PowellsBooks.Blog

Is it Friday already? And I was just getting started.

God, what a week. I didn't get nearly enough done, but that's par for the course.

Now I'll respond to some of the posts.

Re E-books and comics. I totally understand how converting all text into digital information is inevitable and will help immensely regarding research and text books. Go for it, tekkies. But novels? Biographies? Poetry? Not gonna happen. And publishers that continue to invest in the idea are throwing good money after bad. E-comic? Not my thing at all, though I understand that's the only viable option for some cartoonists. Though I sort of look at it like I look at musicians playing in the subway, which is: "If you're any good, why are you playing in the subway?"

Re the "C-bomb," look — I hate that word too and rarely use it. But the thing is I HATE that woman, so it seemed entirely appropriate. Plus it was a pun on her name (a silly one, yes, but that's what puns are for). I also agree with the "we're all grown-ups" line. I think profanity is like Tabasco. If you use just enough of it at just ...

Hello my Collective Sweetness,

I just got word that Anderson Cooper's Dispatches from the Edge will land at #1 on the New York Times Bestseller List for Non-Fiction on June 18th. This is great news, for many reasons. Let us (me) muse on a few of them.

1. I did the jacket. Which, I'll admit, was pretty much a no-brainer. Take one gorgeous person, combine with fire, add repeating author name that mimics the CNN crawl. Done!

2. This is an utterly deserved success. A terrific book with something to say by a thoroughly likeable famous person. Pretty rare.

3. He's no James Frey. It's all true, and Mr. Cooper has more guts and integrity in one of his silvery eyelashes than Mr. Million Pieces ever will in his entire prevaricated carcass.

4. Much better, he's no Ann Coulter (no link to that bee-yatch, please). Or Ann Cunter, as I like to call her, though the less time I spend using brain-space on that Godless (boy, is THAT the right title), narcissistic, ball-chewing shrew, the better.

5. Seriously, this is nothing less than a victory for Sanity, Decency, and Quality. A respite from the spate of invective-spewing Right-versus-Left-versus-everything-else slappy-fight books ...

Hello, my cherubs,

As we in publishing know, there is relatively little money in the book business — compared to other forms of entertainment, say Television, Music, or Movies. And for years I've taken solace in one of the few advantages to this fact: at least we as creative people in this industry don't have to deal with, shudder, Focus Groups. You know, those little Nuremberg trials people in Advertising hold to determine if the great unwashed are going to prefer Stayfree Maxipads in a blue box or a yellow box. Let's face it: We're simply not going to test the ending of John Updike's latest novel to see if it skews well with girls between the ages of 12 and 16. Ditto the jacket design. And I thank God for that, every day.

So imagine my horror at reading an article, in this week's Publishers Weekly, about a publisher of legal advice books named Nolo Press which announced it has "taped more than 50 hours of focus group feedback and tested redesigned books in mock stores to come up with a compelling design" for its titles. And that this ...

Okay, babe-a-leenies, I've got the jump on this one. Technically, it's tomorrow and I'm hereby filing my pointless report on time. Speaking of which, it's 1:15 in the morning. I am defintely more relaxed, having had a terrific midnight meal at one of my favorite haunts, Yakitori Totto, on west 55th street, near 8th ave, on the same block as my office in midtown west Manhattan. This place is amazing, and serves til one — later the rest of the week. You'd swear you were in Tokyo as you order off the byzantine grilled chicken menu (hearts, livers, tails, skin, knee bones, you name it, all grilled to perfection on little wooden skewers). And yes, they offer (wait for it)...chicken sashimi. Seriously. No, I have not yet summoned the courage. Cock-a-fucking-doodle-doo.

So, of course, I remembered the other things I have to do this week, immediately after I posted Monday.

• Design a cover for a play by Cormac McCarthy, entitled Sunset Limited.
• Do same for Kim Deitch's new graphic novel, Alias The Cat, which I am also editing. And which rules.
• Reconfigure my design for the Surprise CD by Paul Simon in order to adapt it

...

Wow, we're off to a flying start here, aren't we? I totally spaced out and didn't get to this till seven p.m. Pathetic. I never should have agreed to do this, because I don't really have the "diary gene." I never kept one as a child — why write down your deepest, secret thoughts when you can think them in your head, where they belong? And like I'd really need someone to "discover" them. What fun.

It's also the worst possible week to take this on, because here at the Knopf art department we close the Summer 2007 catalogue on Friday, and I'm totally, utterly behind in my titles. And this is the only night this week I can work late.

Isn't this fascinating? Have you passed on to the web-porn of your choice yet? God knows I would have.

Anyway, enough whining. I must take stock. Here is a list of what I have to do this week:

1. Design a cover for Christina Garcia's forthcoming novel, A Handbook to Luck.
2. Construct and photograph a miniature set for Martin Amis's new novel, House of Meetings. By Thursday morning.
3. Redesign a poster for

...