William Petrocelli is an author, a bookseller, and a former attorney.

He spent a few years as a Deputy Attorney General for the State of California and then as a poverty lawyer in Oakland, California, before going into private practice.

For the past thirty years or so he has been the co-owner with his wife Elaine of Book Passage, a retail bookstore in San Francisco and Corte Madera, California (If you find an occasional buy-link for a book that leads you to Book Passage, that’s the reason).

Bill is the author of Low Profile: How to Avoid the Privacy Invaders (McGraw Hill) and co-author of Sexual Harassment on the Job: What it is and How to Stop it (Nolo Press). He is also the author of the forthcoming novel The Thirteen.

You can also see Bill’s bloggings on femibooks.com, where he looks at feminist writing from a man’s perspective.

Blog Entries by William Petrocelli

The Publishers Run into Sharp Elbows

Posted December 7, 2009 | 02:50 PM (EST)


This is Part Two of a multi-part series on publishing. Part One of this article can be found at No one warned the Dinosaurs. Will Anyone Warn the Publishers?

The major publishers have gone from being the dominant players in the book business to a point where they can...

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No One Warned the Dinosaurs. Will Anyone Warn the Publishers?

3 Comments | Posted December 1, 2009 | 10:04 AM (EST)


When the dinosaurs were in the midst of their demise, did they have any idea they were facing extinction? If they knew, could they have changed course?

There are many people inside the major publishing houses -- those, at least, who have survived the industry lay-offs of the last few...

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Al's Poem

Posted November 23, 2009 | 03:19 PM (EST)


Former Vice-President Al Gore had just finished speaking in San Rafael, California, on November 9, 2009, about his new book Our Choice: A Plan to Solve the Climate Crisis. The 800 people in Domincan University's Angelico Hall - along with the over-flow crowd of 200 listening by...

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The Most Important Women's Rights Legislation in History? To Some, It Was Just a Joke

Posted November 10, 2009 | 07:00 PM (EST)


The U.S. Civil Rights Act of 1964 was drafted for the purpose of eliminating racial discrimination in employment, but it was amended during the Congressional debate to prohibit discrimination against women as well. However, as N.Y. Times columnist Gail Collins points out in her brilliant new book, that amendment...

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Not a Simple Price War -- It's a Fight Over What You Get to Read

17 Comments | Posted October 28, 2009 | 10:25 AM (EST)


What looks like a simple price war between Amazon, Target, and Walmart over a handful of bestsellers is symptomatic of a much deeper problem in the book business. The larger fight is really over what you get to read.

The price war began Oct 15 when Walmart.com dropped its prices...

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The Most Important Book of the Year

6 Comments | Posted October 12, 2009 | 09:16 AM (EST)


Nicholas Kristof's and Sheryl WuDunn's new book Half the Sky: Turning Oppression into Opportunity for Women Worldwide is the kind of book that could change the course of history.

In the West, it's often easy to assume that the battle for women's rights has largely been won (an assumption,...

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