Agency Moves, Or, No Unpublished Authors Need Apply

ICM and Andrew Wylie were wed but the union did not produce universal love and solidarity, if the latest rumblings in the agenting world are any indication.

Jeff Berg, ICM chairman, has started up his own agency, and he's taking a few of his ICM colleagues with him.

Ari Emanuel did the same thing when he bolted along with a few other mates from ICM and founded the Endeavor agency, which they then merged with the old William Morris agency to form a serious threat to ICM's position of power.

You'd have to guess that if Mr. Berg were happy with the direction ICM is going that he would have stuck around to do battle against the likes of Ari Emanuel, who is so well known in Hollywood that he had an entire HBO television series based on his antics.

Instead, Mr. Berg and his as yet unnamed band will form a new agency, to be called Resolution.

Not as catchy as "Endeavor" but still succinct and to the point. Sounds a bit too much like vows made on New Year's Eve in a drunken stupor, but the name isn't all that important. It's the names of the agents under that banner that matter.

The plan is to set up twenty-five agents in Los Angeles and another ten in Nashville (don't let anyone tell you that country music isn't hot). Those agents will all be established, with a roster of clients that they will bring to Resolution.

Which means talent will be leaving ICM and whatever other agencies lose agents to Mr. Berg.

Clearly, Resolution won't be in need of talent that hasn't been proven. If you're looking for an agent and you don't have a string of blockbuster books trailing in your wake, don't bother applying. If you are so fortunate, well, they'd be calling you, wouldn't they?

Where you'll want to search is lower down the food chain, as those up high who lose talent seek to siphon off the next level of talent from other agencies, who in turn look to replace what they have lost.

At some point, you'll find agents who are willing to take a chance because they need authors bringing in royalties to fill the slots of those authors who were lured to other agencies seeking to replace those who followed their agent elsewhere.

Agency moves can open up more doors for writers who are struggling for admittance. It's just a question of watching the next set of developments and figuring out where to take your manuscript.

Easier said than done, of course.

You still have to be telling the right story at the right time at the right place. The odds might shift ever so slightly, with the disturbance in the force that will be Resolution. But they're still very much not in your favor.

Not What Was Intended By "Storage"

Art museums have more pieces than they can exhibit at any one time, and when a museum has to be refurbished, that only adds to the need for storage.

Storage normally means that the works are put someplace safe, kept under lock and key until such time as they can be returned to the museum.

Killarney House

In Ireland, as far as works owned by the State are concerned, storage has come to mean somewhat the same thing, but without the lock and key or security business.

If not for an alert perusor of an auction catalog, no one would have known that the portraits of the first Earl of Kenmare and the second Lady Kenmare were being offered for sale when they were supposed to be in storage.

The paintings once hung in Killarney House, once the seat of the Earl of Kenmare but now owned by the Irish State. It's being turned into a museum and tourist attraction, which means that the artwork on the walls had to be removed until the work was done.

Then the portraits were to be hung back in place, but instead someone lifted them and sold them on to a London auction house. The paintings ended up at Adam's in Dublin, listed at a value of between Eu20,000 - Eu30,000.

Not that the thief got anywhere near that much, but further information won't be forthcoming until the gardai complete their investigation.

Oh, yes, and then those in charge of maintaining the storage end of the State's collection will have to complete their inventory, so the guards can see what else might have gone missing while no one thought to ensure that "storage" came with "security".

The government is skint, but could someone scratch up a few euro and buy a new lock for the door of the storage unit? It will more than pay for itself in the long run.

Agents Who Publish So Other Agents Don't Have To

The ethical question of literary agents acting as publishers has been simmering for some time, ever since a few brave souls stepped into the role of e-book publisher for their clients.

For ages, the mantra has held that an agent has a conflict of interest if said agent can also publish the manuscript being shopped. Where is the incentive, goes the reasoning, to hustle and push and cajole and wheedle some publisher when the agent has the ability to do it...and reap more of the rewards.

With so many options available today for an author to produce an e-book, from Smashwords to Kindle Direct, the agents could also warm themselves with those ethical standards and watch their clients do all the work and reap all the rewards, with not a crumb for the agent.

So for all the literary agents who feel squeamish about stepping over a boundary that has long been in place, Trident Media Group offers a service that can keep hands clean and ethics intact.

Trident Media has erected a little boundary of its own, in that the firm has made its new e-book enterprise a separate entity under its media group umbrella.

They will begin with the backlist from the John Campbell Agency. They intend to offer the service to their own clients as well.

It used to be that writers hunting for legitimate literary agents were told to watch out for those who asked for money up front, or those who had a conflict of interest because they also were publishers.

The culling process will become more complex, as writers will have to determine if the agent they're querying is genuinely trying to sell manuscripts to the big publishers, but with those big publishers merging and realizing synergies, who can say but that guideline could fall by the wayside.

Will there come a time when it will be commonplace for literary agents to also act as publishers, competing against the likes of the Random Penguin House and HarperCollins?

Is the future in publishing the creation of hundreds of small publishing houses, in which authors can submit directly without an agent, because the agent is the publisher? Or will the bigger agencies, like Trident Media, join the ranks as junior members of the Big Six publishers?

Is It Better Late Than Never?

The query was sent so long ago that I had forgotten all about it.

It's a good thing that the agents of Einstein Thompson Agency include the original query in the response or I wouldn't have known what manuscript they had rejected.

At the moment, they are closed to queries as they try to catch up with a backlog of submissions.

And a serious backlog it must be. I sent the query last summer, which sure seems like a very, very long time ago.

Of course I had tagged the query as a no response means no submission, added my stat to the Querytracker listing, and moved on. If an agent hasn't asked for pages after a few days, you start to figure they aren't ever going to ask and there isn't any point in waiting.

No hard feelings about the non-response either. Agents are busy people. Many of them have discovered that they can read the hook line, decide if it's worth continuing, and then either ask for the manuscript or move on to the next query in the inbox. Creating an e-mail response, even a standard rejection letter that goes to all, takes time. For many agents, that's time they need to take care of existing clients.

Yet there are Susanna Einstein and Meg Thompson, plowing through months of queries in search of a hidden gem, making an effort to get back to the writers even though it's bad news.

Is it worth it?

It's an indication of how they do business, with this decision to not leave a writer without an answer. They made that extra effort, albeit months after the fact, but they did it. And it's an example of good manners in a fast-paced time, when stopping to be polite is becoming rare.

I didn't need the response. I pretty much knew what it was, way back when. But still, it's nice to know that someone took the time to write back.

The Definition Of Fiction

People don't read as much as they once did. That would explain why some members of the general public are unclear on the concept of fiction versus how-to manual when it comes to their choice of reading material.

Steven Lock is such a confused individual.

His other half is equally clueless.

The courts will now attempt to clarify the definition of fiction for them.

Mr. Lock and his unnamed lover mistakenly thought that E.L. James' novel was an instructional guide, rather than accept it for the make-believe that it is.

In this Internet-driven world, the online bookshops don't have shelves and sections to guide the purchaser. If the couple had gone into Eason's, for example, they would have found the book in the "Fiction" section, along with other works of non-reality. They might have gotten a clue that way.

But to the surprise (and extensive bruising) of a woman unnamed, they did not.

Mr. Lock is facing assault charges in an Ipswich courtroom, making for a phenomenally embarrassing period of his life.

It's all come out: the chaining, the whipping, the goings-on in his home on Plover Road.

It doesn't take a novelist to imagine the twittering and gossiping passing over fences and down the street, through the queues in the shops, and at his place of employment. The man will have to take up an assumed name and move far from Ipswich once this is over.

According to Mr. Lock the master, his slave agreed to having her genitalia tattooed with his name, and she was all for being chained to the floor of his bedroom. Agreed to be whipped as well, for disobedience.

However, as he pointed out during testimony, she was a willing participant and they used Fifty Shades of Grey as their instruction guide. No one was injured in the novel, now, were they? So how was he to know that the thing wasn't a true account, something to provide guidance to the bondage rookies?

They followed the rules. They had their code word to indicate when the kinky sex play crossed the line.

Unfortunate that the slave was so shocked by the intensity of the pain that she could do no more than scream and cry. There's nothing in the book about that, you see. The manual lacked an appendix for those finding themselves outside the novel's text.

Twelve jurors must now decide if Mr. Lock is to be found guilty of assault, or sent home to suffer the pain and anguish of public censure.

What are the chances that the ten men will find him innocent, and lucky to have lived out a sex fantasy even if it ended badly, while the two women will be holding out for life behind bars?

The Penguin House

The poor penguin.

The future isn't looking so bright as it might have thought when it acquired that house from the Germans.

Penguin's owner Pearson announced its projected earnings for the upcoming year and those earnings are down. So far down that the stock has taken a hit as investors heed the warning and clear out.

It's nothing new, actually.

Educational publishing, Pearson's heart, has been in decline for some time. School systems still don't have a lot of money to throw around on new textbooks, new technology, or new anything. It's all local districts can do to pay the salaries and keep the roof from leaking. Which means Pearson doesn't get that boost to the bottom line that stockholders so love to see.

Until the Penguin-Random House merger produces results of some sort, the lack of confidence will continue.

Will enough synergies be realized to cut costs while retaining profits? Will the merger be the income producer as advertised, or will it be another example of over-reaching in the Barry O'Callaghan mode?

We've all heard that markets hate uncertainty, and there's plenty of uncertainty to go around at Random Penguin House these days.

But not to worry, if you hold stock for the long term.

At year's end, Penguin may well meet or exceed those lowered expectations, and buyers will flock (not that penguins can fly, but surely they flock, don't they?) to snap up the stock of a well-run company.

Unless the penguin doesn't fit well into the house.

But that's a story for another day.

Meeting The Competition

To much hoopla and twittering, Penguin introduced Book Country.

The publisher was looking over its shoulder and saw Amazon rushing forward, planning to overtake the traditional firm and sweep up all sorts of digital revenues.

To meet the competition, Penguin created its own area where writers could self-publish their books and find a distributor, and one with an impressive name.

Take that, Amazon.

The writers had to pay for the privilege, however. A list of services and expenses came with the ability to get a manuscript into a digital form and then into the catalogue. The writers, as you'd expect, did a bit of complaining about the fees.

Would they recoup their expenses, as opposed to going on the cheap at Amazon's Kindle Direct Program? Did the Penguin name have as much value as suggested?

Pearson heard the patter of self-publishing feet as well, but rather than build new, they purchased Author Solutions. Penguin took note of this additional oncoming competition, and has now expanded Book Country.

Now you can create your e-book for free if you become a member of the Book Country community. In addition, the royalty rates are higher, to attract those authors who might have considered Author Solutions. And finally, the types of books that Book Country will allow has expanded to bring in those who were not writers of science fiction and fantasy.

There is one other place where a writer can go, and that is Smashwords.

It's completely free, but you have to do all the work yourself. And you don't have that Penguin cachet to use in promoting your work.

For an author looking for a way to get into the market, there are several choices and numerous options. Little wonder that publishers are unsure which way the market is going and where they should invest.

Digital publishing is part of the future of books, but that future is still just over the horizon, not yet clear. And all the competition is racing towards it, hoping to be on the right path.

What A French Woman Wants

Everything in France is about seduction, from selling perfume to conducting business to closing a deal.

Frenchmen take pride in their ability to seduce. Not only to seduce a woman, but to seduce a potential client and thereby close a key business deal.

So of course they think they understand women and what women want. After all, how else would a man succeed in bringing her to his bed if he did not possess some inside knowledge?

Quelle surprise, non? It turns out they are blind.


And when a trashy piece of mommy porn hits Parisian bookstores, it does not lie about to gather dust because the heroine is utterly unlike the typical French heroine of classic erotic literature.

For all their style and fashion sense, French women are not blessed with equality. They are not liberated like their American sisters, who do not have to tolerate the sort of sexual harassment that we equate with the 1950's. Their erotic novels do not feature strong women who are taking charge of their sexuality, of being the dominant force in a relationship.

FIFTY SHADES OF GREY is selling like Berthillon glacees in France, and that after the men in-the-know all insisted that French women would never buy such Anglo-Saxon drivel. Too Puritanical, too much morality with love inserted into the relationship. French women don't want that, they said. But as it turns out, they do.

Perhaps it is correct to say that French women are snapping up the erotic trilogy because they want to be entertained with a fairy tale.
 
Those wise men have forgotten that Cinderella is a classic French fairy tale, one in which the female protagonist defies her stepmother and goes to the ball anyway, meets the prince, and then dares to come forward when he searches for her.

No shrinking violet there, but a woman taking charge.

And therein lies the appeal of a trilogy that is at its heart more classic of a fairy tale than the stories concocted by the Marquis de Sade.

Do You Answer The Call To The Post?

Did you listen to the bugler in the video and feel an urge to run, as fast as the wind, for about a mile and a quarter or thereabouts?

Perhaps you were recently in Ireland to attend The Gathering, and you left with a hankering to nibble on Kentucky blue grass. You were thinking it was the country itself that infected you, what with the Irish love of horses and racing.

Do you look at yourself and the mirror and think that you're hung like a racehorse since your trip abroad?

Think back and ask yourself if, at some point, you wearied of the New Irish cuisine and settled for a simple hamburger. Was that meat patty on the lean side, tasting like beef but not exactly like beef? 

Did you ascribe the taste difference to the fact that you weren't dining at home but in another country where the cows grow differently and their meat has a unique flavor?

More likely you were savoring the remnants of what was last out of the gate at Leopardstown.

The Food Safety Authority in Ireland discovered some equine DNA in beef products imported from the Netherlands and Spain recently.

The beef was used to make burger patties, so if you tried some Irish salami, not to worry. You won't be attracted to leather bridles or find that you've developed a pony bondage fetish.

We're being told that the contamination is all a pure accident. Those foreign meat processors grind up all sorts of creatures and there's no surprise to find the rare scrap of horse left in the machinery which then ends up in your hamburger.

Except that some of the meat sampled was 1/3 horse, 2/3 beef per patty. That's quite a large accident.

Although it would make the patty exceptionally lean.

Just ask the French. They are connoisseurs of horse meat.

Are those oats that you're eating there?

We Don't Want Nobody Nobody Sent

With the upcoming release of THE KING OF THE IRISH, the staff of Newcastlewest Books wish to present author and guest blogger Jack O'Malley.

If you have lived in Chicago for any length of time, you know that the city's politicians are crooked and corrupt. But not everyone appreciates the longevity of that state, that the corruption and political shenanigans predate the arrival of Richard J. Daley on the scene.

THE KING OF THE IRISH will take you back to the time when police officers were hired based on their connections to significant power brokers, where a man got a job if he knew someone.

Often, those same men were hired based on their ability to get out the vote for their clout's party, and representatives of the opposition would do all they could to undermine the other side. Back in 1889, where the novel opens, there were two parties in Chicago, each one battling for supremacy.

Look back a few years in Chicago and you'll see the "Hired Truck Scandal" reported in the local newspapers. It was just another example of corruption and greed, with friends of the Mayor (Richard M., son of Richard J.) siphoning money out of the public trough.

And who took the fall? Who went to jail? The middle management, if you will. The protective layer that did the bidding of the untouchables, the men who performed the dirty work. The men who didn't want Nobody nobody sent because only your clout could send you and he was never a Nobody.

In Chicago in 1889, so too did the high and mighty have a protective layer below them, loyal followers who owed those leaders their jobs and their livelihoods. Chicago police detective Daniel Coughlin was one of those trusted lieutenants in a patronage army, and when his clout's opponents sought to topple power-broker Alexander Sullivan, they targeted Daniel Coughlin.

THE KING OF THE IRISH is a fictional telling of what was called the crime of the century at the time. It is told from Daniel Coughlin's point of view, the version that never made it to the pages of the newspapers in a time of yellow journalism and virulent anti-immigrant and anti-Catholic sentiments.

It is the story of a man in the wrong place at the wrong time, and how he endures when the odds are stacked against him and his very life depends on the same corrupt political system that landed him on Murderer's Row.

Watch this blog for news on free book giveaways coming in early March.

Because Publishing Is Just Another Business

Books, the written word, would seem to be works of art.

A novel can make you angry over the fictional injustice. It can make you cry over the sorrows of fictional people.

But in the end, the process of taking those lovely words from the author's pen to your eyes is nothing more than an ordinary business.

You have only to read Linda Zecher's piece in the New York Times to understand this.

Today, she is the head of HMH, the publishing entity that remained after Barry O'Callaghan took his little Riverdeep publishing concern and swallowed up a few big whales like Houghton Mifflin and Harcourt, which went on to collapse under a pile of debt.

Ms. Zecher is a smart woman, but she was never a literary agent or an acquisitions editor. She did not arise from the educational publishing department at Pearson and then move through the industry as she climbed the ranks.

She started her work life as a scientist.

Like so many executives, she bounced around and climbed the corporate ladder, touching down for a time in software-related industries. Not a single blockbuster textbook to her credit in all that.

Publishing requires selling of product to succeed. Like any other business, the executives are crunching sales numbers in their corner offices, and it makes no difference if the product is textbooks or software or reams of paper. Profit and loss is profit and loss.

So when your literary agent submits your beautifully crafted novel to a publisher and it's rejected, keep in mind that your artistry is not coming into question.

It is whether or not the executives believe there is a market for your product, if they can make a profit from its sale.

Publishing is just another business.

A Way With Words But Not With Money

Few writers make a decent living from their words alone.

Patricia Cornwell is one noted exception to that rule.

She has earned a tidy fortune from her wildly popular series of crime novels, featuring protagonist Kay Scarpetta solving mysteries with a medical bent.

Her talent for writing has not translated into a talent for managing her income and investments. Her talent for writing has not been honed into an instinct to trust everyone, but always cut the cards.

Ms. Cornwell is suing the firm she hired to handle her fortune, claiming that Anchin, Block and Anchin churned her and burned her to the tune of over $100 million.

For their part, Anchin et al. claim that Ms. Cornwell was so demanding that she drove up her hourly billing and so she brought on the added expensive. They did what they were hired to do, but sadly the economy tanked and the author was not alone in losing big.

The author states in her complaint that she was shocked to learn that Anchin, Block and Anchin had invested her money in risky ventures when she wanted to act conservatively.

Conservative is subjective, like a reader's dislike or enjoyment of a particular novel. Fund managers and those whose money is being manipulated may not see eye to eye on the meaning of the word.

Sadly, Ms. Cornwell failed to examine the books until after the downturn, whereupon she found some strange dealings that would indicate Anchin's managing partner, Evan Snapper, helped himself to some of the author's funds without informing her.

Like writing a check to his own daughter as a bat mitzvah gift from Patrician Cornwell, a $5000 gift when tradition dictates that monetary tokens be $18 or a sum divisible by the same.

Mr. Snapper is going to blame the economic downturn, and the fact that Ms. Cornwell failed to look over his shoulder.

She could have examined the books any time, but she trusted someone to not be tempted by vast sums of money. That's the problem with having someone else do things for you. If it goes wrong, the courts will dump a large share of the blame on you, for not cutting the cards when you sat down with the dealer to gamble on the financial markets.

In the end, it will be up to a court in Boston to decide how much of the fault lies with her and how much with the bean counters. Ms. Cornwell may not come away with all that she lost, but she will come away with a better understanding of the limits of trust and the meaning of risk-taking in a world outside of fiction.

Four More Weeks

The new year has only just begun and already we're being told to wait four more months for a report that was promised for the end of 2012.

Will it really happen this time? Will the women who slaved for the nuns in the Magdalene laundries finally see the results of a government investigation into the abusive system that the State did nothing to end?

Minister for Justice Alan Shatter is waiting for Mr. Martin McAleese to bring him the final report, due in ten days time. He will then review it before releasing it to the public four weeks later.

Review it? Why would that be necessary?

Good Shepherd Convent & Magdalene Laundry, Cork, after a recent fire

The women who were victims of an inhuman system fear that Mr. Shatter might be planning to scrub away the State's involvement in the incarceration of women for no other crime than that their parish priest judged them too pretty and therefore a temptation to men.

Will Mr. Shatter be able to admit that when one of the unfortunates ran away, the gardai brought her back? He would if he could prove that such action did not constitute "State involvement".

State involvement, you see, sets up a legal case for those who were slaves to sue for just compensation. The interest on those back wages alone would be a phenomenal sum, and the nuns have all cried poor. So it would fall on the government, which just happens to be skint.

Unmarried pregnant women were locked up in the laundries, which operated into the 1980's. Their children were taken from them and put up for adoption, not because the women chose that route, but because it was forced on them by a religious institution that ran roughshod over the Irish people.

While the truth has come out in recent years, as the Catholic Church has lost its influence in Ireland, the cost of the Magdalene laundries has yet to be met.

The report that Mr. Shatter delivers next month will resonate, but if you want the plain truth, you have only to listen to the words of the women who were locked away with no hope, whose lives were destroyed.

They are getting older by the day. They are slowly dying off. Will one of them live to see a penny in compensation for her suffering?

Harkening Back To The Good Old Days

Once upon a time, Ireland was entirely in British hands and weren't those grand times?

The Catholics were kept in their places, far at the back of the line, and the Union Jack flew over every public building, to remind all citizens of their Britishness.

What has the peace process brought but more power for the Catholics, who aren't behaving like proper underlings?

What's to be done to reverse this nightmarish tide?

 Where is today's Edward Carson, to rally his troops to combat the threats of Rome Rule?

There's precious little sympathy for the loyalists up in Belfast, rioting every night because the Catholic majority running Belfast decreed that the Union Jack would no longer fly over City Hall 24/7. It's only for special occasions, they've said.

How about making the Irish in the Republic feel the pain?

Gardai are bracing for a planned protest in Dublin, in which disgruntled Protestants from Belfast will ask the government to not fly the Tricolor over public buildings.

Not exactly an Edward Carson moment, like when he brought in guns while the British government turned a blind eye, so that he could arm his Ulster Volunteers in case Home Rule became law. Back then, the Crown did all it could to keep the republicans from gaining access to arms. Wouldn't want a repeat of the debacle in those other colonies, the ones that became the United States of America...where all the people gave themselves the right to be fully armed, to form militias to keep their government on its toes.

What the authorities in Dublin expect from this fool's errand is rioting, much like that which was seen during a "Love Ulster" gathering in 2006.

No surprise that republicans plan a counter-demonstration, with all the threats for violence and mayhem that comes from a conflict that has been simmering for centuries. The peace accords only papered over the cracks, after all, without mending them.

Time is doing some of that mending. As Northern Ireland's economy continues to sink and its younger generation leaves for more opportunities, the Catholic population climbs and threatens to outpace the Protestants.

It's the plan the republicans have held for a long, long time.

The loyalists are rioting in Belfast, to protest the inevitable, but in the end, all the rioting in the world won't change the trend.

Software Changes

Our new website has gone live, so you'll want to click over.

Don't forget to come back.

It wasn't our intention to change the website so much that it had to be completely redone. Blame it on the software.

The original program that was used to create the site is no longer supported. That means there's no editing that can be done.

Well of course the website needed editing, what with our new book coming out and we want to trumpet the grand occasion.

There will be free books given away and opportunities for you to request one of those free copies, but that requires editing of the website to announce.

In time, or should I say, when I get a bit of time, I hope to create a better website from scratch, one that features our book covers in a more artistic way.

But for now, we have something up so you can find us and maybe send a little note asking if you could have a copy of THE KING OF THE IRISH before anyone else gets it.

Dealing With The Estate Of A Literary Agent

Famed literary agent Wendy Weil passed away recently, leaving behind a functioning agency with employees and clients who mourned her loss but also had to consider their future.

What becomes of an agency that is active, after the owner is gone?

Employees Emma Patterson and Emily Forland remained at their posts, to wind down agency business. As with any going concern, there were royalties to be collected and paid, along with the myriad other bills that come from normal operations.

More importantly were the clients who had lost a good friend and the person who represented their work to the publishers. No responsible agent would simply abandon the stable of writers, and it was up to the remaining agents to sort things out.

Once their work was done, Ms. Patterson and Ms. Forland sought a new home. They were not willing to take over the agency on their own, for any number of reasons. It is possible that they did not have the financial backing to purchase the firm outright, and they may not have the desire to run their own agency. Instead, they moved to Brandt & Hochman, planning to bring their clients with them.

The agency has now been sold to Paul Bresnick, but what exactly has he taken over from the Weil estate?

He is contacting Ms. Weil's clients, to introduce and sell himself, but there is no guarantee that the people who were comfortable with Ms. Weil will feel the same about Mr. Bresnick.

As the new man in the office, Mr. Bresnick is gambling on the loyalty of Ms. Weil's authors to her agency. He is taking a risk, one that may or may not pay off.

That's what owning a business is all about. You take your money, invest it, and if you're right, you succeed. If you're wrong, you're out the money.

If you do it right, you won't expand your way into alienating your old clients by not giving them enough attention as you look to charm the clients you acquired. If you do it wrong, you could lose everything that you've built up over the years.

Little wonder, then, that the ladies of the Wendy Weil agency chose not to take such risks. If you don't enough of a financial cushion to fall back on, the downside of such a deal could be devastating.

Free Speech And Free Scrap Metal

The economy is poor and so are the Irish people who do not have, and cannot find, work.

Social welfare only goes so far, and when a man is looking around for added income, his eye is likely to fall upon large metal objects.

Metal is increasingly being stolen and sold as scrap by thieves who are roaming the island in search of assets they can liquify. Not that the objects belong to them, but when you're about stealing, possession is an issue easily solved by taking.

Roofing material has gone missing, melted down by a dealer who is clearly not overly concerned with the source. How else would the lead sheeting covering the roof of the bandstand at the National Botanic Gardens go missing without a scrap metal dealer wondering where the lead came from? And calling around to see if anyone had lost a roof?

Now RTE is under attack, but the thieves who target RTE's masts and related infrastructure are also attacking free speech.

Without metal for wiring and towers to bounce signals off of, there go the radio signals that carry the words of RTE and anyone using a mobile phone that depends on the masts being operational.

Sadly, the metal used in the telecommunications industry is not the valuable type, unlike the copper and bronze you'd find in cemeteries or old roofs.

Thieves are breaking in and causing damage, thinking they've scored and their local pub owner will be the beneficiary of the added income, but all they've done is knock out a tower and infringed on the rights of the Irish people to chat on their mobile.

Gardai are investigating and the Minister of Justice has heard the complaints of RTE. The rights of the people to talk are under fire here.

A special metals theft unit will be formed to crack down on the illegal scrap metal business. A booming economy with plenty of jobs would do more to solve the problem, but that is not so easily accomplished by a special unit of An Garda Siochana.

Creative Writer, Creative Bomb Maker

Morgan Gliedman studied creative writing at the Art Institute of Chicago, an educational institution that doesn't admit just anyone.

She must have shown a flair with words.

Now she's shown a flair with terrorism.

Ms. Gliedman and her baby daddy were arrested after the New York City police raided her flat as part of a credit card theft investigation and came away with explosives and bomb-making materiel.

There's no telling where her vivid imagination would have taken her in creative mayhem if the police had not happened upon the cache of weapons and enough dangerous chemicals to warrant an evacuation of the premises.

She hails from well-to-do stock, as do so many revolutionaries who never had to scrape to get by, and therefore had plenty of time to contemplate Marxist philosophy and the great unfairness of life.

Friends say she's just another drug addict, hooked on heroin, with plenty of family money to fuel her habit...and keep her away so that she doesn't embarrass that family.

What has the police particularly interested in the case is the fact that the baby daddy, Aaron Greene, is a card-carrying member of the Occupy Wall Street movement. He may be the Timothy McVeigh of the ultra-far left, given the arsenal that was found.

Ms. Gliedman's attorney is blaming Mr. Greene for the whole thing, but his arguments have been put on hold.

Not only is Ms. Gliedman a creative writer and junkie, she also is a new mother. Shortly after her arrest, she went into labor and her court date has been pushed forward.

A stint behind bars may be of benefit, what with the lack of readily available heroin to maintain her addiction.

And whether or not it's all Mr. Greene's fault, there is still the little problem of her failure to report the dangerous weapons to the police in a timely manner. Aiding and abetting is a bit of a crime in itself, although chances are, she won't see hard time while the New York foster care system takes charge of her newborn infant.

Offspring of prominent New York City doctors and realtors are represented by high-powered attorneys who charge more than the oppressed masses can hope to afford. Carefully crafted argument will see Ms. Gliedman in an expensive rehab center somewhere, while her significant other does a stint in a private mental hospital for a round of rehabra-cadabra.

The rich are different than you and me, aren't they? They rail about the gross unfairness of the capitalist system, but when they get themselves into trouble, they don't cry about the unfairness of the penal system that is fueled by the ability to buy one's way out of it.

A Time Of Renewal

With a new year about to begin, it's time to consider renewal.

Time has a way of erasing a multitude of sins. The days go by and memories fade, and then one day you find yourself miles from where you started. It's like being reborn, as if the past never happened.

The New Year is around the corner. A time of new beginnings and renewals is at hand.

Or, if you're Dessie Ellis, a time to remember those things once forgotten is at hand.

The former volunteer in the Irish Republican Army has been reminded that the British authorities once linked him to fifty killings during The Troubles.

He left his past behind and came to fashion himself as an elected representative from Dublin North-West, a dedicated member of Sinn Fein who once served a sentence for possession of explosive material.

The area he represents is clearly not troubled by the part of his past that clung to Mr. Ellis, or they never would have voted for him. In many parts of Ireland, being an anti-Treaty advocate is a positive thing, even if that Treaty was signed back in 1921.

The partition of Ireland has not yet been relegated to the forgotten past, not will it be any time soon.

When asked, Mr. Ellis declined to comment on recently released reports that painted him as a cold-blooded killer. As would any dedicated nationalist, he scoffs at anything the Brits claim as fact.

A new year, a new beginning.

The accusations will be flung at Mr. Ellis during debates in the Dail, used as a weapon to silence him when he stirs up trouble for Fine Gael. Those opposed to all things Sinn Fein (their socialist policies are hopelessly mired in the past, as if the Soviet Union never fell apart under the weight of it) will cry out against such as Mr. Ellis sitting in the Dail, but those who see Mr. Ellis as a hero, a man of action even if that action was morally wrong, will be quick to vote for him again when next given a chance.

The debates will continue, the latest revelation will fade into the past from whence it came, and the economy will flounder and shudder through another year of austerity and budget cuts, higher taxes and stagnant unemployment.

Some things just won't be changing in the New Year.

Reality Does Not End On A Blackout

The last scene of The Sopranos series became the talk of the office the day after it aired.

Was Tony whacked? Was it just an abrupt cut to bring the show to an abrupt end, one that lacked any true closure?

Real life ends for real mobsters in a different way, one that is conclusive and definite. And without a blackout.

Frank Calabrese Sr. was the genuine article, a hit man with a string of murders on his record, along with a long roster of extortion, racketeering and other miscellaneous charges from the world of crime.

He died on Christmas Day, in a jail. Not in a local jail near Chicago, but in a secure facility far away in North Carolina.

His own son testified against him, aware that his father was a bad and dangerous man who needed to be put away forever. That, perhaps, was the abrupt end in the real world for a real mobster. The judge handed down the life sentence, the felon was chained, hauled away and then locked up in a cell until death sets him free.

It's not glamorous. It's not quite so comforting an image as that of a father sitting down to a meal with family. But then again, real life is usually pretty dull stuff.

That's why writers embellish and make things up, to take real life experiences and make them more interesting.

Who would watch a series about a mobster sitting in a cell, waiting to die?

It's boring. Dull viewing. Dull existing. Real punishment, as compared to the artificial world of Tony Soprano.

A Way With Words

You'd think that a man who made a living by giving sermons on a weekly basis would have a way with words.

Cardinal Sean Brady does have a certain gift, but it's not the sort of thing that would help fill the pews in the largely empty churches of Ireland.

The government is scheduled to finally tackle the abortion issue, a topic that has been forced on those who were long able to ignore it. When the whole world is looking at you after a woman dies due to complications of a miscarriage, a death that could easily have been avoided with an abortion, you tend to take some action and get out from under the heavy scrutiny.

The matter is one of abortion to save the mother's life. Doctors shouldn't have to wonder if they'll be arrested for performing the medical procedure when it's their opinion that it's necessary.

Yet there is the Cardinal in the pulpit, urging Irish Catholics to march against abortion.

A woman just died when an abortion would have saved her life, yet the prelate is concerned that elected representatives might not craft laws that would provide "...the best possible care and protection to a woman struggling to cope with an unwanted pregnancy or by the deliberate destruction of another human life."

You're thinking that not providing the abortion was a deliberate destruction of Savita Halappaavar's life, but the Church hierarchy doesn't seem to consider a woman's life as having all that much importance in the greater scheme of things.

Better to let a hundred women die than to risk a non-therapeutic abortion taking place on Irish soil. After all, it's only the doctor's word that the woman needed one. What if he's skirting the law, making a claim that isn't true? 

A woman just died for no other reason than the lack of concern for the pregnant woman. Not much of a surprise, if you look back a few years to the horrors of the Magdalene laundries.

Old attitudes and misogynistic practices are not easily erased by those who would fight to keep them firmly in place.

Maybe it's not a way with words, but a dismal lack of musical talent. The Cardinal is sadly tone deaf.

Peace And Joy

If you're even thinking of sending a query today, or God forbid, tomorrow, you're mad.

The holiday season is a time for peace and joy, good wishes and hope for the future.

So hold off on the queries until next year.

Enjoy the season, and don't end up in the drunk tank this Christmas Eve.

Young Adult With Sex

In essence, that is what this hot new genre is.

"New adult" is the old "young adult" but with sex in it.

It's what you once called "adult" but we can't have such a one-size-fits-all category in these modern times. 

According to the savvy publishing reporters at the New York Times, it's all the fault of the publishing houses that we are afflicted with yet another genre. Those same publishers are operating from the theory that they'd hooked future adult readers with the whole Harry Potter series, which got them to read in the first place, and what better way to hold them than to create a new genre?

If the readers who began with Harry were to jump right into standard adult fare, they'd be liable to become lost in the tangles of complex sentences and deep thoughts. They could be disoriented by the situations presented, in which there are no vampires or werewolves or wizards.

And so, they would wander away, to become former readers.

Publishers are always open to anything that sells more books and increases their profits, so if readers want a different label for an existing category, they'll go with it. If that something has demonstrated success in the self-publishing arena, indicating a new trend, then it's a sure bet the big houses will take notice and take action.

The protagonists of new adult books are new adults themselves. Not unlike the majority of low-level workers in the publishing industry, fresh out of college and still filled with ennui. To say nothing of their dreams of financial wealth trickling away, causing much angst.

Clearly, such new adults should not be exposed to books in which the main characters are older than them. How could they relate to such as are not like them?

That isn't what fiction is for anymore.

We don't transition from children's books to teen books to adult books these days.  We don't go looking for more complex writing styles as we mature, believing that we get smarter as we get older and so should our books.

Instead, we exist within our tribes, consuming tales about ourselves (ourselves being publishing interns in New York City struggling to make ends meet and pay off student loans and find love or at least a gratifying sexual relationship).

So there is "New Adult" for the new adults in the world, who don't want to risk reading about some middle-aged woman facing a crisis such as they have never experienced.

Wouldn't want to stretch the mind or expand a horizon. Who's buying that these days?

Don't Give Half A Gift

You're out there doing last minute Christmas shopping or you're sitting there thinking you're done.

Electronic gadgets are all the rage and you have the selection well in hand, ready to wrap, but don't be so quick with the pretty paper and ribbon.

An e-reader or a tablet without content is only half a gift.

Don't be the person giving half a gift.

Load that device with three of the best pieces of historical fiction that you're likely to find.

THE LEAVEN OF THE PHARISEES will introduce your lucky gift recipient to the dark corners of Ireland's recent past, providing them with a compelling story of triumph against a government policy that sought to create perfect citizens from those most helpless.

Don't forget to download A TERRIBLE BEAUTY for those who think they know how Ireland came to be a republic. It's a tale of one family in the business of rebellion, an accounting of their sacrifices and the pain of abandoning morality for a greater good.

Finally, there is LACE CURTAIN IRISH, another novel with an Irish theme but one that is set in Chicago among the diaspora, a stream of people who left their homeland and found success, but at a cost. For so many who were forced by economic pressure to emigrate, this one will resonate.

You can buy these novels up until the very last minute, with downloads taking almost no time.

And when you hand off that e-reader or that tablet, you're giving a real gift that provides entertainment right out of the box.

Don't give half a gift. Add books, at next to no additional cost. Your recipient will be that much more grateful for your consideration.

Why The Catholic Hierarchy Is Ignored

So Ireland is a very Catholic country, a stereotype that has been around since England's Henry VIII tried to make them not so Catholic.

The hierarchy, lead by the four bishops of Ireland, have been trying their best to maintain the stereotype, but once the child sex abuse scandal hit, followed by revelations of what really went on in the Magdalene laundries, they've had a time of it.

In fact, they've lost ground, and now they've managed to take even more steps backwards.

The tragic death of Savita Halappanavar made international news, all playing out against a backdrop of that old stereotype of a nation mired in Catholicism. Ms. Halappanavar suffered a miscarriage that led to complications, yet she did not have to die. Because Ireland's abortion laws are more than restrictive, and not entirely clear, a life-saving abortion was denied her.

The outcry in Ireland has forced the hands of the Government to finally do something, to clarify laws and allow doctors to practice medicine as they were trained to do, rather than consult with solicitors or the local priest as to how to treat a patient.

And what do those four bishops say about all this?

"...the careful balance between the equal right to life of a mother and her unborn child in current law and medical practice in Ireland would be fundamentally changed..." if new legislation is introduced, they have declared.

Under that carefully balanced current law, a woman died who should have lived. But for the bishops of Ireland, that's not a problem. Don't change a thing.

In a statement released before the government has even put legislation together, the bishops are sounding an alarm, warning their parishioners that they should be concerned that their elected representatives are thinking about changing the laws.

They must not realize that their parishioners are more concerned with the backward thinking of the Church hierarchy, and the growing irrelevancy of anything they have to say.

Vacations Start Early In Publishing

Not that I'm in that category, but things are quiet in the publishing universe these days.

Christmas is a week away, but there's less twittering going on. Not as much news to be had at Publishers Marketplace, either, which means there's not much dealing. Whatever books needed to be out for the holiday market were put out earlier. Spring business hasn't quite begun.

The proofs for KING OF THE IRISH are in need of proofing, but I'm getting in the publishing holiday spirit instead.

That, and my brothers are taking the day off as well so why not join them?

We're off for our semi-annual (at least that often, but probably more frequent) pub crawl, to toast family and friendship and the remarkable variety of beers that are being produced these days.

If you aren't so lucky, then you might as well curl up with a good book, say, some historical fiction related to all things Irish.

Download an ebook. Order a hard copy. Make it a Newcastlewest Books sort of Christmas.

Agent Submission To Amazon

Amazon has been making inroads into publishing by starting up their own house, with former agent Larry Kirschbaum at its head.

It didn't take long for bookstores to declare that they would not stock an Amazon title on their shelves. Why help the competition that threatens to eat you alive? Especially Barnes & Noble, which is going head to head against Amazon online and losing.

The first big release from Amazon Publishing, Penny Marshall's memoirs, did not fare well in hard copy, to the glee of those who need the venture to fail if they are to survive. As anyone in the trade would tell you, getting a book into an actual, physical store is what drives sales. People see it, pick it up, thumb through a few pages. If it isn't there for touching, it's out of sight and out of mind.

As an author, would that not cause you to think twice before your literary agent submitted a manuscript to Amazon Publishing?

Maybe David Shapiro is completely in tune with the online world. He's editing his magazine there, after all.

Now he's written a book, and his agent Paul Lucas has sold it...to Amazon Publishing.

It will make for an interesting marketing campaign, with no bookstores stocking the thing when it's laid down. All the buzz will have to be generated in cyberspace, but can digital experiences match that of picking up a book in a shop and cracking it open to read the first pages?

Thus far, it's all part of a grand experiment, to see which direction publishing will take and if a new competitor can make inroads.

Is Amazon hoping that demand for Mr. Shapiro's tome will force bookstores to stock it, pushed by their clientele who will demand it?

Or is it a case of Amazon outbidding everyone else, and Mr. Lucas taking the bigger payout for his client. After all, if the book goes anywhere, there's a better chance that a major publisher will pick up the next one, and then Mr. Shapiro can walk into his nearest bookstore and see his work sitting on the front table in a place of high traffic.

Mr. Shapiro has a platform to promote his upcoming debut, a large online presence with an audience. Whether or not that will be enough to generate book sales will not be known until it happens. Or doesn't.

Odds are, the losers in the auction for the book are hoping for the latter.

Viewing The World When Your Head Is Lodged Up Your Arse

The time has come for John O'Brien to step down as head of Dalkey Archive Press.

He's been at it a good long time and he feels that a younger person, someone with fresh ideas, should be at the helm of the publishing house best known for its offerings of literary fiction.

He's also a man with a sense of humour, unlike so many others in the publishing industry who are too intellectual and intelligent to get a joke. They've now been reminded that one should, on occasion, remove one's head from one's arse.

The job was posted on the company's website, and an army of the high and mighty flew into a tizzy of outrage. To wit, it said:

    The Press is looking for promising candidates with an appropriate background who: have already demonstrated a strong interest in literary publishing; are very well read in literature in general and Dalkey Archive books in particular; are highly motivated and ambitious; are determined to have a career in publishing and will sacrifice to make that career happen; are willing to start off at a low-level salary and work their way upwards; possess multi-dimensional skills that will be applied to work at the Press; look forward to undergoing a rigorous and challenging probationary period either as an intern or employee; want to work at Dalkey Archive Press doing whatever is required of them to make the Press succeed; do not have any other commitments (personal or professional) that will interfere with their work at the Press (family obligations, writing, involvement with other organizations, degrees to be finished, holidays to be taken, weddings to attend in Rio, etc.); know how to act and behave in a professional office environment with high standards of performance; and who have a commitment to excellence that can be demonstrated on a day-to-day basis. DO NOT APPLY IF ALL OF THE ABOVE DOES NOT DESCRIBE YOU.

Do not have any other commitments, such as family obligations, Mr. O'Brien quipped. It's funny stuff, the sort of thing that anyone who understands the heavy weight of obligations that come with running a large company or keeping a spot when you've been looking for work for months. Why not have a bit of a giggle over something that gets joked about?

Salon.com thought it was a serious job posting. They took the thing literally.

That's how it is among the literati, thinking they are the smartest kids in the room, thinking deep thoughts.

All while their heads are stuffed up their arses.

Doesn't it sound like Dalkey Archive Press in London would be a grand place to be working? Who wouldn't enjoy being around people who don't take themselves so seriously that they can't see a joke coming straight at them?

Nostalgia And The Business Model

Back when dinosaurs roamed the streets of Oak Park, local high school students found their way to a record shop that was tiny, cramped, yet packed with all the music their parents hated.

It was conveniently located near a head shop, to make that part of town almost notorious.

Forty years on, the head shop is long gone and Val Camilletti is struggling to keep her doors open.

Digital music publishing has all but killed the record store, where a kid could hang out, discover some new artist, and expand their horizons beyond the confines of the suburbs.

The 45 is long gone. The CD is almost extinct. As for vinyl, well, that's another story.

Young people who were raised on CDs are discovering the unique sound that comes from a vinyl record. They're buying those old albums, in a nod to nostalgia perhaps, but also to experience music in a different way.

Then there are those who might have visited Val's Halla in their youth and have harbored a desire for some particular LP since those long ago days. If they find that album somewhere, in all its black plastic glory, they snap it up and add it to a collection that is as much a record of their life as any diary.

If you still have a spot in your heart for vinyl, for the old record store and the owner who possessed a wealth of knowledge about bands and music genres, you'd want to help support Ms. Camilletti.

At present, friends are trying to raise funds to help her keep her doors open, to pay the bills and perhaps improve her web presence.

Not everyone can get to Oak Park, Illinois, to browse her inventory. But anyone with a computer can click through a selection that was impressive then, and is extensive now.

Nostalgia among the baby boomers is a growing business, and Ms. Camilletti didn't survive this long without having a good business sense. But there is another aspect to this nostalgia thing, and that is the chance to introduce yet another generation to a sound that they just won't get from those earbuds stuffed into their heads, the sound that requires a turntable and speakers.

It's an experience worth preserving.

The Britishness Of Northern Ireland

When solicitor Pat Finucane was murdered in Belfast in 1989, the Catholics knew in their hearts that the loyalists had killed him for his stance in support of the IRA hunger strikers. They knew that the loyalists had not acted alone, that the government itself was involved.

They couldn't prove it. The authorities denied it.

Mr. Finucane was simply not British enough to be allowed to live. In fact, he was the antithesis of Britishness in the the north of Ireland, where being Irish is crime enough to see a man killed.

Shot at the dinner table, to be exact, in front of his wife and children, shot by loyalist thugs who were hell bent on preserving the Britishness of their corner of the Empire.

So heinous a scenario as that could not be whitewashed or covered up by "official" statements and assurances at the time. Even after a man was tried and convicted, the Catholics wouldn't let the matter rest.

With a peace agreement in place and the unionists sitting in government with the nationalists, a new investigation was launched and a report has been read by Prime Minister David Cameron.

To the surprise of no one, this newest look into the crime has demonstrated that England colluded with loyalists to murder Pat Finucane, and then they diligently went about the process of hiding what they had done.

They couldn't let someone without the requisite level of Britishness continue to support others like himself, who wanted to end the partition of Ireland and reclaim their Irishness. So those in MI5 who knew the loyalists wanted to murder Mr. Finucane kept their mouths shut. The RUC protected the criminals, going so far as to recruit one of them as a Special Branch agent.

Mr. Cameron has apologized on behalf of his government. Mr. Finucane is still dead. Ministers, officials, or others who might have been involved but are still living remain anonymous and uncharged.

And the loyalists are reduced to rioting over the decision to not fly the Union Jack every day over the City Hall in Belfast.

Maintaining Britishness through brutality hasn't worked in the past. It won't work in the future.

Neither has maintaining Britishness through population mass worked, judging by the latest census figures. The Catholics are nearly equal to the Protestants in number.

Your Mileage May Vary

Every now and then, a literary agent or a publisher will get a query letter from someone who claims to have a great idea for a book.

All they need is someone to write it for them.

That is not how the writing business works. So please don't be confused by the deal that author Wilbur Smith recently struck with his publisher, to crank out his ideas as written by a select group of ghost writers.

Mr. Smith started out writing the old-fashioned way, by coming up with a plot and then putting all his own words down on paper.

As it turned out, his novels struck a chord with the reading public back in 1964, and he went on to sell over 120 million copies of his various books.

When you sell that much of your own work, your publisher is more likely to give you an advance of 15 million pounds for your next batch. And they won't object much if you get that next round out at a faster clip than is humanly possible. That is, if you have to hire other writers to actually put flesh on the bones of the plot you devise.

Despite the hype of NaNoWriMo, a good book is not penned in a month. Two good books can't be written in a year, either, unless more than one writer picks up part of the burden.

It's the formula that's worked for Clive Cussler and James Patterson.

It is not, however, the norm.

So don't read about Mr. Smith's big payday (and trophy wife) and think that you've found the publishing niche of your dreams.

More than rare is an author who has the ability to rise to blockbuster levels, and even rarer is one who can hire a stable of writers to put out best sellers.

And remember, those big names started out as nobodies, toiling away in solitude, hoping that what they wrote would resonate with enough readers to get them another contract for another book.

Spring Release From Newcastlewest Books

Less is more.

Presenting the cover of the upcoming release from Newcastlewest Books.

Simple, elegant. We're thrilled to bits with the artwork.

The novel is a work of art as well. We'll be posting more about it in the coming months, but suffice it to say that it is a work of historical fiction, set in Chicago in the 1890's, and the political shenanigans that went on then are still going on today.

How often can you read a piece of fiction, detailing a story that is over one hundred years old, and find countless connections to the present day?

Chicago politics was corrupt then, and it's still corrupt now.

It's a book that you'll want to read, and give to friends who would like to be enlightened as to what "The Chicago Way" means and how it came to be.

It's a story of the Irish diaspora that settled in the city and took over its government by means not always wholesome.

There will be free books given away but we'll be sure to let you know well in advance.

A Literary Catfight

While revenge may be a dish best served cold, getting back at the woman who you blame for your humiliation,is usually done in the heat of the moment.

Publishers will have to decide if they want to enter the literary catfight.

If there's money it, they will.

But would you read the wit and wisdom of "Tampa Kardashian"?

Jill Kelley famously styled herself as an honorary consul worthy of diplomatic immunity when she was named in connection with the David Petraeus adultery scandal.

She has fired off angry letters to the mayor of Tampa, Florida, reflecting her belief that she is an important person who should not be treated with disrespect.

At present, she is pushing a tell-all book to New York publishers, promising to reveal all sorts of juicy scandal about her arch-nemesis, Paula Broadwell. After all, why should Ms. Broadwell reap the benefits of writing a book? Two can play that game.

Perhaps Ms. Kelley is more upset about her personal finances getting an airing when her connections to General Petraeus and other high-level military figures were examined. When you're in arrears on your credit card bills, your husband is a well-paid surgeon and you live in a large home, people talk about you in ways that are not complimentary.

That being the case, it's easy to dismiss her attempt to sell a book as a bid to raise cash to fund her lavish lifestyle.

Sure there are publishers in New York who would buy her manuscript, doctor it and lay it down for a quick buck, but those aren't the sorts of publishers who pay large advances.

Maybe if Ms. Kelley can expose the seedy underbelly of McDill Air Force Base, or present a frightening picture of military readiness to engage in sexual hijinks rather than war, she might have something.

But if her book is nothing more than a literary catfight, there wouldn't be much pressure on the publishers to tussle over an auction. There wouldn't be much interest from the big publishing houses, especially when they'd have to consider legal issues of slander and the like.

So maybe there'll be a new book coming out soon, with Jill Kelley as author.

Then she can check her Amazon numbers against Paula Broadwell's, and the fight can go on.

Disrupting The Disrupted

After Barry O'Callaghan's attempt to create the world's largest educational publisher fell to bits, you'd think that the educational publishing market could be described as disrupted.

It wasn't exactly smooth sailing before he nearly drove Riverdeep, Greenwood, Houghton Mifflin and Harcourt to utter ruin, but the fall-out from his massive debt-financed deal did nothing to calm the waters of educational publishing.

There are still those who believe that there is profit to be made in educational publishing, in spite of ever shrinking school budgets that limit new purchases to few and none.

Joel Klein of News Corps' Amplify unit is one such starry-eyed executive who sees gold where others have found fairy floss.

Like Mr. O'Callaghan, he is convinced that education is crying out for electronic devices and digital content, a niche worth billions.

It sounds lovely, to create a world in which students have tablet devices where now they have dated, rotting textbooks. Imagine the children of America, learning from material that can be updated with a simple download. Where teacher training is a click away.

Mr. Klein intends to drum up sales for Amplify and become the industry leader. Sure the group is losing money now, but once the Federal government starts funding that Race To The Top program, that's when Amplify will turn the corner.

Amplify is going to change education, he says.

Those who once toiled at the publishers that become EMPG have heard that tune sung before, but with a distinct Irish brogue.

Education needs changing, and Mr. Klein has noted the dismal record of achievement that American taxpayers are currently getting for their money.

At present, however, there is no money.

It doesn't matter that the current President has a plan for education reform. The unit of government that approves the use of government funds isn't exactly on board, and there is no stomach for more spending when the national deficit is equal to the nation's gross domestic product. And over-all unfunded debts are equivalent to approximately the wealth of the planet.

As much as Amplify might plan to increase market share, the market is highly competitive with other educational publishers who are all heading towards a digital future.

Whether Amplify will win the race or come in dead last, only time and improvements to economic outlook will tell. If such improvements don't come to pass before Amplify has lost so much money that the Murdoch clan decides it's time to kill the unit, it won't matter how much Mr. Klein wishes to bring order to disruption.

He'll be out of a job.

Like Barry O'Callaghan.

Kobo Comes To Ireland

As you'd expect, this deal has come just in time for holiday gift-giving, but isn't that always the case?

Kobo e-readers will now be available at Hughes & Hughes locations across the island. Mostly in Dublin, but it's a smallish sort of island after all.

So if you're wandering around Ennis (that's across the island right there), wondering what to get for a special someone in your life, you could walk into Hughes & Hughes, purchase a Kobo, and download three excellent works of historical fiction in no time.

You wouldn't give an empty e-reader to someone, would you? It's only half a gift without books inside.

If you've hesitated to purchase from Amazon because you support local book sellers, then the Kobo e-reader is for you.

Then there's the Kobo app for your smartphone, which will allow you to download books to a device that is always in hand. Next time you're waiting somewhere, whether it's the kids or a long commute, you'll appreciate the convenience. And with Kobo, you can link to your e-reader so you can pick up in your reading where you left off, wherever you find yourself.

Digital publishing is a growing piece of the market, and partnering with Kobo will give Hughes & Hughes a bit more of a chance to carry on. If they can't sell you a book, they can sell you the reading device and link to your account so that they derive some benefit.

Reading on a tablet device isn't as fulfilling as a physical book, with the feel of the paper and the slippery sheen of the cover, the physical sensation of turning a page, holding your place with a finger and feeling the weight of the pages. But when you're sitting on a train or a bus, it's rather pleasant to have something to read in a smaller form.

Christmas will be here before you know it.

Fighting Against The Current

In A Terrible Beauty, author Katie Hanrahan presented a vivid picture of Ireland on the precipice.

Before the Easter Rising of 1916, two sides were manning their respective barricades, to fight for their beliefs.

Those two sides are fighting today, fighting the same battle, almost one hundred years after the world thought that the issues were settled.

Over time, the faction in Northern Ireland that wishes to remain a part of Great Britain has been losing ground. The Empire isn't what it used to be, and the world doesn't look on empires with the same admiration and awe that was visible when Victoria reigned.

Now another blow against loyalism has been struck, and the unionists turned to the streets, to violence and rioting, in a throwback policy meant to show their strength.

It worked for them back in 1914, didn't it? They created themselves an army, ready to take up arms to prevent Home Rule. Except that these days they've got Stormont and Northern Ireland's own assembly doing a bit of governing, putting a little distance between Belfast and London.

The Union Jack doesn't always fly over the government buildings at Stormont, and the Belfast City Council decided that they wouldn't fly the Union Jack over the City Hall on a daily basis either.

The result was a riot by unionists, outraged that a symbol of their power will come down.

Gangs stormed the building, attacking anyone who got in their way. To make their point even more clear, they attacked a Catholic Church in a nationalist area, just to show that they are the lords of the Six Counties and the Catholics shouldn't get any ideas about equality.

The nationalists learned years ago that violence didn't win them any friends in the international community. The unionist politicians recognize that fact as well, which is why they condemned the violence.

There is no sympathy these days for a faction that seeks to suppress religious liberties, that attempts to segregate a group of people because of their faith. Still the loyalists fight to preserve their ever shrinking turf, fighting against a current that is running against them.

The beginning of the fight is laid out in A Terrible Beauty.

As for the end, it's yet to be written, and it looks to be a long way off.

An Apple By Any Other Name Would Not Smell LIke Garlic

What with Ireland being desperate for cash, it's no wonder that the Revenue probe has reached into every possible crevice in search of tax dodgers.

It's also no wonder that anyone who can is trying to dodge their tax burden. For businesses, margins are slim and if it's a question of not paying the government or not paying your employees, it isn't much of a choice.

The employees will notice the empty pay packet. The government, not so much.

Businessmen do get caught, however, and the courts throw fines and custodial sentences at them, but the latest case has raised some legal eyebrows.

Paul Begley runs his family-owned produce firm, the largest in Ireland. Being a savvy man, he noticed that the import duties on apples from China was next to nothing, while the fees for importing garlic were astronomical.

Where to cut costs?

He had the garlic labeled as apples, paid the apple fare, and thought he'd been rather clever.

Not so clever as he needed to be. Mr. Begley was found out, he admitted his guilt, cooperated with the Revenue people, and stood ready to take his punishment.

The judge, apparently more incensed over the fraud than previous such cases, handed down a sentence of six years.

Mr. Begley wasn't trimming expenses during the downturn, unfortunately for him. He was manipulating labels during the boom years, back in 2003, and he called his apples 'garlic' at least four times through 2007.

Even so, the sentence seems a bit harsh.

Mr. Begley certainly thinks so.

He has appealed it, the longest stretch ever given for deceptions such as his, citing the severity that is not in keeping with previous practice.

Whether or not the judiciary panel will have mercy is hard to determine. Things being what they are these days, with weepy tales of grannies facing a frigid winter because their heating allowance must be cut, Mr. Begley may face a steep uphill climb.

The taxpayers are angry, and their mood is not improving with all the talk of austerity budgets and cuts to welfare programs. The politicians will look to appease those voters, in the hope of retaining their comfortable seats in the Dail.

Mr. Begley's time for his crime may become the new normal for the next round of miscreants apprehended for dodging their taxes. Heads on pikes are always good for the business when business is attracting votes.