In a winter season that's light on big-name authors, well-supported books from smaller houses could have a chance to pop. In politics and current affairs, bestselling authors Kevin Phillips and Joe Klein may have to make room for Tim Flannery, an Australian paleontologist with a burning ecological message. And a memoir by Dirk Jamison, a scrappy former guest on PRI's This American Life, could get as much play as well-known writers like Erica Jong and Gay Talese.


The Weather Makers: How Man Is Changing the Climate and What It Means for Life on Earth


by Tim Flannery
Atlantic Monthly Press (dist. by PGW)
Pub date: March
Price: $25 hardcover
First printing: 75,000 copies
Promotion: 20-city tour
Given the destructive scope of this year's hurricane season, even those who felt they could safely ignore the signs of global warming have begun questioning what's up with the weather. So the timing couldn't be better for paleontologist Tim Flannery's look at the connection between climate change and global warming, which was a major bestseller in Australia and prompted the environment minister to officially address global warming as a growing threat.Atlantic Monthly has distributed 800 galleys, which helped the book get the nod from BOMC, QPB and Science Book Club. A further 4,000 ARCs will go out to booksellers and policymakers immediately after the holidays. Publisher Morgan Entrekin is also personally visiting and calling reviewers around the country to talk it up, and has hired publicist Scott Manning to oversee the print and Web campaign.

The Baby Business: How Money, Science, and Politics Drive the Commerce of Conception


by Debora L. Spar
Harvard Business School Press (dist. by CDS)
Pub Date: February 14
Price: $26.95 hardcover
First printing: 50,000 copies
Promotion: advertising; author tour
We may like to think that babies are one thing money can't buy, but the truth is that it's not just babies who are for sale—so are eggs, sperm and wombs, contends Harvard Business School professor Deborah Spar. She reports that the cost of adopting a Guatemalan infant in 2004 was $25,000, and that U.S. consumers spent $2.7 billion on infertility treatments in 2002.

While Spar's investigation of how babies are marketed fits squarely in the business category, HBSP is convinced that it can attract more general readers than the management books for which the house is best known. The press turned to well-known jacket designer Chip Kidd for a cover image that captures the baby market's sinister implications. To underscore the book's potential appeal to parents and to people trying to conceive, as well as to businesspeople, HBSP also did its first-ever Book Sense White Box mailing to independent booksellers. The ad campaign will include placement in the New Yorker and the New England Journal of Medicine, as well as the Wall Street Journal. Spar will also do book signings in Boston and New York.

Perishable: A Memoir


by Dirk Jamison
Chicago Review Press (dist. by IPG)
Pub date: April
Price: $22.95 hardcover
First printing: Not set yet
Promotion: $25,000
When senior editor Yuval Taylor turned on Public Radio International's This American Life and heard Dirk Jamison describe his overweight Mormon mother, his freespirit father who fed the family by dumpster diving, and his physically abusive sister, he immediately contacted Jamison and suggested he write a book. Jamison, who produced a documentary based on his life that was screened at Sundance in 1997, quickly agreed. The result is a memoir with a glancing resemblance to David Sedaris's work, in which Jamison more than lives up to his father's advice to give things at least a 60% effort.

Though it's too early for booksellers to have read the 600 ARCs, Chicago Review Press is counting on stores to host the author and his father on a five-city West Coast tour to Los Angeles, San Francisco, San Diego, Portland and Seattle. In addition to a co-op budget for booksellers, the house is also planning consumer ads in LA Weekly, UTNE Reader and Mother Jones.

Marathon


by W. William Winokur
Kissena Park Press (dist. by CDS)
Pub date: January
Price: $24.95 hardcover
First printing: 10,000 copies
Promotion: $50,000
This 512-page first novel is the tale of an American woman's personal "marathon" to Greece, which alternates with the Greek legend of Pheidippides and the real-life story of Ion Theodore, who was born a slave in the Ottoman Empire in the early 20th century and became author William Winokur's mentor at a New York City private school in the 1970s.

It's also the first book from Kissena Park Press, the new book publishing imprint of Starlight Runner Entertainment, creator of the worlds in which the popular video games Magic: The Gathering and Turok, Dinosaur Hunter are set. The company moved into publishing because it enables Starlight "to take an ownership" in artistic properties it develops, explains publisher and cofounder Jeff Gomez. Actor Martin Landau and director James Cameron have blurbed Marathon, though it hasn't been optioned for film yet (however, Winokur's second novel, to be published by KPP in late 2006, has been). Barnes & Noble has also responded favorably, slating the novel for promotion in its biggest stores. Winokur will do book signings in Los Angeles and New York.

The Last Folk Hero: A True Story of Race and Art, Power and Profit


by Andrew Dietz
Ellis Lane Press (dist. by IPG)
Pub date: April
Price: $26.95 hardcover
First printing: 5,000 copies
Promotion: $30,000
A decade ago, 60 Minutes explored the work of African-American "outsider artists," and later followed up with a piece that took art collector and Tinwood Books founder Bill Arnett to task for exploiting them. Now, on the heels of several popular touring art exhibitions coordinated by Arnett, comes this book by Andrew Dietz, the founder of a new Atlanta-based business book and nonfiction narrative publishing house. It even-handedly explores the questions of exploitation that have dogged Arnett's relationships with African-American folk artists Thornton Dial, Lonnie Holley and the quilters of Gee's Bend, and features Jane Fonda, an investor in Tinwood, and Morley Safer.

Although Dietz's initial marketing efforts for the book will center in Atlanta, which is home to many of the book's key players, he will also tour cities that have hosted exhibits by the folk artists described in the book, including Houston; Washington, D.C.; New York; Chicago; and San Francisco. In addition to ARCs, Ellis Lane is creating blads with sample photographs for distribution to booksellers and the media.

Men of Salt: Across the Sahara with the Caravan of White Gold


by Michael Benanav
Lyons Press
Pub date: January
Price: $23.95 hardcover
First printing: 25,000 copies
Promotion: 14-city tour
Most people wouldn't voluntarily go to the salt mines, but then Michael Benanav, a writer and photographer, whose work appears frequently in the New York Times Travel section, isn't most people. He enjoys trips with a bit of an edge, in this case, taking a 40-day journey on a camel across the Sahara, in a unique Islamic culture where men wear veils and where salt, not gold, is the standard currency.

Describing Benanav as "Indiana Jones meets Sebastian Junger," Lyons Press senior editor Ann Treistman notes that his energetic presentation at Globe Pequot's sales conference earned him wide support among the sales team. Lyons, which is restructuring its publishing program to focus on core subjects such as adventure, will send Benanav on an extensive tour, with 12 stops between his home state of New Mexico and Washington, D.C. Booksellers are also taking notice: Barnes & Noble selected the book for its Discover program, the second Lyons title ever to win that positioning. PW gave Men of Salt a starred review, calling it "that rare work that takes readers beyond their imaginations."