BEA 2012: Colbert Rocks Author Breakfast

Stephen Colbert was the suave master of ceremonies at Tuesday's BookExpo author breakfast, and the standout celebrity (by his own admission) who stood out among real authors.

BEA 2012: For Every Purpose There Is a Timer

Thanks to a timed-reading homework assignment for her daughter, Maureen Farinella came up with a unique device: a bookmark with a specially designed digital timer that keeps track of how much time is spent reading. Launched to great success seven years ago at Book Expo in Chicago, that product inspired another device two years ago—a bookmark timer with a light— and now Farinella, inventor and CEO of Mark-My-Time, is launching a new product at BEA.

BEA 2012: Speeding Rights Clearance

The emphasis that speed is of the essence when it comes to determining and simplifying digital rights and permissions set the theme at Monday’s BookExpo America panel, “Protecting Your Titles: Building Out the Rights and Permissions Marketplace.”

BEA 2012: Joyce Wins Second Ambassador Award

BEA 2012: Bestsellers Top 25

BEA 2012: Monkfish Marks 10

Cofounder and publisher Paul Cohen says he is very proud of the 40 books he green-lighted during the first 10 years of Monkfish Book Publishing and tells PW Show Daily, “2012 is going to be a very exciting year.” An independent press that publishes spiritual and literary books, Monkfish is launching a new imprint called Indaba, which is roughly translated as “council of the elders,” says Cohen.

BEA 2012: Are They Kidding? Not!

When Overlook Press publisher Peter Mayer was offered the chance to publish a North American edition of Weird Things Customers Say in Bookshops, he snapped it up. Out in August, Overlook’s edition will contain content selected from the U.K. version as well as 50% new material gathered from booksellers across the United States and Canada. “Overlook’s closeness to bookstores of every kind is well-known,” says Mayer, “so Weird Things Customers Say in Bookshops looked like a perfect fit. We knew we were onto a great thing when so many booksellers responded to our call for submissions and sent in their own wacky candidates. And so far the orders are terrific, producing more smiles.”

BEA 2012: Imagination Rules at Shadow Mountain

Shadow Mountain Publishing, a general-interest publisher noted for its line of children’s and children’s fantasy books (its tagline: “We don’t just print books, we publish dreams”), has a full lineup of authors scheduled for signings, including Brandon Mull, author of two fantasy series; actress Jane Seymour; and one half of the two-woman cooking blog “Our Best Bites,” Sara Wells.

BEA 2012: A Chat with Michael Bolton

Grammy Award–winning singer/songwriter Michael Bolton has sold more than 50 million albums and singles worldwide and has his own star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. He has also just penned The Soul of It All: My Life, My Music (Hachette/Center Street Nov.), his memoir about the highs and lows of four decades in the music business.

BEA 2012: Greenleaf’s Platform Benefits Authors

Greenleaf Book Group is a proponent of aligning content creation with audience strategy. To that end, the company will be using its time at BEA this year to promote its platform development program, a comprehensive resource for authors and professionals looking to grow their influence, and to retain the rights to their work and still compete with the major publishing houses.

BEA 2012: Check Out BEA’s Digital Zone

The IDPF Digital Zone at BEA showcases new and existing technologies from companies on the edge of today’s digital landscape. Here are a few looking to demonstrate their new digital projects on the show floor.

BEA 2012: Comics and Graphic Novels: Indies Rule

Independent comics publishers will rule the floor at BEA, while Marvel and DC Comics, the Big Two of U.S. comics publishing, have decided to skip having their own booths at the show. Nevertheless, both publishers are likely to have at least a minimal presence of their titles in the Diamond Comic Distributors booth (3575) as well as displays with their parent companies, Disney (3351 and MR7023) and Warner Bros. (RC67), respectively.

BEA 2012: Thrillers on the Big Questions

Readers sometimes write to Steven James to ask him a simple question: is your book a Christian book? James, the author of both thrillers and inspirational titles, usually answers with another question: what, exactly, makes a book un-Christian? “I thought it was maybe if there’s gratuitous sex or violence or idolatry,” he says. “And then I thought, no, that’s all in the Old Testament.”

BEA 2012: A Model Storyteller

Until she was already writing her first book, the cozy mystery Beauty to Die For (B&H Publishing Group, Aug., 4457), Kim Alexis never realized how much her modeling career had shaped her life. Then her coauthor, Mindy Starns Clark, began to ask, “ ‘What would you do?’ and ‘How would you think?’ and ‘How would you react?’ [in various situations in the modeling industry],” says Alexis. Through this questioning, Alexis realized that her attitudes and thought processes had been molded by her experience. “It changed how I felt about myself and how I felt about beauty and the business, and it’s interesting to have all that come out and to watch Clark develop that into a character.”

BEA 2012: Sourcebooks at 25: Spreading the Love

It’s a story of mythic proportions that long ago entered publishing industry lore: in 1987, Dominique Raccah left her high-powered job at the corporate advertising company Leo Burnett, cashed in $17,000 from her 401(k) plan, and launched a publishing company headquartered in a spare bedroom in her Chicagoland home.

BEA 2012: Little, Brown—175 Years Young

The publisher of Louisa May Alcott, Benjamin Franklin, J.D. Salinger, and David Foster Wallace, to name just a few, is going all out, especially this month, the official anniversary month, to celebrate its 175th. Look up and you’ll see an anniversary banner marking the Hachette Book Group booth (3627), of which it is a division. Inside there are 175th anniversary tote bags, tattoos, and booklets on Little, Brown’s history, dating back to when it was incorporated by Charles Little and James Brown in Boston in June 1837. The logo has been quietly added to the spines of all Little, Brown 2012 releases since January. And it will appear on the fall list—including Tom Wolfe’s first novel with the press, Back to Blood; Scott Spencer’s pseudonymous horror novel, Breed; Michael Koryta’s thriller The Prophet; and the final volume of William Manchester’s Winston Churchill biography, The Last Lion, completed by Paul Reid.

BEA 2012: Research, Recipes at RD

Two editors-in-chief from the Reader’s Digest family are stepping up with new books featuring the latest in diet research and best-loved recipes from America’s home cooks.

BEA 2012: A Successful Hybrid for Books

Since its founding by veteran Pantheon editor André Schiffrin in 1992, the New Press has followed a hybrid model as an independent trade publisher and a not-for-profit company that leverages books for social change. Among its bestsellers are Lisa Delpit’s collection of essays, Other People’s Children: Cultural Conflict in the Classroom (1995), and James W. Loewen’s Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything Your American History Textbook Got Wrong (2008). Other mainstays of the company include books by Studs Turkel and Henning Mankell.

BEA 2012: In Celebration of Bookstores

“Baptized in ink and swaddled in a dust jacket, I’m one of those cats for whom a good bookshop serves as a temple, a cathedral, a holy shrine, a sacred grove, a gypsy caravan, a Tijuana nightclub, an amusement park, a mental health spa, a safari camp, a space station, and an indoor field of dreams.”

BEA 2012: A Monster Success

Tireless self-promoter Larry Correia has turned his eclectic career path as financial defense contractor, arms dealer, firearms instructor, and freelance writer for gun magazines into a successful turn as the creator of the Monster Hunter series of urban fantasy books.