The Written Nerd

A lot of random stuff has caught my attention this week. Hope there's something here to pique your interest as well. - Publishers Weekly has this article about a brilliant idea: t-shirts as literary inside jokes (and a great fundraiser). Lou Bank, described as a "book marketing professional", has come up the Novel-Tees, project, a line of t-shirts advertising fictional businesses like Championship Vinyl, the record store from Nick Hornby's HIGH FIDELITY, and Mama's Restaurant from Andrew Vachss' series of Burke mysteries. The proceeds go to Protect.org, a political lobby dedicated to fighting child abuse (a subject I know is dear to lawyer Vachss' heart). They're being sold in bookstores as well as from the Protect.org website. The ALP and I were discussing the other day the fact that the best superhero t-shirts are the ones that just say "Daily Planet" or "Wayne Enterprises" -- they're like a souvenir right out of the fictional...

I've got a lot of wonky book stuff on my mind lately: statistical trends that show the growth of independent bookstores, attractive and productive ways of doing websites, methods of forming alliances with other local institutions, and not least, figuring out the specifics of writing a bookstore business plan (more on that soon...). But the wonky bookselling topic of today is the eternal conundrum of bookstore shelf organization. We've been working on redoing some displays in the store, and I've been thinking about my own bookstore: how one would develop an organizational system from scratch. Bookseller Chick has also been addressing this lately from the perspective of the beleaguered bookseller answering the author demanding "Where are my books?", with data from her readers about how they go about finding books; check out her enlightening discussion in the June 27, 28, and 29 posts for more aspects of this issue. You've got books. Your customers want books....

Hooray for finishing projects and holiday weekends! I spent the weekend in Great Gatsby mode, drinking on the porch and the beach and the lawn with smart lovely people at a house party in Connecticut, and got to pass along two of my favorite light/smart reads of late, TOLSTOY LIED and ACTION PHILOSOPHERS , the first compilation of the comic book about yeah, famous philosophers kicking butt. I haven't been doing as much blog reading as usual of late, so the links today will be few, but there are a few major happenings to report. Aubrey's Episode Soldier is exceeding expectations, with thoughtful and well-written posts on life in Moab and love of books. Her Summer Reading Series and Wednesday Poetry posts both look very promising, and I loved her love-note to my own favorite poet Elizabeth Bishop. Speaking of bookseller blogs, I came across this great list on a blog called Using Books. It looks like Jeff Sharman, the owner, hasn't posted here in a while, but his list is an ex...

You know that project that's been taking me away from the blog occasionally? Well, it's got a drop-dead due date this week, and I'm going to have to devote every spare minute to getting it done. That means it's a week without The Written Nerd. I promise I'll be back next Monday, and I'll have lots more time to devote to all things in the book world. This seems to be a vacation week for a lot of folks anyway, so let's meet up again on July 3. In the meantime, I'd love to have everyeone comment the heck out of the Emerging Leaders Night Out posts -- we're going to have to make some decisions about what the value of this project is, where it's going, who it should involve, and what it has the potential to do, and the more input the better. One specific question: what if a publishing house were to sponsor the next ELNO? Would that compromise the spirit of the thing, or would it be a good way to collaborate? What stipulations would keep this a communi...

Just wanted to point you all to Karen Schechner's brief but wide-ranging article in Bookselling This Week, "Project Brings Emerging Leaders Together In Venues Across The Country." She covers our Tuesday ELNO, as well as outlining the origins of the Emerging Leaders Project and mentioning existent and developing local manifestations of Emerging Leaders Projects across the country. If you work in a bookstore that has an American Booksellers Association membership and password, you can even log in to the Bookweb forum and discuss the article with other booksellers. And this week's issue has other cool articles about Independents Week, children's bookselling, the Quill Awards, and the new president of ABA. Enjoy, and have a great weekend!

Here are some more photos from Tuesday night which I've finally figured out how to post. Scroll down to the next post for a write up of Tuesday's Emerging Leaders Night Out (which is kindly linked today by Shelf Awareness). First, my fetching McNally Robinson coworker Allison, with her partner Todd, mystery writer and mastermind behind Thuglit : Here's an illustrious crown of book folks: from left to right, sales rep Sean of Parson Weems, editor John of Shelf Awareness, bookseller Amanda of Good Yarns Bookstore, and sales rep Ben from Farrar, Straus, Giroux. And finally, the ALF gets the chance to mug with the most punk rock man in publishing, Johnny Temple of Brooklyn's own Akashic Books: I wish I had thought to take more pictures, but I was having too much fun. Next time, perhaps? In the meantime, make your thoughts on the event heard in the comments section of my previous post. Thanks again to everyone who made it -- it was great to see ya!

I'll admit I was a little nervous yesterday about the long-awaited Emerging Leaders Night Out, as I always am before a party. Then I thought "Who am I kidding? All we have to do is turn up and drink beer! If people are there and beer is drunk, we will have a success." And so we did. I'm no Gawker, so forgive my shoddy photography skills and believe me that we had a great turnout and a good time was had by all. Not everyone who sent me an RSVP managed to make it out -- it was Tuesday night, it's New York, and life interferes. The upside was that in the crowd of about 25, everyone got a chance to meet everyone. The Brazen Head , our chosen location as a Brooklyn landmark and great beer bar, came through with some drink bracelets that gave everyone in our party happy hour prices all evening long. (I got to pass out bracelets, and felt like those posh girls at the entrances of clubs... except having more fun.) The only downside to the cheap drinks was that everyone ha...