Fine Books Blog

Book Expo

I'm in Los Angeles today, getting ready to head out for my second day at BEA (Book Expo America), the annual convention that brings together publishers, bookstore owners, and everyone else interested in the new-book trade. It fills the LA convention center. The coolest thing for me was seeing Fine Books among the two-dozen or so sample titles that our distributor brought to the fair. Perhaps most interesting to collectors was the dramatic reduction in the number of Advance Reading Copies in evidence, compared to past years. In past years, it was not uncommon to see dozens of people staggering under the weight of the free ARCs they picked up. I only saw one yesterday. I've written about publishers' concerns about the collector's market for advance copies here.

I stopped by Amazon's large Kindle booth, and there was a bit of excitement, but not nearly as much as I expected. And they only seemed to have six sample machines, which made it hard for gawkers to get a look at it. I've tried one before - it was pretty good, but hard to hold without accidentally turning the page.

Win a Bookseller for a Day - Last Chance!

Just a reminder, today is the last day to enter AbeBooks Win a Bookseller for a Day contest. The winner will have a professional bookseller sent to their house to evaluate their book collection and will be featured in Fine Books magazine.

Girl in the Hood

It's finally leaked out. The news accounts about Margaret "Peggy" Seltzer's fake memoir about growing up in foster care in South Central Los Angeles frequently mentioned the promotional video her publisher produced of Seltzer touring her old 'hood. The video has found it's way to YouTube. Without further ado, we present (via Galley Cat), Girl in the 'Hood, or Lies and Consequences. Best line, "I hope to god I'm a role model now."

She even manages to dis used bookstores at the end of the clip (about minute 8) for not paying enough for used textbooks: "You only get pennies on the dollar" for used textbooks. She says she encourages students to donate their books to prisons and works with bookstores to mail them (most jails will allow shipments from bookstores but not individuals). After it broke that she didn't actually live in foster care or grow up in South Central, it was revealed that her "foundation" was fake, too.