Houston’s ‘Little Couple’ stars among those at N.Y. book expo
NEW YORK — Penguin Random House is rolling out free ebook excerpts from a handful of its titles to riders on an Amtrak express train. HarperCollins is putting classic kids’ books in McDonald’s Happy Meals.
Publishers are turning to innovative partnerships like these along with welldefined digital plans to attract new readers and keep them.
“From acquisition to backlist marketing, we’re getting the digital team in place from the very beginning,” Liz Perl of Simon & Schuster said Wednesday, the opening day of the country’s leading annual book event.
The three-day Book-Expo America is the place to schmooze with literary types, to find out which titles publishers will push hardest in the coming months, to snatch up free books, to stand in line for book-signings and, in some cases, to hear major authors discuss upcoming titles.
The International Digital Publishing Forum, a global trade and standards organization for digital publishing, scheduled two days of panel sessions addressing marketing and branding. Publishing insiders also grappled with the challenges of catering personally to today’s readers, as technology offers increased access to individuals’ online interests.
But some worry that amid all the branding creativity and digital outreach, the book business is starting to lose its way.
“Writing is an art form that should be used to edify, illuminate and advance culture,” said Houston-based Ed Nawotka of Publishing Perspectives, a trade journal covering the global book business. “But the book business is hit-driven. We haven’t had a big global hit since ‘Fifty Shades of Gray.’ Some of the top books in the country right now are coloring books. That’s something we all need to worry about.”
Among the 600 authors at the Javits Center was novelist Jonathan Franzen. He talked to a standing-room-only crowd about his upcoming book, “Purity,” — and the ickiness of the word “purity,” whose connotations are so dark in Germany that the book will get an alternate title there. The multigenerational novel focuses on a young woman named Purity with a mysterious family history who sets out to find her father.
In the expo’s slow-moving sea of colorful book bags, funky glasses and comfy shoes, Texas was well-represented.
Jennifer Arnold and Bill Klein, the Houston doctor and her husband who star in TLC’s “The Little Couple,” were busy signing copies of “Life Is Short (No Pun Intended)” and posing for photos with fans.
The new book from Arnold and Klein looks back at their respective childhoods and teenage struggles with dwarfism.
“It was fun to write together,” said Arnold, who works at Baylor College of Medicine and Texas Children’s Hospital. “No fights! A lot of him saying, ‘You can’t go to bed yet.’ ”
Austin author and Travis County prosecutor Mark Pryor, best known for his crime fiction novels featuring Hugo Marston, signed galleys of his upcoming standalone title, “Hollow Man,” from Prometheus Books.
“It’s about a psychopath named Dominic — not your stabby kind of psychopath but one who flies under the radar — who’s based in Austin,” said Pryor.
Like Pryor, Dominic is an Englishman in Austin and a prosecutor.
“My wife was a little worried about all the similarities,” joked the author.