The Doctor Is (Back) In

Dear Readers,

When I started this blog one of my motivations for doing it was that very few trade publishers or editors were actually on the web talking about what we do or how the book world looks from a publisher's perspective. Since that time I've become aware of one reason why: this blog-writing thing takes a lot of time! We do things in the office all day, and then go home to read and edit; somewhere in there we might see our spouses or children, but an editorial job tends to fill up a lot of hours that could otherwise be devoted to exciting activities like blogging, tweeting, and Facebooking. 

I keep hoping I will develop the skill of tossing off the pithy 100- or 150-word blog post like Seth Godin or Chris Brogan, but I seem to be doomed to crank out 300 or 800 word posts that take me hours to write (partly because I can't help myself--I edit them). All of which is a longwinded excuse for the hiatus since my last post. It wasn't that I got lost in the ash cloud on the way home from London--I got submerged in the manuscript pile. I'm happy to say that the manuscripts I neglected this blog to edit over the last several weeks--one on the Pythagorean Theorem, one on health care reform, and one on the morality of animals--were all terrific books that I can't wait to see in print. But I will save writing about those until they get closer to a bookstore near you. Meanwhile I will do my best to resume posting at a regular, not-quite-blistering pace. There is much to discuss, from the mysteries of flap copy to the latest maneuvers in the e-book world and question of whether this week's developments are really "game changing." 

Yours very truly,

Dr. S. 

Planes, Trains, Automobiles, and Boats, or, How I Got to the London Book Fair

So you've probably heard about the eruption of Eyjafjallajökull, 

which has led to the cancellation of all transatlantic flights leaving travellers stuck all over the U.S. and Europe and prevented hundreds of foreign publishers from getting to the London Book Fair, which starts today.  Your correspondent, however, is not easily deterred. Neither snow, nor rain, nor heat, nor airborne particles of sulfurous ash and jet-destroying silicates was going to keep me from schmoozing my colleagues from Britain and elsewhere. Undaunted, I set off on Friday from my office in  the Flatiron

for JFK Airport. There, I boarded a plane for Dublin. This was the flight I had originally booked weeks before--not because I am amazingly prescient, but because I got a cheap ticket on an airline I like, Aer Lingus. The leprechauns were with me, because I took what I believe was the last flight to reach Europe that evening. (A later flight to Dublin got halfway and was turned back.) An Aer Lingus official told me they couldn't promise any flights beyond Dublin--but friends in Edinburgh, my next stop, told me Scottish airports were open as of Friday afternoon.

So they were--but by the time I landed in Dublin Saturday morning, Irish airspace was closed and all flights across Europe were cancelled.  The airport was full of long snaking queues of befuddled travelers. (I must say that airline staff were extremely courteous, and almost every traveler around me displayed remarkable patience in a situation that was obviously unlooked-for by everyone.)

I went to Plan B, and booked the next non-cancelled flight to Edinburgh (the next morning). But that seemed dicey, so it was time for Plan C: the ferry from Dublin across the Irish Sea and train to London. The problem with Plan C was that I couldn't confirm on the internet that there were train tickets available--I was far from the only traveler who thought of the ferry solution. But my friends in Scotland told me there was a ferry from Belfast to the Scottish coast, and volunteered to pick me up at the dock (above and beyond the call of duty, since their house looks out on the Firth of Forth--the other coast of Scotland). Thus was launched Plan D.

I got into Dublin and caught the train to Belfast with enough time for breakfast--coffee was what made this journey possible. From Belfast Central, a taxi to the port, where I boarded the ferry to Stranraer. From there, Michael and Jane whisked me cross country to Edinburgh.

And this morning, after a blessedly civilized evening and a delicious night's sleep,  I hopped the train from Edinburgh's Waverly Station to London. 

I confess I actually enjoyed my trip. It was a beautiful weekend to be traveling around Ireland, Scotland, and England, and by the end of it, I felt like Phileas Fogg.  All that was missing from the adventure was a hot-air balloon. 

Tomorrow, I'll be at Earl's Court Exhibition Centre for the Book Fair, bright-eyed and bushy-tailed and hoping to scoop up an armful of bestsellers that my fellow Americans aren't around to see. 

Then I just have to figure out how to get home.

(all photos via Wikimedia Commons. In the train photo I have taken a liberty: I did not ride the Flying Scotsman steam train. But Phileas Fogg would have. )