Looking for a little intellectual stimulation during your morning coffee? Feel out of place when people ask, "Did you see what Roger said today?" Never fear, BOLDFACE is here with a list of the book blogs the ECC recommends you add to your daily routine.

Read Roger (hbook.com/blog) The blog of Roger Sutton, editor in chief of the Horn Book, Read Roger is interesting, witty, and candid.

Drawn! (drawn.ca) This Canadian illustration and cartooning blog is probably the most valuable blog on ECC member Christy's RSS feed, because not only has it introduced her to some of her favorite illustrators and webcomics, it also makes her look smart (her words, I promise)! And it makes her look like she has great taste, too.

Send us the questions you're hesitant to ask your boss face to face, and we will get the answer for you from bosses across the industry! All questions will remain anonymous. Send an e-mail to rebecca.miller@cbcbooks.org with your burning questions.

Q: We all know publishing's a pyramid structure, so we're all bound to be in competition with our peers and possibly our friends someday. How do you manage that sensitive position?

Elizabeth Bicknell, Associate Publisher and Editorial Director, Candlewick Press

Maintaining a friendship with a colleague who becomes your direct competitor at another house is really tricky, especially if what you primarily have in common is work, which you are no longer so free to talk about. My experience has been that if your friendship is based on a wide variety of common interests and a genuine liking of the other person, it will survive. If you are friends only because you work together or have a shared dislike of someone else, it won't!

Friendship is based on equality, so I don't think it can survive when one friend becomes the other's supervisor. In that circumstance, the friendship probably has to be put on hold. Who knows? You may end up as equals later on somewhere else. Children's publishing is a small industry, so chances are good that you will work with / compete with / work again with the same individual. Don't burn your bridges!

And if you don't think you are capable of the tact necessary to balancing friendship with a professional relationship, it's probably more practical to have friends outside the industry.

Maria Modugno, Vice President and Editorial Director, HarperCollins Children's Books

People in publishing tend to be intelligent and friendly and the business is small enough that it is very likely you will encounter your friends in competitive situations. The key is to keep business transactions on a professional level. From the outset of your career, you want to establish your reputation as someone who is discrete about proprietary information. There's nothing wrong in saying that you would prefer not to discuss something. A true friend would accept that response.

You may triumph on one deal and lose another. The best thing to remember is that there is no limit to the creative ideas and books that are out there.

By Hayley Gonnason, Publicist, Tricycle Press

We all know that MySpace is an Internet phenomenon, and with more than 50 million accounts created, it's no wonder. The site gets more page views per day than any site on the web except Yahoo!. Originally created to connect bands with their fans, the site was picked up by youth and soon turned into one of the hippest ways to communicate online.

So how does this apply to you, or to books for that matter? With the majority of participants being labeled as youth -- ages 14 to 24 -- it's the perfect place for authors, publishers, or anyone interested in reaching their audience directly to promote themselves or their books.

This spring, Tricycle Press decided to jumpstart a publicity campaign by creating a MySpace page for one of its children's book characters, Cow (myspace.com/adventuresofcow). Within a month and a half, the heroic Holstein from The Adventures of Cow and Adventures of Cow, Too, had over 100 friends, including the American Library Association-and the ALA is a good friend to have. Each week, the ALA rotates its top friends to expose authors, libraries, and books to the MySpace community. So as a friend of the ALA, Cow has a chance to be featured on the organization's page and an opportunity to reach a singular online audience.

Another option for Cow? Befriending a dairy farmers' association. Now, only 5 months after creating the page, Cow has nearly 400 friends including fans of the book, cow enthusiasts, comedians, bands, and various authors. It's clear that Cow is being exposed to new and unique demographics.

Admittedly, the process can take some time (weeding through spam to find legitimate friends, for instance), and this may be the reason more publishers aren't involved. But if you invite authors to maintain a MySpace page for their books, they can help themselves to reach the largest online community on the Internet. An author can post regular news bulletins (reviews, blogs, etc.) about a book and even select settings for promoting book events and appearances.

It took some time to warm up to the idea, but Tricycle Press' foray into MySpace territory has been encouraging. MySpace may not have been designed to promote children's books, but any friend of the ALA is a friend of ours.

Forget the Overheard in New York website.It's been the summer of Potter, and to tickle your funny bone, BOLDFACE was eavesdropping on Harry fans, young and old alike. And maybe some non-fans, too...

"The kissing was the worstest part! That's why I blocked my eyes!"
-Boy to his dad exiting Harry Potter & the Order of the Phoenix movie

"Hold on to your beard!"
-Young wizards running through Harry Potter Place behind Scholastic

"I'm going to buy it at midnight and then go to sleep."
-Person in book line, obviously really tired

"Do you think a cab driver will ruin it for me?"
-Teenager in book line

"Is that woman in costume hired by Scholastic or just really weird?"
­-Person in line about a woman dressed as Bellatrix Lestrange

Parent: "What do you want to do?"
Kid: "To make her disappear."
-Parent and two kids walking through Harry Potter Place

Woman: "So what's going on besides the book releasing?"
Friend: "Oh, the book releasing. That explains the capes."
-Two people walking past Scholastic

"This shit is why I never come down here."
-Disgruntled person walking past Scholastic on Friday

"They said there's plenty to do, distributing 2,000 books in an hour and a half."
-One Scholastic worker to another

"I didn't realize adults went to this."
-Person walking past Scholastic, who clearly has been living under a rock

"Look at this alliteration: 'Hedwig hooted happily at Harry.'"
-Hipster in the Park Slope B&N line

One of the best parts of Scholastic's Harry Potter Place was the "Muggle Wall."  Fans wrote messages and posted them to the wall.  Here are some of our favorites:

"Lord Voldemort is nicer than my sister."

"Neville, I'll wait for you."

"Got my copy on Wednesday. Thanks DeepDiscount.com."

"I got drunk at the Leaky Cauldron."

"Bloody hell."

"Ron is a cutie muffin cake."

"Kick Voldemort _ _ _."

"I swear I won't read the last page first."

"Harry, Hope your love life works out. Good luck!"

"I really hope Hermione doesn't die. Harry, you really better not die. . . Ron, sorry buddy, I don't care if you die, but here's hoping you make it. Draco: No matter how DH ends, I know you're just misunderstood."

"I love you Daddy."

"This is the last horcrux. Someone please destroy me." 

"Dumbledore for President '08"

"This is hard for me to say & I don't have much time. My boyfriend thinks I'm on my way to a Yankees game. . . I love you, Harry."