We know what you're thinking: "Hey, GalleyCat, how come you didn't go to Dana Vachon's book party earlier this week? Jay McInerney (right) went, Julia Allison went, Gawker and Radar went...what happened to you?"

Well, apart from having prior commitments that evening, we knew a secret, which the mediabistro.com events team has now assured me it's safe to let you in on: GalleyCat will be throwing a party on Thursday, May 31, the eve of BookExpo America, and our special guest of honor is slated to be...you guessed it, Dana Vachon. We'll tell you more in the weeks ahead, but whether you're coming to New York for BookExpo, or you already work here, it's bound to be one heck of a party.

(photo from the party we didn't attend by Kevin Thompson)

The mediabistro.com bloggers are converging on New York City this weekend for a corporate summit, and to mark the occasion Laurel's throwing us a party. But it's not just going to be the Fishbowlers, the TVNewswer guy, the Unbeige crew, and us GalleyCats—if you're a member of "the online media community" (which for the purposes of the publishing industry I've decided includes anybody in the online marketing division of a publishing house, along with anybody in digital publishing), you're invited to join us Friday night at the East Village's Chinatown Brasserie. Be sure to introduce yourself!

(And if you're not in the online media community, don't fret; I know of at least two awesome GalleyCat parties planned in the months ahead!)

We're going to miss mediabistro.com editorial director Dorian Benkoil (right), who announced early this morning that he's returning to his own media startup, Teeming Media. That means he'll probably resume updating his own blog again sometime soon, although he might stick around these parts so mediabistro.com can continue to consult with him. After all, "over the past 15 months his efforts have led to higher site traffic, increases in AvantGuild content and paid memberships, thousands of new e-mail subscriptions and the launch of a number of new editorial products and services." Having good leadership like that has been of significant aid to this blog as we've expanded in scope and readership during that timeframe, that's for sure...

That said, the home office is still expecting to begin a search for a new editor-in-chief to administrate over seven blogs, assorted feature stories, and all the other stuff they publish, so if you've ever said to yourself, "I think it would be fun to run a website," well, send Laurel your credentials now!

I admit it: I've wanted to make that pun for ages, and thanks to Andrew Keen at AfterTV.com, I'm now able to. Almost as soon as my piece on the Google UnBound conference ran on mediabistro.com's homepage, Keen, whose Web 2.0 polemic THE CULT OF THE AMATEUR will be published by Doubleday in June, contacted me to be his next guest on his podcast devoted to media, culture and technology. The 25 minute interview is now available for listening.

We've enjoyed the slightly slower pace of the holiday week, but starting next Tuesday, January 2, it's back to work for us! With any luck, the publishing industry won't get itself caught up in quite so many scandals in 2007—or, at least, we won't find ourselves in the middle of quite so big a hullaballoo as the Judith Regan firing. Whatever happens, though, we 'Cats will be there with something to say about it...

If you've come to GalleyCat after reading Alissa Quart's Mother Jones article about the increasing professionalism of online amateurs, welcome! (If you haven't read this story about "the Mike Leighs of MySpace and YouTube, the homespun digital photographers who sell their work to photo agencies for next to nothing, T-shirt designers who are still in high school, ballpoint-pen doodlers who've become contemporary artists, and graphic design geniuses who spend their days entering online Photoshop contest" yet, make sure to follow through the link and check it out.) As the co-author of this blog (along with Sarah Weinman, I'm mentioned briefly as an example of somebody who started out by writing for my own website and has moved on to a successful freelance career, although I hasten to mention that I'm not quite as "ambivalent about the idea of joining the ranks of the careerists" as the article makes me sound. I rather enjoy participating in the cash economy, after all, even if it's in my pajamas. (I wish I could say I look as snappy as the fellow in this Joe Ciardiello illustration doing it, but no such luck.)

That said, I believe it's absolutely true that some of the sideswipes and direct insults we've seen against "amateurs" from professional journalists in the last year or so are about "ironclad defensiveness." We need look no further than George Will and his contempt for You, or Dave Itzkoff's role as the latest member of the NYTBR kulturklatsch to criticize what he calls "the impulsive, first-draft ethos of the blogosphere." As I've maintained all along, though, the rise of talented new members of the creative class from various new electronic media isn't going to lead to the death of "old media"—just to the elimination of some of its mediocrities, as they're replaced by better, more talented people discovered online. Not everybody in old media is defensive, after all, there's a recognized need for innovation now, and although some experiments may fail, others will succeed.

Thanks to the recognition bestowed upon us by several mainstream media outlets recently, GalleyCat has seen its readership swell—and we hope that our new visitors have liked what they've seen of our coverage not just of this week's big controversy (although that certainly kept us busy, especially when the 'Cat became part of the story) but of all the issues and events we've touched upon. We're going to be posting on a very light schedule until January 2, 2007—we expect you'll be taking a much-needed break as well—but once we've recuperated, we'll resume our efforts to deliver informative and provocative coverage of the publishing industry. We hope you'll continue to join us!

OJ. Judith Regan. James Frey. Nasdijj. Kaavya Viswanathan. All names you've no doubt heard plenty of in 2006 (and, in some cases, wish you hadn't). But the year that was publishing in 2006 featured some other notable names: Hachette Livre and Lagardere, Wottakar's, Barack Obama and Sara Gruen Kim Edwards and Marisha Pessl, Julie Buxbaum and Jonathan Littell, Google Book Search and Perseus, just to name a few. It's been a crazy, hectic, rollercoaster year, and GalleyCat's been there every step, every inch, to cover it.

Scandals may top the headlines in 2006, but what will make waves in 2007? Tell us, and your answers will grace our pages until the end of the year.

A little over a year into our stint as your hosts here at GalleyCat, Ron and I have much to be thankful for. Most of all, we're ever grateful for your continued readership, which has nearly quadrupled since we took the reins. Here's to much turkey, good cheer and renewed hope over the holiday - after which we'll be back to navigating the wonderfully unpredictable publishing waters.

Until then, here's hoping your long weekend is this peaceful...

As Sarah and I close out our first year at GalleyCat (has it really been a year already?), we'd like to warm our publishers' hearts by convincing them that publishing insiders really do read the blog every morning. So we thought we'd ask you to tell us what you think about the site, in ways that could then be plastered all over press releases and other related materials. We've been lucky enough to receive a number of informal compliments over the last twelve months; now's your chance to make it official. We look forward to reading your thoughts... and to keeping up the pace in the months to come!