I'm baaack. Happy Thanksgiving! Hope y'all missed me, but I was a busy blogger while I was away. Still gonna blog and do the newsletter, but I hadta rearrange my schedule--cut my 15-minute lunch to 3.5 minutes.

What's next? Let's see ... oh, I remember ...

ACFW's Aficionado has a new column, and I'm at-bat for January. Each month, a different agent gets to write about whatever they want. [Obviously, someone there is out of his mind to let me write anything I wanna.] www.acfw.com

Jeff Rivera has a new Web site up specifically about agenting, and he's interviewed me. Pop over and check it out. www.GumboWriters.com

Romance Writers United's next newsletter comes out on December 1^st. I do the "Ask an Agent" column. Three questions; three answers. www.romancewritersunited.com

Christian Fiction Online magazine's December issue is available on December 1^st. Make sure you catch my "Gotta Get It?" column under "Buzz" where I attack the word, "hook." www.christianfictiononlinemagazine.com

[Sheesh! Make that a 1.5-minute lunch. I'd better get to work!]

From Dee Jordan:

Animal Rescue

Hi, all you animal lovers. This is pretty simple... Please tell ten friends to tell ten today! The Animal Rescue Site is having trouble getting enough people to click on it daily to meet their quota of getting free food donated every day to abused and neglected animals. It takes less than a minute (How about 20 seconds) to go to their site and click on the purple box 'fund food for animals' for free. This doesn't cost you a thing. Their corporate sponsors/advertisers use the number of daily visits to donate food to abandoned/neglected animals in exchange for advertising.

Here's the web site! Pass it along to people you know. http://www.theanimalrescuesite.com/

Everyone who answered my question on whether they wanted to read my Welcome to My Worlds: A Bipolar Christian Tells All stories said yes, and they didn't mind if I put them in the newsletter. Well, I was gonna move them to my blog of the same name, but I've changed my mind. They'll remain here, starting next week. ...Before the Silver Bullet, there existed another mini-van, one loaded with extras. Don't miss next week's Perils of Publishing newsletter for Welcome to My Worlds: The Green Machine's on Fire!

So, why did I decide to leave the stories in the newsletter? What will I write on my blog? Well, I started blogging on the upcoming election, with every intention of stopping after said election. Yeah, I allowed myself one rant [a gal hasta have SOME fun], and then reported the facts. Some of ya may not know it, but I'm a real bone-a-fied intellectual. Anyway, I got a few comments, and some hate mail, but I didn't think I was making a big difference. Then I looked at my stats. I'm getting' an average of 4,200 hits ... a week. Obviously, someone needs/wants/likes what I have to say [there's a sucker born every minute...].

So, for anyone who wants up-to-date information on finance, politics, the economy, and what Mr. Obama is doin', join my blog at www.welcometomyworlds.com. By the time you read this, I will have posted to the blog.

I wanna state my posts are NOT all gonna be Obama-bashin' free-for-alls. I'm usually fair, and definitely unbalanced. I extend an invitation for anyone to rant at will on any political matter. No need for me to bash [I'll never call Mr. Obama names, etc.], as the truth is a complete defense, and I can hunt it down faster than a liberal can spend my money.

One more thing, DO NOT hit "reply" to this e-mail to comment, and DO NOT send anonymous phantom hate-mail to my e-mail address. I'll delete it unread. Opposing positions belong on the blog. Man-up, or, if ya have to be anonymous, you can be ON THE BLOG.

Finally, to all of those who voted for Mr. Obama, I'm so sorry he's already broken two of the biggest campaign promises he made to you. You must feel awful! To those who did not vote for Mr. Obama, may we pray he breaks many more....

Robin Haseltine has been reelected Secretary to the board of Elements of RWA. Elements is an on-line RWA chapter for members who write single title, mainstream, and fiction with Romantic Elements. [Congrats, my gal!]

Elections: One Down, One to Go

By Rachel Deahl -- Publishers Weekly

It's been clear for months that it will be a not-so-merry holiday season for publishers, but at least one house has gone so far as to halt acquisitions. PW has learned that Houghton Mifflin Harcourt has asked its editors to stop buying books.

Josef Blumenfeld, v-p of communications for HMH, confirmed that the publisher has "temporarily stopped acquiring manuscripts" across its trade and reference divisions. The directive was given verbally to a handful of executives and, according to Blumenfeld, is "not a permanent change." Blumenfeld, who hedged on when the ban might be lifted, said that the right project could still go to the editorial review board. He also maintained that the the decision is less about taking drastic measures than conducting good business.

"In this case, it's a symbol of doing things smarter; it's not an indicator of the end of literature," he said. "We have turned off the spigot, but we have a very robust pipeline." The action by the highly leveraged HMH may also be as much about the company's need to cut costs in a tight credit market, as about the current economic slowdown.

While Blumenfeld dismissed the severity of the policy, a number of agents said they have never heard of a publisher going so far as to instruct its editors to stop acquiring. "I've been in the business a long time and at a couple of houses I worked at, when things were bad, we were asked to cut back," said agent Jonathon Lazear. "But I've never heard of anything so public." Lazear added that, in the past two weeks, business has been more "sluggish" than it had been all year.

Another agent who had also heard about the no-acquisitions policy at HMH called the move "very scary" and said it's indicative of an industry climate worse than any he's ever seen.

Thus far one agent has confirmed that at least one of his manuscripts has been declined at HMH per the policy. But perhaps an editor at the house put it best; in an e-mail, the editor mentioned the policy and added, "Who knows what's next?"

Parent Co. "Would Consider" Selling HMH Trade

With general bafflement continuing over Houghton Mifflin Harcourt's willingness to admit out loud that they have a freeze on buying new books, the NYT speaks to Jeremy Dickens, president of Education Media and Publishing Group, the private equity company that owns the trade publisher. "He denied that the company was for sale, but said, 'If there's a transaction that makes sense for all of our stakeholders, we'll consider it.'" And "he said that the company had received inquiries from other trade publishers interested in acquiring Houghton."

On the freeze, Dickens said they wanted to be "extremely prudent about the way that we allocate our capital and where we make our investment decisions." He added, "We have plenty of titles in the pipeline that will be coming out next year and we will continue to evaluate opportunities if and when we decide to lift the freeze." That "if" will cause some additional concern....

The buyers took on massive debt to swallow Houghton Mifflin and then Harcourt, back when credit was at least cheap and freely available, and they now have "about $7 billion in debt" with annual debt service of "about $500 million." DIckens says they have no problem covering the payments, but are not "allocating as much capital" to trade publishing, which is a small part of the company.

Meanwhile, yesterday agent Kristin Nelson, posting on her blog, said: "I did get a chance to talk to an Editorial Director at Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Children's. She mentioned that the hold [on acquisitions] did not apply to the children's division and that she had acquired something just yesterday."

The article also paints a contrast between houses cutting back, like HMH, and publishers having strong years, like Hachette Book Group (where a string of hits is worth even more to the parent company now that the euro is somewhat weaker against the dollar.) And there is the suggestion that commercial hits are an essential part of success today: "One of Houghton Mifflin Harcourt's best authors, Mr. Roth, is a literary lion who is frequently rumored to be on the short list for the Nobel Prize in Literature. Each of his last three novels have sold fewer than 75,000 copies in hardcover, according to Nielsen BookScan, which reports about 70 percent of sales. David Baldacci, meanwhile, a stalwart author in Grand Central's stable, has already sold 114,000 hardcover copies of "Divine Justice," his latest novel, just published this month." NYT

AND:

Separately, the Observer undertakes a survey of cutbacks on lunchtime expenses in publishing. HarperCollins and Random House are eating less expensively. (At RH, "some supervisors were recently given guidelines indicating how much employees should tip and which restaurants near the company's midtown headquarters are thrifty enough to do business in. While the guidelines were advisory, the message was clear.")

But others, from Marjorie Braman to Bob Weil, cite opportunities hatched over meals. Esther Newberg at ICM is willing to "alternate" in picking up checks, and Ira Silverberg paid for lunch on Monday with an HMH editor who wanted to cancel after the company "slashed" T&E. Oops.

Crime Novelist Attacked While Jogging, in Scene Similar to Book

BY Frank Main Crime Reporter/fmain@suntimes.com

Life was imitating art when crime novelist Laura Caldwell lay face down on a Lincoln Park street holding pieces of her shattered teeth in her bloody palm.

Her upcoming book, Red Hot Lies, portrays a redheaded female lawyer walking at night through the Old Town neighborhood, feeling increasingly uncomfortable as she realizes she is being followed.

On Thursday, Caldwell, a red-headed attorney who in 2005 successfully defended a man who spent five years in jail awaiting trial for murder, was jogging at Seminary and Altgeld in Lincoln Park when she saw two men -- one with a hood pulled over his cap and the other who was lifting his jacket over his head.

Nervous, Caldwell felt the hair rise on the back of her neck. Suddenly, one of the men kicked her from behind, and she fell onto the street.

"They smashed my mouth into the pavement and kicked me a few times," she said. "They screamed about money, but I said, 'Guys, I am jogging and I don't have any money.' They took my iPod and ran off."

Caldwell, 41, said it's the second time her front teeth have been knocked out. The first time was about 20 years ago when she was in a scooter accident.

The muggers knocked out her repaired teeth Thursday. She reached down to pick up the pieces in case a dentist might need them to repair the damage. But she wound up dropping them when she got up to run away. On Friday, a dentist made temporary repairs.

Even though she was attacked at about 5:30 p.m., it was already dark and the block was eerily deserted at the time, said Caldwell, recalling she was listening to James Taylor on her iPod. She didn't get a good look at the muggers.

Police officers told her that muggings are more common in Lincoln Park in late autumn, when the victims are walking in darkness and more susceptible to surprise attacks, she said.

There was an armed robbery at the same intersection just after 11 p.m. on Nov. 6. And over the last month, there have been two assaults and a purse-snatching within three blocks of Caldwell's mugging, police records show.

In September, the sister of Bears quarterback Rex Grossman was robbed at gunpoint in her garage about six blocks away at Racine and Armitage.

Coincidentally, Caldwell said she received an e-mail two days before she was attacked, warning about another mugging in Lincoln Park. A woman said she and her female friend left a bar about 1 a.m. and were walking home when five men beat them up and took her friend's purse.

"You hear these rules for women, 'Don't walk alone at night, don't carry a big purse, don't listen to an iPod, be aware,'" she said. "I probably should have been paying more  attention to what was going on around me."

Michael Crichton Dies "Unexpectedly"

Michael Crichton's family revealed his death at age 66 yesterday, saying that he had been "waging a private battle against cancer." The family noted in their statement: "While the world knew him as a great storyteller that challenged our preconceived notions about the world around us -- and entertained us all while doing so -- his wife Sherri, daughter Taylor, family and friends knew Michael Crichton as a devoted husband, loving father and generous friend who inspired each of us to strive to see the wonders of our world through new eyes. He did this with a wry sense of humor that those who were privileged to know him personally will never forget."

Articles abound in today's papers. Charles McGrath writes in today's NYT, he "was like a character in a Michael Crichton novel. He was unusually tall (6 feet 7 inches), strikingly handsome and encyclopedically well informed about everything from dinosaurs to medieval banquet halls to nanotechnology. As a writer, he was a kind of cyborg, tirelessly turning out novels that were intricately engineered entertainment systems. No one -- except possibly Mr. Crichton himself -- ever confused them with great literature, but very few readers who started a Crichton novel ever put it down."
McGrath

The Washington Post's blog Short Stack tries to answer, "why readers loved Michael Crichton and critics didn't." They call him "a master of narrative structure.... Structure and pacing are paramount in Crichton's novels, and everything else -- plausibility, characterization -- is subservient."

They pull out a review Crichton wrote for the Post in the 1970 of Gustav Eckstein's The Body Has a Head, "a short masterpiece of savage criticism." Crichton wrote: "One yearns to reprimand the author, and shoot his editor. We remember Galileo, among other things, for his crisp writing style. He set the tone for all scientific writing of the last 350 years. He got to the point, said what was on his mind, and shut up." Short Stack

Here's James Fallow's personal take, at the Atlantic:

"Crichton had his enemies, especially after his recent anti-global-warming book (which I chose not to read). [Mikey was brilliant. All us smart people know Global Warming is a myth. Now before ya go all green on me, in the coming weeks I'll be blogging with F-A-C-T-S, so reserve judgment.] That he was married five times suggests that his personal life was not entirely tranquil. [Proves there isn't Global Warming. Obviously, his wives were frigid...] And he was hyper, hyper aware that in America he was regarded as a "genre" writer [Definition: A writer who makes MONEY.] whereas in Italy, for example, he would be listed among the big names of Quality Lit. [Being a full-blooded Italiano, I can see how they'd appreciate a great man's work....]

"But I was honored to have met him 20 years age, when I was living in Japan, and to have been a friend since then. He seemed unassuming, funny, charming in every way -- the unusual famous person who was genuinely considerate of one's spouse and kids. Very earnest about his political causes, including a very prescient argument fifteen years ago about the impending decline of the Mediasaurus, now known as MSM. And, there is no way around it, incredibly talented."
Fallows

Crichton's Last Book?

Prior to his death, Michael Crichton was working hard on completing what would be his final manuscript. Originally, the book was scheduled for publication this December. "He didn't deliver the manuscript as expected," ceo Brian Murray told us during an earnings telephone interview, and "we postponed it."

Harper publisher Jonathan Burnham indicates that they do not know the exact status of the manuscript right now. Crichton had been working on the manuscript for some time and expressed a strong desire to complete the book before the end of the year. Though his illness was known, his final deterioration was apparently both quick and unexpected. 

Godin Advises Publishers

Author and marketing guru Seth Godin is asked for advice by Harper Studio on their blog:

"The huge opportunity for book publishers is to get unstuck. You're not in the printing business. The life and death of trees is not your concern. You're in the business of leveraging the big ideas authors have. There are a hundred ways to do that, yet book publishers obsess about just one or two of them. Here's the news flash: that's not what authors care about. Authors don't care about units sold. They care about ideas spread. If you can help them do that, we're delighted to share our profits with you. But one (broken) sales channel--bookstores--and one broken model (guaranteed sale of slow-to-market books) is not the way to get there. If you free yourself up enough to throw that out, you'll figure out dozens of ways to leverage and spread and profit from ideas worth spreading." [26th Story]

By Calvin Reid -- Publishers Weekly

In what looks to be a reaction to the economic downturn, manga publisher Broccoli Books, the U.S. branch of Broccoli International, a Japan-based international producer of anime, manga, games and pop culture merchandise, will close at the end of this year. The shutdown was announced on the Broccoli Books production blog by Shizuki Yamashita, director of operations for Broccoli International U.S. Yamashita said all licenses will revert back to Japanese publishers at the end of 2008 and that Broccoli is also working to transfer some popular licenses to other U.S. publishers.

Launched in 2003 in Los Angeles, Broccoli Books published about 10 books a year, in addition to importing a wide variety of anime and manga related fan merchandise produced by Broccoli Japan. The company published such manga series as Di Gi Charat, Juvenile Orion and in 2007 added Boysenberry Books, a yaoi line of books that included such series as Delivery Cupid and Pet on Duty.

-- Publishers Weekly

Random House has announced plans to add 6,000 backlist titles to its current e-book library. With these additions, Random House will have nearly 15,000 titles available in the digital format. (The house, which is the biggest trade publisher in the world, is already one of the largest e-book publishers.) Random will also, for the first time, make its entire catalog of both new and existing titles, available in the emerging standard format for the industry, e-Pub. 

Among the titles being digitzed, which include those from the children's and adult divisions, are books by Philip K. Dick, Harlan Coben, Louis L'Amour, John Updike, Mary Pope Osborne and Barbara Park. Markus Dohle, chairman and CEO of Random, said the publisher is "making significant investments in the digital future" with moves such as this one. 

by Maria Glod

Washington Post Staff Writer

Students in the $6 billion Reading First program have not made greater progress in understanding what they read than have peers outside the program, according to a congressionally mandated study.

The final version of the study, released yesterday by the U.S. Department of Education, found that students in schools that use Reading First, a program at the core of the No Child Left Behind law, scored no better on comprehension tests than students in similar schools that do not get the funding.

"It is a program that needs to be improved," said Grover J. "Russ" Whitehurst, director of the Institute of Education Sciences, the department's research arm. "I don't think anyone should be celebrating that the federal government has spent $6 billion on a reading program that has had no impact on reading comprehension."

Whitehurst said the study showed some benefits. First-graders in Reading First classrooms were better able to decode, or recognize, printed words than students in schools without the program. Decoding is a key step in learning to read.

Reading First, though popular with educators, has been tarnished by allegations of conflicts of interest and mismanagement in recent years. Federal investigators have found that some people who helped oversee the program had financial ties to the publishers of Reading First materials.

Education Secretary Margaret Spellings has assured lawmakers that measures were taken to prevent future management troubles.

"Reading First helps our most vulnerable students learn the fundamental elements of reading while helping teachers improve instruction," Spellings said. "Instead of reversing the progress we have made by cutting funding, we must enhance Reading First and help more students benefit from research-based instruction."

The study, among the largest ever conducted by the department, tracked the progress of tens of thousands of students in 248 schools nationwide over three academic years. The students took a widely used reading comprehension test, and researchers observed classrooms.

Reading First, which requires schools to use instructional techniques supported by scientific research, provides grants for reading instruction. It focuses on five areas: awareness of individual sounds, phonics, vocabulary, reading fluency and comprehension.

by Craig Morgan Teicher -- Publishers Weekly

Australia-based DNAML, makers of the DNL e-book format and the DNL reader software, and MPS Mobile's Global Reader, a leading distributor of e-books to mobile phones worldwide, announced a partnership today through which they will promote each other's e-book products. The DNL e-book format provides a PC or laptop based multimedia reading experience through DNAML's DNL reader software, which the company says has been downloaded to more than 110 million computers. Global Reader is available on 80 cellular phone networks in 160 countries. 

"We're approaching publishers together," said Robert Kasher of MPS, who explained that the two companies would suggest to potential clients that they use the DNL format for PC-based e-books and Global Reader for mobile distribution. Publishers that sign on can submit their books to MPS as either PDF or XML files, and MPS will convert the books into Global Reader and DNL formats and make the books available through both distribution networks. Kasher said the price would vary, but that books that are already in ePub format could cost as little as $5 per book to convert. Each company then has its own profit -sharing structure for books sold through its network. Because both companies operate globally, Kasher feels this partnership will offer publishers an easy solution for "getting into the global market." 

MPS and Simon & Schuster also just annouced a partnership to make S&S titles available through the Global Reader platform.

National Book Awards: Matthiessen, Gordon-Reed, Blundell, and Doty

Fiction
Peter Matthiessen, Shadow Country (Modern Library)
Nonfiction
Annette Gordon-Reed, The Hemingses of Monticello (W.W. Norton & Company)
Young People's Literature
Judy Blundell, What I Saw and How I Lied (Scholastic)
Poetry
Mark Doty, Fire to Fire: New and Collected Poems (HarperCollins).

Christian Book Expo

From ACFW Publicity Officer, Cara Putnam

Many of you have probably heard of the Christian Book Expo. The weekend of March 20-22, 2009, the inaugural Christian Book Expo will be held in Dallas, TX. And your ACFW will be there with a booth. What this means for our membership at large? We will spread the word about ACFW and the wonderful world of Christian fiction.

What it means for ACFW members who are published authors? Space will be available in the booth on a first come first served basis for a couple things.

First, we will accept brochures, bookmarks and other publicity giveaways from published authors. Quantity -- no more than 100 and any extras will be thrown away rather than returned to the author. Make a note now that this will be a way to get your name in front of readers. The items will be set out at the booth as space is available. We will send information at the beginning of the year on where these materials and chocolate can be sent.

Second, we will distribute the author comparison information that was developed for the Mall of America booksigning -- yet another way to help readers find new authors to try. We will also have material there to direct readers to new portions of the website that provide information on authors and who writes in given genres.

Third, there will be the opportunity for ACFW MEMBER AUTHORS to have meet and greets with readers in the ACFW Booth. Time will be limited (probably half-hour slots), and will be available on a FIRST-COME, FIRST-SERVED basis. There will be no charge for the use of the booth, however, there will be a charge to enter the expo. Because books will not be sold at the booth -- the expo has contracted with a vendor to provide a bookstore, in-booth signings are limited to books that qualify for the Book of the Year award.

We will begin accepting people's applications to be in the booth on December 15. Why am I circulating the information now? So everyone can have lead time to evaluate whether this is an opportunity that you want to take advantage of.

AND:

Publicity for ACFW Pubbed Authors

From ACFW Publicity Officer, Cara Putnam

As a great first step to introducing readers to the published authors who belong to ACFW, a new tool has been added to the ACFW website www.acfw.com . This tool allows folks to search by first name, last name, or genre. So, if you know you've heard of a book by that Cara somebody-or-other, you can find her. Or that Putman somebody-or-other, you can find her. Or if you're looking for a romantic suspense or historical romance writer, you'll find him/her. Currently, there are more than 175 authors in the database. In addition to genre and one sentence about the author, it also lists Web site and shoutlife pages. Sogo check it out, and then spread the word! Thanks y'all.

That's all for this week. May God bless and keep you.

Kelly

The Dirt

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