finishing “Exterior Signs of Wealth,” a long-promised novel purportedly about rich people who want to be artists, and artists who want to be rich. Recently she has made recurring appearances as Judge Janice Goldberg on the television drama Law & Order. No doubt she works on the novel between takes.

Those credentials certainly qualify her as an authority on Austen, don’t they? Who chose Lebowitz and why? Lebowitz said she would not even want to meet Austen, and that Austen is only popular because she is misunderstood. The tape is replete with psychobabble, yet Lebowitz gets a round of applause after her interview.

Janey, Janey, How We Miss You

Despite my aversion to the documentary, the exhibit, which opened in November 2009 at The Morgan Library & Museum in New York City, is spell-binding. (Yes, it’s true! I don’t want her to die either!) It runs through March 14, 2010. You’ll rub elbows with other Janeites (a notably civilized group the day I visited) and get a chance to view more than 100 works, including Austen’s early illustrated editions (Pride & Prejudice, Emma in three volumes), personal letters (including an excruciatingly painful one from Austen’s sister upon Jane’s death) and related materials (such as an etiquette book from Austen’s era), many of which The Morgan has not exhibited in over a quarter century.

Fork over the $12 admission. What a deal!

Note from The Wicked Witch of Publishing ™: By the way, if you haven’t been to The Morgan Library & Museum since 2006, don’t plan on entering through the grand doors of the original building at 33 East 36th Street off Madison Avenue. A carbuncle, er, new addition with modern entrance (designed by Francisco Piano) has been grafted onto the side of The Morgan’s beautiful National Historic Landmark building with the result that there is now a big glass enclosed entrance located on Madison Avenue.

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The Cure For Jet Lag by Lynne W. Scanlon and Charles F. Ehret, Ph.D., was published more than a quarter-century ago. Yet it could well represent the future of book publishing.

A Springs trio teamed up this year to issue an updated version of the book using the print on demand—or POD—process. Indeed, with a growing number of writers making use of the POD method, Publishers Row may be moving from Manhattan to the East End, which for many years has already seen its share of writers, editors, and agents.

“This area is a hothouse of creative types, from writers to artists who can benefit from print on demand books,” stated Lynne Scanlon, the co-author of The Cure For Jet Lag.

“These folks will gravitate to POD not only because it is the most expedient way to produce a book, but because literary agents and editors could care less about un-established writers these days.”

But don’t the authors of books published in non-traditional ways risk acquiring a sort of stigma as not really being professional writers, thus giving agents a reason to steer clear? “Good luck finding an agent if you don’t already have one,” Ms. Scanlon said. “That’s the Catch-22 of publishing.”

Her career in publishing has included being a marketing executive with Barnes & Noble and a book publishing consultant in addition to an author. In 1983, she collaborated with Charles F. Ehret, Ph. D.,  who had been conducting research underwritten by the U.S. government to reduce the problems associated with long-distance air travel. The original goal was to make the U.S. Army’s rapid deployment forces more effective.

Dr. Ehret himself served in the Army’s 87th Infantry Division and won a Bronze Star and Purple Heart in the Battle of the Bulge. With Ms. Scanlon doing the writing for lay readers of the results of Dr. Ehret’s research, Overcoming Jet Lag (the original title) was published.

It was a success when issued by the Berkley Publishing Group, selling more than 200,000 copies worldwide and remaining in print for more than 20 years. Sales eventually faded, but problems with jet lag did not. Last year, Ms. Scanlon wanted to release an updated edition of the book, but did not want to wait the 18 months or more it would take a traditional publisher to have new books on shelves. There was also a financial incentive: After publishers and agents and book wholesalers get their slices of the pie from a $20 book, the author’s slice may be as thin as $3.00.

Ms. Scanlon worked out an arrangement with with Dr. Ehret’s estate and founded Back2Press Books, which specializes in republishing titles that have sold in excess of 100,000 copies. Naturally, The Cure for Jet Lag would be the company’s first effort. There would be no long editing and production process nor any danger of printing thousands of copies that might not sell. The new edition would be printed on demand and be readily available on the internet (www.thecureforjetlag.com) as well as at the major chain bookstores and selected shops.

What is POD, other than the dreaded form of the infestation in “Invasion of the Body Snatchers?” The plain language answer is that it is a digital printing technology that allows a complete book to be printed and bound in minutes. This makes it easy and cost-effective to produce books in small lots rather than in large print runs. What has long bedeviled traditional book publishers is the practice of “guestimating” how much a title will sell: if the prediction is wrong, a publisher has to warehouse or even destroy tens of thousands of already-printed books.

Companies providing POD services are proliferating. This makes book publishing more democratic, in that almost anyone can publish a book. But, just as any person with access to the internet can produce content, there is an emerging Wild West atmosphere, thanks to POD, in which . . .  well, almost anyone can publish a book. Services range from a bare-bones outfit like lulu.com, which provides free online templates that allow an author to upload and format a book, to more expensive packages that include editing, cover design, marketing, and other extras.

Ms. Scanlon already had the know-how and a proven product, so she put together her own team. After she completed her rewrite, Rob Anthony, who is also a Springs EMT, did the search engine optimization and Web site development through his company East Hampton Web Services, Bob Anderson, Sr., handled proofreading, then the book was handed to another local, Kris Warrenburg, who runs Cyan Design and who has designed more than 60 books in San Francisco and for the last 11 years in East Hampton. A major task was a new cover, and it didn’t matter that the majority of the sales of The Cure for Jet Lag would be on the internet.

“The cover is always crucial, no matter where it is marketed,” Ms. Warrenburg said. “Just as with products you buy at a department store or grocery store, the packaging can have a great effect on the buyer. Attractive, compelling, well-designed book covers can win a sale over plain or uninteresting ones.”

For the rest of this very smart article, please click over to The East Hampton Press.

Note from the Wicked Witch of Publishing: I’ve been very busy working on the promotion and marketing for The Cure for Jet Lag and haven’t posted much over here at The Publishing Contrarian. Sorry! It’s been a hectic six months. And as I have often written: without marketing your magnum opus goes nowhere!

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Note how Sulzberger is characterized in attributed and unattributed descriptions in Bowden’s article called “The Inheritance” in the May issue of Vanity Fair:

His buck teeth give the impression of puerility. He listens impatiently and impulsively interrupts. He makes stabs at humor. He is long winded, affected, fussily articulate, eager to impress, insubstantial and slightly glib. He exaggerates. He has hit-and-miss witticism. He’s arrogant, not especially intellectual and a Star Trek Fan. His mind wanders. He’s a prince-in-waiting. He has the personality of a 24-year old geek. He’s provincial, sarcastic, uses poor judgment and lacks conviction. He’s condemned to stand apart from others. His career has progressed in prodigious and unearned ways. He’s timid. His efforts are half-hearted. He’s a light-weight. He’s out of his depth, fails to impress and elicits pity. He doesn’t always wear shoes in the office. He promotes people based on how “fun” they are. As a reporter, he was competent if unspectacular. He hides behind barbs. No weight seems to adhere to him. He has no radiance (power). He’s not deeply respected. He’s a lightweight cheerleader. He has a high-pitched and zany laugh. He’s overmatched. He looks dismayingly small. He’s shrinking. He’s childish. He’s goofy. He’s steered his inheritance into the ditch. He’s squandered billions. He’s the wrong person at the helm. He’s an unappealing and stereotypical figure. He’s weak and pampered. He’s a diluted strain of the hardy founding stock. He’s a man who sees himself as both journalist and business manager, but who, in fact, is fully neither.

Ouch! Ouch! Ouch! Backstabs AND frontstabs.

And Mark Bowden presumes to call the target of his castigating article, “Arthur.” I’ll bet that’s “Mr. Sulzberger” to you from now on, Mark Bowden.

Bowden’s article is long-winded and full of poorly weighted contradictions. (Whoever edited his article at Vanity Fair: You’re FIRED!) On the one hand, he portrays Sulzberger as a failure-in-waiting for making bad decisions, even though, according to Bowden, everyone felt those decisions seemed smart at the time. On the other hand Bowden reluctantly agrees that poor, dumb bastard Sulzberger had the foresight to create what is now “the best newspaper Web site in the country.”

Look, I am assuming that it is just a matter of time until we all become weaned from our coffee-and-newspaper-to-go mornings and check in with increasing frequency to The New York Times online. Bowden, who is 58-years-old, must be stuck in his own personal time warp and typing away on his old Smith Corona if he doesn’t “get” this. As Peter Osnos, former Washington Post reporter said to Bowden, “Arthur has . . . re-invented the newspaper on several levels and positioned it for the future.”

Say What? It’s a Myth that Good Journalism Sells?

Bowden also accuses Arthur Sulzberger Jr. of buying into the “myth” that great journalism sells. Myth? If the Chairman of The New York Times is wrong about a newspaper’s quality of journalism being of value to attract readers, then Mark Bowden, former Philadelphia Inquirer staff reporter for over 20 years, should not have been taking a paycheck. If Mark Bowden doesn’t think a newspaper’s reputation has value, he should stop boasting in his online bio about his book, Black Hawk Down, being on The New York Times Best-Seller list for over a year.

At Last, A Little Credit for “Young Arthur”

Bowden agrees there are “crushing forces at work in the newspaper industry that are certainly not Sulzberger’s fault and that are affecting every other decent paper.” Bowden also says that Sulzberger had “presided over a decade of unprecedented prosperity.” Bowden even uses the word “visionary” with regard to Arthur Ochs Sulzberger Jr.

So why humiliate Arthur? (I don’t think he’d mind ME calling him Arthur! I’ve got his back; I’m not driving him to the window ledge.)

Although Bowden disparagingly describes Arthur as having a strongly held belief that excellence in journalism will prevail and that the money will follow, Bowden also states that Sulzberger is “the best defender of quality journalism” and a man “whose convictions regarding journalism are beyond reproach,” and a man who is “clearly smart,” and “eager to defend reporters’ freedoms . . . ”

Hey, Arthur Sulzberger sounds like a guy for whom Mark Bowden, aging journalist, might like to work.

Good luck with that now, Mark!

Note from the Wicked Witch of Publishing (TM): Am I one of just a few Times’ readers who would miss the print edition terribly? One of my favorite quotations seems apt here: “You’ll remember not the words of your enemies, but the silence of your friends.” — Martin Luther King

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Unfortunately, I did not have a good time. Not at all. My problems started when the audience was packed in like sardines into too narrow seats and too tight rows. I felt straight-jacketed. I couldn’t move an inch. I fell into an even uglier mood about twenty-minutes into the play when a woman seated a few seats to the right of me in the row in front of me actually pulled out her cell phone, opened it up, and began to whisper-chat — until the man sitting directly behind her rapped her on the shoulder and told her to HANG UP. (More about that later because it got ugly as the audience stood up at the end of the play.) So maybe this play just got off to a bad start with me . . . or maybe not.

Lose the Maine Accent, PLEASE!

Desire Under the Elms takes place somewhere in New England. I vote Maine because I couldn’t understand half of what the actors were saying due to their heavy Down Easter accent. Charming in the Pine Tree State, no doubt, but not good on the New York stage. Could the director, Robert Falls, please fix that?

The play is staged inside the house and on the lawn of the Cabot property in 1850. Old man Cabot’s family business is supplying stone for stonewalls. Now, having been brought up in New England where stones are literally everywhere, I know a thing or two about stonewalls. (In fact, just last summer I helped a friend rebuild a collapsed stonewall. My job was to wield the level while he stacked. As a kid, I fell out of a maple tree on to a stonewall that surrounded OUR property, and I have a nasty scar on the back of my head to prove it.) In order to build a foundation for a house or clear fields for crops or create fences for animals, New Englanders recycled the stones from their property. So I ask: Why would the father Ephraim Cabot (Brian Dennehy) and his three sons Eben (Pablo Schreiber), Simeon (Daniel Stewart Sherman) and Peter (Boris McGiver) spend a lifetime hauling stones to sell to others? That would be like bringing coal to Newcastle.

ONeill’s storyline is as gripping as his plays titles are intriguing: A 76 year old, widowed farmer brings home a young third wife, Abbie, played by Carla Gugino. Let’s see: three sons, new stepmother, family business. Could we be talking inheritance issues here? You bet.

Just Another Bunch of Nasty Characters With Whom to Spend an Evening at the Theatre

The patriarch of the family is a hard, hard man, and things get very nasty very quickly. The problem I am having is that just like in Neil Labute’s play, reasons to be pretty, the characters may be well-acted, but they are so inherently unappealing and unsympathetic that you lose interest in them. The sons lick their dinner plates. (Whose idea was that?) They sleep on the floor or the kitchen table. (Whose idea was that?) Their physical movements are jerky and frantic. (Whose idea was that?) Yuck.

Tabletop S~E~X and S~E~X Al Fresco

Also, I was a little put-off by the simulated s~e~x and the n~u~d~i~t~y on stage. (I’m not spelling those words correctly because if I do, a tsunami of p~o~r~n~o loving people will descend on my Web site and clog my stat counter.) Did they add to the story or were they supposed to be titillating? This was a one-act play. To my mind, there’s usually a reason when a play doesn’t have an intermission, and that’s because the author and/or director sense that large portions of the audience will bolt for the parking garage.

You could tell the audience’s attention was drifting throughout the play. There was coughing and people glanced about the St. James Theatre while the play was in progress. There was very polite — well, ok, a little more than simply polite — applause when the curtain came down and the actors came out to take a first and second bow, but hardly the kind of response that blows the roof off the top of the theatre.

The fun part was when we began to exit our row. The woman with the cell phone turned to the man who had tapped her on the shoulder and began to berate him. “Don’t you touch me! How dare you touch me!” Touch her? He should have grabbed that cell phone and smacked her upside the head with it. Then you would have heard the wildly enthusiastic applause that was absent from the curtain calls.

Vintage has published three of ONeill’s plays, in a single volume: Desire Under the Elms, Strange Interlude, and Mourning Becomes Electra. It would be much more interesting to read Desire Under the Elms than see this production. That said, the production is still in previews and previews are where problems get sorted out, right?

Note from the Wicked Witch of Publishing: Ok, this is the end of my tear through Broadway for a while! Don’t forget if you are flying this spring, click over to my other Web site to buy my book, The Cure for Jet Lag! I’ve also added a blog to the site. The new version of the book has gotten excellent reviews!

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Read the rest of Eugene O’Neill’s “Desire Under the Elms” a Turn Off at the St. James Theatre (689 words)

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Wow, I’d love to see that play. Too bad I didn’t.

That’s why I was so disappointed in Neil Labute’s play in spite of its original theme about how Steph (a hairdresser) would handle being blindsided by the knowledge that her boyfriend (a frozen foods employee) really doesn’t find her particularly good looking.

It’s Not OK for White Collar Playwrights to Dis Blue-Collar Workers

Some of the best, most dependable guys I know are blue-collar, hands-on workers. Who ya gonna count on when your car is buried in a snow bank at two in the morning and you need somebody to haul your sorry you-know-what out of there? Who ya gonna count on when the toilet tank breaks and water is pouring through the ceiling? Who ya gonna count on when you need someone who can MITER? (Oh, yes, I know, YOU can miter!) Well, you get the idea.

So aggressive and offensive were three out of four of the characters’ attitudes and dialogues throughout the play that I found three out of four of the characters just plain repugnant. Sorry, Mr. Labute, but I could care less about Greg and Steph. It wasn’t just the potty mouths. It was the in-your-face, disrespectful and spiteful exchanges between longtime friends and current lovers. Is this really the way men who offload frozen vegetables from the back of trucks think and speak? Is this really how women associated with working men talk to them? I don’t think so. And grabbing your wife’s butt in the lunchroom, even if she is working in the same company, will get your butt frogmarched straight into the street. It’s the law, Mr. Labute. In the city and in the suburbs. You don’t get away with that kind of behavior anymore. Not in 2009, 2008, 2007, 2006. Not on the 19th floor or in the mailroom. Not in the city. Not in the suburbs. Yet, according to the playbill, Reason to be Pretty takes place not long ago in the outlying suburbs. I don’t think so. And I also don’t think a character in 2009 would say, “How’s tricks?” This play definitely does not work for me.

Great Reviews? What’s Up with That?

Can you believe it? Here are some of the reviews of Reasons to be Pretty:

“Wonderfully acted . . . freshest dialog.” — Ben Brantly, The New York Times

“. . . highlight of the season . . . .” — Michael Kuchwara, Associated Press

“Ferociously funny.” — John Simon Bloomberg News

“Best new Broadway play of the season. ” — Richard Zoglin, TIME

“5 Stars.” — Elysa Gardner, USA Today

Yes, some of the exchanges were very clever, even poignant, but Steven Pasquale’s handsome, though thuggish character, Ken, was retro and unfunny. Carly, played by Piper Perabo, was the picture-perfect, night-shift security guard, but a stereotypically vacuous, blond creature. The only character with an air of civility about him was Greg, played by Thomas Sadowski. The playwright had him reading Poe and Hawthorne during lunch hour at 3 AM. So I guess he really wasn’t blue-collar after all. And the girlfriend, Steph, played by Marin Ireland was just plain vulgar. Who would abide that harridan anyhow?

In “A Note from the Playwright” from the preface to Reasons to be Pretty, Neil LaBute states, “I have a profound respect for work and workers and communities that live from paycheck to paycheck. The worst day I have had writing is better than the best day I ever had working in a factory, and the people who do it, year after year, because that’s life, and food and rent and child support must be paid, have all my respect.”

Well, yes, Mr. Labute, then show some respect for them.

(Reasons to be Pretty: A Play by Neil Labute was published by Faber & Faber in 2008.)

Note from the Wicked Witch of Publishing (TM): And now to something important. What do you think of my new look and photo? The brilliant nephew, who also manages this site for me, took the photo last weekend. Let’s hear it for a little “soft focus!”

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It’s All About Me! Yet Again!

This year I was doubly interested in the topic of digital publishing because of the enormous amount of time, energy, and money I spent developing a commercial online publishing presence in 2008 for Back2Press Books and publishing my first print and soon-to-be eBook, The Cure for Jet Lag. As excruciatingly boring, painful or vague as most of the titles of the individual seminars were:

• Copyright in Today’s Digital Age
• XML in Practice: Formats, Tools, and Techniques
• What’s Your Mobile Strategy?
• Optimizing Distribution + Maximizing Control + Channel Transformation = The Perfect Trifecta for Publishers
• CEO Roundtable: The Changing Role of Publishers
• Making an Impact with Travel Content
• Smart Women Read e-Books
• Extending the Publishing Ecosystem, Sharing Greater Wealth
• Authoring Challenges in a Multiplatform World

I was breathless with excitement to cram in as many seminars as I could.

KEYNOTES THAT MADE ME CRAZY MAD.

Stop stealing my property you s.o.b!

One of the keynote speakers was Cory Doctorow. He’s all over the internet, speaking, blogging, writing, etc. Doctorow railed about Digital Rights Management (DRM) being a bad thing. Hey, I love free too. And I can understand giving some things away as an enticement to sweeten the deal on a book purchase (print or digital), but let’s NOT give the main product away or allow people to STEAL it by illegal downloads in the hope/expectation that the content will become viral and then, maybe, others will buy it. This is madness. (Yes, I know all about illegal downloads in the music industry.) How about I let myself into Doctorow’s apartment because he hasn’t locked his front door and steal his monster flat screen TV so I can watch some digital TV?

Cory, listen to me, Big Boy: Most authors do not have the requisite gene to promote themselves and their products as smartly and thoroughly as you. Jeez. Their knees would knock at the thought of venturing onto a stage. As elder-statesman Jason Epstein, co-founder of On Demand Books and a developer of the Espresso Book Machine, said in his mesmerizing keynote: most authors do not want to do anything but write, and it’s an “alone” endeavor that does not involve leaping about on stage or developing ancillary byproducts to offset the loss of income from stolen property. Making me even angrier, the final keynote, Nina Paley, AKA “America’s Best-Loved Unknown Cartoonist,” showed a trailer of her absolutely beautiful, romantic and award-winning cartoon-short, and spoke at length about how she endorses “open content” and welcomes theft (my word) of her images and concepts by anyone and everyone. (Fine, turn a frame into a place mat. Enjoy. Go ahead. Let the filmmaker starve to death.) I’m not buying it. Nope. What she is trying to do is find a film distributor and since she has not to-date, frustrated, she must be doing everything in her power to attract attention in the HOPE that a film distributor will buy the rights. What else can she do? She asks for donations on her Web site, and she does get them, but by her own admission, not enough to stop her from holding out her tin cup. Right. I think I’ll leave my car on the street, doors unlocked, key in the ignition, on the off-chance that will encourage someone to buy my house. I’m in high-dudgeon over this one.

O’REILLY GIVES GOOD LUNCHES

One of the most exciting parts about TOC2009 is you never know with whom you are going to sit at lunch time. True, there’s that awkward moment when you approach a table, tray in hand, with only one empty seat and everyone chatting away, and have to ask: “Do you mind if I join you?” Last year I sat next to a woman from “Publishers Weekly.” We have kept in touch AND met up again this year to chat about PW’s downward spiral and firing of Sara Nelson, Editor-in-Chief. This year I plunked myself down at a table full of Random House suited-up execs and the more casually attired Random House geeks. (Not talking to each other.) The Lightning Source fox who stumbled into my table full of Random House hens clearly could hardly contain himself . . . and didn’t. As a note of interest, the man sitting to my right at the table had just lost his job at another major pub house. His friends at Random House had paid for his ticket to TOC2009. Nice. Very nice. This gesture is just another indication how important networking can be at TOC.

I’ve got a backlog of work to catch up on. So for now, let’s call this TOC2009 Part I, and I’ll try to blog again with more comments re the various seminars I attended. Yes, I attended lots of seminars, including Smart Women Read eBooks (which should have been titled “Box of Books and Bag of Diapers”); Making an Impact with Travel Content (where I exchanged business cards with two panelists); and CEO Roundtable (where one of the panelists, Eileen Gittins, Founder, President & CEO of Blurb, told about riding a rocket fueled by “crafters” into the digital stratosphere in just two years — fellow panelists, Tim O’Reilly, Founder of O’Reilly Media; Michael Hyatt, Pres & CEO of Thompson Publishing; and Bob Young, CEO of Lulu, did collective double takes when they heard Gittin’s stunning stats.) Say what? Huh? She had how many millions of glue-gun-wielding visitors to her site everyday?

Don’t you want to know about the opening night party at Zanzibar; the jaw-dropping silence that filled the Marriott’s Broadway North auditorium as we watched the video of The Espresso Book Machine 2.0 — essentially an ATM for books — automatically print, perfect-bind, and  deliver a single volume in less time that it takes Starbuck’s to produce a fancy cup of  . . . espresso; and the tension-filled last ten minutes of TOC2009?

You betcha. Wink. Wink.

Note from the Wicked Witch of Publishing (TM): Make sure you read Comment #4 from Brother Rene. We live for comments around here, so feel free to leave one! Thanks.

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I’d like to know how stocks purchased over a year ago, like Citibank (C) or Radian Group Inc (RDN) or Irwin Financial Corp (IFC), could have been allowed to plunge to under $10 a share (now $7.22, $2.38 and $1.59, respectively) and still be in my portfolio when I had a smart, seasoned financial adviser watching — someone to whom I paid a percentage of my account not only to be there for the good times, but to protect and insulate me from the bad times. Have you asked yourself and your stockbroker that question, too?

NO, I said. I do not wish to continue to reinvest. I want out.

But this was months ago, and by the time I unceremoniously yanked my account and relocated it to Ameritrade, it was really too late.  Yet, even as the bottom continued to fall out of the market, “hang on, this too shall pass” emails kept arriving from my now former financial adviser.  Three months later, I’m am waking up in the middle of the night screaming in terror.

For several years I’d been gingerly investing in the stock market. I didn’t really understand it, but I had some money in one of the Oakmark mutual funds and was doing pretty well. Then I read The Brainwashing of the American Investor—The Book that Wall Street Does Not Want You to Read! by Steven R. Selengut. This is a print-on-demand, self-published book a mutual friend of mine and the author asked me to take a look at about five years ago.  There was information contained in the book that was forthright and made sense to me. Of course, the goal of any book of this genre is to tell people how to invest, then hope those people with real money will realize they don’t have the time to handle their own accounts, and will end up investing with the author.

I studied that book, read every page slowly and carefully, and took notes. And I was just getting the hang of investing when I began a consulting job at B&N Books and that awful Bela Szigethy, partner in Riverside Company in New York vs. Lynne Scanlon lawsuit started to look like it was going to end in a nasty trial by jury. Working for B&N and defending myself from the lawsuit were taking up every spare minute I had, so I bailed on handling my own account and passed it to a financial adviser.

Las Vegas on Wall Street!

Here’s what the amateur investor doesn’t get from reading books about investing in the stock market: It’s a crapshoot with featherbedding at the highest levels of corporations and Washington politicos. Period. It’s Las Vegas on Wall Street, and you know the guys drinking champagne and peering down from the hidden executive suites aren’t the REAL losers at the close of Wall Street each day when times get bad.

I recently asked a friend of mine who is very knowledgeable about investing on Wall Street if there was a book out there that could have saved small investors from the nosedive into the financial abyss. I guess not. (Do you know of one?) He did, however, send me an article written by Michael Lewis that appeared recently in National Business News and another one written by Niall Ferguson that appeared in Vanity Fair. THESE ARTICLES TELL YOU EVERYTHING YOU REALLY NEED TO KNOW ABOUT WALL STREET.

Hah! The first thing I was told in an advanced financial management course (Jeez, I got an “A”!) was that every move the management of a public company makes MUST be in the best interest of the stockholder. Moi!  I’m drinking bitter coffee these days.

Of course, I also know that nothing would make financial advisers and stockbrokers happier than to report that their clients were unscathed, or only moderately scathed! Instead, the people in charge of your portfolios and pensions are singing the blues and pleading for understanding: “I didn’t know the sky was REALLY falling!”

My former financial adviser is still optimistic, sending those emails: “Don’t worry, as long as you’re diversified. Good companies will bounce back . . .  in January!” I hope he’s right because if he is not, I think every investor whose portfolio is on life support should pack a suitcase and show up at the still-beautifully-holiday-wreathed front doors of the mega mansions owned by financial advisers, brokers, CEOs and board members of the companies that let us all down.

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Read the rest of Mad as Hell and Filled with Night Terror—Investing by Last Book Read (430 words)

© Lynne for The Publishing Contrarian, 2008. | Permalink | 22 comments

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ORDER TWO COPIES AND GET A THIRD COPY FREE!

AMEX, VISA, MASTERCARD & PAYPAL!

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Read the rest of Holiday Special for Dr. Charles F. Ehret’s Famous Book “THE CURE FOR JET LAG” (26 words)

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When someone pointed out Peter Matthiessen among the authors, I was beside myself, desperate to tell him how much I liked his trilogy, how I couldn’t put down Killing Mr. Watson (1990) and how I had been breathless to get hold of Lost Man’s River (1997) and Bone by Bone (1999) to find out what had happened to Watson’s children. But I couldn’t get close to Matthiessen because he was completely swamped by people jockeying for position in front of his table. A lot of chitchat was going on, but no one was mentioning his fabulous trilogy. I began to elbow people out of the way until I was standing directly in front of him. When I got my opportunity I smiled and said, “I see a freshly painted, stark white house in the middle of the Florida Everglades.” Matthiessen stood up (he’s very tall), smiled charmingly and said, “Killing Mr. Watson.”

His original manuscript of 1500 pages was divided into the three volumes that have now been recombined and condensed into Shadow Country.  Is Shadow Country a better read than the original separate volumes? You’ll have to be the judge because I’m happy with the three separate volumes.

I’m also happy that Peter Matthiessen, at 81, has received the 2008 National Book Award in Fiction for these under-read books — even though I’m not sure the condensed version of three previously published books would normally meet the criteria for the award.

I saw him about a year ago at a Sunday brunch given by a prominent family in East Hampton.  The only book of his on display was his 1986 nonfiction book, Men’s Lives: The Surfmen and Baymen of the South Fork. It’s a charming historical picture book, and just one of the 22 nonfiction books and ten fiction books he has cranked out since 1959. (Hey, a guy’s got to make a living.)

You know I’m not a book reviewer, so I’m not telling you anything about the storyline of Shadow Country. Just know that I’ve got the three volumes on my shelf and I’m not lending them out.

Note from the Wicked Witch of Publishing: Check out my revamped Web site for my bestseller, The Cure for Jet Lag. I’m exhausted from working on the site, but I wanted to get it ready in time for the holidays. I’ve added lots of information about how the info in the book can improve your vacation, listed jet lag symptoms, torn a page from the actual book, and added a blog feature! You’ve got about TEN DAYS to order the book for your globetrotting friends if you want them to receive it in time for Christmas. Remember, the book is not available in bookstores or online at B&N or Amazon.

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Read the rest of The Fix is In! 2008 National Book Award to Old Coot Peter Matthiessen (262 words)

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Sure, you could pick up the phone and order an executive gift basket of Ruby Red Grapefruit to be delivered in time for the holidays. Or you could order the  perfect corporate gift online and send unique executive gifts that will be as important to your colleagues, investors, preferred clients and prospective clients as their ticket and passports — The Cure for Jet Lag by Lynne W. Scanlon & world renowned authority on PREVENTING JET LAG, Charles F. Ehret, Ph.D.

No one who unwraps your corporate holiday gifts will toss them aside. Everyone who receives The Cure for Jet Lag will be amazed by your clever choice. You can’t beat The Cure for Jet Lag when it comes to unique executive gifts. And best of all, it’s not twenty grapefruits in an executive gift basket!

A GREAT BUSINESS GIFT IDEA
Order quickly and Back2Press Books can customize the jacket cover to include your company logo or a starburst that reads “Compliments of Donald Trump” or “Compliments of The Donald” or “Compliments of the Trump Organization.” Well, you get the idea! Act really quickly and we can deliver 500 - 2000 copies to your company in plenty of time for wrapping and shipping from your company mail room.
CLICK HERE TO GO TO THE CURE FOR JET LAG WEBSITE TO PLACE YOUR ORDER TODAY! THE CURE FOR JET LAG IS NOT AVAILABLE IN BOOKSTORES or ONLINE AT AMAZON.COM or BARNES & NOBLE.COM.
View the PRESS RELEASE FOR THE CURE FOR JET LAG!

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Read the rest of Holiday Panic on Wall Street! There’s no Better Corporate Holiday Gift than the #1 Best Selling Book, The Cure for Jet Lag, to Prevent the Corporate Jetsetter’s #1 Complaint (260 words)

© Lynne for The Publishing Contrarian, 2008. | Permalink | 11 comments

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