Mark Twain

Posthumous Autobiography

A limited number of advance copies of the official “Autobiography of Mark Twain” are stored in a secured, secret location somewhere in Calaveras County, the place made famous by the author of “The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County” 145 years ago.

The 737-page hardbound edition will make its worldwide debut in Angels Camp on Oct. 15 as part of the centennial observation of Mark Twain’s death and a celebration of his life and many literary works. Its debut here will be followed by releases elsewhere in the United States in November and around the world in December.

The new book, edited by members of the Mark Twain Project at Bancroft Library at the University of California, Berkeley, is just the first in a three-volume autobiographical set. The next two will be published over the next five years. International media have declared publication of this book a major publishing event.

“This memoir, written by America’s favorite humorist, was suppressed in part by the author until 100 years after his death so that he could speak freely 'with his whole frank mind' about his ideas, without any form of self-censorship,” Mark Twain Motherlode Festival organizers said.

“This is Mark Twain’s blog for the 21st century,” they said, “a collection of four years of dictations, compiled from over 5,000 manuscript pages totaling more than half a million words. The edition is the result of years of literary detective work by dedicated scholars who pored through 10-foot deep files of material housed within the 'Mark Twain Papers,' the world’s largest archive of primary materials by this major American writer.”

Bob Rogers, former executive director of the Angels Camp Museum, serves on a committee of festival organizers led by Bob Trinchero, a Greenhorn Creek resident, and Executive Director Caroline Schirato.

“For us to have the honor of releasing this book is incredible,” Rogers said, “and to have the support of the Bancroft Library, the Mark Twain Project and the UC Press is a blessing.”

Calaveras Enterprise

AuthorHouse New

Apps Service

PRESS RELEASE - AuthorHouse, the leading provider of self-publishing and marketing services for authors around the globe, has launched a suite of new services that allows children’s authors to bring their stories to life as apps for the iPad™, iPhone™ and iPod Touch™.

Each of the apps is made available through the Apple App Store™ for downloading directly to the handheld readers.  Children’s authors can choose from the following development packages:

“More than 100 million consumers currently own one of these three readers, and that number is growing rapidly every day. AuthorHouse’s app development services allow our indie authors to reach this expanding universe of readers and to bring their books to life with multimedia features that will enhance the reading experience,” said Kevin Weiss, CEO and president of AuthorHouse’s parent company, Author Solutions, Inc.

For more information on bringing your children’s book to life as an app, log on to authorhouse.com or call 888-519-5121.

And What's More…

PRESS RELEASE (BUSINESS WIRE) - Ruckus Media Group, a global mobile family entertainment company, announced its Mobile Media unit has released its first classic animated children’s story applications for Apple’s iPad, iPhone and iPod Touch, digitally re-mastered and optimized by Boston-based FableVision. “We’re thrilled to be able to deliver wholesome, family-friendly entertainment to the global mobile market at a price-point that delivers an incredible amount of value,” said Jim Young, Ruckus Media Group’s COO.

The company’s first apps draw from the award-winning Rabbit Ears Library and feature well-known classic children’s stories told by top Hollywood celebrities. Each Play-Read-and-Record-Along application is available for $3.99 through Apple’s iTunes App Store in 76 countries and includes a classic video, readable text story and the ability to record voices for personalized storytelling:

“We create stories for mobile devices that entertain toddlers to teens from their fingers to their minds, at home or on the road—and invite their imaginations to grow,” said founder and CEO Robert Richter. “Our applications are ideal for today’s families who are perpetually ‘on the go.’ It’s our goal to immerse children in a world of imagination.”

Next on the publishing schedule and due to release are “The Velveteen Rabbit” – told by Meryl Streep, illustrated by Dave Jorgenson with music by George Winston, and “Tom Thumb and the Knights of the Round Table” – told by John Cleese, illustrated by Tim Gabor with music by Elvis Costello. Ruckus Mobile Media is currently developing original apps with bestselling and award-winning authors and illustrators including Jon Scieszka, Rosemary Wells, Andrew Clements, Patricia MacLachlan and David Carter, among others, to create interactive works not possible within the pages of a printed book. The first two of these original applications, due next month, will be “Andrew Answers” by Alan Katz, author of “Take Me Out of the Bathtub and Other Silly Dilly Songs” and “A Present for Milo” by Mike Austin.

Yahoo.com

New Technology for

Signing eBooks

by Edward Nawotka

E-books, for all their utility, currently lack one particular feature: the ability to get them signed by an author. There are, however, options and strategies emerging that offer options to readers who want their e-books personalized and for publishers hosting events.  “When you don’t have a physical book, you really have to think about what kind of an event to do,” says Rachel Chou, Chief Marketing Officer of digital publisher Open Road Integrated Media.

The company faced this question when it published its first e-original work, Negotiating With Evil by Mitchell B. Reiss this past September.

For its first event with Reiss, held at New York’s Cooper Union, Open Road showed a variety of videos produced about the book and sold copies of the non-DRM e-book on a USB flash drive. Anyone purchasing the book, as well as those who had already downloaded a copy onto their e-reader (provided they had it with them) were invited to have their photo taken with the Reiss, which was then downloaded to the drive.

“With the photo, the signature became less important,” says Chou, who says they are still experimenting with ideas for events and even touring authors. “The photo is a good ‘take away’ for the reader and for us, since it can be sent out on social media ad it becomes part of our event photos.”

Publishing Perspectives

Agent Nearly

Shot President

NEW YORK – A former Secret Service agent says in his new book that he nearly shot President Lyndon B. Johnson hours after John F. Kennedy's assassination.  In "The Kennedy Detail," Gerald Blaine recalls standing guard outside the Washington home of newly sworn-in President Johnson in the early hours of Nov. 23, 1963.

Blaine heard footsteps approaching. He picked up his submachine gun and, in the darkness, pointed it at the chest of a man who turned out to be Johnson.

Blaine writes that the enormity of what had almost happened left him chilled. He realized that, 14 hours after losing one president, the nation had almost lost another one by his own hand.  He says his book is the first account of the assassination by a member of Kennedy's security detail.

Yahoo

Chief of Staff:

Clinton Lost Nuke Codes

A former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff says in a new book that while Bill Clinton was in the White House, a key component of the president's nuclear launch protocol went missing.  "The codes were actually missing for months. This is a big deal," says Gen. Hugh Shelton. "We dodged a silver bullet."

In his book "Without Hesitation," the retired Army general writes, "Even though movies may show the President wearing these codes around his neck, it's pretty standard that they are safeguarded by one of his aides, but that aide sticks with him like glue."

He adds that President Clinton "assumed, I'm sure, that the aide had them like he was supposed to."

What apparently went missing was a card with code numbers on it that allows the president to access a briefcase -- called the "football" and kept by an aide always near the commander in chief -- containing instructions for launching a nuclear attack.

Once a month, Defense Department officials conduct an in-person verification to make sure the president has the right codes. At least twice in a row, Shelton writes, a White House aide told the Pentagon checker that the president was in a meeting but gave a verbal assurance that the codes were with him.

Then one month around 2000, according to Shelton, when the time came to replace the codes with a new set, "the president's aide said neither he nor the president had the codes -- they had completely disappeared."

CNN

McEwen: Clarence Thomas

No Saint

For nearly two decades, Lillian McEwen has been silent -- a part of history, yet absent from it.  When Anita Hill accused Clarence Thomas of sexual harassment during his explosive 1991 Supreme Court confirmation hearing, Thomas vehemently denied the allegations and his handlers cited his steady relationship with another woman in an effort to deflect Hill's allegations.

Lillian McEwen was that woman.

At the time, she was on good terms with Thomas. The former assistant U.S. attorney and Senate Judiciary Committee counsel had dated him for years, even attending a March 1985 White House state dinner as his guest. She had worked on the Hill and was wary of entering the political cauldron of the hearings. She was never asked to testify, as then-Sen. Joe Biden (D-Del.), who headed the committee, limited witnesses to women who had a "professional relationship" with Thomas.

Now, she says that Thomas often said inappropriate things about women he met at work -- and that she could have added her voice to the others, but didn't.

Over the years, reporters and biographers approached her eager to know more about Thomas from women who knew him well. But McEwen remained mum. She said she saw "nothing good" coming out of talking to reporters about Thomas, whom she said she still occasionally met. She did not want to do anything to harm her career, she added. Plus, she realized, "I don't look good in this."

Today, McEwen is 65 and retired from a successful career as a prosecutor, law professor and administrative law judge for federal agencies. She has been twice married and twice divorced, and has a 32-year-old daughter. She lives in a comfortable townhouse in Southwest Washington.   And she is silent no more.

She has written a memoir, which she is now shopping to publishers. News broke that the justice's wife, Virginia Thomas, left a voice mail on Hill's office phone at Brandeis University, seeking an apology -- a request that Hill declined in a statement. After that, McEwen changed her mind and decided to talk about her relationship with Thomas.

"I have nothing to be afraid of," she said, adding that she hopes the attention stokes interest in her manuscript.

To McEwen, Hill's allegations that Thomas had pressed her for dates and made lurid sexual references rang familiar.

"He was always actively watching the women he worked with to see if they could be potential partners," McEwen said matter-of-factly. "It was a hobby of his."

Washington Post

University Prints

Own Books POD

by Bill Graves

Portland State University just got one of three machines in the country that will give professors an affordable way to produce on-demand textbooks and  frustrated authors a quick way to turn their novels into print.  The university has teamed with Hewlett-Packard and Lulu, an online self-publishing service, to set up a print-on-demand machine called Odin Ink. The sophisticated small roll press cranks out books behind a counter on the upper floor of the university's bookstore.

Anyone can publish a 300-page paperback book with a color cover for $11.95. The bookstore will publish anywhere from a single book to thousands of copies. Books with color pages cost more, starting at $18.95 for the first 100 pages.

The machine will allow professors to produce textbooks tailored to their needs at lower costs because the book store does not have to pay for shipping, said Kenneth Brown, president and chief executive officer of the bookstore.

During a gathering to introduce the printing machine earlier this month, Brown had on hand dozens of copies of a paperback book featuring "Selected Works of Edgar Allan Poe." Portland State employees designed and produced the book on the printing machine in a day, he said.

Oregon Live

Harlequin Rebrands

For Sales

by Donna Hayes

PRESS RELEASE - In the rapidly changing world of media and entertainment, publishing, too, is experiencing exciting new changes. To position ourselves for opportunities and growth in the future, we want to expand and celebrate our strength and diversity as the leading publisher of entertainment for women.

Our current solid reputation in this arena and our strong identity continues to be the envy of many publishers. In the past 15 years, Harlequin has come to mean much more than series romance. We have expanded into mainstream fiction and romance, Christian fiction, African-American fiction, teen fiction and nonfiction. As we move toward the next 15 years, we hope that Harlequin will mean even more.

This summer, we worked with the world-renowned design and branding company

Pentagram, in New York, in order to re-envision both our branding strategy and our look. In 2011 you will notice a number of changes relating to the Harlequin brands. We have redesigned our Harlequin corporate logo, which you can see at the top of this letter: the four diamonds have been replaced with the letter H inside one larger diamond.

Because Harlequin is increasingly recognized as a publisher of a broad range of women’s reading, we will be placing the corporate logo on the back cover of all the books we publish. In the digital future, search and discovery will become even more important, and customers’ ability to find our authors and books will be enhanced by the use of the Harlequin brand.

We have also redesigned the Harlequin consumer logo associated with our series romance programs. For the consumer logo, we have replaced the harlequin figure inside the diamond with a stylized figure representing our reader, placing her first and foremost in our brand.

We will also be rebranding some of our series. In April 2011 our Silhouette series will become Harlequin series. As you know, Silhouette Nocturne became Harlequin Nocturne in June of this year. Special Edition, Romantic Suspense and Desire will appear with their new Harlequin brand in April. Rebranding the Silhouette series as Harlequin will ensure that these series benefit from the promotional resources dedicated to the Harlequin brand and will strengthen the Harlequin consumer brand as the market leader in romance fiction.

Also in April 2011, Love Inspired will replace Steeple Hill as the primary brand for our inspirational fiction publishing program. The Steeple Hill logo will no longer appear on the books.

While we are broadening what our corporate brand represents, we will continue to support and strengthen the many individual imprints that fall beneath the Harlequin umbrella, and that includes growing you, the authors, into strong brands of your own.

As a valued Harlequin author, you should feel free to contact your editor with any questions or concerns that you may have. We look forward to hearing from you.

Bits & Bytes

Thousands More Listings for AmSAW PROFESSIONAL MEMBERS Today

FICTION

Debut

Robin Yocum's FAVORITE SONS, in which a teenage boy's murder in 1971 sends an innocent man to prison and the boys responsible for the death vow to each other to keep their secret; thirty years later, one of the boys, now a candidate for state attorney general, is being blackmailed by an ex-con with knowledge of the crime; with a week to go to the election, the candidate tries to sort through three decades of the deceit he helped create, to Lilly Golden at Arcade, for publication in Spring 2011, by Colleen Mohyde at the Doe Coover Agency (World).

colleen@doecooveragency.com

Inspirational

Ginny Aiken's three-book historical "Women of Hope" series takes place in Hope County, Oregon during the 1880s and 1890s; each woman experiences situations similar to those faced by women in the Bible, illustrating how valid and powerful the lessons of Scripture are when applied to the challenges of today, to Christina Boys at Faith Words, in a very nice deal, for publication in 2012, by Steve Laube at the Steve Laube Agency (world).

Women's/Romance

Roni Loren's debut EXPOSURE THERAPY, about a therapist who chooses to overcome her own past to help herself and her missing sister while trusting her former lover with her safety and her heart, to Kate Seaver at Berkley Heat, in a nice deal, in a two-book deal, by Sara Megibow at Nelson Literary Agency (World English).

query@nesonagency.com

Translation: wlee@fieldingagency.com

General/Other

Charles Douthat's BLUE FOR OCEANS, a debut book of poetry taking up the themes of family and the passage of time, to Brian Francis Slattery at New Haven Review Press, for publication in December 2010.

Editor@newhavenreview.com

German Hotlist Book Award winner and poet Ulrike Almut Sandig's MUTABOR, from the FLAMINGOS collection, to Susan Harris at Words Without Borders, for publication in 2011, by Schoeffling.

GermanHotlist@gmail.com

Children's: Middle grade

Society of Illustrators' Founders Award winner Taeeun Yoo to illustrate R.P. Harris's middle-grade novel about the remarkable journey of a young girl who rescues and befriends an elephant, to Julie Romeis at Chronicle, by Holly McGhee at Pippin Properties.

Children's: Young Adult

THEODOSIA and NATHANIEL FLUDD series author R. L. LaFevers's DARK MERCY, pitched as LA FEMME NIKITA meets A GREAT AND TERRIBLE BEAUTY, from a trio of romantic historical fantasies focusing on teen girl assassins in 15th century France, DARK JUSTICE and DARK HOPE, each focusing on a different assassin trained at a convent serving the god of death himself, to Kate O'Sullivan at Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Children's, in a pre-empt, in a good deal, for publication starting in spring 2012, by Erin Murphy of Erin Murphy Literary Agency (NA).

Foreign/translation: Rights People

NONFICTION

Advice/Relationships

Sorbonne professor Luc Ferry's LEARNING TO LIVE, a short history of Western thought that shows what philosophy can teach us about how to live a better life; reported as a 300,000-copy bestseller in France, to Peter Hubbard at Harper Perennial, for publication in 2011, by Andrea Joyce at Canongate UK (NA).

Diet

Sugar Shock author Connie Bennett's BEYOND SUGAR SHOCK: The 6-Week Plan to Break Free of Your Sugar Addiction & Get a Slimmer, Sexier & Sweeter Life, to Patty Gift at Hay House, for publication in Winter 2012, by Wendy Sherman (world).

wendy@wsherman.com

Health

Adjunct associate professor of Psychiatry at Yale University School of Medicine Dr. David Tolin's FACE YOUR FEARS, a simple program based on Dr. Tolin's research to help readers learn the science of fear and recovery, what is the best way to overcome fear, and the key steps for developing and implementing a successful plan to conquer your fears, to Tom Miller at Wiley, at auction, by Jill Marsal at the Marsal Lyon Literary Agency.

Jill@MarsalLyonLiteraryAgency.com

Humor

Maynard & Jennica author Rudolph Delson's HOW TO WIN HER LOVE, a short tongue-in-cheek (mostly!) book for bachelors on how to find and keep the women of their dreams; pitched as an "Art of Courtly Love" for the present day, with illustrations by Katie Turner, to Mark Oppenheimer of New Haven Review Press, for publication in December 2010, by Jay Mandel at William Morris Endeavor.

Editor@newhavenreview.com

Memoir

Portland illustrator and 'zinester Nicole Georges's untitled graphic memoir, about uncovering a 22-year family secret that leads Nicole to question her identity, the meaning of family, and the definition of truth, to Meagan Stacey at Mariner, by Holly Bemiss at the Susan Rabiner Literary Agency (World).

lori.glazer@hmhpub.com

Religion/Spirituality

Hungry Planet's GOD GIRL and GOD GUY Bibles, to Jennifer Leep at Revell, in a very nice deal, by Christopher Ferebee at Yates & Yates.