Category Archives: Book Talk

Book Talk, Events

Alabama Book Festival 2009

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The weather could not have been any better down in Montgomery for the Alabama Book Festival this year. There was even a small 2 minute light rain, just to make sure no one overheated. There was plenty to do, as usual and some of the old favorites were there. APTV sponsored the children’s area, so there were lots of costumed characters, stickers and free books making making the rounds. I mean FREE books! It’s worth the trip right there.

My only regret is not getting to make my way to the New South Books open house. I hope they do it again for next year’s festival. There are a few (I was a photo slacker this year) more pics (including Rick Bragg and Frank Stitt) after the jump.

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Book Talk, Upcoming Titles

The New Pat Conroy

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It’s always fun when you stumble across a post that whet’s your appetite for what’s coming down the pike. Such was the case when I read this post on Book Case, about a sneek peek at Pat Conroy’s latest novel. Though it won’t be out until end-of-summer early-fall South of Broad sounds like another great southern stoked read. I do hope it’s more Lords of Discipline and less Prince of Tides.

Authors, Book Talk, Events

2009 Alabama Book Festival

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The Alabama Book Festival is today down in Old Alabama Town, Montgonmery, AL. We’re loading the kiddos up and headed down there. Looks to be a good weather day.

Robyn Litchfield just had something post to the Montgomery Advertiser site though, and it sounds like it’ll at least be as good as last year’s!

Here is a list of authors and venue schedule for today.

Book Talk, On the Web

Why Publishing will Always Be People Powered

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In this day of self-publishing services partnering with, ebook vendors and vending machines that print books, it is not hard to envision a day when machines would control it all. But then you run across a site like Lulu.com’s new service and realize that day is a long long way off.

They have a new Title Scorer where wannabe best-selling authors can thow their titles up and “to the scientific test and find out whether it has what it takes for bestseller success.”

I thought it a cool idea. Then I typed in “Of Mice and Men”, which in it’s infinite wisdom cranked out the following result:

Oh well. Humans (1) Machines (0)

So tonight, I raise my glass to all you editors, AQ folks and authors who actually think about these things while discerning what will resonate with your readers.