More spirited debate going on over at John Green's blog about a book's advance vs. its marketing budget. Really fascinating stuff, for anyone even tangentially related to the book biz.

RECIPE OF THE WEEK - coming up later today; just need to make some edits to the fabulous Slow Cooker Pork Pozole I made yesterday (YUM!).

And now for the other thing (if you're reading this over at Facebook, you may want to avert your eyes, though there's nothing graphic here so much as a recommendation for a good girly parts doc in the area):

( Cut in case you're so not interested in anything having to do with  )

Thanks to Lauren Barnholt for linking to this post on John Green's blog about author advances. This is a question I get asked just about everywhere I speak - even high school kids care more about HOW an author gets paid than HOW much, which I've always found sort of fascinating.

Had a great chat with my agent this morning (which is typical - George is always making me laugh, recommending obscure films he thinks I'll enjoy, or telling me about articles he's read recently that he wants me to check out, too). One thing that boggled my mind was what he said about how different BEA was from years past. I haven't exactly been vigilant about keepin up with the blogosphere, but he mentioned how some publishers, instead of distributing galleys, were offering stick drives with up to seven books on them in PDF form. My first thought was that this is brilliant in terms of controlling cost. My second was, "Oh, god - how are they going to be able to protect the manuscripts from being passed around the Internet?" This is something we authors haven't really had to deal with on a large level, besides the Google Books fiasco and the difficulty controlling the distribution of audiobooks through the same sites where people illegally download mp3, games, and programs.

I think we're only really starting to get an understanding of how the recession will effect the book biz. Harold Underdown's article, "Working in Children's Books and the Recession of 2008-09" really hit me hard yesterday, because even it ends on a hopeful note, it wasn't until I saw the "who's moving where" link that I realized how bad things are for the publishers. I mean, in a lot of cases, you often feel like you're outside the publisher, because no matter how much you love your editor or house, there's still that slight tinge of bitterness that everyone else makes a comfortable living off your books except you (unless you're a superstar, or crazy prolific (I'm looking at you, Elizabeth Scott!), in which case, this may not apply).

[Tangent: in his article, Harold recommends reading Leonard Marcus's MINDERS OF MAKE-BELIEVE, about the history of children's book publishing, which I second. George sent it to me to read while I was recovering from surgery, and it's amazing. This is definitely a case of not judging a book by its less-than-fantastic cover.]

Back to the galley-on-stick-drive thing: one thing George mentioned that never crossed my mind is how this system of distributing paperless books pre-pub is going to have a profound effect on librarians. Thoughts on this, librarians?

Last, George made a point about teling me that I needed to read Elizabeth Bluemle's recent PW blog about the do's and don'ts of promotional e-mailing. One thing I want to add to her incredibly informative list is that when you're sending promotional emails to fellow authors, make sure that they either A) asked to be on your mailing list or B) have the option of unsubscribing without having to tell you WHY you're unsubscribing. I recently got an email blast from someone I can't even remember ever meeting, who doesn't write in my genre, and who sends out blasts every two to three weeks. I responded to one "Unsubscribe," thinking that was enough, but no, she demanded to know my name and the reason why. She had my e-mail address, obviously, so why pressure me into telling her that I think her books sound lame and that I'm not interested in learning that she had a mini-interview in her small-town's coupon clipper (okay, that last part is totally made up).

I'm even more excited to get this advice from a bookseller's perspective, as I'm in the final stages of my PR prep for THE SWEET LIFE OF STELLA MADISON, which is out in just over two weeks. Also coming soon is the long-promised website overhaul I'm working on with Little Willow - the delays in merging Lola's site with Lara's have been entirely mine, as I always have about 50 things going on at the same time. She's been so patient with me, though, and a total sweetheart - I definitely recommend her work to any of you soon-to-be first-time authors seeking a web designer who does good, clean work and makes it fun at the same time.

Tomorrow: a post I keep delaying about changes in the laws regarding repayment of student loans (it's all good news, so yay!).