Dear Gap, the advertising slate is pretty full, so please act now!
Dear Betsy,
Did you know…your book, The Forest for the Trees, is out of stock in Australia. Bookstores have to order it from USA. And it has been like that for a few months…it’s not normal, you are losing readers and customers!!
As an author, if you know (from your spy ring around the world) there are public demands for your book, do you have the power to influence your publisher’s decision regarding the distribution of your book?
I know…we only represent a potential of 22 million readers/customers in Australia…it’s not a reason for neglecting us…so, do you mind forwarding my email to your publisher? If it’s not enough we’ll organize a petition. Thanks Betsy.
Dear Nicole Kidman:
This is an outrage. I had heard rumor of a spotty stock situation in NZ and Mumbai, but this is OUTRAGEOUS. What’s worse, come to New Fucking Haven, CT and you won’t find books in the YALE bookstore, the Barnes & Noble near the movies, or at Atticus. My own home town. Every bookstore I’ve ever gone to in the last number of years has not had the book in stock. More galling, every time I stalk the writing shelves (and it can only be described as stalking or skulking), right there in the smack middle of the L’s is Anne Lamott, Bird by Bird, like a poke in the eye. And I really like her book. How then does my darling stay in print if you can never find it, you ask. I believe it’s the internet and piracy. Mostly piracy. But miracle of miracles, I get a check twice a year and it is the sweetest money ever earned. I usually do something fun and kooky with it, like pay my babysitter for a couple of weeks.
Speaking of babysitters, how is Sunday Rose?
Thanks again for the shout out, sister.
Love, Betsy
Where do you get most of your books?
Filed under: Authors, Books, Booksellers | 21 Comments »
Last night, I went to PEN’s annual gala dinner. It was held in the whale room of the Natural History Museum. When I was in college, I briefly worked for party decorator and one of our jobs was the whale room. How is it, thirty years later, I feel as if I better fit in with the wait staff and the young man with a gorgeous crown of dreadlocks frantically trying to get every candle on every last table lit? And I was so unhappy then! All I wanted was to be grown up and have a profession since I decided early on that love would probably not be in the cards. And now that I am here, a person in her own right, what?
On Thursday, April 22, 2010, I attended an event at Regis High School in Manhattan. It was in celebration of my client’s book, 
I once went out a bathroom window during a blind date. Said date had a cockatoo and exactly one book in his apartment, prominently displayed on his coffee table: U R WHAT YOU DRIVE. He lived on the ground floor in “rustic style” condo development that boasted big bathroom windows. I actually sacrificed a leather jacket I had recently bought at Loehmann’s and left it on his “coat rack” because I couldn’t face him, the cockatoo, or the book. (In all honesty, the coat, like most stuff you buy at Loehmann’s, wasn’t that great so “sacrifice” is a reach.)
I’ve been whining for a while about being stuck with my writing. Pathetic. Finally, had a breakthrough over the last week (or maybe it’s my meds talking), but I feel that I’ve taken the project a few big steps forward. Mother may I? Yes, you may. And in the middle of all this new writing came the title for the screenplay as if on a silver platter with a great roast upon it. The title not only galvanized me into figuring out what the motherfucker is really about, but it also suggested a new structure, which is like getting a new engine in a car.
I ruin another morning yet again. Downstairs, my husband reads Delillo’s new novel. He’s been up since dawn, reading, making notes in his tiny Catholic trained script. He is completely energized by some idea or sentence and he wants to talk about it. I make a face that can only be interpreted as: you’re not going to make me talk about writing. He wonders aloud how I do this for a living given how much contempt I have for most conversations about writing. He says he’ll never bring it up again. I say, good.
Hi Betsy,
Betsy Lerner 