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JOHN DOUGLAS
MEETING SUMMARY:
Meeting Date: October 11, 1997.
Meeting Site: Bergen Highlands United Methodist Church, Upper Saddle River, New Jersey.
Official Attendance: 35.
Meeting Program: Talk by Science Fiction Editor.
Notes:
Mr Douglas also spoke in May 2003 and as part of the ""Twas a Dark and Stormy Planet - Bad Writing in Science Fiction Panel in November 1986.
Meeting Memories:
Newsletter Account:
The following account is reprinted with permission from THE STARSHIP EXPRESS Copyright 1997 Philip J De Parto:
The October 11, 1997 meeting of the Science Fiction Association of Bergen County was held in the Bergen Highlands United Methodist Church in Upper Saddle River, New Jersey. The usual pre meeting activities of Anime Associates and the Final Frontier were held in their respective areas, with the Anime group having a very satisfying turnout.
Editor John Douglas of HarperPrism was the guest speaker. John had appeared before the group as part of an editor's panel ten years ago. He asked for a show of hands to determine how many people in the room had been there for the presentation ten years ago. When only a few hands went up, he announced that he would simply repeat his talk from a decade ago.
HarperCollins has been very much in the news lately because HC has been losing money and canceled the publication of 100 books it had contracted. He feels that much of the bad publicity is a case of people finding an opportunity to take shots at its contraversial publisher Rupert Murdock. The authors were able to keep their advances and werer free to peddle their manuscripts elsewhere.
The good news is that science fiction is one of the few areas to do well for Harper, so the HarperPrisim line is going to expand. Prism will have two divisions. One will focus on traditional science fiction, although with an eye towards media and blockbuster books. The other will concentrate on "branded" books -- those with a built-in audience because of a national following like a sport or a television show.
The company also publishes real books: books that sell on the basis of the words inside and the name of the author and not much else. Among the authors of real books they publish are Terry Pratchett, whom Douglas considers miles funnier than Douglas Adams, Greg Egan, Stephen Baxter, a major new work by Felicity Savage (our guest speaker in February), and the new Foundation Trilogy. This project was begun at the request of the Asimov estate. Isaac was in the process of wrapping up a number of loose ends to make all of his novels fit into one giant future history when he passed away and his estate wanted to see the task completed. Greg Bear, David Brin, and Gregory Benford are each writing a volume in the new trilogy.
Much of Prism's success has been in tapping the market for book-related product: maps, calendars, games, puzzles and the like. THE X-FILES tie-ins have been a good profit center for the company. They hope that LOST IN SPACE will be the next big thing. In order to properly develop this niche, Prism will soon have a sales force independent of HarperCollins.
Much of his talk consisted of reaching into his briefcase, pulling out a book, talking about it for a bit, and then passing it to the audience. Among the non-book books wee a Tolkien calendar, a nasty look at Christmas, SANTA'S TOWN, an X-FILES book of postcards and a map showing where various X-FILES incidents took place. Someone in the audience asked if this last item was a map of Vancouver.
Mr Douglas also touched on the duties of an editor, the difficulties of coordinating tie ins with Hollywood, and many other matters. He described publishing as an industry which demands a maximum of effort for a minimum of compensation.
Lots of books were given away at this meeting. Not only did Michael Doolittle, David Goldfeder, and Stephanie Rosen win club books, but John Douglas gave away everything that he brought with him. Not having done enough talking with fans at the meeting, our guest joined the group at Nellie's for a couple of hours after the meeting.