Book Industry Insider Gifts

"Dumb it down or sex it up."

"Russ had a novel published two hours ago and has a children's book coming out in 20 minutes."

Lesser known greek gods,

'Sorry, Marx, but your writing ability doesn't meet our needs.'

"Commandments aren't really selling these days. However, we're willing to consider self-help tips or personal improvement ideas."

Editor.

'Sorry, we can't offer you a job but we would like to publish your CV.'

Publisher to writer: 'It was a great read, except I collided with run-on sentences, tripped over broken English and got knocked about by a dangling participle.'

'What I call a miracle drug is one that doesn't start a government investigation.'

Getting the bus back into town from the Bologna Children's Book Fair...

Supermarket Merge

'Shakespeare's Hamlet word for word - and I who always thought it was a crazy joke.'

'No, go ahead and critique my mss. I'm always ok ... after the initial reaction.'

'Our ratings are down. Let's blame it on the media.'

"My lawyer doesn't trust my agent who doesn't trust the director who doesn't trust the screenwriter who doesn't trust me. All perfectly normal."

'Your novel has an up-to-the-moment breaking news quality. We intend to publish it in 2012.'

'The global economy supplies basic tools. A lot of us get the axe.'

Reading room

"I'm not sure if the audience is ready to embrace you in a romantic comedy."

'The music business.'

"We liked your use of punctuation, capitalization, underlines, parentheses, and italics. After that, we had reservations."

"When I was young, music and lyrics were important! Now it's all about production...it's all jiggly butts, smoke, sexy clothes and crazy videos!"

"Health officials now confirm the proliferation of a new epidemic they're calling 'way too many memoirs being published.'"

The Unbearableness of Being Inanimate

'I'm afraid we only publish A list celebrity cookbooks.'

Antonio Banderas

'We've decided to call off our go-slow.'

"That's not how I had hoped they would promote my novel."

"I was able to get you a 2-book deal."

'They've agreed to our 3-book, 7-figure offer, but only if you remain obscene and obnoxious through book 2.'

"It's always 'Get me a Godzilla type,' never 'Get me Godzilla!'"

'Meet the Author!'

"Legal is concerned you made up your 'True Life' adventures."

"Don't peddle your new book until the seminar's over."

"Manufacturing will take place in China, R&D in Korea, customer support will be run from Mumbai and logistics handled in Vietnam."