This weekend was Consortium's sales conference at the Helmsley Hotel in Manhattan where they first listened to presentations by the 65 plus indie houses that they sell for, then drank away the evening with them at the swank bar Revel in the Meatpacking District. Galleycat was on the case, and even managed an invite to the publishing cabal's afterparty.

More pics after the jump.

Haus Publishing was in the House drumming up support for their US launch.

Gavin Grant and Emily Wajcik from Small Beer Press and Robert Miller from Enigma Books.

Gavin noticed the bottle of 18 year old MacCallen behind the bar and we imbibed it responsibly (Consortium was lucky we didn't ask them to pull down the Johnny Walker Blue Label on the top shelf). Gavin told me that Small Beer press was presenting a book they plucked out of the slush pile, Benjamin Parzybok's Couch about some guys who travel cross country carrying a couch. Gavin sold it a lot better than that last sentence.

Perseus looked like they were having fun so I joined Suk Lee, Miraida Morales (loves her Ursala LeGuinn), Keith Arsenault and Melissa Fowettie.

While I was chatting with them, I discovered the best dressed at the party:

Emily Connolly from Montreal with Black Rose Books. They're coming out with Neal Q. Herrick's After Patrick Henry: A Second American Revolution which sounds fascinating as it goes into how to avoid, not create, a crisis.

Catharina Lantc, Ashley Roberts and Veronica Liv from Seven Stories. Seems to be a political theme to the evening as they told me they've got the upcoming Obamanomics: How Bottom-Up Economic Prosperity Will Replace Trickle-Down Economics by John R. Talbott. I wonder how it will differ from Jonathan Chait's The Big Con.

Consortium's Jim Nichols, Lindsay Shuck, and Julie Schaper who found the awesome venue for the party.


Soho Press's Sarah Reidy and Katie Herman gear up for their presentation on Sunday while hanging with Michael Noble From S&S Audio.

Finally, as things wound down for the evening I got to join Consortium's elite for a nightcap over at the Brass Monkey all images of which have now been deleted to protect the innocent.