The Wall Street Journal published an article on the economics of publishing new James Bond books. Literary author Sebastian Faulks, who said he rarely read thrillers previously, has written a new Bond tale set for release in a couple of weeks.

Also of note in this article is the mention that a new Indiana Jones book will be released. The new one was written by James Rollins, who you might remember from my interview with him back in 2005.

Numerous sources recently reported that Prince will release a book in the fall. 21 Nights will be published by Atria, an imprint of Simon & Schuster. The book is a photographic essay that is the result of an unprecedented look into the musician’s life.

I waver on Prince’s music. I adore some of it, and I just don’t get the point of other stuff. But, I can tell you from firsthand insights that 21 Nights is going to be magnificent. Although I do wish they changed the title so it wasn’t so close to Eric Clapton’s 1991 music release 24 Nights.

Music fans, mark your calendars now.

Cormac McCarthy is overrated.

Or, should I decide to target a more commercial gargantuan like J.K. Rowling?

Either way, I’m looking for a literary giant so I can talk trash about them. Maybe if I make some asinine comments about them, it will attract attention for to me.

Prior to the start of the playoffs, little-known Washington Wizard guard DeShawn Stevenson said that Cleveland Cavalier All-Star LeBron James was “overrated.” Stevenson has averaged 8.7 points, 1.9 assists, and 2.4 rebounds a game for his career. By way of comparison, King James has averaged 27.3 points, 6.6 assists, and 6.9 rebounds a game in his career. He’s also taken a team to the NBA Finals, played in 3 All-Star games, and is one of only four players in league history to average at least 30 points, 7 rebounds and 6 assists in a single season.

It’s really no contest, but Stevenson’s (and some of his teammates) trash talk, combined with some hip hop songs flying back-and-forth, made him a household name amongst sports fans.

Ultimately, the Cleveland Cavaliers beat the Washington Wizards 4 games to 2 in order to advance to the next round of the playoffs. Indeed, as some sports reporters put it, the Cavs “finally shut up” the Wizards. For the series, James averaged 29.8 points, 7.7 assists, and 9.5 rebounds a game while Stevenson tallyed 12.3 points, 3.0 assists, and 2.2 rebounds per game. This is the third year that the Cavaliers have eliminated the Wizards.

In fact, in the decisive Game 6 of the series, James turned in a triple-double (27 points, 13 rebounds, 13 assists) as Stevenson barely eked out 10 points. But he’s now known throughout the league.

So, back to our literary question at hand, who should we pick a fight with in order to draw attention to ourselves?

Getting books signed is a strange phenomenon. As an aspiring author, I think writers should be willing to sign damn near anything. Selling books is a tough gig and if someone wants me to sign a copy of Cat Fancy from 1982, then I’ll do it.

On the other hand, some customers take it too far. When I worked in a bookstore, some customers acted as if getting a book signed was a right, a requirement, as opposed to simply a nice gesture on the part of the author.

Here’s a cool article about some letters from Ian Flemming to his secretary (described as his Miss Moneypenny) Jean Frampton. The letters brought more than 14 thousand pounds and since it’s Friday and I’m exhausted, I’m not going to check the currency converter to see what that figure is in American dollars.

This are cool relics for Bond fans. In the letters, Flemming discusses the plot of Thunderball and other Bond developments.

The life of Ace Atkins would make for an interesting book in-and-of-itself. He played football for Auburn and then worked the crime beat for The Tampa Tribune. During his time at the paper, he was nominated for a Pulitzer prize for the work he did on a series of articles about a long-forgotten murder of a Tampa underworld figure. And he even met his future wife over a dead body.

Try topping that one… next time you’re at a dinner party and all the couples share tales of how they met while passing the wine and cheese, try announcing that you lingered around a crimescene in order to say hello to the beautiful reporter from a rival newspaper.

So Atkins has led a helluva writerly life. But it’s not his life, instead it’s the history of his family and homestate that fuels his newest novel, Wicked City. Atkins grew up hearing whispers of this family member that was a bootlegger and that family member was a bagman. The criminal connections of the extended Atkins clan was something many wanted to keep a secret, but the budding young writer reveled in those stories. Years later, the successful fiction author Atkins knew just the location where he could explore some of those old family tales.

Phenix City, Alabama was once labelled by journalists as “the wickedest city in America” because of the widespread infestation of gamblers, prostitutes, crooked politicians, and other lowlifes. The city was so overwhelmed with crime that the governor had to call in the National Guard to restore order.

Atkins takes this setting — rich with noir possibilities  — combines it with exacting historical research and blends it with elements of page-turning fiction and comes up with a highly entertaining novel. The San Francisco Chronicle said the book is “a brawlin’, sprawlin’, caterwaulin’ tale, and Atkins steers it along like a big gas-guzzling ’54 Cadillac.” 

Ace Atkins will be at Square Books in Oxford, Mississippi today signing copies of Wicked City. Then he heads on to Houston, Texas and Phoenix, Arizona for more appearances. Call 1-800-648-4001 to get a signed copy from the gang in Oxford or catch up with Atkins on his tour.

And be sure to check out his website for more tour dates as well as cool extras relating to Wicked City.

The deal also included a collection of his previously published essays along with some new work.  

You might recall my interview with Jacobs at the end of last year. And I’m still amazed at the crowd of people he attracted to a nondescript suburban bookstore on a Tuesday night when I went to see Jacobs read and sign books.

Some critics complain about how Jacobs (along with others) have spawned a host of imitators with hairbrained schemes to “do something strange for some determined period of time.” But you can’t blame him for the copycats. Jacobs’s work is humorous and endearing so it’ll be interesting to see these two new books.

During my days of sorting through cardboard and wrapping paper, I did manage to come across a couple of interesting articles.

First, Jeff Coplon writes a massive, sprawling eulogy for the New York Knicks in New York Magazine. Entitled Absolutely, Positively the Worst Team in the History of Professional Sports, Coplon methodically recounts the ridiculous manuverings of coach-president Isiah Thomas and chairman James Dolan and how those actions made the Knicks a league laughingstock.

“Isiah’s tenure was so contemptible—so bereft of redeeming value, on court or off—that such tenderness is hard to muster,” Coplon writes. “In the Knicks’ me-first self-regard, they’ve blasphemed the most gorgeously collaborative of games. Worse, they’ve severed the connection between players and fans, that idealized first-person plural that makes us part of something large and wondrous. It’s not so easy to love a pro sports team in the 21st century, yet we’re willing to lend our heart, and get hurt, and lend it again. The Knicks have made that impossible. The storied brand of McGuire and Frazier and Ewing has been rendered unlovable.”

Some commentors have taken issue with the designation of the Knicks as the worst team in history and they point tot other organizations who are statistically much more ineffective. But I don’t believe Coplon’s intent (indeed, he may not have even written the headline) was to base the designation based on wins and losses. Instead, Coplon strived to show poorly a team with a payroll and history this rich has performed. Sure, other sports teams stink. But they’re not playing in the “world’s most famous arena” and they don’t have the legacy of the Knicks.

Anyway, it’s not book related, but it’s an interesting article. Of more direct relevance to us is Michael Miller’s “Shelf Esteem” in Time Out New York, which I discovered through Galley Cat. This article examines the numerous folks who decide on a book’s publish-ability and can influence it’s success.

Sorry for the slowdown of posting recently. Over the last week, I uprooted the Slushpile library and moved. So now I’m digging out from all the boxes, desperately trying to figure out which shelf should house my old issues of Gordon Lish’s The Quarterly while also scrounging around for a plate and some dining utensils.

I’ve tried to email a number of the publicists that contact Slushpile.net, but if you’re a publishing company and need to send me galleys (or seven-figure advances) please email me to get the new address.

“There is no arbitrary power controlling fairness in the universe, making sure everyone gets their due,” Konrath writes. “There is only luck. Those writers who make more money simply got lucky. I have peers who earn 20 times what I make, even though our sales numbers are pretty close. I have friends with over a million books in print, who make less than half of what I make. It’s not fair. It never will be.”