MPC Press International

When was the last time a U.S. President’s son lived in the White House?  It was about 45 years ago, when JFK and JFK Jr. inhabited America’s number one address.  Is it possible that the President truly needs to tuck in a son at night in order for him to make pragmatic decisions?  Let’s hope not, but worth thinking about for a few seconds.  Barack, W, and Clinton only have daughters.  George H. W. Bush has four sons and a daughter but his youngest son was 32 when President Bush moved into the White House in 1988.  Reagan’s youngest son was 22 when President Reagan was inaugurated.  Carter has three sons and a daughter, and only his daughter lived in the White House.  Ford’s youngest son was 17 when Ford became president, but he did not live on Pennsylvania Ave (he was all set to head to college at Duke but instead moved out West to pursue a dream of being a cowboy).  Nixon and LBJ each had two daughters and no sons.  This brings us to JFK, whose young daughter and son joined him in the White House.  The average age of a President on inauguration day is a little over 55 years old, so we cannot expect every President to have young children.  But there have been nine presidents who have followed John F. Kennedy, and five bore only daughters, including Clinton, W, and Barack (so it has been 16 years since we’ve had a President with a son).  What does this all mean?  Really nothing, but I’ve been thinking a lot about Presidents lately.

Tags: Baines Johnson, Barack Obama, Bill Clinton, George H. W. Bush, George W. Bush, Gerald Ford, JFK, Jimmy Carter, John F. Kennedy, LBJ, Lyndon Baines Johnson, president, Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan

There’s an old saying in the book industry: “Better off are you, with a pre-press review.”  If a new book hits the shelves with a comment on the back cover (which will obviously be a positive one), it can only help book sales.  “Love the story, 3 Cheers, Couldn’t Put it Down, I was howling!”—Rickey Jacobs, The Skokie Post.  Of course, most books are reviewed after publication; many reviewers don’t want to touch an unfinished product.  At MPC, we strive to put a review on each cover.  We were off to a slow start with “No More Mac and Cheese, a Bachelor’s Guide to Cooking with Ease.”  Given that it is a cookbook, we first thought we had hit paydirt when word came out that Julia Child was sending her thoughts ahead of our first print run.  Note that we already had a high degree of confidence that a rhyming bachelor’s cookbook would sell.  The Chicken Cordon Orange recipe (page 20) had by now achieved cult status in focus groups:

“Chicken Cordon Orange you might never have tried—
A nice breast of chicken, ham and cheese inside.
It’s not Cordon Bleu, the blue you never see.
With Chicken Cordon Orange, cheddar cheese is the key…”

While Ms. Child’s kind comments did arrive (and may she rest in peace), unfortunately she chose simply to mimic the rhyming style of our cookbook and give holiday greetings at the same time, without offering any relevant thoughts that we could print on our cover:

“Thanks for the copy of your No More Mac and Cheese.
It is a book which will surely please!
I wish you well and great success,
And joyous holidays filled with much happiness.
All the best and Bon Appétit!”

So, there is no review on the cover of “No More Mac and Cheese”.  For “Lawrence the Laughing Cookie Jar”, we called Mrs. Fields, Mrs. GoodCookie, Otis Spunkmeyer, and others, but no one responded.  With our latest title, “Rhyme”, we had no choice.  Early signs of a challenging economy made it clear that this book was going to make or break MPC Press.  While we were unable to secure a review from any major publication, celebrity, or a politician, we did what any sleazy and deceitful publisher would do.  We forged a review…sort of.  Note that the back cover of Rhyme shows the following quote from Al Boar: “Rhyme is unbeatable!”  Who is Al Boar anyway?  We’ll let you in on a little secret—we made up the name, just like we made up the old saying that, “Better off are you, with a pre-press review.”  But, the most intelligent of minds will discover that the name, Al Boar, sounds distinctly like the name of a former politician.  Aha!  Very clever, aren’t we?  Rhyme is about politics, so let’s find a politician to review the book (and one who sounds like he could be a character in the story)…and if no one returns our calls, then let’s create a fictional politician, and have him speak nicely of our work.  So far it’s paying off; sales are strong, and we haven’t been sued.

Tags: Al Boar, chicken, Julia Child, Mac and Cheese, MPC, Mrs. Fields, Mrs. GoodCookie, Otis Spunkmeyer, rhyme

The phone rang at about 8:00 p.m. on a Friday night. It was 1991, and No More Mac and Cheese, A Bachelor’s Guide to Cooking with Ease had just been published, with enormous fanfare in the U.S…really in California…actually Northern California…maybe more specifically San Francisco…ok let’s be completely truthful–the few blocks surrounding my apartment.  In all fairness, this was a grassroots effort and we (the author of the book and MPC Press, the publisher) were truly surprised that initial sales of this tome totaled well over 1,000 units after only a couple of months (and I don’t have 1,000 friends and family).  Back to the story…while not that interesting, I did receive a call at about 8:00 p.m. on a Friday night, and it was my friend Matt Pear, asking some specifics about A Pretty Good Burger (page 19 of No More Mac and Cheese).  Matt was in the middle of cooking a meal for his date, who was in his kitchen with him at the time of the call.  My first questions to Matt were, “Why are you making a burger?” and “Do you like this girl?”  His response was that he couldn’t cook, period, and that A Pretty Good Burger was a dish he felt he could tackle.  Besides, he reminded me that his date had showed up late and that the first line of the recipe was indeed:  “It’s not always cool to fix burgers for a date, Unless your guest shows up an hour late.”  His question to me was fairly simple, and during the next several months, as the book gained popularity, I received hundreds of similar questions. (Reminder: Be careful where you print your phone number.)  Matt asked, “Do I need to add red wine to the burger, as you suggest?”  I obviously noted that it wasn’t essential but it simply added flavor.  He was relieved because his cellar included exactly zero bottles of wine, and he instead was serving Pabst Blue Ribbon beer to his date.  The calls from bachelors like Matt did come in regularly, and the questions were never complex.  I conclude that the success of No More Mac and Cheese is due to the need by many for a very simple bachelor’s cookbook.  However, as per the phone calls, a bachelor’s cookbook can never be too simple.  And, for those wondering, Matt Pear called delighted the next morning, saying that he had made it to second base.

Tags: bachelor, bachelor's cookbook, burger, Pabst Blue Ribbon, wine

“Rhyme” may not have been the best name for our most recent title.  (And the cover of our cookbook, “No More Mac & Cheese, A Bachelor’s Guide to Cooking with Ease” was in this color green, maybe not the most appetizing for a cookbook.)  But what is wrong with calling a book “Rhyme”?  Rhyme is the name of the protagonist in the story, a pig who only speaks in rhyme, so it seems a fitting title.  Here is the problem.  When I refer people to Amazon to purchase the book, and they type “Rhyme”, our book is #5 on the list.  You may first find: “Read-Aloud Rhymes for the Very Young” or “Nursery Rhymes, Mother Goose.”  Actually, we are proud to have moved up to #5, but for many months “Rhyme” was nowhere to be found, perhaps listed at about #100, until sales began to kick in a bit.  When I asked Amazon why my book would not be listed first, considering it is the only book simply titled “Rhyme”, it was confirmed that the best selling titles on Amazon with the word “Rhyme” as part of the title would appear in order.  It is possible that Rhyme becomes a best seller and is indeed #1 on the Amazon list, but for now, one needs to type “Rhyme Will Marks” (title and author) or “Rhyme, A Pig in Politics” (informal name) to find the book quickly.  So, prospective authors, think carefully about using one word titles! 

Tags: amazon, mother goose, pig, Pigs

We didn’t expect to be flooded with feedback after citing the possible imperfection of Dr. Seuss rhymes: Should Rhymes Include Only “Real” Words?  December 8, 2009.  But opinions there were, and total disagreement…In fact, we did not hear from a single reader who found Dr. Seuss’s rhyming schemes flawed.  No one had a problem with rhyming “My throne shall be higher!”  his royal voice thundered with “So pile up more turtles!  I want ’bout two hundred!”  And no one had any issues with manufactured words, many that Dr. Seuss likely created only for the sake of rhyme, and few that have found their way into the dictionary.  Perhaps it is time to overhaul Webster’s and add “enormance” and “whuffed“?  Truly, we (but not my mother) are defenders of the great Doctor and we were only trying to ask, “What is a rhyme?” and “Should a writer create nonsensical words when he has the opportunity to teach children new vocabulary?”  In terms of feedback, one clearly educated reader, from Summit, Mississippi, wrote:  “I too believe REAL vocabulary is essential and powerful…but like Seuss, I lam a lover of nonsense….and nonsense can bring wonderful giggles and encourage creativity and stimulate a love for literature of all kinds….Nonsense, I believe, can develop deliciously even when using ”real” words…and adding rhythm.”

Interestingly, Dr. Seuss (Theodor Geisel) really was an innovator in terms of expanding the vocabulary of children.  According to Wikipedia, Dr. Seuss and his publisher were influenced by a 1954 Life magazine report on illiteracy among school children, “which concluded that children were not learning to read because their books were boring.”  The publisher apparently took 348 words he thought important and asked Dr. Seuss to cut the list to 250 words and write a book using only those words.  The Cat in the Hat used 236 of the 250 words, and was a success to say the least, with its simple vocabulary providing a fun and interesting read for young children.

Tags: Mississippi, The Cat in the Hat, Wikipedia