Magazines Sales Up in a Bad Economy - the "Notable Achievers" of 2010

Good Housekeeping, August 1928
Wikimedia Commons, public domain

Wooden Horse Magazine gives us all the heads up this morning with news that several magazines boosted their retail sales in a significant way during this bad economic period.  That's right: they've grown in retail sales and they're magazines.

Brings to mind Mark Twain's famous quote, "rumors of my death have been greatly exaggerated."  I love magazines, and I take this as great news. 

For their efforts, they've been honored by the Harringtons in their New Single Copy industry newsletter as "Notable Achievers" by the company that monitors national magazine sales.

I wasn't surprised at Mother Earth News.  I was a bit surprised at Rider.  (For the full list, with links to the award winner's web sites, check out Wooden Horse.)

The New Single Copy, published by John Harrington (Harrington Associates, LLC) has a lot more detail on the subject of magazine sales if you're interested in learning more.  Harrington Associates manages the BIPAD system of tracking magazine sales -- that barcode on each issue you buy has a series of identification numbers within it which form the basis for the periodic tallies of magazine sales. 

Which means that the NSC awards are a big deal -- these are the people in the know about such things. 

Elmore Leonard Interview - How He Writes, and "Freaky Deaky" Comes to the Screen

Deadline Hollywood has a great interview with Elmore Leonard that's a must read. Most of the talk is about screenwriting, his books that went to film (and his thoughts on them), but at the end there's a great tidbit on how he writes.

10 to 6, every day.
Output is 3-4 handwritten pages. No word processor.
He takes his handwritten pages and types them up on his typewriter to get his draft.
Wow.

Book Trailer Award Finalists - The 2010 Moby Awards

Book trailers are here, and according to GalleyCat, literally hundreds were submitted for consideration in this year's Moby Awards.  Melville House has organized the first annual awards ceremony for book trailers - the Mobys - and on May 20, 2010, the winners will be announced in a very nice ceremony in New York City. 

Here are the finalists, and yes - that last award really is for the WORST book trailer of the year.

They're all available for viewing online at the Moby site:

Best Low Budget/Indie Book Trailer:

1. A Common Pornography by Kevin Sampsell
2. The Electric Church in One Minute by Jeff Somers
3. Extraordinary Renditions by Andrew Ervin
4. I am in the Air Right Now by Kathryn Regina
5. I Lego New York by Chistoph Niemann

Best Big Budget/Big House Book Trailer:

1. Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter by Seth Grahame-Smith
2. Blameless by Gail Carriger
3. Going West by Maurice Gee
4. High Before Homeroom by Maya Sloan
5. Pride and Prejudice and Zombies: The Dawn of the Dreadfuls by Steve Hockensmith

Best Performance by in Author:

1. Gordon Lish in Collected Fictions
2. Dennis Cass in Head Case
3. Thomas Pynchon (voice of) in Inherent Vice
4. Daniel Handler in The Book vs. The Kindle, Round 10: A Seriously Unfortunate Event
5. Jeffrey Rotter in The Unknown Knowns

Best Cameo in a Book Trailer:

1. Jon Stewart in I Am a Genius of Unspeakable Evil…
2. Jonathan Safran Foer’s Grandmother in Eating Animals
3. He is Legend’s Schyler Croom in High Before Homeroom
4. Deepak Chopra in The Karma Club
5. Zach Galifinakis in Lowboy

Least Likely Trailer to Sell the Book:

1. Pocket Guide to Mischief by Bart King
2. Shark Hunting in Paradise Garden by Cameron Pierce
3. Shoplifting from American Apparel by Tao Lin
4. Sounds of Murder by Patricia Rockwell
5. True Confections by Katharine Weber

Update of the Google Book Search Settlement

While the Google Book Search litigation remains active, the pending settlement (see my November 2009 post on this topic, "Google Book Search Lives On as Google Revised Settlement with Authors, Publishers") still awaits judicial approval.  The first judge passed away; the second judge got promoted to an appellate bench; the new judge hasn't been named. 

The importance of this event to electronic publishing rights cannot be underestimated.  For a great source of background information here, check out the work of the New York Law School and its Public Index project, particularly their free downloadable synopsis.