BookExpoCast

At each year’s BEA, the Emerging Voices session features up-and-coming authors who deserve to have their voices heard. Coinciding with the thematic focus on debut fiction at this year’s show, five top new fiction authors were chosen to talk about and read from their novels.

Featured authors included: Peter Charles Melman, author of Landsman, Nancy Horan, author of Loving Frank, Justin Evans, author of A Good and Happy Child, Anita Amirrezvani, author of The Blood of Flowers, and Ron Currie Jr., author of God Is Dead.

What possessed Bill Barnes and Gene Ambaum to write a comic strip about a library? And how do they keep tens of thousand of librarians around the globe laughing every day?

In this BEA 2007 session, the co-creators of Unshelved discuss their inspiration for this project and what makes libraries so darned funny.

At last year’s BEA the Turf Wars panel discussion, focusing on international rights issues between US and UK publishers, turned into a heated and passionate debate. This year’s Turf Wars II: Caught in the Crossfire – How Authors, Booksellers, Distributors and Others are Impacted by the U.S./UK Territorial Imbroglio, promised a kinder, gentler exchange.

This panel was led by Brian DeFiore of DeFiore & Co. and featured Chitra Bopardikar of Publishers Group West/Perseus, Lynn Kaplanian Buller of American Book Center in Amsterdam, Kim McArthur of McArthur & Co, and Jill Sansone of Hyperion.

It’s no secret our country’s newspapers are suffering from decreased readership and resources. As decision-makers cut costs and features, the book review is often one of the first to see the chopping block.

To help fight this alarming trend, National Book Critics Circle President John Freeman, who moderates this panel discussion, has launched the Campaign to Save Book Reviews. He is joined by a distinguished group of panelist who are directly impacted by the loss of the newspaper book review. Speakers include: Stacey Lewis of City Lights Books, Melissa Turner of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Heidi Julavits of The Believer, Oscar Villalon of the San Francisco Chronicle, literary blogger Maud Newton, and Michael Merschel of the Dallas Morning News.

This BEA 2007 session, hosted by Brigid Hughes of A Public Space, brings together five of the industry’s top publishers. Each shares with us their top debut fiction novels for the upcoming season.

Hughes is joined by Judy Clain of Little Brown, Jonathan Karp of Twelve, Fred Ramey of Unbridled Books, Rob Weisbach of Weinstein Books, and Jordan Pavlin of Knopf. Listen in to discover the books that are creating a buzz in the industry!

This session, hosted by BEA Director Lance Fensterman, was born out of the BEA Lit Insiders group on Shelfari.com. This group, comprised of industry insiders as well as everyday book lovers, chose one new author that they wanted to hear more from at BEA. Matthew Eck, author of The Farther Shore, was chosen to be the featured author at BEA.

Fensterman, Eck, and Shelfari co-founder Josh Hug discuss The Farther Shore, Shelfari, and the power of similar social networking sites that are connecting book lovers from around the globe.

In this BEA 2007 session, author, librarian hall of famer, and liaison extraordinaire Nancy Pearl focuses the spotlight and dialogue on the best of new and forthcoming titles from some of the industry’s largest publishing houses.

Pearl is joined by a distinguished group of publishing professionals who are focused on informing librarians about the best new books to put on their shelves. Speakers include: Marcia Purcell of Random House, Nora Rawlinson of Hachette Book Group, Talia Ross of Holtzbrinck Publishers, and Virginia Stanley of HarperCollins.

This panel discussion, sponsored by Beyond the Book, searches for signs of a renaissance in 2007 for “serious” sportswriting – identifying books and writers that are moving beyond celebrating today’s championships, and glorifying star players, toward seeing sports and athletes from all angles, including sports as integral to the global entertainment business, the lost and found art of sports-writing, and what truly makes a winning sports book.

Christopher Kenneally, Director of Author and Creator Relationships for the Copyright Clearance Center, leads this timely discussion. Kenneally is joined by David Maraniss, Associate Editor of The Washington Post, Cait Murphy, Senior Editor of Fortune, Peter Golenbock, author of 7:The Mickey Mantle Novel and nearly 17 other sports-related books and Starling Lawrence, Vice President and Editor-in-Chief of W.W. Norton & Company.

In 1989, the NBCC (National Book Critics Circle) published an extensive survey of ethics in book reviewing by Philadelphia Inquirer literary critic Carlin Romano, drawing on responses from NBCC members about whether it’s ever okay not to read a whole book before reviewing it and similar moral dilemmas.

This panel discussion, sponsored by the NBCC, poses a similar survey to a distinguished group of authors and critics to see what, if anything, has changed since the original survey was taken. Romano, who hosts this spirited discussion, is joined by John Leonard, a critic for the New York Review of Books, David Ulin, Book Editor for the LA Times, Sam Tanenhaus, New York Times Book Review Editor, and authors Francine Prose and Christopher Hitchens.

Over the past several years, English language books have been given increased shelf space in traditionally non-English reading countries. As this trend continues, publishers are searching for more ways to infiltrate these new markets. Ruediger Wischenbart, Principal of Content and Consulting, leads this diverse panel of experts. Together, they identify trends of English reading in relation to the fastest growing market segments.

Speakers include: Pascal Zimmer of Libri Germany, Francoise Dubrouille of the International Booksellers Federation, Esther Allen of Columbia University, and Peter Clifton of Ingram International.

Since its launch in 2003, MySpace has not only been an internet phenomenon, but has helped boost the careers of numerous bands, comics, and filmmakers. In this BEA session, MySpace for Authors and Publishers: Everything You Need to Know to Make it Payoff, the publishing industry gets a first-hand lesson in how to make this social-networking site work for them.

Led by Lindsay Tredent and Christine Moore of MySpace, this panel is full of first hand knowledge from authors and publishers who have utilized MySpace to boost book sales. Featured speakers include: Miriam Parker of Hachette Book Group, Josh Kilmer-Purcell, author of I Am Not Myself These Days, Kevin Callahan of HarperCollins, Barry Lyga, author of The Astonishing Adventures of Fanboy and Gothgirl, Richard Nash of Soft Skull Press, and Trevor Kelly and Leslie Simon, co-authors of Everybody Hurts: An Essential Guide to Emo Culture.

The dominant role of religion in politics and culture in recent years has produced a backlash, evidenced by the rise of a new subcategory—the anti-religion books. The past two years have brought a striking number of impassioned critiques of religion—any religion, but Christianity in particular—and calls for a return to reason rather than faith as a guiding principle.

Sarah Crichton, co-author of A Mighty Heart, and a distinguished group of panelists take a gloves-off approach to what they see as the sins of religion. Crichton is joined by Christopher Hitchens, author of God is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything, Nica Lalli, author of Nothing: Something to Believe In, and Victor Stenger, scientist and author of God: The Failed Hypothesis. How Science Shows That God Does Not Exist.

Editor’s Note: If you’d like to hear more from Nica Lalli and Victor Stenger, please visit the Authors Studio section of bookexpocast.com. In separate interviews, Lalli and Stenger discussed their new books with us during this year’s BEA Show in New York City.

Nica Lalli’s Authors Studio Interview
Victor Stenger’s Authors Studio Interview

Uncertainty and apprehension for staking a claim on China’s mainland can make fence-sitters of even the most aggressive market seekers. However, there have been a handful of publishing risk-takers who have painstakingly set up shop to publish books to this massive market.

Robert Baensch, author of The Publishing Industry in China, leads this panel in a discussion focusing on how to grapple with China’s political, institutional, social and technical hurdles. Panel speakers for this Educational Program included: Karen Christensen of Berkshire Publishing, Jo Lusby of Penguin China, Joan O’Neil of John Wiley and Sons, and Michael Wester of True Run Media.

Will Schwalbe is Senior VP and Editor-in-Chief of Hyperion. David Shipley is Deputy Editorial Page and Op-Ed page editor of the New York Times. Together, they are authors of the new book Send: The Essential Guide to Email for Office and Home.

In this BEA 2007 session, Schwalbe and Shipley discuss the main ways publishing people mess up on email — and how we can all email better. They share stories of their own mistakes, as well as examples (and top peeves) from booksellers, editors, authors, agents, publicists, and reps.