Contrast & Compare

Today's Lunch Deluxe email newsletter from Publishers Marketplace was a study in contrasts, with these headlines:

Medina "Suspended" in UK
Director's Jesus Book a Dutch Bestseller

The Bookseller reports on THE JEWEL OF MEDINA, the novel about Muhammed's wife Aisha, whose UK publisher was firebombed over the weekend (see Quote for the Day--Make that Every Day). Ballantine dropped the book in the US, after a (Jewish!) advance reader warned that the book could foment trouble, then passed along word about it to a Muslim website, which was followed by--surprise!--incendiary attacks, rhetorical and actual.

The UK publication of The Jewel of Medina is in "suspended animation" according to Gibson Square's external sales team Compass, following this weekend's attempted attack on publisher Martin Rynja's house. Alan Jessop, m.d. of Compass, this morning (Tuesday 30th September) spoke to Rynja who said he would be taking some time out to decide whether to continue with plans to publish the controversial historial novel. Jessop said: "He is in good spirits, but has put publication in suspended animation while he reflects and takes advice on what the best foot forward is."

Then we have JESUS OF NAZARETH, co-written by Dutch director Paul Verhoeven, currently in its 4th printing in Holland "after a big promotional campaign." Per the Hollywood Reporter, "Verhoeven suggests that Jesus was the son of Mary and a Roman soldier who raped her."

WOW!!! Now that's incendiary! How interesting that there have been no reports so far of any arson, or even outrage. How wonderful it would be to live in a world where no author or publisher would have to fear censorship or violence.

On Copyright

Yesterday's post Values v. Reality prompted unpleasant comments from a reader, which led to the following email exchange with the editorial page editor of the Roanoke Times. I like the part about being polite.

RT: It is better form when reprinting commentary from another source to excerpt it with a link to the full piece.

Me: I am quite aware of good form, fair use and copyright, and usually do run just excerpts with links (e.g., my two blog posts today). However, since I had permission from Janis Jaquith--who I assume holds the copyright to her essay--to post her piece in full, I did so. If my assumption is incorrect, please let me know and I will revise the offending post.

RT: It's not a big deal to me one way or the other. We have no objection to people reprinting commentary with appropriate credit, which you gave. A reader wrote us, however, offended on our behalf by what you had done, so I thought I'd just drop you a polite note. Again, it's not a big thing to me either way.

A Thoughtful Xmas Gift for Mom & Dad

Writer Janis Jaquith forwarded me a hilarious job posting from Craigslist, Ready to Write About My Sex Life - But I Suck at Grammar. Seems that a woman who's been wearing out the Hollywood casting couch needs help with her memoirs:

...after my husband left me for another actress that he met on a new set, I began to write about the men I met in Santa Monica, my old marriage, and what brought me to LA. Sometimes steamy, often sexy, and very real, I have been writing many paragraphs, but I need help - Preferably from a woman with a healthy attitude about men, dating, romantic, often lusty encounters, and basically my very story about a girl that finds herself sleeping her way thru LA....

So I am looking for help, because I would like to self-publish my stories by Christmas and send them to my family for always being there for me.... Going back East to see people I haven't seen in a long time. Christmas is only three months away....

I see this as the jump-off for a novel, not a ghostwriting job.

Quote for the Day--Make that Every Day

"I don't spend my time worrying about how I'm going to live. I think a life where you can't express yourself and you can't speak is a life worse than death."

--Sherry Jones, author of THE JEWEL OF MEDINA

This quote is at the end of an article in the national edition of the New York Times, Attack on Publisher's House May Be Linked to Book About Muhammad and Wife. The home and headquarters of the London publisher, Gibson Square, was set on fire yesterday, via a fire bomb pushed through the mail slot. Police were already on the scene, so no one was hurt.

Here's a strange thing I just discovered: The quote isn't in the article online, which has had at least five grafs deleted.

Here are other passages that didn't make it to the NYT site:

[Jones] added, "I hope as many people read it as possible, so they can see my book has been lied about."...

[Eric M. Kampmann, president of Beaufort Books, which picked up THE JEWEL OF MEDINA after Ballantine canceled it] said that he still stood behind the book.

"We found it to be credible historical fiction, and the author to be a very open person who did not have an anti-Muslim ax to grind--probably the reverse," he said. "We became involved with the book because it was wrong that an American publisher would fail to stand up to a real or imagined threat."

See more about Jones and the firebombing in GalleyCat and UK Guardian.

Values v. Reality

My friend Janis Jaquith, in my former hometown of Charlottesville VA, writes:

Rather than preach to the choir, I wrote this piece hoping to reach the voters in the "reddest" areas of Virginia. The commentary appears in today's edition of The Roanoke Times.

What have Republicans done for you?

You know in your heart that homosexuality is unnatural, an abomination. You are foursquare against abortion and there's no doubt in your mind that Muslims are a foreign threat -- and it goes without saying that the United States is a Christian nation.

These are your most cherished values. What could be more natural than to vote for people who share your values? Someone you feel comfortable with. Someone like you.

This is a basic human instinct. We gravitate toward our own kind.

People who look like you, sound like you and think like you have been in charge of this country for nearly eight years now. As Dr. Phil would say, "How's that workin' out for you?"

Do you have more money in the bank than you did in 2000? Is your job more secure? Is your medical care any easier to handle?

If you answered "no" to any of those questions, you may want to rethink the way you choose your leaders. Ask yourself what your congressman and your president have done to make your life better.

Do you feel safer than you did in 2000? I sure don't. And I have not seen a shred of evidence that Virgil Goode or Bob Goodlatte or George Bush have done a single thing -- made a law or put a policy in place -- to improve my life one iota.

Instead, I feel like my pocket has been picked. I feel like my own patriotism was used against me when they tricked me into supporting a war against Iraq -- a country that had, it turns out, not a thing to do with the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. And now, my tax dollars are stuffing the pockets of war profiteers like Halliburton and Blackwater. (And don't forget the high-rollers on Wall Street who are resting in a cushy safety net -- on our dime.)

Meanwhile, Virginia manufacturers have closed up shop and fled to other countries, leaving tons of Virginians high and dry. Why are there no effective trade policies or tax incentives in place to bring jobs back to Virginia? We've been without leadership for so long, we've forgotten what it looks like.

The fact that Goode and Goodlatte and Bush share their heartfelt values must be cold comfort for the legions of hard-working Virginians who are now either without a job or are under-employed. And the loss of Virginian lives in the ill-conceived Iraq war is too painful to think about.

Ask yourself: Are you better off now than you were before the Republicans took the wheel?

This Nov. 4, I'll pick my leaders by finding out which ones will make my life better. The candidates who advocate for ordinary, middle-class people, the ones who will keep us out of wars, help me get decent medical care for a fair price and allow my bank account to fill up again.

Will they be the candidates who also share my bedrock values? To tell you the truth, I really don't care.

Jaquith is a columnist for Charlottesville's newsweekly, The Hook. She has also been a frequent radio commentator for WVTF and for PRI's "Marketplace," and has appeared on NPR's "Day to Day."

Best Headline & Creepiest Story of the Month

I cracked up when I was reading a story on the Washington Post site and saw the below headline under the heading "People who read this also read..."

Wis. court: Cops illegally taped nursing home sex

Naturally, I clicked on the link (wouldn't you?), then exclaimed, "EWW!" at the lede:

Police who videotaped a man having sex with his comatose wife in her nursing home room violated his constitutional rights, an appeals court ruled Thursday.

EWWW!!, EWWW!!! EWWWWWW!!!! were my responses to the next few grafs:

David W. Johnson, 59, had an expectation to privacy when he visited his wife, a stroke victim, at Divine Savior Nursing Home in Portage, the District 4 Court of Appeals ruled. Therefore, police violated his Fourth Amendment rights against unreasonable searches when they installed a hidden video camera in the room, the court said.

"We are satisfied that Johnson's expectation of privacy while visiting his wife in her nursing home room is one that society would recognize as reasonable," the unanimous three-judge panel wrote.

The ruling means prosecutors cannot introduce the videotapes as evidence in their case against Johnson, who is charged with felony sexual assault for having intercourse with his wife without her consent at least three times in 2005.

I don't like to think of what Mr. Johnson would do at his wife's wake.

At Long Last, the Proper Palin is in the Running

The UK Guardian asks, Did John McCain pick the wrong Palin as his running mate?

The answer, of course, is an emphatic yes. Watch the reasons why:

Joke of the Day

From the wiseguys at Something Awful: The Internet Makes You Stupid, via the Boy Wonder:

Q: What's the difference between George W. Bush and Sarah Palin?

A: Lipstick!

For proof, see today's New York Times (Once Elected, Palin Hired Friends and Lashed Foes) and Washington Post (As Mayor of Wasilla, Palin Cut Own Duties, Left Trail of Bad Blood).

Meaning & Nothingness on a Friday Afternoon

Maybe it's the gloomy weather, maybe it's the political climate, but I was feeling kinda mopey. And as is my wont when feeling blue-ish (and not coincidentally procrastinating on writing my Great American Potboiler), I read Andrew Sullivan's blog. Which led me to this video: "Pre-Game Coin Toss Makes Jacksonville Jaguars Realize Randomness Of Life."

And now everything is illuminated...in pitch black.

Watch:

Hold the Phone for Book Promotion 101 TeleSeminar

In early June I did three "Promoting Like a Pro" phone-in seminars for the Authors Guild. They went so well that I decided to do them all by my very own self. So a little while ago I set up the first seminar through FreeConference. Here's the scoop:

Book Promotion 101 TeleSeminar
Date: Sunday, Sept. 28
Time: 3-4:30pm Eastern (12-1:30pm Pacific)
Price: $90
Registration limited to 10.

You get:

• The lowdown on promoting your book like a pro--the same as in my all-day workshop.
• Q&A session.
• Individual 15-minute follow-up consultation.
• First hour of additional consultation for $125 (a $25 discount).

Interested? Send an email to: blog (at) bellastander.com, with subject "TeleSeminar." Note: For commercially published authors only.

All DNC, All the Time 2: The Boy Wonder Hits the Big Time

Attendees at Barack Obama's acceptance speech at the DNC in Denver. That's my little boy at center. Photo by Kevin Moloney for the New York Times.

It was a good thing I'd finished my morning tub o' tea when I opened today's New York Times national edition to the politics pages, else I'd have spewed it when I got to the story at the top of page 20: Political Realities May Pose a Test to Obama’s Appeal to Young Voters.

Because the young man holding a flag front and center is none other than my own son, the Boy Wonder. In case you're wondering why he looks so much taller than everyone around him, it's because he is so much taller: 6'4". Thinner too: 130 lbs, despite eating four square meals a day, and then some. Hence his choice of T-shirt, whose logo can't be made out in the photo: "Giraffes United Against Ceiling Fans." (See it here at Threadless T-Shirts.)

The photo was on the NYT home page when the BW saw it late last night. Too bad he didn't get a screen shot, as it's since been replaced. But at least he had his 15 minutes of (anonymous) fame, and I'm sure the folks at Threadless are thrilled.

All DNC, All the Time 1

Downtown Denver, as viewed from Metro State Auraria on August 24.

In case you haven't heard, the Democratic National Convention has been in Denver this week. Casa Bella has been an unofficial rooming house for visiting Dems. Last Friday, we had two from Vermont: a delegate for one night and a volunteer press relations officer for a week. Sunday, a Democratic Party Girl came from LA; she's also here till tomorrow.

Sunday evening, DPG and I went to a National Jewish Democratic Council reception at the Golda Meir House (who knew?) at Metro State. The free reception followed a benefit screening of "Golda's Balcony," which we didn't attend on account of the $100 entry fee. (DPG noted that the film was shown in LA a year ago; I imagine for a lot less dough.)

Once we found our way to the party through the maze of construction sites and closed-off streets, you'd never know that I was the Denver resident and DPG the visitor. I didn't know a soul, whereas she hailed several old friends from her stint as a Senatorial aide, including "BC," a guy she'd dated. Then she discovered that another acquaintance there had also dated BC. Whoops! I was hoping that the two would down a few more glasses of wine and compare notes. Instead they quickly parted and worked separate sectors of the crowd. (I ran into BC at an event this morning, and believe me, the women--perhaps all women--are better off without him.)

Celebs in attendance (at least the ones I can remember), all of whom addressed the crowd:

• Valerie Harper, who played Golda Meir in "Golda's Balcony." I was standing next to her early on and we exchanged a few words.
• Michigan senator Carl Levin, who blasted Bush and his policies, especially the erosion of civil rights, and extolled the importance of a strong Israel, which Obama would support.
• California representative Henry Waxman, who likewise blasted Bush and extolled Israel, and is very, very short.
• Former secretary of state Madeleine Albright, ditto; taller than Waxman.
  
• New Jersey senator Frank Lautenberg, ditto, who was the tallest of the bunch and wore a sports jacket in a shade of blue not found in nature. Good thing the light was fading, else we'd all have been struck blind.
  

Another of DPG's old friends from the Hill is now the campaign manager for Bob Lord, who's running for Arizona's 3rd Congressional District, John McCain's old seat. While DPG talked with her pal, I chatted with Lord. It's not often (read: never) that I speak with a politician running for office, so I was fascinated to see how one ticks: always "on," intensely focused, relentlessly upbeat. I could do that for maybe a week; Lord has been doing it for 18 months. Imagine what it's like for a presidential candidate. Yeesh!

Medical News Flash!

Sometimes it's worthwhile to receive bulk emails from dog-knows-who. Today, one rolled in from eMedicine containing this urgent snippet:

Ten-minute leprosy diagnosis
A new dipstick assay offers up to 97% sensitivity in detecting Mycobacterium leprae–specific phenolic glycolipid-I (PGL-I) antibodies.

What a relief! The next time my digits start rotting and falling off, I'll know just what dipstick assay to request from my doctor.

Coming in Late in the Game...A Century Late

Thanks to a link at Booksquare, I came across Cinema stole my favourite books on the UK Guardian book blog. The subtitle to David Barnett's screed is:

I expended time and imagination to absorb these stories. Why should people be entitled to think they know them without putting in any effort?

He writes:

Can there be anything worse than lovingly engaging with a couple of hundred thousand words of prose over perhaps two or three weeks, drinking in the author's dialogue and descriptions, creating your own vision of the work in the privacy of your head, only to have every man and his dog (special offer on Tuesdays at your local Odeon) blast your intellectual ownership of the book out of the water after spending 90 minutes slobbing out in front of a cinema screen?

First of all, for someone who (apparently) makes his living by writing about books, Barnett is an awfully slow reader. Two to three weeks to read just one book?

Second, he's weighing in late, by about 100 years. The first film version of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde was made in 1912, and viewers only had to slob out for 12 minutes. L. Frank Baum, author of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz and sequels, adapted the series to film in 1908 and 1914. Greta Garbo starred in Anna Karenina in 1935; the film is #42 in the American Film Institute's 100 Years...100 Passions list of top love stories in American cinema.

Third, if Barnett thinks movie adaptations of books are so dumb (he cites "The Watchmen" as a major offender), why doesn't he just, you know, stay home and read?

Heartbreaking Quote

Tayari Jones has a link to an immeasurably sad story that ran in the Washington Post:
Soul Survivors: James Brown's Children Are in Court. They Might Have Settled for Love.

The article made me feel as though I and my 5 half-sisters from my father's many marriages got off easy, though I see a few parallels between his and Brown's personalities. One happy difference is that my dad wasn't the obsessively controlling type; another is that there wasn't a litigious free-for-all at his death.

Bass player Bootsy Collins, who played with Brown and then with my all-time favorite group, Parliament/Funkadelic, had this to say:

"I had this puppy I had when I was a kid in Cincinnati...And this puppy was really sick, and I took it to the vet, but they wouldn't admit him because, you know, I was a kid and I had no money. And this puppy died right there in the lobby. And I always felt that something like that happened to James Brown. That loss is unspeakable, and he just didn't want to be attached to anyone."

Ask Barbet Schroeder, Not Amy

What happens when a married guy gets hung up on a dominatrix; from the 1976 Barbet Schroeder film, "Maîtresse."

The Boy Wonder and I had a good laugh over the lede in today's Ask Amy:

Dear Amy: My husband of 20 years has basically left me for a woman who is a professional dominatrix. He has been seeing her for a year now.

Which reminded me:
Time to put Maîtresse in my Netflix queue. I saw the film in a theater with the Ex a gazillion years ago. We nearly died laughing when, at the end of a scene in which Gérard Depardieu emerges unscathed from a car crash, someone behind us said, "Nothing could kill that big lummox!"

Gotta love the costumes by Karl Lagerfeld, reverberations of which abounded in the ads and features in yesterday's NY Times women's fashion supplement.

Sour Grapes Morph into Egg on Face

Remember how last week publicists Kelley & Hall broadcast their bitter feelings over not being publicly acknowledged by THE LACE READER author Brunonia Barry for the work they did?

Well, the Aug 17 issue of the Cape Cod Times has a feature about Barry and the book: Salem author takes unusual path to publishing a best-seller.

Check out the lede in the fourth graf:

She and her husband also hired a public relations company, Kelley & Hall Book Publicity and Promotion in Marblehead.

Moral: Vent all you want, but don't click "Send."

The Soul of Indiscretion

Good thing I'd already downed my morning tub o' tea, else I would have sprayed it all over my laptop yesterday when I read the GalleyCat post, The Lace Reader's Dirty Linen. Seems that indie publicist Jocelyn Kelley of Kelley & Hall felt dissed by former client Brunonia "Sandy" Barry, whose self-published novel THE LACE READER, which K&H worked on, went on to get a $2.4 million advance from Morrow and is now a bestseller. (I've yet to read the copy that I picked up at the BEA Editor Buzz Forum. One of these days...)

So how did Kelley assuage her hurt feelings? Not in the honorable way: dishing with other publishing industry insiders late at night over a third (or sixth) round in a dark corner of a noisy bar. Instead, she wrote a lengthy tirade against Barry, which she sent to GalleyCat and at least one other NYC media outlet. (A reporter who covers publishing told me he'd gotten it too, and found it "creepy.")

Kelley ended her diatribe:

We have received absolutely no recognition from Sandy, her husband Gary, William Morrow or any of the news outlets who have covered this extraordinary situation. Why are the publicists the "dirty little invisible secret" in a books' success?

My first response was "OUCH!!!" which is how I began my comment on GalleyCat. I also wrote:

Going public with grievances--however justified--about a client is not the way to:

1) receive grateful acknowledgements from said cllent;
2) attract more clients.

Publicists may often be unsung heroes (I tell my clients to praise and thank theirs lavishly), but they are better described as the sparkly secret--or better yet, hidden weapon--in a book's success.

My second response was, "WHAT was she thinking?!" As one GalleyCat commenter wrote:

For all the work Kelley has done, she now sounds like a petulant dweeb. She's also shown potential clients that she can harness the power of the media to complain about them. Tsk...tsk.

My sentiments exactly. To mix and belabor metaphors, that dirty linen is going to bite Kelley in the ass, shoot her in the foot and then burn some bridges. HarperCollins won't be recommending Kelley & Hall to any of their authors, and neither will I.

Pinch-Hitting Can Be Fun!

Me and GalleyCat Ron Hogan. (Note the tan line on my wrist; I had just spent 2-1/2 days in Montauk.) Photo by Carolyn Burns Bass.

At the Backspace Writers Conference last week, I was slated to do just one program: "Promoting Like a Pro" on Friday morning. But when I stopped by for the Thursday afternoon mixer, I found out that MJ Rose & Doug Clegg had bailed on their "Buzz Your Book" program due to medical emergencies. So in the "show must go on" spirit (after all, the conference hotel was on Broadway), I offered to do a "Brainstorming with Bella" program so Rose & Clegg's 4pm slot wouldn't be empty.

I quickly jotted down an agenda and notes for the one-hour session, which I based on a segment of my Book Promotion 101 workshop. Then just as we were about to begin, Ron Hogan of GalleyCat volunteered to help out. He describes what happened next in Make Your Story Pitch Better, Faster, Stronger.

I sure am glad I'd stashed a big supply of Book Promotion 101 business cards & refrigerator magnets, plus Virginia Festival of the Book postcards, in my purse before I headed to the conference that day! Think I'll download some of my program spiels on my Palm PDA, so I'll be well prepared in case something like this happens again.

Everyone's a Critic

My friend Stefanie, Bennington MFA & artistic/social doyenne of Schuyler, VA, looked at the photo of Max & Jenny in my previous post (En Vacances) and offered this assessment:

Although I give them points for artistry, I’m afraid that the synchronization of their napping form is lacking. Orientation of one’s pose is SO important.

I watched synchronized diving today on the Olympics. (Like plain diving isn’t hard enough? They have to synchronize it?) It was quite interesting, and Onslow thought the divers did a pretty good job, although they didn’t have the effortlessness and sense of absolute stillness that make Onslow’s and Snickers's work such a joy to watch.

For those who don't recall the boys' oeuvre, here's a refresher:

Onslow (left) and perpetual houseguest Snickers practise their synchronized napping routine.