800-CEO-READ 2009 Business Book Awards

Today 800-CEO-READ announced the winners of their 2009 Business Book Awards, which highlights its top business book of the year along with winners and nominees in a number of categories including Leadership, Current Interest and Finance & Economics. TOO BIG TO FAIL by Andrew Ross Sorkin (Viking) won Business Book of the Year and we're thrilled that six of our clients are also on the list!

Personal Development WINNER! – Power of 2 by Rodd Wagner & Gale Muller (Gallup Press)

Leadership nominee – Strengths Based Leadership by Barrie Conchie & Tom Rath (Gallup Press)

Marketing & Advertising nominee – "I Love You More Than My Dog" by Jeanne Bliss (Portfolio)

Entrepreneurship & Small Business nominee - Duck and (Re)Cover by Steven S. Little (Wiley)

Biographies & Narratives nominee - How to Castrate a Bull by Dave Hitz with Pat Walsh (Jossey-Bass)

Innovation & Creativity nominee - In Pursuit of Elegance by Matthew B. May (Broadway Business)

Congratulations to all of the winners and nominees!

Do What You Love

Gallup has long espoused the value of doing what you do best, every day, penning a sequence of bestsellers to help all of us identify our strengths and figure out whether we’re putting them to good use. Hand in hand with this school of thought is the idea that we should spend our precious time – perhaps the biggest scarcity in our ever wired world – doing what we truly love.

Given the tough state of the publishing world, it's a great time to be in the game for love of the written word.

Last week, we lost four Conde Nast magazines to the difficult economy and falling ad dollars. This week, our friends at 800 CEO READ passed on the last column written by their local book review editor, Geeta Sharma Jensen of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. She was among those taking an early buy out in early August. We think it's a poignant tribute to the passion that books can inspire.

Book Expo a Bright Spot in a Down Market

Attendance was down from the last Book Expo America (BEA), the annual publishing convention, held in New York and some attendees bemoaned the lack of freebies, galleys and other giveaways, but I walked away from this year's show with the Gloria Gaynor tune, "I Will Survive," going through my head. The publishing industry is moving in a digital direction, it’s being hit hard by the economy like every other business, but the authors – many, many great ones – were there, sending the signal that good books will indeed survive.

I had the chance to reconnect with Pulitzer Prize winner Tracy Kidder whom I worked with fifteen years ago and my old boss at Houghton Mifflin Joe Kanon who turned novelist years back and has churned out several bestsellers. Margaret Atwood, Michael Lewis, Francine Prose, R.L. Stine and Nicholas Sparks were all on hand as well, providing a literary and eclectic list of authors with a proven track record of getting people to read. Which, at the end of the day, when the booths are dismantled, the sore feet soaked, and the suitcases packed, is the goal after all.

Our fun moments included our digital media director Sara Schneider getting cozy with a Star Wars Stormtrooper, having dinner with our friends and colleagues at 800 CEO READ whose book, The 100 Best Business Books of All Time, continues to sell well and doing booth duty with the folks at Gallup Press who have over the years gone from being just clients to great friends.


Gallup's Geoff Brewer and me at the Gallup Press booth


Sara and the Stormtrooper

Gloria’s right, we will survive. And whether we read our books on a digital device or on the finest of papers, they are never going away.

Partying Like Times are Good

Last week, while the temperatures were dropping and bad economic news filled the headlines, it seemed, oddly enough, no better time to host a book party!

Sara and I were thrilled to be at the party of the New York book launch for THE 100 BEST BUSINESS BOOKS OF ALL TIME: What They Say, Why They Matter, and How They Can Help You by our authors and friends, Jack Covert and Todd Sattersten of 800CEOREAD. More than 100 people gathered in Manhattan's beautiful Midtown Loft to celebrate the book, Jack's 25 years in the bookselling business and the winners of their 2008 Business Book Awards. Todd, newly sworn in as the company's President, used the opportunity to call on some big names in publishing including Wiley's Jack Day and Portfolio's Adrian Zackheim, editor of THE 100 BEST, to recall the best and funniest of times from Jack's life as a bookseller. Lots of authors were in attendance including Seth Godin, whose book Tribes won Best Business Book of 2008 and Erika Andersen (her second book, Being Strategic, is coming out in June). We saw agents Larry Kirshbaum, Jim Levine, Margaret McBride, Ron Hogan of GalleyCat and dozens of others in the publishing industry who seemed eager to take a break from bleak sales reports and mass firings to chat and mingle with their colleagues.



Photos by Kat Berger


At the same time, Dennis headed to Dallas to help our author Bob Beaudine celebrate the publication of his book, THE POWER OF WHO. Beaudine, fresh from an appearance on NBC-TV's "The Today Show" and glowing from a recent mention in Time, hosted about 100 guests at Legacy Books in Plano, Texas, a beautiful new independent store. Beaudine's book suggests throwing out the old rules of networking and instead relying on your close circle of allies, advocates and fans to get ahead in life. Obviously, Bob's top WHO were with him to celebrate including Bob's agent Jan Miller of Dupree, Miller & Associates. To make a great night even better, the store reported that they sold over 150 books. Way to go, Bob!