Re: ebook sales

Lizzie Burton took an ax,
     Giving Noel 40 whacks.
Showing she was clearly pissed,
    She claimed he's not a journalist.

"Oh, but Lizzie," he replied,
    Showing that he had not died,
"Forgive me if I am contrary
   I know your book line's literary.

"Zumaya's standards are so high,
   Could that be heaven drawing nigh?
No e-rotic e-books there
   To tempt the id of ladies fair.

"But wait! What's this?
    Something more than a sterile kiss
Is written in the high-flown diction
   Of your line called 'Women's Fiction?'"

So, I'm not a journalist? Well, maybe not, and I'm not sure the label is very important. For those of you who don't know me - if you're at all interested - I've got two degrees in English and one in journalism, Phi Beta Kappa, Phi Kappa Phi, from the University of Wisconsin. I was a newspaper reporter and editor in Chicago - also a radio newscaster there. Probably picked up a few tricks of the trade, especially when I was reporting on syndicate crime in Chicago. Served for a few years as an Army officer, mostly overseas with the First Cavalry Division - you know, "Apocalypse Now." Decorated. Worked for Prentice Hall in New York after that (well, actually, Englewood Cliffs, N.J., across the river). Taught journalism at the University of Wisconsin and University of Georgia for more than 11 y
 ears. Left to head the PR function at the nation's largest petroleum products pipeline. Retired in 1999, and created Anvil Publishers to keep me busy and my mind active. (Along the line, I wrote 17 books, all nonfiction, mostly about public relations and health topics.) Anvil has gradually evolved into a firm where the main profit lines are remainders brokering and brokering of  publishing houses and other literary properties. On the remainders side, we currently rep some 350 titles with a retail value at SRP in excess of $14 million. On the publishing house and literary properties brokering side, we currently have for sale some $16 million in properties. While I mostly write contracts now, I still write a news release or two every month to stay in practice. Last one, about "naughty nigh
 tie novels" publisher Mardi Gras going belly up, slightly outpulled the announcement of the award of the 2007 Nobel Prize for Literature on Google's "book publishing" category.

Yeah, I'm down on the sleazy practices of some of the e-rotica e-book publishers, but so is Nora Roberts, the diva of romance writers, with more than 260 million books in print.

As for the Southern Review, I write that for the pure unadulterated hell of it. It's no big deal - it draws in at most around 300,000 unique visitors per year to our Web sites. When it stirs up someone like Lizzie, I get the feeling I might be more a columnist rather than a journalist - but that I'm doing a fair job of it wearing either hat.
 

Noel Griese, Anvil Publishers, Inc., Atlanta, GA
[email protected]
www.anvilpub.com, www.anvilpub.net, www.energypipelinenews.com

[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]



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