Rejection is my middle name

once again, trying to link

Will it work? I'm trying to make a link here it's my new review published last Sunday in the Portland Oregonian. But for the life of me, I'm not seemingly able to achieve this low standard of competence...

Always looking for new angles

yes, here at Publicity Central, we strive to be innovative and cutting edge. That's why we have so many podcasts and author photos and all that other crap we post. Ok, not really. In fact, as we write at this very moment we are  having a whole bunch of trouble understanding just what the fuck is happening to typepad's compose page, which allegedly has been "redesigned" or something - I DO NOT have time to figure all this bullshit out, people.
ANYWAY, www.todgoldberg.typepad.com suggested - oh let me backtrack a moment here....I have a very funny book called The Axis of Evil Cookbook from Saqi. I have sent it to alt weeklies and a few mags, none of who have touched it, but aforementioned Tod suggested I also investigate food blogs. So I am. And I found a remarkable selection of them here: wait, I give up - something is sooo not right here...back when I figure out what to do. Or not.

The Road to Hell, yes, it's

paved with good intentions - yup, just ask me. Okay, this "carbon footprint" crap is a tricky issue; I like to fly, I like to drive home for lunch, I like to keep the house heated when I am chilly...and I am chilly frequently. This isn't LA, you know. But still, I try to do SOMETHING. I've stopped buying bottled water, except when I'm on a long flight. And at the grocery store - that would be Safeway - where I buy about the same 5  things, over and over and over - they put every friggin' item in at least one of those horrible plastic bags. Then you go home and put them in another bag, and thankfully, you can now recycle them. Or they join that massive queue of like-minded bags near Hawaii, and float. And kill. Soooo, I now usually checkout and say, "I don't need a bag, thank you." But the poor clerks have all been brainwashed into robotically placing my six pack right into one anyway. So yesterday I bought said six pack and a half gallon of milk. I said, not in time - "I don't want a bag." And what happens? The young woman irritably pulls the six out of the DOUBLE bag she'd placed it in, and wads up the  bags and THROWS THEM AWAY under her register.
Sigh....

So you take a trip, and

you come home. It's  difficult enough dealing with the jet lag and the fact that you no longer live in London, Fun City, for sure, and then to top it off, you catch a doozy of a cold while traveling and when you arrive back, apparently something you ate on the plane? decides to make your nether region VERY VERY unhappy and...you know the rest. And then you decide, rather valiantly, I must  say, that dammit, you'll go to work anyway. And you do. You may not accomplish much of any significance, but these days, in America, it's all about form, not content, anyway, so that's fine. Monday you make it through, having arrived home late Friday and having spent the weekend in that peculiar blurred state known as where the fuck am I now? and Tuesday arrives, full of false optimism and crap in general. You begin the morning in  the office as you always do: checking your email. But on this particular day, Yahoo, to which you are inextricably linked, decides to play a funny cosmic joke: the messages start coming and then....they keep coming, all.day.long. In the time between 9am and 2pm, you are inundated with copies of virtually every message you have ever received. (I know, we all have a delete key, and by golly, we should - we REALLY should, be using it. But we're people, just a step above the intelligence of our dog - did I mention it was great to see the dog again? and we don't always do what we know is right.) To top off this egregious insult, no one to whom you have written to follow up on the trip has even, apparently - but who can be sure? - written back.
I want my bed. I want a drink. I want to start the day all over.

Those Frenetic self-publishers, god bless 'em.

If you would have asked me, even 2 years ago, would I be actively working with self-publishers, I would have said, well, rarely, maybe one a year, and given all the usual reasons why we honest flacks avoid these poor devils -- no real distribution, often shoddy, to put it mildly, production values, and frankly, self-publishers publish because real publishers...don't want them in the first place.
All true, but.
Right now in the mix I have two serious SP's, both of whom have made genuine efforts to avoid the abovementioned pitfalls, and I'm proud of them both. Good design, cafeful, even professional editing, even not-so-bad cover art...
And I may have another one coming soon, a YA novel by an actual YA er, but they ain't signed up yet. (Read: sent money.)
I'm encouraged; I'm sensing a change. Now the trick will be for distributors such as the very nice people at Partners West to continue stepping up to the plate (baseball is starting, alright?) and helping quality SP's who have promotion and marketing plans  to get the damn books in the stores....
I'm off to London  in about a week, and I'll try, honest, to BLOG from a FOREIGN COUNTRY. Try not to be overly excited, kids, it's not really all THAT foreign. They speak English and the main difference is they are generally very POLITE.

Readership Spiking; News at 11.....

Okay, nudged by fellow bloggette, mistress Names4things, I'm going to try REALLY REALLY hard to be a better and more responsible blooger, I mean blogger. It's Spring in the Bay area and the livin' is easy. Work abounds, due in part to the kindness of fellow publicists such as dear Adrienne who sent me a fascinating project I'm gearing up for: working with a new book about Marco Polo - hey, as a child I was into that guy, mythological or not. And we'll say NOT, because that's what the job is partly about.
Also in the mix is a smart, introspective travel memoir - that sounds like such a cliche, but...Laurie Gough's  book, "Kiss the Sunset Pig" transcends many of the rather superficial narratives on the market today. And don't miss the can't-stop-winning-prizes  fiction debut of John McLaughlin, "Run in the Fam'ly.
In terms of winding down, I feel good about Ruth Gendler and her deeply observant work, "Notes on the Need for Beauty" - Ruth was interviewed on Wisconsin Public Radio's To The Best of Our Knowledge in January - search for it, it's there - and nearing wrap up with New Mexico writer (and pr consultant) Pari Noskin Taichert who came to the Bay area recently in support of her third Sasha Solomon mystery, and with whom I shared a delicious Burmese lunch and showed a few of the sights to one fine recent Friday.
Finally, I was lucky enough to a) find out about and b) see, in an intimate setting (translation: small crowd) the almost ethereal singer Diana Jones whose pure and rich voice is currently blowing me right out of the kitchen as I listen to her while doing the dishes every night...check out the  link, and then go to her myspace page and hear 4 songs...you'll understand then. Or not.

Whither goest thou oh wussy little bloggy?

Does that actually make any sense at all? I think not. My, my, Feb is almost done, March has got to be a) warmer, b) lucrative, c) closer to London Book Fair. (Which of these got-to-be's is closest to the truth?
2008 has, I must admit, started rather unnervingly like 07 ended - flakey people who double as vampires, suck your brains out and then decide you're just not the one. But I do have some fun coming, see Clare Langely-Hawthorne's site as her second Edwardian mystery is coming later this year and we'll be gearing up for some fun, because Clare is both adorable and fun. Or perhaps you'd like to read my review of April Smith's new novel? If so, click HERE while it lasts - not sure how long the Oregonian keeps these things up....Sorry, April. Oh not really, because critics aren't cheerleaders, they're....critics.
In other news, that gorgeous creature also called DOG who has been featured here - too many times, according to my daughter, was bitten by a nasty dog at an off-leash park recently but she is recovered quite nicely and had her stitches removed yesterday. You may send get well cards to me and I'll be sure to pass them on. Woof.
And just to keep the medical theme going, yours truly had rotator cuff surgery just before Thanksgiving. The drugs are fine, but the stiff ongoing pain and rehab is, well, not so fine. But we persevere.
By all means visit Saqi Books and note some of their fine titles I am working on including Black Britain - A Photographic History, which made the NYT on Feb. 3. I'm too lazy to dig out a link  and it looked so fine in the middle of the page that the online version fails to do it justice...Hopefully, the NPR show, News and Notes will be interviewing the editor, Paul Gilroy, but no date is set just yet...Paul, please get back to me!
Other projects are simmering. This would be fine, but I'm getting hungry, if you know what I mean...

Here's a book to read

Here's my review from yesterday's Oregonian of a terrific novel, "by George."

Is it because Flickr is more fun?

I dunno. Time goes by, jobs come and go. We're riding a decent enough wave here at Rejection Central. I've survived a dreary liar-filled summer in which one flake after another called me, picked my brain, and left.me.behind.
But that's over now and the coast is clear. In fact SF is clear, too. Global Warming, it's great. Actually, October is always great in this area...
Working with nice Whereabouts Press who've just released another in their fine series of Literary Traveler's Companions - it's Ireland's turn now. Also currently - and lord, will it continue - stay tuned - working 3 titles from Chronicle Books and best of all from that have gotten to know the hilarious and engaging John Nichols - new novel is called The Empanada Brotherhood, and every time I get to talk to John - no email, mind you - it's just plain fun. He's famous for The Milagro Beanfield War, but the man is a writing machine...give him a Google kids, and learn all about him.
Also on deck is Paul Myers, whose lucid and well researched bio of Long John Baldry is just out..you can find Paul at his web site. Helping the charming and literate Teresa with her rollicking Lulu-published novel and if you go to her home you can learn all about it.
Saqi Books has some great stuff coming in January and the Spring, and well, as I'm at home, and my stomach is growling after a long walk with the best darn dog on the planet, I'm bailing out. Now

Blog? What Blog?

Yup, ignoring  the bloggie gets easier as you go along; time passes, you forget to click and see  that 3 people have found you, and most of them were doing an obsessive search for "Butch Rigby" for chrissakes, and you think, what the fuck do I really care. I'm not Tod - bursting with sizzling commentary and hilarious diatribes. No, really it's because if I get started about what a disaster this summer is proving to be, I may not be able to stop and the whine quotient will be overwhelming...even to a whiner like me.
But briefly, let's start with the engaging young guy and his marvelous, classy book project, his low 5 figure pr budget and his assurances that I would be the one. Okay, he flaked, big time. 'Nuff said. Then there  was the English as a second language author  who came with her historical epic to be published by a  publisher who will no longer exist by next spring and who pulled her book back, but why bother  to tell the person whom you have had  jump through hoops and write a detailed proposal? Beats me - manners? I dunno. Then there's a couple of shrinks who are certain the culture  will want to hear their views on their subject and to whom I essentially talk myself out of a job because, oh I don't know, reality must be addressed and only a news hook will get these guys the coverage they know they deserve. And then there's a fun travel book that is supposed to be happening about now except the author seems stuck in a country far far away and um, if she can't come, why would I be hired?
Yes, it's been  that kind of summer.
But I digress. Intentionally.
My review - boy do I miss writing for Pages, the book magazine no one read, and would sure like my last check, by the way - of the lovely Diana Abu-Jaber's odd new novel, Origin, appeared in the Oregonian on July 1 - you, lucky reader, can read it here. I liked it but with reservations. I love her though....well I think that's enough for now, don't you?