This week’s This Week in Publishing:
As you may have heard, former NBA basketball player John Amaechi came out of the closet in his memoir MAN IN THE MIDDLE, settling once and for all the question “Is he gay or is he just British?” (He’s both!) But seriously, it’s one small step for tolerance, one giant step because he’s a really tall dude.
What’s going on with the whole AMS/PGW bankruptcy thingamajig? So glad you asked. Baker & Taylor put in a $76 million bid for most of AMS’ assets, including several of its distribution centers and one Dwight Schrute bobblehead. This does not, mind you, include PGW and this does not, mind you again, mean that this is a done deal. This is just a stalking horse offer (no, I swear that’s what it’s called).
As for PGW, the whole shebang was supposed to be wrapped up earlier this week — a judge was supposed to decide if PGW goes to Perseus, NBN or some combination of the two. But the judge postponed the deicision, which, hey, if he’s anywhere near as confused as I am about this whole thing, I can’t really blame him. No word yet on Perseus’ top-secret strategy to cry out that they cannot bear to see PGW split in two and plea with the judge to spare PGW and give it to NBN, in the hopes that the judge will decide that Perseus is the real owner of PGW because it would rather see PGW go to a competitor than to see it harmed.
In a shocking turn of events, the first Anna Nicole Smith biography is already on the market! How did they get it out so fast?? Well, uh, actually it’s already been on the market. As the New York Times reports, Barricade Books was already planning a new edition of their Anna Nicole Smith biography GREAT BIG BEAUTIFUL DOLL prior to her death. The bizarre timing prompted the publisher of Barricade Books to clarify, “We didn’t kill her or anything.” Whew! The biography ends with the death of Anna Nicole Smith’s son and thus doesn’t include accounts of her recent death, but Barricade is reporting very strong interest.
And finally, according to this Publisher’s Weekly article, the blogosphere and listservosphere are all a-twitter because recent Newbery award winning author Susan Patron used the word “scrotum” in her middle grade novel THE HIGHER POWER OF LUCKY. A spirited debate has broken out between defenders of the author and those who fear the horrific effects of knowing the proper word for parts of human anatomy.Have a good weekend everyone!!
AS Meredith says
I LOVE the way you interpret the news. You should be on CNN.
Ryan Field says
Just found your blog and really like it. Nice to see a little testosterone in the world of agent blogging (no offense Miss Snark).
CMonster says
Um… in my school district, they gave us the lowdown on our gender’s anatomy (oh! So that’s what that is) in 5th grade and the opposite’s in 6th. And I live in the most conservative county in Ohio. Where’s the outcry? Where’s the defense of my unfortunate knowledge of the word urethra?
PeePee, may you rest in peace.
Roxan says
Sadly there are still children in the world who don’t know the proper term for their body parts.
In my district not only the girls get “the talk” in school, but now the boys do too.
Andrew says
Nathan,
I have a question.
Is there a difference between simultaneous queries and simultaneous submissions?
If so, I understand the rational for an agent stating that they would not like simultaneous submissions if that is inclusive of the agent reading and considering a full manuscript. What I don’t understand is if this policy extends to the query letter.
I have spent 3 months now querying agents and that has resulted in 3 queries and 2 rejections. If I were to subcribe to the policy of no simultaneous submissions and that policy included query letters and it took say, 24 queries just to get someone to bite, That is more than 2 years just getting someone to read a partial or a full at best.
Please explain this further if you have time.
Sincerly,
Andrew Wiberg
Nathan Bransford says
Andrew-
Yes, there’s a difference. Simultaneous submissions means, at least to me, the entire manuscript, which is different from simultaneous queries. It’s ok to send out multiple queries, but if an agent asks you for an exclusive look at a manuscript and you decide to grant it then that just means that any other agent who asks for it will need to wait until the other agent has had a chance to respond.