And meetings #2 and #3 are done with as well. Phew.

Got some interesting news today. I’m going to be handling ebooks for one of my accounts as well. It doesn’t make sense for P & E to be sold and handled as separate accounts but I’m hesitant to get excited because I’m still doing all of my old job as they haven’t hired a replacement. 

Also on a totally unrelated note. One of our editors is leaving to go to an imprint that is going to be part of the Random/Penguin merger. Since they haven’t officially announced how they are handling the layoffs (heard a rumor that personnel is going to be the same split as the finances 53 RH/47 Penguin) I just don’t know if I’d be transferring in before the merger happened in case I’m jobless by October.

I don’t know what it’s like to work in an industry for 20+ years. I don’t know what it’s really like to do a job without email and systems to aid and/or complicate my job.

But I’d like to think that regardless of my age, I would learn to embrace the new especially when it’s clear that it’s becoming “the way” for my industry. 

Analysis is important. Getting estimates and comps right, is important. Filling out your title information so they can get into a data feed, CRITICAL. 

This is kind of what I want to do when I’m done with my MBA. 

http://www.publishersmarketplace.com/jobs/view.cgi?job_no=9582

Hopefully a job like that will be open again in 3 years.

starrynightlatte replied to your post: starrynightlatte replied to your post: I really…

I’m pretty interested in learning about both marketing and sales. So far, I’ve had two internships and both have been at literary agencies. They’ve been great, but I’ve become interested in working in other departments as well.

Every single one of my internships in college was editorially based and I thought for a bit that was what I wanted to do. After the NYU SPI, I knew editorial wasn’t really for me, and I wanted to try something more on the business side of publishing. I really only got into this area specifically because I needed a job when I moved to NYC and there weren’t that many jobs open. I was interviewing for agency assistant, subsidiary rights, marketing & sales positions of different varieties, just something in that kind of wheelhouse. 

I enjoy working in sales more than I actually anticipated. You get to work with the titles, meet people from a variety of companies, and you get to learn about the nitty gritty of shipments, warehouse stuff, and print on demand. 

Good luck figuring things out! Ask for informational interviews from people in other departments at your internships. People are usually happy to give those.  

Blergh, blergh, blergh.

I’ve been working on adding comp titles to my buy reports all day. Some day I hope that our editors will understand what makes a good comp title because I know I’m tired of redoing their work. 

The silver lining is that I become very familiar with our backlist and what is on the market in that category/subject area. So, I guess that’s a perk. But I would be just as happy to read over all of this and not spend 8 hours fixing up data.

“News” from ShelfAwareness

Big Six Become Big One

It’s been a tumultuous weekend in publishing.

Following the purchase of Goodreads by Amazon and reports that the European Union will approve the Random House-Penguin merger—which has already been blessed by antitrust regulators in the U.S., Australia and New Zealand—American publishers jumped on the consolidation bandwagon. The result, announced late last night: the merger of the Big Six into a single U.S. mega-publisher. As one senior publishing executive said, “If you can’t beat ‘em, become ‘em.”

High-level conversations began Thursday night after the Amazon-Goodreads announcement with a few furtive chats between U.S. heads of houses on burner phones and via handwritten notes folded into paper airplanes. Initially, HarperCollins and Hachette were in discussions to merge, while Simon & Schuster and Macmillan worked on an agreement to hook up. But soon those two groups began discussing a larger merger that would be a counterweight to Penguin Random House. That development alarmed executives at Random House and Penguin, who argued that there was a larger force to reckon with. As night fell on Easter Sunday, executives of the Big Six came to a historic agreement, after which they celebrated with a dinner at Picholine.

“In the interests of a semblance of competition,” the publishing giant said it will have two operating groups. One, under the aegis of Random House, combines HarperCollins and Hachette and will be called Random Ha Ha, while the other, under Penguin, comprises Macmillan and Simon & Schuster, and will be called SSMac Penguin.

The CEOs of all six publishers will constitute a managing directorate and be co-co-co-co-co-co CEOs. Efficiencies resulting from the mergers will lead to downsizing in less essential areas such as editorial, publicity, sales and marketing, warehouse operations and customer service. In one of its first moves, Random Ha Ha/SSMac Penguin indicated that it is absorbing Bookish, which will be rebranded ReallyGoodReads.

While the new company has not received formal approval of the U.S. Justice Department, speaking yesterday at the White House at a ceremony honoring his appointment to the Amazon board of directors, Attorney General Eric Holder spoke favorably of the megamerger, saying, “Frankly I’m surprised that even with the lawsuit, it took publishers so long to understand that the Obama administration supports monopolies. With this change, we may have to revisit the e-book agency model pricing case.”

The creation of a single mega publisher will have many ramifications in the business. For example, while the new house may not take as much space overall at BEA as it would separately, its five booths are still likely to be one of the largest sections at the Javits Center. Parties during BEA may be held at the same site on consecutive nights, serving the same food and drink.

Reaction to the merger varied. Authors Guild president Scott Turow issued a statement decrying the move as “a further blow to the culture of diversity in our diverse culture” while several literary agents expressed concern that publishers will no longer offer “a diversity of bids” for clients’ work.

In the spirit of the holidays, several observers noted a Holy Week parallel, saying that while the publishing industry had recently been crucified by Amazon and the Justice Department, through the merger it has been resurrected. Others drew inspiration from Passover, which also took place during the past week, and, of course, celebrates the people of the book’s liberation from slavery and their trek to the Promised Land. —John Mutter

Geez. Just got out of a very long meeting with my biggest client. If I had to rate the meeting I’d give it a 8 out of 10 for successful conversation, but I get really frustrated with the way that personal in-house conflicts are easy to pick up to outside people.

Oh well. At least my job is to be the rep and make sure that we’re selling the books and getting them the info that they need, and so far I’m doing what they want.

Once Upon a Time Book Series

So apparently Hyperion (Disney owned) is coming out with a series tie-in for Once Upon a Time the ABC show. 

Sometimes I feel that we just need to let a good book be a book, and let tv shows be tv shows. I’m not sure how I feel about saturating the market in all entertainment formats. Fans of the show, how do you feel about a book series? 

You can read about it here thanks to EW’s ShelfLife.