51. I’m thinking (frightening!)

 The Classic Writer-and-Editor Joke (OK, this is a bit mean, but we joked about writers and agents; it’s time for editors.) A writer and an editor are stranded in the desert.  They’ve been crawling across the sand for days. As they’re about to die of thirst, they come across an oasis.  The writer jumps in…

Randy quickly moved to secure the license to produce books bound-on-the-right-for-left-handed readers.  He tossed $100 per title to book publishers for the exclusive global license to publish editions bound-on-the-right (although he skipped the Hebrew market, as that got complicated).  For decades, he grabbed that license for most every fiction and nonfiction bestseller.  At the same…

Going through airport security, I lost the small 5-inch comb I always carry in the back pocket of my pants. So on my walk over to the conference, I stopped at a convenience store which only had a longer, 7.5-inch comb. What difference could 2.5 inches make?  I bought the comb and slipped it into…

Detective Josephine Rocco agreed to see me. I explained.  All those killings, well, just happened.  They weren’t murders.  Tom was actually killed by some unknown driver.  Orlando actually jumped off his roof, he wasn’t pushed.  Harris was actually run off the road, it happens.  Linda was actually strangled when she was mugged.  And Tony actually…

At one point I headed up marketing for the book publisher Little Brown back in the day when it was Boston-based, housed at 34 Beacon Street, in an elegant building on Beacon Hill, first built as a home in 1825 on land belonging to John Hancock. Our big Spring 1983 title was Norman Mailer’s Ancient…

That next-to-the-last posting of mine, the one with Detective Rocco, in which I revealed how some whacko simply took advantage of innocent deaths, well, wow, that got a lot of attention.  Every meeting here in London, that’s the first thing mentioned.  And the UK-based Bookseller magazine led with the reveal from my blog.  Pretty cool. …