Rick Simonson

But Jane, the Conversation Was Just Starting, You Can't ...
June 6, 2008

Was BEA really only last week?

Some of the wondering comes from returning up the coast, from a balmy-feeling L.A. to a wet, windy, frigid Northwest. Maybe I'm back from Winter Institute instead - suddenly it's coats and sweaters again. No barefoot going-about.

Then there are less-than-week-old memories and impressions.

Logistics of the L.A.-persuasion (time, traffic, geography) precluded attending this past Saturday night's HarperCollins party at Fox Studios. The last one there, in 1993, had been a festive gathering (authors ranged from two of the socially shyest on the planet - Neal Stephenson and Edward P. Jones to Julie Andrews and Traci Lords). This one was surely, also, for those who made it.

So my last - and a lasting - memory of Jane Friedman in her HarperCollins incarnation - will be her part in leading a spirited discussion on Harper's announced shift to an all-e-catalog format by next spring. That discussion - held in a room off the convention floor - was packed with booksellers and HarperFolk.

This won't be a rehash of the discussion itself, though that is fodder, certainly, and will get taken up in time. No, I'm trying to figure Jane's role in the discussion. It had so much of a to-be-continued air about it. Her performance (a word that seems to apply to CEO-type roles in the day-to-day of their work) in the discussion - calling on questioners, trying to answer techinical questions that no one really had answers for yet - was such that she was the last person you'd think would not be 'in place' less than a week later. I will leave for others more informed analysis (or chatter) or how these things come down.

I do wonder, a little, if the premature aspects of the conversation - the announced intention to have the e-catalog fully up and going in less than a year when huge questions haven't been taken up at all yet (a bookseller task force was mentioned, but one would think this should already have been formed and on the case) - were in part about Jane having one last go at running the show. By running the show, I mean the nature of the discussion - she presided, for sure. It was a little too churchified for me - the amen chorus of the Harper people there weighing in with testimonials (I was skeptical, but now ...) was something to behold.

Because of some writing in an earlier post here, I was mentioned before and after the discussion - and Jane and I did have our own good words at concluding. I was hoping there would be more ... Jane, Jane ...

Posted by Rick Simonson on June 6, 2008 | Comments (4)