Likes: Eating Dirt, Selling Books

This just in. Charlesbridge publishing has created a myspace page AND a youtube video for its two new picture book characters, Wiggle and Waggle.

 

Which many well be a first for fictional earthworms (please let me know if I’m wrong about this). According to the book’s promotional copy, these two “wormy best friends” like to dig in the dirt and “have fun swimming and singing.” Apparently, “beginning readers will dig the simple science facts” in the book.

 

Get it? DIG? They’re worms? Wow, that kind of joke is going to win lots of friends at myspace.

 

Sorry for the sarcasm. My emotions are somewhere between “now there’s a prime example of marketing going way beyond the bounds of sense” and “geez, I wish I’d thought to do that for my picture books!”

 

Meanwhile, I couldn’t seem to get the video to work. I called in my seven year old for a tech consult and while she was able to make my computer play several Hannah Montana youtube snippets, Wiggle and Waggle’s screen remained dark.

 

Unless that is how it is supposed to look. I mean, they do live underground.

 

Anyway, I’m going to post the clip on pajamazon (my blog away from blog). Please let me know if you get it to play (and, if so, if it is any good).

 

Take a Number, David Copperfield.

Sometimes, the classics just have to wait.

Or so says Barnes and Noble, which shoved Dickens and Dostoevsky aside last night to make room for a new classic: my friend Jennifer Oko's "sleek, sly and irresistibly dishy" new novel, GLOSS. This was a photo op I could not resist: the tower of GLOSS threatening to topple and crash all over the cornerstones of Western Literature.

Plus it was the first time I'd attended an event there that did not involve BYOSC (bring your own sippy cup). It was sort of an "On the Internet, nobody knows you're a dog" moment. In Barnes and Noble at a book reading held after dark, nobody knows you're a mom. Not that there's anything wrong with that.

Even more embarrassing for the masters (the shame, the shame), their books languished with their "Buy Two Get One Free" promo stickers whereas GLOSS was flying off the shelf at full retail price.

Of course, none of the masters were alive (much less living in the greater Washington area) to give book readings, which tend to lead to spikes in sales. But that's not really the point. For the moment... and it was just a moment, for as Jen signed her last book the GLOSS display was moved away from the classics... Jen was able to be the embodiment of the new literary guard. Alive, radiant, bursting with energy and new life (she's about to have a baby any second now), wielding a feisty, witty pen and taking no prisoners!

I'd like to think that the masters, many of whom were rebels of their own times, would have been proud.

Top Ten Things I Learned at BEA 2007

Despite the fact that I said I wasn't going to go this year (and despite the fact that, as a result of that statement, my publisher did not arrange any book signings), I went to Book Expo America, otherwise known as BEA, last weekend.

BEA took place in NY this year, at the Javitz Center. I had not been to the Javitz Center since I took the NY Bar Exam in it some ten or more (okay, more) years ago. Walking in the door brought a rush of bar exam flashbacks - I have to go to the bathroom but I don't have tiiiiiimmmmmeee! - but I quickly quashed them (see, there's a bit of residual legalese) and strode deeper into Javitz's bowels.

I was only at BEA for 24 hours this year, but I learned many things that I figured my readers might enjoy knowing. So, here you go. Don't say I never gave you anything.

1) There's no such thing as a free book. Okay, that's not actually true: at BEA, like all book conferences, there are LOTS of free books. And candy and bookmarks and tote bags... BUT you have to carry it all, which is where you pay the price. My shoulders are now killing me, which suggests that being your own sherpa is perhaps not that wise. Hey, wait, that sounds like something else I learned...

2) Being your own sherpa is not wise. If you attend a book conference, bring one big bag (I highly recommend the gi-cundo tote I got from IKEA) and stop picking up free books when - or ideally, before - you lose feeling in your fingers.

3) If you don't already have a My Space page, it is too late. Apparently, all good writers have them already, so if you get one now you are not only coming to the party late, you are admitting to the highly attuned other My Spacers that you are a total poseur who is only jumping on the My Space bandwagon because some panel at BEA told you to (wait, let me understand this... did a panel on My Space just tell me why My Space is preemptively rejecting me?).

4) But, haha, you may just get the last laugh. Um, My Space? It just dawned on me that if there's a BEA panel about you, you may have officially jumped the shark. Which means that I just have to figure out what not-yet-invented website will be the trendsetting thang when my young adult novel comes out in early 2009.

5) No matter how much you read, it is not enough. Chagrined though I am to admit it, I now have to go back and read some of the books that came before the books I just picked up, like Grace Lin's Year of the Dog (Year of the Rat) and Charise Mericle Harper's Just Grace (Still Just Grace). Thank goodness I already read Jerry Spinelli's Stargirl (Love, Stargirl) and Judy Blume's The Pain and The Great One (Soupy Saturdays with The Pain and The Great One) or I would feel completely out of the loop.

6) Impatient though you might be with wordless books, the truly great ones are sublime. I am speaking of Sarah Varon's Robot Dreams. I cannot say enough about this amazing nearly wordless graphic novel. It is so funny, so perfect, so hauntingly sweet, it pains me. And I applaud Neal Porter for publishing it, as it is a book that so many publishers would just plain not get or not see the commercial point of.

7) $3.00 for water is highway robbery, no matter how you slice it.

8) Even if Markus Zusak wasn't so durned cute, he'd probably sell a couple zillion books. I'm apparently the last person on earth to read The Book Thief (Alison Morris recommended it to me over a year ago, mea culpa, Alison!) and so my expectations are quite unrealistic but even so it is off to a pretty good start.

9) Ditto Watt Key. Boys, if you want to impress the ladies but you don't have an Australian accent, try an Alabama one.

10) The best thing about book conferences is not books. Not even free books. It is book people, real book people. Call me a big sap, but I gotta say: all this shmoozing and awarding and book-plugging is fun, but the best moment was when James Howe accepted his E.B. White Award and talked about the simple joy of writing to a room full of people who nodded because they knew exactly what he was talking about. Which made all the craziness of needing to sell, sell, sell and put up pages on random websites in the hopes of "meeting" "friends" who might "buy" your book and all those hallmarks of the digital age. Made me just want to run home and get a, what are those things called? Oh, right, a pen. And take it and start writing.

Which I will do.

Really.

Just as soon as I finish typing this blog entry.

Oh, hey, before I forget, the Boston Globe-Horn Book Awards were just announced. Congrats to my pal Tobin (M.T. Anderson), whose novel Octavian Nothing took home an award (to add to its pile, notwithstanding the fact that many-including the author himself-aren't entirely convinced that this should be categorized as a "kids" rather than an adult book).

Although, as John Green stated this past weekend in his NYT Review of Laurie Halse Anderson (no relation to M.T. Anderson)'s new young adult novel, Twisted: So, no, this is not a book for children. Of course it isn’t. These days, hardly any worthwhile book on the young adult shelves is.

And another thing: go to pajamazon (my blog on offsprung.com) and check out my new banner. Cool, huh?

Things that make you go BLEAHHH!

When was the last time you saw a really, REALLY bad movie?

Last weekend? Hey, me too!

I saw Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End (aka P-Cab Three) and it was SO completely and totally horrendous that it rocketed to the top of my worst movies of all time list (bumping Casper starring Christina Ricci from the number one spot it has held for over a decade and shifting A.I. down to spot number three). Seriously, the movie was awful in every way. And for the record I liked P-Cab One and Two. And I'll watch pretty much anything with Johnny Depp, whose career I've championed since his 21 Jump Street days.

Anyone? 21 Jump Street?

Okay, now I feel old.

Anyhow, when I got home from the movies, I eagerly pulled out The New Yorker and the NY Times. I feel that the only thing that mitigates wasting time and money on bad things (entertainment, literature, meals) is reading that professional critics agree with me. That’s probably pretty universal – who doesn’t get a real charge out of having her contempt vindicated? It’s like when your friend dates some guy you can’t stand and then a mutual friend confesses that he annoys her to. It’s that feeling of thank you! I love it.

Well, no thank you! The New Yorker refused to weigh in. Well, at least it has so far… though I’m still holding out hope that Anthony Lane trashes it… he did such a fine job reviewing Pirates Two. But get this: The NYT actually kind of praised it. I mean, the praise was lukewarm, but they didn’t state the obvious: This Film Sucked. What’s more, the NYT followed up its review with a gushing article about how the film had pulled in more than $400 million dollars in less than a week.

That’s right: More than $400 million dollars in less than a week.

Apparently, tens of millions of people did not do as I did and call to warn their friends while still standing under the theatre marquis. It’s possible – difficult though it might be for me to fathom - that some of them might even have liked it.

Am I this out of sync with popular opinion?

Apparently, I am. At least when it comes to Hollywood blockbusters. But children’s books… hmmm… I like to think I have my finger on the pulse of quality or lack thereof in that arena.

Or do I?

To find out, I went straight to the source of all information. Google. As Gene Weingarten reported this week in his reliably hilarious Washington Post magazine column, there is very little that does not exist on the internet. My search term: I hate Rainbow Fish.

The news? People, I am not alone.

Yes, thank you!, it turns out that lots and lots of people hate Rainbow Fish as much as I do! Not perhaps as many people as hate Rachel Ray, but quite a few. As you probably know, The Rainbow Fish is a children’s book by Swiss author Marcus Pfister. It is about this fish with sparkly scales whose friends hate him for being pretty and bully him into giving away his scales until he looks like he has fin rot. I hate everything about it: the cheesy shiny art, the fact that it is a “message” book, the content of the message, the inept plot and, now that I am a published author, the fact that the author’s last name starts with a PF so the stupid Rainbow Fish swims right next to my books on many a shelf.

Here are some of the 173 Amazon reviews:

The book is so bad, destructive, immoral, and wrong that I have trouble figuring out where to start.

To give this 'book' to a child should be considered abuse.

Why isn't there a zero star option? (from a reviewer who gave it a single star out of a possible five)

It is unclear how this managed to get published in the first place.

Okay, thank you! Yes!

After reading negative review after negative review, with a few positive ones interspersed (hey, positive reviewers, have I got a movie for you!) I was feeling really great. Really, really vindicated.

Until I noticed something else on the Rainbow Fish’s Amazon page:

84% of people who viewed the page bought the book anyway.

Do you hate The Rainbow Fish? Did you also hate Pirates of the Caribbean Three? Omigod, we’re soulmates! Okay, all kidding aside, is there a kids’ book that you hate even though everyone else seems to love it? Give me your two cents. Or better yet, give me back the nine dollars and fifty cents I spent on P-Cab Three!

WE - Okay, HE - WON!!!

This is Mike Lester, better known as Rome, Georgia's beloved editorial cartoonist and even better known in certain circles as The Inspired Illustrator of my book, NINETY-THREE IN MY FAMILY. You know, the guy who drew all those wonderful wacky pictures of the penguin who wants to drive, the armadillos with the watches, the twenty-seven owls, Bernice the pygmy hippo, Ed the gerbil and all the other family members in my book.

Well, this past weekend, Mike got some well-deserved accolades for his work. He donned a penguin suit (see photo) and accepted a Reuben Award, bestowed annually by the National Cartoonists Society, for Best Illustrated Book. And the book that was named Best Illustrated Book was none other than NINETY-THREE IN MY FAMILY!

Yay, Mike! You totally deserved this honor. Your illustrations captured the book's spirit in ways I couldn't even have imagined. To this day, I can open the book and find new details I haven't noticed. Details that often make me laugh out loud. Details that excite and amuse pretty much every child in every school I visit with the book. Details that work so well with my words I can't believe we've only communicated by pen and keyboard.

I am one lucky author, that's for sure.