Tattered Essence

The Publishers Association of the West has announced the dates for its National Publishing Conference on and industry trade show: November 13-15. The show will take place in Portland, OR. It will follow-up on the 2007 “Digital World” conference focusing on how industry members and organizations can use technology to their advantage.

Proposals from industry members for speakers and topics are welcome. Those interested in submitting must do should go to www.pubwest.org; submissions must arrive by March 14. For additional information, or questions, executive director Kent Watson can also be contacted at kent@pubwest.org.

If the name sounds familiar it is with good reason. Arianna Huffington is the founder of the successful HuffingtonPost.com. And she’s been in the media for some time.

Well, Arianna Huffington has a new book on the way that I am pretty excited about. Her previous books include On Becoming Fearless, Pigs at the Trough and Maria Callas. Her new books is Right Is Wrong: How the Lunatic Fringe Hijacked America, Shredded the Constitution, and Made Us All Less Safe. Knopf will publish it on April 29, 2008.

The book targets Bob Woodward of the Washington Post and Tim Russert, moderator of Meet the Press, as moderators of the Republican agenda. So it should be a good politically charged book!

Last week the Mystery Writers of America announced the finalists for the 2008 Edgar Awards. There were 35 books and five short stories selected as this year’s Edgar Awards nominees.

It was no surprise that titles from the large New York houses dominated the eight out of the 13 categories dealing with books. But one small press in the mix.

Wisconsin press Bleak House Books saw three of its 15 titles from this past year nominated. Bleak House Books in Madison is an imprint of Big Earth Books. They have been nominated for 2008 Edgar Awards in three different categories: Soul Patch by Reed Farrel Coleman (Best Novel), Head Games by Craig McDonald (Best First Novel), and “Blue Note” by Stuart M. Kaminsky from the Chicago Blues collection (Best Short Story).

“This kind of recognition goes a long way towards validating the efforts we’ve made the last three years, growing the company, while staying true to our vision,” Ben LeRoy, Bleak House publisher, said. LeRoy and Alison Janssen, Bleak House editor, plan on attending the Edgar Awards ceremony, which will be held at the Grand Hyatt Hotel in New York City on May 1, 2008.

Beginning this month, Brownstone Books will take over the Brooklyn Academy of Music’s bookstore. It was previously handled by Manhattan-based Shakespeare & Co. Brownstone Books is an African-American oriented bookstore located in Brooklyn. It has been around since 2000.

Crystal Bobb-Semple opened Brownstone Books with her husband in 2000. She said that the Brooklyn Academy of Music approached Brownstone to take over their store because it was looking to partner with a local Brooklyn bookseller. Bobb-Semple created Brownstone to be a gathering point in the Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood.

If you are starting up a publishing company there are a few things that you will need to get.

One of those things are some ISBNs.

If you are publishing books or calendars or whatever through your company you will need ISBNs. You can buy a block of 10 or 100. Never buy a single ISBN as you cannot do that. If someone is selling you a single ISBN it means that they own a block of them and they will be listed in databases as the publisher instead of you!

Bowker is who you want to get your ISBNs from.