That’s a image of the not-secret-any-more furry cover for Dave Eggers’ upcoming novelization of Where the Wild Things Are (this image is, if I’m not mistaken and for at least the next ten minutes or so, a Mercury exclusive). This, this is why small publishers might win. McSweeney’s is so remarkably good at books-as-objects, and they’re good at it because they’ve never coasted on the increasingly economically unviable assumption that a book’s mere object-ness makes it valuable, as so many publishers have done until very recently. Nope, they consistently put out weird and funny and interestingly designed books like this, shit you want even if you could read the whole thing online, and which I. Must. Own. Also, yesterday I blogged that the book is “available for pre-order on Amazon.” I’m not sure why I turned into a jackass for a minute. Don’t pre-order it on Amazon. Pre-order it at Powell’s.
Isn’t this book being published by Harper Collins? I’m pretty sure Daniel Halprin bought it for Ecco, his imprint there. In any case there are few differences between an imprint like Ecco (and the very talented people who work there) and an imprint like McSweeny’s. They’re both capable of great work and both constrained by the same crazy market.
I’m pretty comfortable with the “books-as-objects” dynamic, but that’s because I like forcing people to know what books I’ve read as soon as they enter my home.
Powell’s is always so much more expensive on most everything, I don’t even check it for prices anymore. Plus Amazon has reviews. Sorry, Powell’s, wish I could love your online presence more.
I’d sure love to rub my balls against that!
Mea culpa. I guess the deal that Daniel Halpern set up at Ecco, which was actually for Harper-Collins and McSweeney’s to co-publish under the Ecco imprint, turned into a McSweeney’s-only publication. I wonder what happened, and how this attempt to make a collaboration between McSweeney’s and one of the world’s biggest publishing houses fell apart? Having worked at many levels of publishing I don’t believe it is because the people working at Ecco are any less brilliant or talented than the crew at McSweeney’s. One of the hardest things about the current transitions in publishing is that there is no monolithic bad guy holding back the genius innovators. The “majors” are made up of hundreds of imprints of every size. Some, like Ecco, producing incredible work on a model more like McSweeney’s than like, say. Harper Perrenial, Ecco’s sister-imprint within Harper. You actually have a great story here, a window onto real publishing. Help us really understand it. Get on the phone and find out how Daniel Halpern’s hugely ambitious plan at Ecco turned into what could be McSweeney’s biggest book ever.
For all the pervs out there (Radik), i am hoping that this book in appereance only mimics Harry Potter’s “Care of Magical Creatures” textbook.