Book Publishing

BookExpo America's uPublishU Conference (formerly known as DIY Authors Conference and Marketplace) takes place this Saturday, June 1 at the Javits Center, focusing on the needs of growing number of authors who will be self-publishing into a crowded book marketplace.

Topics covered will include:

• The importance of getting your to-be-self-published manuscript professionally edited

• Learning about metadata and SEO

• Getting author publicity and leveraging social media

• Learning about the various services available for those who want to self-publish

• Learning self-publishing success stories

... and more.

If you're planning to be in or near NYC on Saturday and are interested in attending the conference, here's the official BEA uPublishU site.

Of course, if you can't make it to the Javits Center on Saturday, you can get a wealth of information about Self-Publishing right here on About Book Publishing.

Image: Getty Images

BookExpo America officially opens tomorrow, Thursday, May 30, at the Javits Center in New York City with a wealth of programming that reflects the changing book publishing industry.

Its title, "Great Expectations: The Mysterious Future of Content," tips to the role of content creators (aka book authors), as well as those who create content around them, like book bloggers. The ever-harder-to-engage eyeballs, too, are being wooed as, for the second year, "Power Readers" will be allowed access to the BEA trade show floor on the last day of the event.

As usual, authors take the spotlight at signings and the ever-popular Book and Author Breakfasts (this year featuring celebrity-authors such as Chelsea Handler, Octavia Spencer, and Chris Matthews, as well as other high-profile authors like Doris Kearns Goodwin, Helen Fielding, Wally Lamb and Diana Gabaldon). Other major author events feature reader favorites such as Nebula Award and Newbery Medal recipient Neil Gaiman, and book club darling, Eat, Pray, Love author Elizabeth Gilbert.

The Book Bloggers Conference begins today, Wednesday May 29 and ends with a closing keynote by Randi Zuckerberg, former Facebook marketing exec (and sister to FB founder and CEO Mark); a special parallel day of programming for authors who would like to self-publish happens on Saturday, June 1.

Read more in this general overview of BookExpo America / BEA, the largest U.S. Book Publishing conference and trade show, and what types of book publishing and other media professionals generally attend the show, or about last year's BEA show highlights, to get a feel for the event.

Or visit the official BEA website for details of the many sessions, panels and events at this year's show.

For those who might want to start planning a BEA visit to the Big Apple for next year, get the dates of the 2014 show and read more about how New York City is the hub of the book publishing industry in America.

Image: Valerie Peterson

The winners of the 2103 James Beard Foundation Book, Broadcast & Journalism Awards were announced Friday night (in advance of the Beard food and beverage awards, which will be bestowed this evening).

Ted Allen, host of the television show Chopped,  MC'd the awards ceremony, which was followed by a gala dinner featuring star-chef-created dishes inspired by movies -- for example, Marcus Samuelsson's Jerk Bacon with Cow Peas, inspired by Django Unchained.

The multi-talented Samuelsson took home the Beard Award in the category of Writing and Literature for his memoir, Yes, Chef, published by Random House; scholar and restaurateur Maricel Presilla received the Cookbook of the Year honors for her Gran Cocina Latina: The Food of Latin America, by Maricel E. Presilla, publisher by W.W. Norton & Company, and Ann Willan was inducted into the Cookbook Hall of Fame.

Read more about the the 2013 James Beard Foundation Book winners, and about criteria for the James Beard Awards for cookbooks.

A number of the Beard Award winners were also recently honored by the International Association of Culinary Professionals.  In case you missed it in the newsletter, here's the list of 2013 IACP Cookbook Award winners.

Image: Neilson Barnard / Getty Images Entertainment

At the 67th Edgar Allen Poe Awards Gala Banquet last night, veteran author Dennis Lehane picked up his first Poe statuette -- his book Live by Night (HarperCollins / William Morrow) won the award for Best Novel.

Grand Masters Ken Follett and Margaret Maron presided over the ceremony, which was held at the Grand Hyatt Hotel in New York City.

Other winners included Chris Pavone, who took home the Edgar for First Novelist for The Expats (Crown Publishers) and Elizabeth Wein, who received the Best Young Adult honor for Code Name Verity (Disney Publishing Worldwide - Hyperion).

"Sherlock Holmes" snagged two awards -- sort of.  Best Critical / Biographical work  went to The Scientific Sherlock Holmes: Cracking the Case with Science and Forensics by James O'Brien (Oxford University Press) and Best Television Episode Teleplay was given to "A Scandal in Belgravia," written for the BBC / Masterpiece series, Sherlock.

Read the complete list of  2013 Edgar Award winners.

On the site you can also read about the Mystery Writers of America organization, the history of the Edgar Awards,  the list of 2012 Edgar Award winners, the list of Grand Masters throughout the 67 years of Edgar Awards, or about a well-known "international man of mystery."

Image: Matthew Peyton / Getty Images Entertainment

Scared of being in the dark about being a ghostwriter?

Then check out the new articles on the site about how to command a decent payday for "invisible" work. Marcia Layton Turner tells About.com readers about:

Becoming a Ghostwriter 101 and

How to Get (or Get More) Ghostwriting Business

And, for those who are in the market to hire a ghostwriter, read this About.com interview with Gotham Ghostwriters.

And if you're in Southern California this coming week, you might consider attending Ghostwriters Unite Conference. The event promises to shed some light on the behind-the-scenes profession and bring together practitioners and publishers. The event takes place May 3 - May 5 at the Hilton Long Beach in Long Beach, California and includes panel discussion are on on topics such as ghostwriting standards and practices, freelance pricing, and general book publishing industry topics; speakers such as Dan Gerstein, Founder and President of Gotham Ghostwriters; and community-building fun, like an opening-night mixer.

Visit the Ghostwriters Unite! site for more information and to register for the conference.

Image: Getty Images

The documentary Out of Print, which screened at the Tribeca Film Festival this past week, cuts a broad swath through the  digital issues that affect book publishing today.

Narrated by Meryl Streep, the film starts with the history of the book (cuniform tablets at the Morgan Library and Museum; the codex;  Gutenberg's movable type), and takes us through to the digital revolution's dramatic effect on book-related issues.  The film's interview subjects include bold-faced publishing names such as Amazon.com CEO Jeff Bezos, and president of the Author's Guild, Scott Turow, as well as authors, academics and educators. They weigh in on topics ranging from public access to information and copyright protections, to the comparatively short shelf life of electronic information and the potentially deleterious effects of digital info "dipping" vs. deep learning on our children's brains.

One screening featured a  Tribeca Talks panel whose members discussed the topics in more depth. Pictured left to right in the photo, it included journalist and author Ken Auletta, who moderated;  Out of Print filmmaker Vivienne Roumani; CEO and Founder of Open Road Media, Jane Friedman; Tony Marx, President and CEO of the New York Public Library; Annie Murphy Paul, journalist and author specializing in science subjects.

Though ambitious in scope, Out of Print isn't comprehensive in its coverage of the digital book revolution as it pertains to the book publishing industry. Despite their obvious stakes in thegame, the film doesn't include the viewpoints of any major print publisher or literary agent in its interviewee ranks, and the bricks-and-mortar bookseller it chooses to feature is Fred Bass -- a venerated Manhattan bookseller to be sure but, as his The Strand is predominantly a used bookstore, hardly representative.

Still, Out of Print begs some smart questions about the digitization of books -- even as the Tribeca Talk panelists acknowledge that only time will give us the answers.

Out of Print will screen at the Newport Beach Film Festival on May 1, the Seattle International Film Festival on May 22 and 23, and at the New Hope Film Festival in late July (screening dates tbd).  For more information on the film, visit the Out of Print website.

Image: Rob Kim / Getty Images Entertainment

The Pulitzer Prizes for Letters were awarded this past week and the prize for Fiction (conspicuously absent from the roster last year) went to The Orphan Master's Son, by Adam Johnson (published by Random House). The awards committee described it as "an exquisitely crafted novel that carries the reader on an adventuresome journey into the depths of totalitarian North Korea and into the most intimate spaces of the human heart."

The other Pulitzer Prizes for Letters awarded were:

History

Embers of War: The Fall of an Empire and the Making of America's Vietnam by Fredrik Logevall (Random House)

Biography or Autobiography

The Black Count: Glory, Revolution, Betrayal, and the Real Count of Monte Cristo by Tom Reiss (Crown)

Poetry

Stag's Leap by Sharon Olds (Alfred A. Knopf)

General Nonfiction

Devil in the Grove: Thurgood Marshall, the Groveland Boys by Gilbert King (HarperCollins)

Read about the history and the selection process of the Pulitzer Prize for Letters.

Image: Getty Images

The film critic Roger Ebert, who passed away earlier this week, wrote these lovely words--his signature "thumbs up"--for books and reading:

"I've made a change recently. After writing my blog and reading two recent articles about internet addiction, I have looked hard at my own behavior. For some days now I have physically left the room with the computer in it, and settled down somewhere to read. All the old joy came back, and I realized the internet was stealing the reading of books away from me. Reading is calming, absorbing, and refreshing for the mind after hectic surfing..."

An avid Twitter user--in part due to the health issues that prevented him from speaking for the last years of his life--Ebert posted over 30,000 Tweets. The above excerpt was from a 2010 post he wrote for his Chicago Sun-Times blog about his use of Twitter. Here's another excerpt:

"My rules for Twittering are few: I tweet in basic English. I avoid abbreviations and ChatSpell. I go for complete sentences. I try to make my links worth a click. I am not above snark, no matter what I may have written in the past. I tweet my interests, including science and politics, as well as the movies. I try to keep links to stuff on my own site down to around 5 or 10%. I try to think twice before posting."

Good advice to all from a man who appreciated a well-told story in the form of films, books and, yes, even 140 characters. Ebert will be missed.

(Thanks to MediaBistro's AllTwitter post, which led me to Ebert's full-length post).

For more about effective Tweeting for authors, read:

• How to promote your book with Twitter

• Twitter basics for authors

• Twitter hashtags for specifically for authors and book pros

Image: Stephen Shugerman / Getty Images Entertainment

Are you a ghostwriter, scared of being alone and in the dark?

Maybe you need to attend the Ghostwriters Unite Conference.  The event promises to shed some light on the behind-the-scenes profession and bring together practitioners and publishers. The event takes place May 3 - May 5 at the Hilton Long Beach in Long Beach, California and includes panel discussion are on on topics such as ghostwriting standards and practices, freelance pricing, and general book publishing industry topics; speakers such as Dan Gerstein, Founder and President of Gotham Ghostwriters; and community-building fun, like an opening-night mixer.

Visit the Ghostwriters Unite! site for more information and to register for the conference.

Read all about ghostwriting in this About.com interview with Gotham Ghostwriters.

Image: Getty Images

April 15 is just a tad over two weeks away.... do you know where your receipts are?

If you're writing a book and wondering what taxes have to do with it, read these new articles to give you an entry point on how the IRS views book authoring...

Taxes and the Book Author Overview

Professional Author or "Hobbyist"? It Matters to the IRS

Tax Deduction Tips for Authors

And, if you're selling your books yourself, you'll want to read these:

Sales Tax Facts for Book Authors

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