Madison Powell and Jordan Naftalis at the International Debutante Ball. (McMullan)

Just a few flakes swirled about our toes on Saturday night, but we were nearly blinded by the white inside the Waldorf-Astoria for the 58th Anniversary International Debutante Ball.

Some remain skeptical of such affairs, because, as one gentleman noted at the coat check, it isn’t the ’50s anymore. But this year’s class was impressive. Swanning about in the traditional snow-colored dresses were a chemical engineering major, several accomplished philanthropists and a nationally ranked tennis player, among other offspring of socially prominent families.

When we spotted Olympic swim team doctor Dr. Scott Rodeo, we couldn’t help asking if he’d trust unofficial bachelor of the year Ryan Lochte with his debutante daughter, Sarah. “Absolutely!” was the surprising answer, “Ryan’s a great guy. Have you met him?” We have, and Sarah, we think you could do better. 

The first stop for the 24-karat guests was the receiving line in The Astor Room, where one man with a spectacularly waxed mustache—after suffering blows by several bustles, trains and furs—quipped, “it’s just like prom, isn’t it?!” Forty-seven quick, gloved handshakes later, the guests, in tails and taffeta, were swept to cocktail hour while the debutantes posed for portraits.

Historically, each lady has been escorted by a civilian and a military academy gent in formal uniform, bused in from West Point, the Naval Academy or the Citadel. But this year was different: annoyed partygoers said military lawyers had decided to enforce a long-ignored rule against wearing uniforms to certain types of events. Naval midshipmen rented tuxes, West Pointers sat out the affair altogether, and Citadel students were allowed to wear their uniforms because they’re not directly affiliated with the U.S. military.

“They said the debutante ball is considered a beauty pageant and escort service,” explained one midshipman wearing a tux, as his date, Elizabeth Galbraith, erupted into giggles.

Later in the night, another Naval Academy student, Steve Jaenke, opined that he had to pay $200 to rent a tux in place of his uniform. “But honestly, I’m just glad we came,” he said.

Christine Schott, whose daughter Whitney sported one of the loveliest gowns of the evening, designed by Pippa Middleton favorite Misha Nonoo (Amanda Seyfried wore a shorter version of the dress to the Les Misérables premiere), cleared up the confusion for West Point’s lawyers.

“It’s not at all like a pageant,” she told us. “There’s one moment of the night when they’re up on stage, but otherwise it’s about teaching them networking, etiquette and diplomacy.” Ms. Schott herself came out in the Waldorf’s ballroom, and she hopes her younger daughter will follow suit.

Meanwhile, the civilian escorts were unsure of their duties. It’s hard to find anyone more commitment-phobic than a teenage boy, and the irony of escorting a woman in a white ball gown down an aisle of friends and family was not lost on them. At the cocktail hour, escort Michael Rolla admitted that his debutante girlfriend’s stress about the ceremony had rubbed off on him. Not so for his pal William Pierrepont, who had met his date that night. We asked if he was nervous. “Nope!” he replied and leaned back in his gilded parlor chair.

The escort of the evening was Hon. Iona Murray’s brother, who came in full formal kilt and argyle regalia to walk his sister, the daughter of Viscount and Viscountess Stormont of Scotland. Talk of his charm was whispered throughout the cocktail hour, and when we asked a group of mothers what the buzz was about, one replied, “Have you met the girl from Scotland’s escort? He’s so handsome, and sweet!” No peeking, ladies!

After a dinner of lobster rolls, grilled tournedos of beef and arugula salad with caramelized pears—Dr. Christine Frissora, gastroenterologist and mother of aforementioned debutante Sarah Rodeo, told us that ending a meal with the salad course is ideal for digestion—the ceremony began.

Polite applause and the occasional hoot welcomed each girl, her escort and her military escort. Country by country and state by state, they paraded through the glittering red and green ballroom and up the carpeted staircase, the silver-coated petals in their bouquets trembling as they curtsied in platform heels. Jazzy, state-appropriate entry songs got laughs (“Yankee Doodle Dandy”) and cheers (“Sweet Home Alabama”).

Anticipation for the famed Texas Dip, the dramatic floor-grazing swan-dive curtsy of Texan tradition, reached a near-frenzy when the state was announced, proving that in the event of secession, Texas would have plenty of loyal, low-bowing patriots.

Haley Anderson, whose grandfather Jerry Jones owns the Dallas Cowboys, was up first, and sunk to the ground with grace, rising to a standing ovation. Only one Texan faltered, garnering gasps and oohs from the crowd. But a rapid recovery and one final procession later, the dance party began. And prom-like it was!

Just as one debutante was leaning in to tell us that once one has come out, one should act more “like a lady,” “Gangnam Style” pumped through the speakers, and one deb climbed unceremoniously onto the stage, her escorts in tow, leading the crowd in the horseback-riding pantomime.

By 1:30 a.m., debutantes and their families were just beginning to find their ways to the coat check, and revelers were still unstably gyrating to top 40 hits, their coifs now topped with the multicolored, pom-pommed bucket hats of the renowned Lester Lanin Band. Auspicious debuts indeed.

There's only one problem: There are precious few copies of your book to be found in the bookstores-and if someone wants one, they're going to have to wait, sometimes as long as three weeks. You've got buzz, all right, but without books to sell, you could also go bust. Will would-be readers wait or, by the time the stores are stocked up again, will they have moved on to the Next Buzz Thing?

That's exactly the situation author David Lipsky found himself in last week. His book, Absolutely American , an exhaustive and very human account of West Point and its cadets, was published, cannily, by Houghton Mifflin on July 4. By Aug. 4, he'd made the rounds of the TV shows, seen his book lionized in the TBR and gone west at the behest of the movie folks. But you'd have had to dig far to get your hands on the actual book: A midtown Manhattan Barnes & Noble was sold out last week, Amazon.com advised buyers there would be at least a week's wait for shipping, and even Powell's-the mighty independent that, by the way, conducted an online interview with the author-was waiting for back-ordered copies. The actual old-fashioned hard-copy version of the book was so rare, in fact, that at 12 of the 14 meetings Mr. Lipsky said he had with film producers, they were passing around Xeroxed pages. (I finally found two copies in a small-town bookstore in Pennsylvania last weekend.) On the one hand, said Houghton Mifflin director of publicity Lori Glazer, "even people who thought they had no interest in [West Point] are requesting it." On the other, offered Dave Weich, director of content and marketing for Powell's and Powells.com, the lack of books is "frustrating for customers and booksellers and incredibly frustrating for the author."

Scratch any author and you'll surely hear tales of "bad" publishing-of how agents, publishers and publicists didn't do enough to turn his book into the star it was meant to be. Mr. Lipsky went out of his way to praise Houghton-the book, in fact, is dedicated to his editor, Eamon Dolan-but admits to frustration with the dearth of copies. Like all authors, he wants attention, sure, but he also wants readers to be able to buy the treatise he spent four years compiling.

But what's a poor publisher to do? Houghton was clearly behind this book from the beginning: The initial print run was a substantial 40,000, and Mr. Lipsky was the only Houghton author this season invited to a sales conference (a vote of extreme confidence). It was positioned as a "lead title," got a two-page spread in the catalog, and the sales reps returned early, enthusiastic reports and orders. Two weeks after publication, Houghton had gone back to press twice, and the number in print will soon be 84,000. But reprinting takes time-two to three weeks to make the books, another week to transport them to the stores.

But the byword in publishing today is caution: The last thing a publisher can afford to do is overprint and risk the embarrassment and expense of returns. And when demand for a book has outstripped even the most optimistic publishing plan (the same "problem" that happened with Mark Haddon's The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time , a Doubleday title that was just picked by Today 's book club, and Scribner's Jarhead , which got a boost from the Iraq war), a publisher is stuck playingcatch-up. "This doesn't happen a lot," Mr. Weich said, "but it happens a lot more than it used to." Why? Surely because publishers have noticed the worrisome drop in book sales across the board and don't want to get too cocky.

Still, things could be worse-and they were worse back in the pre-Internet days, when an anxious customer had to remember to write down the name of the book he wanted, call the bookstore and check back a couple of weeks later. (Read: He got tired of waiting.) At least now, readers can satisfy their craving-and the author, bookseller and publisher as well-by pushing a button to order a book that will arrive in the mail a couple of weeks later. "You don't necessarily lose the customer the way you would have five years ago," said Mr. Weich. Not to mention how much worse the situation could be for Mr. Lipsky or Mr. Haddon or Jarhead 's author, Anthony Swofford. They could be suffering-as hundreds of other authors annually do-under the realization that nobody wants their books, however well written, published or distributed. "The good news is, the book is selling," said Mr. Lipsky.

Or, as Mr. Weich of Powell's put it, "Everybody should have such problems."