Posted by John 4/7/2010:

This site is still under construction grrrrr!...Please go to menu at top of page and click on "Writers Thought for Today" to access the new blog page...I have a comments section but you may have to click on the title of the post to make the comment/s section appear! I haven't got it all figured out just yet...Yolasite presently uses a 3rd party company (Disqus) to do the comments and it is a little confusing!!

This Site is Under Construction!

Posted by John 4/6/2010:

 Former Publisher Buys Publisher’s Weekly

Posted by John 4/5/2010:

Publisher's Weekly (PW), that venerable old trade magazine that served as the bible for the publishing industry has been saved! And we should all be thankful!...There is gold in the many reviews in the archives that will serve as a beacon from the past to shed a little more light on the future road of ebooks, digital, multimedia and changing publishing business models.

Matthew Flamm, of Crain's New York Business, gives us the details of the ex-publisher of PW who returns to scoop it up from near death:

Reed Business Information finally found a buyer for the publishing industry trade magazine.

Continuing its radical weight-loss regime, Reed Business Information has trimmed another title from its list, selling Publishers Weekly, the bible of the book publishing industry, to a former publisher of the magazine, George Slowik Jr.

Mr. Slowik’s newly formed company, PWxyz LLC, announced the acquisition on Monday. Terms were not disclosed.

The deal was part of Reed Business’s ongoing efforts to sell off most of its business-to-business titles—a campaign that began after parent Reed Elsevier was unable to find a buyer for the trade publishing unit after putting it on the block two years ago.

Reed Business has sold a slew of titles in the past year, including television industry trade journals B&C and MultiChannel News. Finding a home for a magazine that covers book publishing and bookselling—two industries in transition—has proved harder.

Mr. Slowik, who was publisher of the magazine from the mid-1980s until 1993, said that he will keep all of the New York City-based publication’s editorial, art and advertising employees. The acquisition includes the publication’s Web site and Publishers Weekly Show Daily, a publication put out during the annual Book Expo America trade show.

In an interview, the new owner said that he’s bullish on Publishers Weekly’s future, noting that the magazine is profitable. With its daily, weekly and monthly online newsletters, it has a bigger audience than ever, he said.

A top priority will be digitizing the 138-year-old magazine’s archives, particularly its reviews, which go back to the 1940s. “There’s a treasure trove in that information,” Mr. Slowik said.

The growth in sales of e-books and an expected legal settlement that will eventually allow Google to begin selling digitized, out-of-print books will all work in favor of the publication, he added.

“It will bring thousands of previously unmarketed and out of print books into play,” Mr. Slowik said. “[Publishers Weekly] has the discerning view of those titles.”

Ipad, Therefore I Am

Posted by John 4/4/2010:

The iPad has blown away the misconception that reading was on the decline! And Joshua Gans, blogging for abc.net.au, has expressed this concept better than anyone else in his review today of the iPad:

It somehow seemed fitting that I would write my review of the iPad on the iPad itself. That is precisely what I am doing using the Pages application. And I have to tell you that while it is no keyboard, my typing speed is just as fast as usual. For anything short this is great. What is more the auto-correct options work like a dream.

But I digress. Before continuing, an admission. Had Apple put on sale today an undisclosed item for US$699 (which is what I paid for this) I would likely have bought it. Not a great strategy for an economist but that is how much faith I hold in Apple's reputation at the moment.

Fortunately, I knew quite a bit about what I was getting although that isn't quite the same as experiencing it.

So what is the bottom line after a few hours of playing with my new toy? You don't need to buy one today but you will end up using something like it fairly soon. Why don't you need one now? There aren't that many apps.

Yes I know that all of the 150,000 apps will work on the iPad but unless they are optimised the scaling up doesn't cut it. Fortunately, 1,000 odd apps are iPad ready but chances are your favourite apps aren't and the ones that are don't work the way you are used to.

So if playing games is your main use for an iPhone or you just want to know what restaurant to eat at, no need to rush.

However, there is one group of people who will fall in love with this instantly: people who like to read. I'm sure you are thinking at this point, oh yes, eBooks. Now it is true that that is great benefit. What is more you are not tied to Apple's iBooks.

It is beautiful and there will be a future fight but there aren't many titles on it at present. The booker reader of choice remains Amazon's Kindle which has it's own free iPad app that puts the actual Kindle to shame. Yes, the battery life is lower but it is far more book like.

Since Steve Jobs famously claimed two years ago that no one actually read anymore, it has been clear to all that reading is at an all time high. It is just that people read stuff on the web, blogs or emails rather than books and magazines. So much more of the day is spent reading. But it is completely unnatural.

People who claim to hate the idea of electronic books spend most of their day hunched over a laptop or bolt upright at a computer screen. But the natural position for reading is reclined. Maybe you could do this with an iPhone but let's face it, for anything serious a larger screen is required.

The iPad makes reclined reading possible again. This will be true for web browsing but also for emails as well. Once you have tried it you won't be able to return to the standard computer for your reading needs.

As an academic, the tools are there for the iPad on Day One. The fabulous program, Papers, that collects all of your PDFs and organises them is there on the iPad. There is simply no need to print anything. We professors will find the idea of carrying around our filing cabinets irresistible and Deans, once they work it out, will love the idea of smaller offices.

As a parent, I can see even more potential just around the corner. The few children's books ported to the iPad explode with colour and interactivity. This is as true of Dr Seuss as it is of the wonderful book, The Elements, which just falls short of letting you feel each individual one. There is unlikely to be any substitute. And just wait to see what it does to comics.

The killer app of the iPad is reading. And the amazing thing is it has so much more and also so much more yet to be done. It will define a part of our existence into the foreseeable future.

Is this the end of the $9.99 e-book?

Posted by John 4/2/2010:

Joel Evans, writing for ZDNet, laments the supposed loss of the $9.99 ebook. This writer feels where he is coming from but ALSO understands that he, admittedly so, is unfamiliar with the publishing business. Joel makes the common mistake that many do when they equate the lower ebook cost just with the lack of having to print, bind and distribute printed-word books...other costs are still very much present like marketing for awareness and the ever-increasing demand for fresh content from talented writers (who have to be paid a more professional fee to keep the best) to supply the hungry platforms of an increasing myriad of multi-digital devices!...E-books being a substantial part of the platforms.

AND, $12.99 - $14.99 is STILL better than a $26 - $30 printed-word book! 

Joel Evans says:
One of the things that I really liked about the Kindle was the fact that most new releases and books in general that I had an interest in purchasing wouldn’t cost more than $9.99 for the electronic version. Now it seems that Amazon has given in to its publishers’ demands and as a result the publishers will be setting prices for new releases going forward. The latest reports put new releases at between $12.99 and $14.99, compared to the previous $9.99.

There’s no doubt that Apple’s deals for the iPad have spurred the changes. I have to say that I’m disappointed in the change, though. For starters, I would expect the $9.99 price to hold, if not going even lower since publishers don’t have to incur the cost of printing or distribution. Then again, I don’t really know too much about the traditional book publishing business, but I would bet that the average person would expect to pay far less for an electronic version of a book than they would for a paper-based version.

Perhaps the rise in prices is just what the publishing industry needs? If people have to shell out a lot of money for an electronic version, they may be more inclined to buy the paper version instead.

Choices

Posted by John 3/30/2010:

What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us. ~Ralph Waldo Emerson

This post is about choices we make...A good topic...Mostly one I appreciate and learn from in hindsight only.

Sasha White, a published author of erotica (one of my fav genres!), talked about choices a couple of times on the GENREALITY blog recently. Both of her posts were thought-provoking and I present one of her dissertations here for your enjoyment:

Last week I talked about the choices we make and the path we each choose, and I wanted to touch on that again… but in a different way.

When I first decided to pursue a writing career I went at it with everything in me. I was super focussed, determined and very lucky. I happened to be writing erotic before the genre really cycled in as popular. Therefor when I heard New York publishers were looking to start erotic lines I was in the right genre at the right time and things moved fast for me. 2 years after I decided to try to make a career out of writing I quit my full-time job to write full-time because I had contracts for novels lined up, and I couldn’t spare the time to work. I wrote 9 novels (and half a dozen short stories) over the next 2 years, and I was well on my way. Then I pulled back on the writing, and went back to work part-time.

If y’all want to know why I pulled back, I’ll blog about it another time for you, but right now I want to talk about my other job, and how it’s helped my career choices, and writing itself.

What I did full time before I started writing is the same thing I went back to – bartending and waitressing. I’m a 40 year old waitress, and I love it. (Okay, there are times I hate it too, but that’s life.)

What I’m loving about it right now is that I feel I’m actually helping some younger people find their own path in life. You see, I’m forty years old, and I work with a bunch of twentysomethings. Most of them in University and waiting tables to pay their way. Not only does working with them keep me young, but it also helps me with characterization in my stories. The funny thing is that I’ve recently realized that we help each other because they’re getting as much out of our talks about what’s going on in their lives, and life in general, as I am. It shocked me a couple weeks ago when one of the girls I haven’t shared a shift with in a while told me she missed me because I always made her think with my advice. I thought “Advice? I’ve been giving advice?” 

Then another girl came up and explained how I’d inspired her to follow her dream of being a singer. She’d tried out for Canadian Idol three times. The first two times she almost made it to Toronto Week, so on the third she’d fully anticipated making it only to have the judges comment on her eyebrows and say some not encouraging things. So she gave up the dream.
That made me sad because she was so passionate about singing, and I think if you’re passionate about something you should follow through on it. We talked a bit about how I got into writing ( how I have no education geared toward it, and it was basically all drive and desire that got me where I was) and I encouraged her. A couple days later she told me she was going for it- and she is. On Sunday night I went to a small private concert she did simply so it could be recorded for a demo/audition reel and I just have to say WOW!! This girl can sing.

I know that singing is a lot like writing in that theres so much more to building a career than talent, but just seeing the light in her eyes, the spring in her step, and the overall glow she had going on made my heart swell. She’s chasing her dream, and knowing that I helped her get back up after her confidence had taken a hit made me take a good hard look at some of my own recent choices. I really think I’ll keep working the night job for as long as I’m physically able because I love being part of so many people’s lives. Not only do they help me keep my characters real, they inspire me to practice what I preach. You’re never too old to chase a dream.

Smashwords Makes Self-Publishing/Distributing an eBook Free and Fast

Posted by John 29 March 2010:

I am promoting SmashWords today, a site that I use myself to sell my book...It's easy, professional looking and possesses all the technology necessary to allow visitors to your page to read a portion of your book before buying if they choose. You should check SmashWords out as another source to promote your works/projects...and it's FREE!

I am highlighting SmashWords through Resource Shelf, another site I'm promoting today which is a daily newsletter with resources of interest to information professionals, educators and journalists:

1) Smashwords, a publisher/distributor of eBooks that’s available to anyone (self-publishers) now has a deal to distribute on the Apple iPad.

2) Smashwords will soon issue ISBN’s for all of its titles.

Smashwords, a site where writers can publish their own e-books, said today it has signed a distribution deal with Apple to put its books into the iPad iBookstore. Mark Coker, chief executive of Smashwords, said in an email to authors that his company has been working on the deal ever since the iPad was announced. And, yes, this means that unpublished authors can sell their work on the Apple iPad at virtually no cost.

[The author of the article discusses writing a book and having it distruted by Smashwords.] It was a very easy process. I took a Microsoft Word file and uploaded it to the Smashwords site, set the price, and decided where I wanted the book published. Smashwords published it in nine formats and began distributing the book over a number of weeks to sites such as Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Stanza (on the iPhone), Aldiko and others.

Source: VentureBeat

See Also: How Smashwords Distributes Content

See Also: How Smashwords Defines Itself (via Company Web Site)

Smashwords is an ebook publishing and distribution platform for ebook authors, publishers and readers. We offer multi-format, DRM-free ebooks, ready for immediate sampling and purchase, and readable on any e-reading device.

Directly below the definition is a lengthy Q&A with the CEO of the company, Mark Coker. He answers questions about the company and electronic publishing in general.

Will libraries be collecting this type of content and making it available to their users? What format(s) would material be collected in?

Here’s the Smashwords Top 100, as you’ll see many of the titles can also be read online (with an eReader) and finally, their catalog. It’s updated daily.

The iPad is coming, and hardly anyone knows what to do with it

Posted by John 28 March 2010:

Has iPad screwed up a little on it's pre-launch marketing? Some surprising comments from our Australian friends...a potentially BIG market.

Julian Lee from The Sydney Morning Herald has this to say:

From media companies to telcos, the device remains a mystery, writes Julian Lee.

Many in media circles are hailing it as a potential saviour of the industry, a way to let them charge for content until now given away free.

Yet five weeks before its launch in Australia few have even laid eyes on the Apple iPad.

The California company is drip-feeding information about a device that, among other things, will let users view films, surf the web and read ebooks and digitised versions of newspapers and magazines.

Not a single iPad is believed to be on these shores, and few senior executives in the media companies banking on its success admit to having seen it.

Telecommunications companies - which will provide iPad users with the means with which to surf the web or send emails - have yet to finalise their packages. Again few have seen it.

The subject of what ads will look like in the digitised versions of newspapers and magazines and how much they will charge for them has yet to be raised with advertising and media agencies.

Some in the industry are questioning whether the iPad will live up to the hype, given that in the next year seven devices from HP, Dell and a host of cheaper Asian brands will be on the market.

One leading developer said none of the main Australian media companies was likely to meet the late April deadline.

Keith Ahern of Mogeneration said: ''Most of the media companies are already working on iPad apps for some or all of their titles, which surprised me given that we were coming out of a recession.''

But he added: ''I don't believe any large Australian publishers of print or news media will make the deadline. I think smaller publishers like Medwords and games companies like Firemint will. I have worked with [large media companies] and it's hard to make things happen quickly.''

Like other developers Ahern's company has been relying on an iPad simulator to build applications for clients.

Carter's Encyclopaedia of Health and Medicine published by Medwords will be available. The iBookstore will not be available in Australia at launch because of rights issues.

Larger media companies like Fairfax Media, publisher of the Herald, are keeping the market guessing.

Lloyd Whish-Wilson, chief executive and publisher of Fairfax Media's Sydney publishing division, said: ''We are very enthusiastic about tablet devices for newspaper and magazines. There's a lot of planning going into it, and we'll be ready by the time the market takes off.

''There is potential to extend our journalism in ways that I think readers, and I have no doubt advertisers, will find very exciting.''

Ed Smith, the chief executive content and commercial of News Digital Media, said that, much as he was excited about the possibilities, the iPad was only one of a number of devices to be launched this year. He said the category was likely to grow only once the publishers, telcos and manufacturers ''package them up''.

"Having said that, we do have to be realistic about how quickly the iPad will become mainstream, not least because demand is likely to outstrip supply for some time.

"There's also little doubt these tablets will be in great demand by advertisers - partly because they will want to reach the engaged, quality, audiences they will attract, but also because they have so much creative potential."

In the meantime, many publishers are expected to fall back on existing iPhone apps, which will work on the iPad.

As the deadline looms the debate in media companies continues to rage around whether to charge a monthly fee or a one-off fee. The Herald has sold ''many thousands'' of its Good Food Guide app for a one-off fee of $11.99. Many more of its Domain app have been downloaded free.

The Wall Street Journal, which with The New York Times has been granted continuous access to the iPad to develop specific apps, is reportedly set to charge $US17.99 ($20) a month to subscribe to the iPad version of its paper.

Mr Smith of News Digital Media said ''when the time is right we will benefit enormously from what our colleagues at The WSJ have learnt''.

Carl Hammerschmidt, director at ACP Magazines' digital division, said the iPad was one of a number of platforms the company was exploring.

"Our challenge is to ensure we are on the right platforms with the right products and, when it comes to digital magazines, that what we are offering is the leading product in the market … we also have to ensure the business models stack up."

He would not discuss how close he was to launch, though some media buyers are saying that ACP will offer near-replicas of the printed editions on the iPad. ACP's chief rival, the Seven Network-owned Pacific Magazines, declined to comment.

Overseas magazines such as Wired, GQ, Vanity Fair, The New Yorker and Glamour are all reported to be ready to go in mid-June. The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times are expected to be the only newspapers ready at launch.

Advertisers such as Coca-Cola, FedEx, Gillette, Volkswagen and Ford are understood to have bought ads on iPad editions or embedded in applications.

Media buying agencies say the topic of advertising rates and types of units has not been discussed in Australia. Toby Jenner, chief executive of the media agency MediaCom, said: ''It's just not on our radar; in fact I don't think it's on the industry's radar.''

The managing director digital of Mitchell Communications Group, John Murray, said he would get his first presentation of the iPad ''within the week'', but would not say from whom. He was not rushing to push clients into a device that has yet to carve out an audience.

Iain McDonald, founder of the digital advertising agency Amnesia Razorfish, was sceptical of the iPad's impact, saying that because it was "sandwiched" between an e-reader like Amazon's Kindle and cheaper laptops, he doubted it would be the game-changing device that the iPhone has become.

But it is the fact that the iPad will not play videos formatted in the industry-standard Flash format - used by most advertisers - that worries him most.

"Absolutely it does," he said. "We are in the business of creating experiences [online] and if Apple is removing one of them and that affects how video is played then that is not going to help my clients."

He also doubts whether it will go mass, despite predictions that between 100,000 and 200,000 units, retailing at an entry level price of $650, will be sold by Christmas. "We need to develop eyeballs, not niche audiences,'' he said.

While the media and advertising industries have an excuse to hang back, the same cannot be said for the telcos that will be providing one of a number of options that iPad users will turn to for connectivity to the web. On their state of readiness the top three mobile phone operators had little to say.

Optus declined to comment and a Telstra spokesman confirmed the company had yet to see a device.

''We are still talking with Apple and are waiting to hear back from them, as is everyone else."

A spokesman for Vodafone said: "Unfortunately we can't make any statements on the iPad and in fact we cannot even confirm whether or not we will be able to sell the iPad in Australia." He confirmed the company had not seen a device.

Apple iBookstore Prices Leaked

Posted by John 26 March 2010:

What Will Ads Cost on iPad ?

Posted by John 25 March 2010:

Stephanie Clifford reported in the New York Times, Media & Advertising Section, that advertisers are showing interest in iPad...And indeed they are! At least at the initial unveiling of iPad on 3 April 2010.

If iPad produces big results for advertisers, the resulting money will benefit all in the publishing food chain including publishers and writers...and might generate the sustainable business models that will save newspapers, magazines and perhaps the world, itself!...Just thought I'd say that...

Stephanie Clifford says:
Advertisers initially approached new media as if they were going duck hunting, tiptoeing cautiously into the waters of mobile phones and the Internet.

With the iPad, it’s big-game season.

Getting ready for the April 3 iPad introduction, FedEx has bought advertising space on the iPad applications from Reuters, The Wall Street Journal and Newsweek. Chase Sapphire, a credit card for the high-end market, has bought out The New York Times’s iPad advertising units for 60 days after the introduction.

Advertisers including Unilever, Toyota Motor, Korean Air and Fidelity have booked space on Time’s iPad application. In a draft press release, The Journal said a subscription to its app would cost $17.99 a month, and the first advertisers included Capital One, Buick, Oracle, iShares and FedEx.

At least initially, it should provide a nice boost for publishers. iPad advertisements on print publishers’ applications cost $75,000 to $300,000 for a few months with some exclusivity, said Phuc Truong, managing director of Mobext U.S., a mobile-marketing unit at Havas Digital.

But after the initial buzz around the iPad fades, so, too, might advertisers’ enthusiasm, with questions still swirling around how to price ads and how they will look on the iPad.

Some early advertisers hope to catch the tailwinds of the Apple marketing program.

“There is an appetite to be associated with the inevitable buzz — the buzz around the iPad has been so long-lived,” said Alisa Bowen, senior vice president and head of consumer publishing at Thomson Reuters.

FedEx, which will run ads on publisher applications for 90 days after the introduction, said Apple’s history of big product campaigns was part of the appeal.

“Part of being first,” said Steve Pacheco, director of advertising and marketing communications at FedEx, “is to be included in their in-store demos, to be a real-life example of a powerful brand going to market in a new way.” FedEx will be the exclusive advertiser on the Reuters and Newsweek apps for 90 days after their introduction.

After the initial promotion, though, advertisers may raise harder questions.

For one, pricing is a major sticking point between advertisers and publishers. Even at the end of last year, when the iPad was still a rumor, advertisers were arguing for cheaper ad prices on tablets than in print.

“It should, hopefully, lower the cost, because it’s a lot easier for us to create it electronically, and put it in an electronic book, than it is to print it,” said Steve Sturm, then a vice president at Toyota Motor North America, in a December interview. (He has since left the company.)

But publishers are pushing for higher prices than in print and have not come up with standard ways of charging for ads. “Some are doing it as a fixed fee, others are saying, ‘Hey, we’ll sell you up to X number of impressions for Y dollars,’ ” said Max Mead, vice president for business development at PointRoll, an ad technology company working on iPad ad formats.

Advertisers are used to paying based on the number of times their ad is seen online and on mobile devices, or on the circulation of a print magazine. No one knows how popular the iPad will be. There have been just under 200,000 preorders for it, said Gene Munster, an analyst at Piper Jaffray. But even assuming that a single application is near-ubiquitous on the iPad, that is still a fraction of the audience an advertiser would reach with an ad on, say, “Dancing With the Stars.”

For now, publications like Reuters, People and Time are charging flat fees. That will go on “for some time, until the download statistics become clear and usage reaches some kind of predictable pattern,” Ms. Bowen of Reuters said.

“Marketers are really excited about it, but they don’t yet know what type of volume they’re getting,” Mr. Mead said. “Nobody has any visibility.”

There is also confusion over other ways to measure the success of an iPad ad.

“We’ve got to figure out what the measurements are,” said Mark Ford, president of the Time Inc. News Group, which includes Time and Sports Illustrated. (Time is planning an app for the April 3 introduction, while Sports Illustrated’s is expected to be ready in June.) “It’s not how you measure print, it’s not, certainly, how you measure digital. It’s going to be something different.”

Fran Pessagno, director of operations at the media agency OMD, a unit of the Omnicom Media Group that is working on the FedEx tablet project, said he would be looking for firm results. “With everything we do, we’re just going to have to test it and see whether or not it actually results in new account signups,” he said, referring to accounts created with FedEx. “Until anything goes to market, it’s always viewed through the lens of, ‘it’s short term.’ ”

Another challenge is technology. Many online ads, especially those with moving images, use Flash, which the iPad does not handle. So advertisers must find other ways to enlivening their ads. People, for instance, is using the Adobe program InDesign to create slide shows, videos and animation.

“It’s a little more work for them, and for us, too,” said Fran Hauser, the president of digital for the Time Inc. Style and Entertainment Group, which includes People. (People’s iPad version is expected to be ready by early August.)

And while advertisers know the basics of iPad ad formats, they do not know everything: How will an ad look on a page, for instance? What kind of ad unit will most appeal to customers?

“There’s still a lot of questions about how developers are going to be building their apps and how we can create the best ad units for them,” said Nicole Leverich, a spokeswoman for AdMob, the mobile-advertising network that Google is acquiring. AdMob is not releasing software that will let developers run ads on apps “until we can test our ad units on a physical device,” said Mike Fyall, manager of product marketing, in an e- mail message.

Mr. Ford said that while advertiser interest had been intense, “we’re all learning.”

“It’s a moving target,” he said.

Brad Stone and Jenna Wortham contributed reporting.

Freelance Writing Jobs with the Federal Government

Posted by John 23 March 2010:

Allena Tapia, who writes Allena's Freelance Writing Blog for About.com, has posted an excellent bit of information for those who may want to do freelance writing work for the U. S. Government at top dollar.

Being a retired government employee, I can vouch for the info related to becoming a government contractor...It really isn't hard to get registered.  

Allena posted:
When I heard about a colleague who had recently edited a set of journals for the U.S. Government, I wanted to know how to get in on that kind of  job! It took me three days, but I slowly worked my way through the process of becoming a registered government contractor, and I took notes for fellow freelancers the whole way through. How To Register for Freelance Writing Jobs with the Government tells you how to get through the contractor registration process, too. I now make checking the bid opportunities available a regular part of my search for freelance writing work.

The New Print Gimmick

Posted by John 22 March 2010:

New innovations in ink and paper technologies have breathed new life into the printed word! The new digital media tech stud has sprayed some innovative reproductive seeds, it seems, into the old printed-word Momma.

Jill Ambroz, FOLIO magazine, writes the following informative article on this subject:

David Granger likens print innovations to the new squeezable ketchup bottle, what he calls “the greatest consumer product in the history of mankind.” That little twist on the American staple “allows people to access it in a simple and fulfilling way.” The use of print innovations have yet to become as widespread as the ketchup bottle, but the new technologies are breathing fresh air into a mature industry that is battling its own digital counterparts for survival.

“In this era, when everyone’s excited about new media, we need to do everything we can to make older media as exciting as possible,” says Granger, Esquire’s editor-in-chief. The magazine’s latest print gimmick was its May 2009 issue where it featured a mix-n-match cover. The facial features of President Obama, George Clooney and Justin Timberlake became interchangeable thanks to a tri-perforated cover.

It’s not just the digital era, but also the poor economy that has publishers looking for new ways to stay viable. “The growth of the Internet as consumers’ primary news and content-delivery method, in combination with the impact of the recession on the publishing industry, has created a marketing environment that requires inventive and customizable cover and insert creative that will resonate with the consumer,” says Scott Berry, senior vice president of sales for specialty printer Vertis Communications.

Print Innovations, Past and Present

Four years ago, Rolling Stone made news with its 3-D lenticular cover for its 1,000th issue. Late last year, The Hollywood Reporter also produced a 3-D cover featuring the movie “Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs” for its November 30th issue. Some other recent covers include Esquire’s October 2008 e-ink issue, where it embedded an electronic paper device in the cover—a first for the magazine industry. Another Hearst publication, House Beautiful, featured a pocket cover with a pull-out for its September 2009 issue. The cover line asked, “What colors does your house need?” and the pull-out provided a sampling of colors with personality descriptions and suggestions for use.

Hearst Corp. seems to be embracing print innovations. The company’s 2009 annual report is a panoply of print gimmicks, including digital bar codes, pop-ups and magazines within magazines, produced by Sandy Alexander and Brown Printing Co. And for the past three years, the company has held “print expos” where it invites printers to set up display booths to showcase their cutting-edge capabilities in an internal tradeshow setting for Hearst’s publishers, editors and marketing people. In January, Michael Clinton, executive vice president, chief marketing officer and publishing director for Hearst Magazines, decided to open the doors to invite advertisers and agencies to the expo.

That was a smart move considering that producing these special issues usually requires advertiser buy-in. One of the reasons specialty print issues aren’t more commonplace is because they are more costly to produce. Granger notes that it wasn’t until the economy started to head south that advertisers got interested in collaborating on some print innovations.

“I have no budget for increased cost so I need an advertiser to do it with,” he says. “Frankly, there are costs that need to be shared. That’s why we haven’t done more; we have to find advertisers that get excited about doing something, as well as committing on the edit side.”

It should be noted that some of the best print innovations these days are showcased by advertising inserts. Take the magazine insert for Ubisoft’s Assassin Creed II, a video game. As you open the four-page spread, you actually tear off the head of the king, one of the characters in the game. “You can literally hear and feel the head tearing,” says Doug Hazlett, vice president of marketing and sustainability for specialty printer Sandy Alexander.

A Jump In Newsstand Sales

While specialty printing has been around for a while, new technologies coupled with publishers’ desire to stay relevant are leading to growth in this area of magazine publishing. “There are new techniques and technologies that are changing the business,” Hazlett says. “The advantage of specialty magazine printing is that it drives higher awareness, recall and in turn sales which drives a higher return on your investment.”

The newsstand sales of Hearst’s specialty print magazines are proof. House Beautiful’s September 2009 issue, featuring the pocket cover, was the top selling issue of the year for the magazine with 110,000 copies sold—24 percent higher than the average issue. In fact, it was the best-selling issue since September 2007, says a Hearst Magazines spokesperson. And the newsstand sales of Esquire’s mix-n-match cover for May 2009 were up more than 10 percent. Esquire’s e-ink cover for its October 2008 issue saw a newsstand spike of more than 15 percent with a 33 percent price increase, according to the spokesperson.

The payoff is also about generating buzz. “Great ideas and executions beget more great ideas and executions,” says Karen Wagner, production director for Hearst Magazines. “Not only do advertisers benefit from innovation, but so do editors and the editorial product.”

Challenges and Pricing

While it’s difficult to get a good idea of just how much these specialty printing projects cost, Granger says that Esquire’s issues that were innovative through its use of paper and ink cost in the “tens of thousands of dollars,” noting that it was only a “slight upcharge” and not “cripplingly expensive.” And Hearst maintains that its 2009 annual report with all the bells and whistles did not cost any more to produce than a regular report.

There are other challenges to producing specialty printed issues. The edit team, production staff, advertiser and printers must all be on the same page. Another challenge is the longer lead time. For example, a print unit that runs inside the magazine may take a week to two weeks to prepare, and can be produced earlier, but must be at the printer at the time of binding. And a specialty cover can’t close too early because of edit constraints, Wagner says. Esquire specialty covers have closed about 10 days earlier than regular covers, Granger says. He adds that time also has to be factored in to allow for the selling of the idea to an advertiser and for the manufacturing division to have enough time to order paper, etc.

What’s Next: Thermo-Dynamic Ink

Some of the emerging trends and biggest bangs for the buck include the use of 2-D bar codes and anything interactive. The use of 3-D covers still generate a tremendous amount of interest and activity, especially given the advent of 3-D movies and TV, Hazlett says. Special coatings, like gloss UV and metal effects, unique stocks, special colors and custom pop-ups and die-cuts are hot now, he adds. “Inside the book, a unique stock, custom shape or special finish provide the highest awareness and recall for a marketing campaign,” he says.

In addition, some of the updates to the actual presses have enabled many of these technologies. “There are so many different units that can be produced and bound, due to improvements to presses,” Wagner says. “We can do more on press in one pass than we could before. In the past, in some cases we’ve had to print a unit on press and then take it offline and do other things to it, like [die-cut] it, fold it or glue it. Now, the new technologies that printers have added to the presses enable them to do more of that inline,” saving time and money.

Hearst’s Marie Claire has something special in the works for select copies of its March issue, Wagner says, and Esquire is already planning something innovative for its November issue, which will feature “the sexiest woman alive.”

Granger wants to experiment with inks next, particularly thermo-dynamic ink, which changes color based on temperature, so words can actually change color. “There’s so much interesting ink technology and that’s one of the next frontiers I want to play with,” he says. We’ve already seen what he can do with paper.

Interview Magazine: The iPad is the Future

Posted by John 19 March 2010:

This insightful look at the latest developments from Apple and iPad comes from Laura Oliver writing for Journalism.co.uk :

For a device that's not even being sold yet – though we're told it is imminent in the US and UK –  getting on the iPad has quickly jumped to the top of many news organisation's to do lists.

Described in equal measure as overhyped and journalism's saviour, the impact of the device is not yet known.

"The model is attractive: there are more than 100 million iTunes accounts with users' credit cards pre-loaded and ready to go. A new shiny, powerful device – somewhere between an e-reader and a netbook – could just persuade people to buy the news subscriptions the New York Times and Rupert Murdoch so desperately want to sell them," says Patrick Smith, in a blog post for Journalism.co.uk following the device’s launch by Apple CEO Steve Jobs in January.

"But Apple's new device is just another distribution platform for words, pictures, videos and data, just like PCs, mobiles and print. Recreating a print experience on another device is not going to solve the economic crisis news finds itself in: Google will still be more efficient at selling advertising and will still point readers to free content."

Yet despite this unknown, plans for iPad apps from many publishers and news organisations, particularly those with strong smartphone and mobile offerings, have emerged.

Developing an iPad app of its own and for its clients were cited as top priorities when the Associated Press launched its new business unit, AP Gateway last month. Elsewhere Wired's US magazine was quick to announce its excitement and plans for the Wired Tablet, with editor Chris Anderson promising a full release this summer. Wired's plans have also been pivotal in the US' Audit Bureau of Circluations' (ABC) decision to change its definition of digital editions to include the iPad and so include the new apps as part of circulation figures for audit.

"Much is still to be answered about magazines and other media on this emerging class of devices, from the business and distribution models to the consumer response. But what is already clear is that they offer the opportunity to be beautiful, highly engaging and immersive, going beyond what's available on the web. I think tablets are going to sell like hotcakes, in part because they offer such an intimate, rich media experience," says Anderson in a blog post explaining the launch.

In Europe, Dutch newspaper De Telegraaf has produced its own iPad concept video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=abPXDV6PoXY&feature=player_embedded

But according to this week's census from the Association of Online Publishers (AOP), many UK publishers are taking a more cautious approach to the new device, as managing diector of Mail Online, James Bromley explains: "These are still really really embryonic devices that are great and fantastic, and I want to be at the top of the queue to buy one and play with it. But we're talking about a very, very narrow subsection of society that will have these in 2010. This is the time that we learn about these devices - 2011, 2012, 2013 is when these might become slightly more mainstream."

So what's the thinking for publishers who are preparing for an iPad app launch in 2010? Journalism.co.uk spoke to one such organisation, US magazine Interview, which is readying itself for an iPad release next month. Interview's Scott Lambert sees the iPad as the future of publishing:

When will the first Interview issue for iPad be available?
[SL] The first Interview issue on the iPad (April 2010) will launch on the day the iPad goes on sale. We will also follow with back issues (40th anniversary issue with Kristen Stewart, Dec/Jan 2010 issue with Penelope Cruz and Feb 2010 with Jay-Z). This is the biggest launch of its kind - Interview will be the showcase magazine application for this device.

How much will it cost and are you offering subscription deals?
There will be a subscription-based system in place using Apple's capabilities to deliver this service. The price of an app on the iPad will be $1.99.

Is there something that the iPad offers magazine publishers that previous digital edition technology has not?
The application will utilise all of the latest Apple technology, which for anyone who saw the launch presentation by Steve Jobs will know is mind blowing. We have learned from our digital magazine and iPhone app experience how to deliver in these environments and the Interview Apple iPad app will be the pinnacle of these developments. It will be a true magazine showcase on a screen which is quite simply, made for a title like ours.

At the same time we have a version of Interview for laptops and desktops and another for separate mobile devices; and each of these are extremely high quality products in their own right. It really has to be said though that the iPad is a showcase in its purest form; slick, sexy and portable.

How will you use multimedia in your iPad editions?
The possibilities are endless here. Each issue has video and audio content unique to Interview - there may be a 'behind the scenes' clip showing how one of the photo-shoots is executed or an exclusive track from a featured artist an exclusively extended photo editorial.

The content will deliver an engaging user experience not seen before, and we have also applied these multimedia options to the advertising model. We have a lot of strong interest from a host of luxury brands who are looking for ways to showcase their campaigns on a multimedia rich platform like this. We have the capabilities to provide these clients with mobile, digital, online and print platforms to integrate campaigns like never before.

You're getting on the iPad very early? Why is this?
We have worked closely with Apple in the past and appreciate and see the quality of the technology. Apple is a leader in its field and has again and again shown that high quality design, an eye for detail and the highest possible user experience is essential in this technology age. The iPad is the future and we embrace it openly. No other device available at the moment can provide this kind of mobile experience for our readers - and we are confident that no other magazine can deliver content more suitable to this device.

Do you think the iPad is going to 'save' the publishing industry?
It will certainly become a powerful new platform to express great content. Apple has again played its cards at just the right time to ensure that they deliver something to the market place which is a game-changer. Magazines will survive, we all need to adapt to changes rapidly and effectively. It is important to listen to key stakeholders - our readers and our advertising partners - to know how we can best deliver the magazine experience in new and exciting ways.

Escape Boring Fiction-Discover the Reality and Excitement of Non-Fiction

Posted by John 16 March 2010:

Extolling the virtues of non-fiction and the REAL world today:

by Noelle Myers, writing for the University of Rhode Island student newspaper The Good 5 Cent Cigar:

University of Washington professor and author of "Reality Hunger: A Manifesto," David Shields, gave a lecture yesterday evening in the University of Rhode Island's Lippitt Hall, which concluded the English Department's Read/Write Series.

In his book, Shields discussed the past, present and future state of reality itself, and what it's like to live in 2010.

Shields said his inspiration for the book was two dominant features in his life: growing up with a stutter and living with two parents who were journalists.

"Language is always canceling itself out," Shields said. "[It's] terribly self-reflexive."

Shields began as a fiction writer and his first three books were novels, but he said he eventually became bored with this style of writing. He said he was not only bored with fiction writing, but teaching as well.

When he was first hired at the University of Washington, he was a creative writing professor. As a way of developing his interest in non-fiction, he created a graduate course, which helped him "find a way out" of his boredom and discover the excitement of non-fiction.

The course, "Self-Reflexive Essay and Film," and its material were composed of about 26 chapters, which included one half of Shields' findings.

"The book would never have evolved without the need to articulate to myself and my students what it was about non-fiction that was so exciting," he said.

Shields said he was essentially teaching himself and teaching his students at the same time.

He said the most exciting works of art leave the viewer or reader in a certain state of mind-a feeling he tried to replicate in the style of his writing. In "Reality Hunger: A Manifesto" Shields tried to limit the amount of cited material to try and engage the reader in a more active experience.

There is a note at the end of the book that includes various citations, but it also states that not all quotes or works in his writing are cited. Shields said he wants readers to recognize a quote in his writing and perhaps "Google" the material to find out where it came from. He wants readers to experience confusion about who the book's speaker is, hoping that it would bring excitement to his work.

Shields said few people understood the relationship he was trying to show between the refusal to quote and the points made in his book. Shields had to compromise with the publisher on his citing technique in "Reality Hunger: A Manifesto," as he wanted limited citing to help emphasize the purpose of the book. Shields also organized the book in chapters from letters A to Z to give the illusion that the book is organized and in order. He said it in fact contradicts itself because there is no exact order, which makes the book interesting.

"The main motive of the novel is to drive a narrative forward," he said, and as an author he wants to "make sure the reader keeps turning pages."
 

"Global Publishing" Published

Posted by John 13 March 2010:

Global Publishing is a great reference guide to worldwide publishing trends, analyses and forecasts. I present this post for all serious publishing enthusiasts: 

Datamonitor's Global Publishing industry profile is an essential resource for top-level data and analysis covering the Publishing industry. It includes detailed data on market size and segmentation, plus textual and graphical analysis of the key trends and competitive landscape, leading companies and demographic information.

Scope

* Contains an executive summary and data on value, volume and/or segmentation
* Provides textual analysis of the industry's recent performance and future prospects
* Incorporates in-depth five forces competitive environment analysis and scorecards
* Includes a five-year forecast of the industry
* The leading companies are profiled with supporting key financial metrics
* Supported by the key macroeconomic and demographic data affecting the market

Highlights

* Detailed information is included on market size, measured by value and/or volume
* Five forces scorecards provide an accessible yet in depth view of the market's competitive landscape

Why you should buy this report

* Spot future trends and developments
* Inform your business decisions
* Add weight to presentations and marketing materials
* Save time carrying out entry-level research

Market Definition

The publishing market consists of books, newspaper and magazines segments. The book publishing industry comprises publishers of academic, professional, general and other (fictions, non-fiction etc) books. Market value refers to the domestic sales of books only at the retail sales price (RSP). The newspaper and magazine segment value is calculated as the revenues generated by publishers from hard or electronic copies of their products, whereas advertising segment represents revenues generated from advertising within those products. Any currency conversions used in the creation of this report have been calculated using constant 2008 annual average exchange rates.

For the purpose of this report the global figure is deemed to comprise of the Americas, Asia-Pacific and Europe.

The Americas comprises Argentina, Brazil, Canada, Chile, Colombia, Mexico, Venezuela, and the US.

Europe comprises Belgium, the Czech Republic, Denmark, France, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Romania, Russia, Spain, Sweden, the Ukraine and the United Kingdom.

Asia-Pacific comprises Australia, China, Japan, India, Singapore, South Korea and Taiwan.

For more information or to purchase this report, go to:
- www.fastmr.com/prod/50115_global_publishing.aspxReport

Table of Contents:

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY 3
CHAPTER 1 Market Overview 7
1.1 Market Definition 7
1.2 Research Highlights 7
1.3 Market Analysis 8
CHAPTER 2 Market Value 9
CHAPTER 3 Market Segmentation I 10
CHAPTER 4 Market Segmentation II 11
CHAPTER 5 Five Forces Analysis 12
5.1 Summary 12
5.2 Buyer Power 14
5.3 Supplier Power 16
5.4 New Entrants 17
5.5 Substitutes 19
5.6 Rivalry 20
CHAPTER 6 Leading Companies 21
6.1 Bertelsmann AG 21
6.2 Time Warner Inc. 24
6.3 Reed Elsevier NV 31
CHAPTER 7 Market Forecasts 37
7.1 Market Value Forecast 37
CHAPTER 8 Appendix 38
8.1 Methodology 38
8.2 Industry Associations 39
8.3 Related Datamonitor Research 39

LIST OF TABLES
Table 1: Global Publishing Market Value: $ billion, 2004-2008 9
Table 2: Global Publishing Market Segmentation I: % Share, by Value, 2008 10
Table 3: Global Publishing Market Segmentation II: % Share, by Value, 2008 11
Table 4: Key Facts: Bertelsmann AG 21
Table 5: Key Financials: Bertelsmann AG 23
Table 6: Key Facts: Time Warner Inc. 24
Table 7: Key Financials: Time Warner Inc. 30
Table 8: Key Facts: Reed Elsevier NV 31
Table 9: Key Financials: Reed Elsevier NV 36
Table 10: Global Publishing Market Value Forecast: $ billion, 2008-2013 37

About Datamonitor

The Datamonitor Group is a world-leading provider of premium global business information, delivering independent data, analysis and opinion across the Automotive, Consumer Markets, Energy & Utilities, Financial Services, Logistics & Express, Pharmaceutical & Healthcare, Retail, Technology and Telecoms industries. Datamonitor's market intelligence products and services ensure that you will achieve your desired commercial goals by giving you the insight you need to best respond to your competitive environment. View more research from Datamonitor at www.fastmr.com/catalog/publishers.aspx?pubid=1002

About Fast Market Research

Fast Market Research is an online aggregator and distributor of market research and business information. We represent the world's top research publishers and analysts and provide quick and easy access to the best competitive intelligence available.

For more information about these or related research reports, please visit our website at www.fastmr.com or call us at 1.800.844.8156        

Author:
Bill Thompson

iPad Challenges Traditional Publishing Economics

Posted by John 10 March 2010:

You may no longer have the printing, binding, paper, packaging and shipping costs with the new digital formats...AND, on the selling end, no more brick-and-mortar stores, leasing space and employees; BUT, you still have editors, researchers, fact checkers, etc, etc. The new digital content cost formula should include these for better quality. Tony Bradley makes a good case  for this in an article he wrote for PC World Business Center: 

There have been various stories about the iPad emerging as the savior of print media, and an equal selection of reports that print publications have balked at the profit-sharing business model proposed by Apple. Print media appears to be making the same mistake that other traditional entertainment media have made in transitioning to a digital delivery system.

Media businesses--whether music, movies, books, magazines, or newspapers--seem to cling to a pricing model that fails to account for the significantly lower overhead of digital distribution. These entities seem hung up on pricing narcissism, rather than realizing that production costs are different and distribution is almost universal--changing the economics entirely from traditional models.

The problem is not unique to the iPad. It is indicative of traditional media reluctantly embracing digital distribution in all its forms. Amazon--which established the Kindle based on selling new release best-seller's for $9.99--recently experienced a publisher revolt and has had to agree to let major publishers set prices above the $9.99 mark for their titles.

I have written or contributed to a number of books. Royalties are generally calculated as a function of net revenue, not retail price. Distributing a book in ePub or Kindle format doesn't require the same investment in paper, printing, binding, packaging, shipping, etc. On the retail end, there is no brick and mortar store--no need for leasing space, paying employees, etc. Virtually all of the overhead in producing and selling a book is removed.

Basically, publishers should be pricing digital distribution based on what it would expect in net revenue from the traditional distribution method, not based on some calculated percentage of the traditional retail price. I don't know the exact numbers, but If Wiley is only going to n et eight dollars when it sells a printed version of my book, then it should create a digital pricing scheme that nets the same.

The issue goes beyond printed media too. Music CD's typically sell for around 15 dollars. Buying the MP3 version of the songs one at a time ends up costing nearly as much as purchasing the hard copy CD. You might save a few bucks if you buy the MP3 version of the whole album, but not as much as the distributor is saving by not producing and packaging discs, and by erasing the logistical expense of getting the discs to the store shelves.

My IDG peer Robert Cringely points out that there is more to the overhead than the cost of materials and distribution. "The premium rates publications charge(d) for print advertising subsidized a great many things--like teams of researchers, fact checkers, copy editors, and multiple line editors--that online ad models simply don't support."

Fair enough. Publishers should continue to factor those things in to the overhead associated with the digital distribution of their publications. The point stands that materials, and logistics make up a significant portion of the cost of a book, magazine, or newspaper, and that the online economics are entirely different.

There is also an economy of scale to consider. When a publisher prints and distributes a book, it publishes a finite number of copies which it makes available from a finite number of retail establishments. Digital distribution has no such constraints.

It remains to be seen if the iPad will be the savior of print media. The thing is, the iPad will probably do just fine regardless of what happens to print media. However, the reverse is not necessarily true.

Traditional media--whether books, magazines, newspapers, music, or movies--still need to grasp the digital landscape, and the changes that it brings for the economic models they have built their businesses on for decades. Somewhere out there is a revenue structure that creates a win-win-win for the publishers, the platforms (like the iPad and the Kindle), and the customers.

Pondering Good Faith in Publishing

Posted by John 8 March 2010:

Do publishers REALLY check out authors' sources sufficiently. Lately, big spotlighted stories have been less than truthful and have embarrassed some big houses.

Motoko Rich of the New York Times reports this:

'Book publishers have long seen themselves as the gatekeepers of literary culture. But when they’re not looking, the truth has a way of being left at the door.

Last week Henry Holt & Company stopped printing and selling “The Last Train From Hiroshima,” about the atomic bombing of Japan, because its author had relied on a fraudulent source for a portion of the book and possibly fabricated others.

This is not the first time a publisher has been humiliated by an author’s unverified work. But this instance has occurred at a time when the publisher’s traditional role is under economic and technological stress.

With the rise of electronic books, makers of reading devices and online retailers are putting pressure on prices and the traditional book publishing business model. And, as with record labels and newspapers, digital media raises the question of what part the traditional book publisher will play in the future.

“If book publishers are supposed to be the gatekeepers,” said Kurt Andersen, the novelist and host of “Studio 360,” a public radio program, “tell me exactly what they’re closing the gate to.”

In the case of “The Last Train From Hiroshima,” the author, Charles Pellegrino, said he had been duped by a source and insisted that other sources the publisher questioned definitely existed.

Publishers say that responsibility for errors and fabrications ultimately must lie with the author. “It would not be humanly possible to fact-check books the way magazine articles can be fact-checked, just because of length,” said Robert A. Gottlieb, the renowned editor who worked at the publisher Alfred A. Knopf and The New Yorker magazine, which has a celebrated fact-checking department.

But in many recent cases publishers did not seem to ask basic questions of authors, accepting their versions on almost blind faith.

Most notoriously, there was James Frey, who embellished details in his Oprah Winfrey-anointed memoir of addiction, “A Million Little Pieces.” More recently, there was Margaret Seltzer, writing under the pseudonym Margaret B. Jones, who made up a story about being reared by a foster family in gang-ridden South Central Los Angeles; and Herman Rosenblat, a Holocaust survivor who said he originally met his wife as a child while in a Nazi concentration camp, where she threw apples over the fence to him.

“There’s a hazy line between ‘truth’ and invention in creative nonfiction, but good writers don’t have to make things up,” Jeffrey Porter, an associate professor of English and nonfiction writing at the University of Iowa, wrote in an e-mail message. In the case of Mr. Pellegrino, whose book claimed to expose a secret accident with the first atomic bomb, Mr. Porter wrote: “Maybe the idea of a scoop was irresistible. But somebody should have been skeptical.”

Mr. Pellegrino said he had relied on information from a source, Joseph Fuoco, who claimed he was a last-minute substitute as a flight engineer on one of the escort planes for the Enola Gay, the plane that dropped the atomic bomb on Hiroshima. Late last month, scientists, historians and veterans denounced Mr. Fuoco as an impostor who did not ride on the mission.

Questions were raised about “Last Train” only after it was published and readers complained. The publisher said it would issue corrected editions, removing references to Mr. Fuoco. But then Holt started examining tips it received about the possibility that other people in the book did not exist, and also began looking into a controversy over Mr. Pellegrino’s Ph.D., which he refers to prominently on his Web site (charlespellegrino.com) and in his author’s biography in the book.

Mr. Pellegrino said he had been awarded the doctorate at Victoria University of Wellington in New Zealand in the early 1980s and then stripped of it a few years later because of a disagreement with department members over evolutionary theory. “It got to be a very hot and nasty topic in 1982,” Mr. Pellegrino said in a telephone interview.

On Thursday, Pat Walsh, vice chancellor of Victoria University, said that Mr. Pellegrino’s claims were “baseless and defamatory” and that the university never awarded him a Ph.D.

Mr. Pellegrino’s literary agent, Elaine Markson, and his editor at Holt, John Macrae, both said they had no reason to examine his credentials.

“I never questioned his scientific background because he was working on Titanic research and other research with laboratories,” Ms. Markson said, referring to Mr. Pellegrino’s previous books.

Mr. Pellegrino also brought some stardust with his project: he had consulted for the director James Cameron on the movies “Titanic” and “Avatar,” and Mr. Cameron optioned “Last Train” for a film about the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

In a telephone interview Mr. Pellegrino talked repeatedly of his supporters, including Stephen Jay Gould, who died in 2002, but who, according to Mr. Pellegrino, knew that he had been academically persecuted. And although agitated, he seemed to believe he could still find a publisher to help him release a corrected electronic or paperback edition.

In a follow-up e-mail message Mr. Pellegrino urged a reporter to call Eric Stover, a former executive director of the science and human rights program of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, to back up his claims.'

Read more http://alturl.com/2p6x 

Jodi Picoult: Her Daily Writing Schedule Under a Microscope

Posted by John 6 March 2010:

Jodi Picoult, 43, is a writer whose stories always involve great characters, good suspense AND my favorite ingredient, a current social issue or problem. A slam-bang formula for best-sellers!

She is the bestselling author of seventeen novels: Songs of the Humpback Whale (1992), Harvesting the Heart (1994), Picture Perfect (1995), Mercy (1996), The Pact (1998), Keeping Faith (1999), Plain Truth (2000), Salem Falls (2001), Perfect Match (2002), Second Glance (2003), My Sister's Keeper(2004), Vanishing Acts (2005), The Tenth Circle (2006) Nineteen Minutes (2007), Change of Heart (2008), Handle With Care (2009) — the last three of which debuted at number one on the New York Times bestseller list, – and her newest novel, , House Rules (2010).

Julia Keller, cultural critic of the Chicago Tribune, published an insightful interview with Ms Picoult in today's issue: 

She takes none of it for granted. Not the sales figures, the fame, the fortune, the fact that her name pops up on best-seller lists with the frequency of freakishly popular scribes such as Stephen King and Mary Higgins Clark.

If you're inclined to trust what Jodi Picoult says — and if you're not, then you're the kind of cynic who probably isn't interested in her or her books, anyway — she is still, after 17 novels and 18 years on the job, just as humble, wide-eyed and hardworking as she was at the beginning of her career.

"I can't believe anyone buys my books," Picoult says from her home near Hanover, N.H. "I would've been happy just being published and having my mother buy a copy. I've been very fortunate.

"It's still a little bit of a miracle."

Even miracles, though, need some muscle behind them. For Picoult, 43, the push comes from a rigorous writing schedule — she's up at 5 each morning and, after a three-mile walk with a longtime pal, settles down in her home office to write until 3:30 p.m., when her three children barge in from school — and an amazing ability to put her finger on hot-button social issues that her novels explore with honesty, authenticity and emotional power.

Her trademark is the domestic drama, the story that puts ordinary people in the midst of contemporary crises: teen suicide, bullying, childhood sexual abuse, school violence. But in novels such as "My Sister's Keeper" (2004), a story about parents who conceive a child so that an earlier child, ill with leukemia, will have a match for blood marrow donation, and which was made into a 2009 movie starring Cameron Diaz, Picoult doesn't use the family-in-peril motif as a cheap gimmick. Her books are written with naturalness and flair. She knows how to tell a story, and how to fill it with intriguing, believable characters.

Her latest novel, "House Rules" (Atria), published last week, is a whodunit with a twist. The young man accused of murder, Jacob Hunt, has Asperger's syndrome. It falls to his plucky mom, Emma, his brooding brother, Theo, and a bumbling young attorney named Oliver to go to bat for Jacob. Like many of Picoult's works, "House Rules" is told from multiple points of view and includes a great deal of information about its theme — Asperger's — but the facts are added gently, artfully, so that it never feels like a term paper.

To research "House Rules," she met with seven young people with Asperger's and corresponded with many more. "It was like cracking open their minds. This was an important part of making Jacob real."

Picoult, a native of Long Island, N.Y., is a graduate of Princeton University. That's where she met her husband, Tim van Leer. She began writing seriously in college and never stopped. "For me, books start with the voices of my characters," she says. "I can hear them all so clearly." And those topical themes? "I worry about these things myself. The things I write about are the things that keep me up at night.

"You don't do this to be famous or to have money. If you're going to write, you do it for you. It's a compulsion. When I don't write, I get itchy. The stories are like something under my skin."

Picoult, who says she receives about 200 e-mails a day through her Web site (jodipicoult.com), answers every e-mail personally. "If someone is taking time out of their life to read my work and then to write me a letter, it's just good breeding for me to answer.

"I'm a mom. I'm a writer. We have tons of land and livestock. I work hard to have the success I have. That's me, in a nutshell."

But surely there must be a scandal lurking somewhere in her background?

Picoult laughs. "The biggest scandal lately is that my husband broke his ankle in three places, and for a while, I thought I wouldn't be able to go on tour for ‘Home Rules.'"

And in what sneaky, seamy, untoward activity was he engaged when the accident occurred?

"Playing hockey."

Supreme Court Rules Freelance Writers Are Protected For Unregistered Copyrights

Posted by John 4 March 2010:

The Supreme Court ruled on 2 March 2010 that abuse of unregistered as well as registered copyrighted works can be brought to federal court. So it appears writers have another layer of protection against the misuse of intellectual property rights!

Adam Pollack of the San Diego Policy Examiner reports:

Online publishing rules just became more protective of intellectual property rights. The United States Supreme Court decided on March 2, in Reed Elsevier v. Muchnick, freelance authors can bring copyright disputes to a federal court even when they have not registered their copyright. In a unanimous decision, the justices agreed to let a $18 million settlement with online companies stand.

The copyright laws require writers, in most cases, register before suing for infringement. Section 411(a) of Title 17 does not, however, state the federal courts can not have jurisdiction over a case involving authors without registered copyrights. Justice Thomas explained, Congress would have to "clearly state" registration is needed for jurisdiction.

Disputes arose when online publishers and database owners republished author's newspaper and magazine articles without permission, and without payment. Following the court's Tasini decision in 2001, the freelance authors believed they could succeed in suits for infringement against online publishers and database owners. The companies decided to work on a settlement.

After three years of negotiation, six publishers, including Reed Elsevier, the owner of the online newspaper archive on LexisNexis, and New York Times Co., agreed to pay the freelance authors to settle their claims. Ten authors, including Irvin Muchnick, objected. The District Court overruled and approved the settlement in March of 2005. This court put the authors with a registered copyrights and those without registrations into the same class.

The Second Circuit Court of Appeals told the lower court it lacked jurisdiction to combine the authors into one class and approve the settlement. The justices read Section 411(a) to mean a case involving unregistered copyright holders could not be heard.

The National Writers Union, who won the Tasini case, hoped the Supreme Court would protect the freelance authors rights over works published online. President Larry Goldbetter expressed serious concern about the Second Circuit's decision that took away the settlement approval. In October of last year, he said, "To deny these writers their constitutional right to any copyright protection by federal courts contradicts the specific guarantees enshrined in the U.S. Constitution."

Compensation for use of unregistered written works is still a reporter's right the federal courts attend to. Online publishers can work out agreements with the freelance authors on how to republish and pay for the use of the works.

Printed Book Costs vs Digital Book Costs 

Posted by John 1 March 2010:

Were we expecting the price of ebooks to be too low since printing, binding and shipping costs were no longer involved? Other costs like overhead, royalties and marketing are still in effect, are they not? Hell yes they are...which means the low ebook prices during this digital transition period will not remain forever.

Motoko Rich, of the New York Times, dissects the new emerging digital costs in his article: "Math of Publishing Meets the E-Book":

In the emerging world of e-books, many consumers assume it is only logical that publishers are saving vast amounts by not having to print or distribute paper books, leaving room to pass along those savings to their customers.

Publishers largely agree, which is why in negotiations with Apple, five of the six largest publishers of trade books have said they would price most digital editions of new fiction and nonfiction books from $12.99 to $14.99 on the forthcoming iPad tablet — significantly lower than the average $26 price for a hardcover book.

But publishers also say consumers exaggerate the savings and have developed unrealistic expectations about how low the prices of e-books can go. Yes, they say, printing costs may vanish, but a raft of expenses that apply to all books, like overhead, marketing and royalties, are still in effect.

All of which raises the question: Just how much does it actually cost to produce a printed book versus a digital one?

Publishers differ on how they account for various costs, but a composite, and necessarily simplified, picture might look like this, according to interviews with executives at several major houses:

On a typical hardcover, the publisher sets a suggested retail price. Let’s say it is $26. The bookseller will generally pay the publisher $13. Out of that gross revenue, the publisher pays about $3.25 to print, store and ship the book, including unsold copies returned to the publisher by booksellers.

For cover design, typesetting and copy-editing, the publisher pays about 80 cents. Marketing costs average around $1 but may go higher or lower depending on the title. Most of these costs will deline on a per-unit basis as a book sells more copies.

Let’s not forget the author, who is generally paid a 15 percent royalty on the hardcover price, which on a $26 book works out to $3.90. For big best-selling authors — and even occasionally first-time writers whose publishers have taken a risk — the author’s advance may be so large that the author effectively gets a higher slice of the gross revenue. Publishers generally assume they will write off a portion of many authors’ advances because they are not earned back in sales.

Without accounting for such write-offs, the publisher is left with $4.05, out of which it must pay overhead for editors, cover art designers, office space and electricity before taking a profit.

Now let’s look at an e-book. Under the agreements with Apple, the publishers will set the consumer price and the retailer will act as an agent, earning a 30 percent commission on each sale. So on a $12.99 e-book, the publisher takes in $9.09. Out of that gross revenue, the publisher pays about 50 cents to convert the text to a digital file, typeset it in digital form and copy-edit it. Marketing is about 78 cents.

The author’s royalty — a subject of fierce debate between literary agents and publishing executives — is calculated among some of the large trade publishers as 25 percent of the gross revenue, while others are calculating it off the consumer price. So on a $12.99 e-book, the royalty could be anywhere from $2.27 to $3.25.

All that leaves the publisher with something ranging from $4.56 to $5.54, before paying overhead costs or writing off unearned advances.

At a glance, it appears the e-book is more profitable. But publishers point out that e-books still represent a small sliver of total sales, from 3 to 5 percent. If e-book sales start to replace some hardcover sales, the publishers say, they will still have many of the fixed costs associated with print editions, like warehouse space, but they will be spread among fewer print copies.

Moreover, in the current print model, publishers can recoup many of their costs, and start to make higher profits, on paperback editions. If publishers start a new e-book’s life at a price similar to that of a paperback book, and reduce the price later, it may be more difficult to cover costs and support new authors.

Another reason publishers want to avoid lower e-book prices is that print booksellers like Barnes & Noble, Borders and independents across the country would be unable to compete. As more consumers buy electronic readers and become comfortable with reading digitally, if the e-books are priced much lower than the print editions, no one but the aficionados and collectors will want to buy paper books.

Read more: http://alturl.com/k9r5

Amazon’s Desperate Phone Calls To Publishers

Posted by John 26 Feb 2010:

Making deals in the intriguing and on-fire world of e-publishing! Amazon intends not be undersold by iPad...Matt Buchanan, writing for Gizmodo.com, says it this way:  

Amazon started calling publishers before Steve Jobs had even left the stage at the iPad event, according to the NYT. They wanted to know what Apple promised them – and more importantly, what they promised Apple.

The deal Amazon’s been trying to ink with publishers for the couple months would guarantee that books on the Kindle would be the same price as on any other reader, if not, in fact, cheaper – the incentive, a bigger chunk of revenue, though Apple’s largely screwed that pooch for Amazon with their own offering, which lets publishers set their own prices, which is what publishers are really after: Control. (Though Apple might have more control than expected.)

One of the tidbits with larger implications is that some publishers are running on a month-to-month contract basis with Amazon, instead of a full-blown multi-year agreement, meaning they actually have plenty of room to manoeuvre in negotiations, especially with Apple at their back. What some publishers might do, they told Bits, is sign the Amazon contract now, and just push a limited free app on the iPad, then switching to a full-blown paid model whenever Amazon’s Kindle Touch arrives.

‘Cause that’ll make things simple.

Senior managers from Amazon.com were calling newspaper, magazine and book publishers trying to glean any information possible about the deals Apple was offering them to supply content for its new reading device.

The clause, a variation of a legal concept known as “most favoured nation,” would guarantee that Amazon’s customers would always get the best price for electronic versions of magazines, newspapers and books.

Many e-publishing contracts with Amazon are still in a month-to-month cycle as the publishers negotiate to try to gain more revenue or more control over their content.

However, to avoid losing their current subscribers on the Kindle, some publishers are considering signing the new Amazon contract now and offering a free, limited application for their content on the iPad. At a later date, when an Amazon product can display richer types of media, publishers could release a paid product that looks and works the same across multiple devices.

Asylum for the verbally Insane

Posted by John 24 Feb 2010:

We'll begin with a box, and the plural is boxes
But the plural of ox becomes oxen, not oxes
One fowl is a goose, but two are called geese,
yet the plural of moose  should never be meese
 
You may find a lone mouse or a nest full of mice,
yet the plural of house is houses, not hice.
                                                                                
If the plural of man is always called men
why shouldn't the plural of pan be called pen?
If I speak of my foot and show you my feet,
and I give you a boot, would a  pair be called beet?
If one is a tooth and a whole set are teeth,
why shouldn't the plural of booth be called beeth?
                                                                                         
Then one may be that, and three would be those,
yet hat in the plural would never be hose,
and the plural of cat is cats, not cose.
We speak of a brother and also of breathren,
But though we say mother, we never say methren.
Then the masculine pronouns are he, his and him,
But imagine the feminine: she, shis and shim!
 
let's face it - English is a crazy language. There is no egg in
eggplant nor ham in hamburger, neither apple nor pine
in pineapple.
                                                                                                           
English muffins weren't invented in England.
We take English for granted, but if we explore its paradoxes,
we find quicksand can work slowly, boxing rings are square,
and a guinea pig is neither from Guinea nor is it a pig.
And why is it that writers write but fingers don't fing,
grocers don't groce and hammers don't ham.
                                                                                      
Doesn't it seem crazy that you can make amends but not one amend.
If you have a bunch of odds and ends and get rid
of all but one of them what do you call it?
If teachers taught, why don't preachers praught?
If a vegetarian eats vegetables, what does a humanitarian eat?
Sometimes I think all the folks who grew up speaking English
should be committed to an asylum for the verbally insane.
 
In what  other language do people recite at a play and play at a recital?
We ship by truck but send cargo by ship
                                                                      
We have noses that run and feet that smell. And how can a slim chance
and a fat chance be the same, while a wise man and a wise guy are opposites?
You have to marvel at the unique lunacy of a language in which your
 house can burn up as it burns down, in which you fill in a form
by filling it out, and in which an alarm goes off by going on.
So if father is pop, how come mother isn't mop?
                                                                                      
And that is just the beginning - even though this is the end.
Everything works out in the end, if it hasn't worked out,
it's not the end. 
  
 
 

How Do Laid-Off Journalists Reinvent Their Careers?

Posted by John 23 Feb 2010:

If you're a journalist, the present times are rough and scary...If you haven't already been laid off, you're constantly looking over your shoulder. Bill Lucey has written a very resourceful article for the Huffington Post delving into how journalists can remake and update themselves to become more marketable in the job market...Regardless of age!

Bill Lucey says:
It's not exactly breaking news to report how the newspaper industry has suffered immeasurable damage during the rapid migration to the Internet, made all the worse by the Great Recession, with lost advertising revenue translating into the shedding of jobs at an alarming rate.

According to the U.S. Census Bureau, newsrooms have lost 9,700 jobs from 2001 through 2009, representing a 17 percent decline from 56,400 to 46,700.

With stacks of newsroom employees having been laid-off or forced to accept buyouts from their companies; a large restless battalion of reporters, copy editors, layout editors, and news researchers find themselves out of work, looking for new careers or ways to reinvent themselves in a new competitive technology-based environment without knowing which way to turn.

It can be a frightening, to be sure, not knowing what the future holds in a labor market with unemployment stuck at a grim 9.7 percent, with limited jobs available, especially within the media industry.

Typically, the sage words given to newsroom employees on their way out the door is to find a way to reinvent yourself.

Splendid advice. But unless you're Houdini or David Copperfield, it can be quite the challenge for someone in their late 40's 50's, or even 60's for example, to find ways to reinvent themselves.

But before raising the white flag and crying uncle, there are plenty of resources available online, offering video tutorials, webinars, and career tips to those out of work newspaper employees' trying to acquire new skills and become more marketable.

The Poynter Institute, a school and resource depository for journalists, located in St. Petersburg Fla, offers a variety of journalism courses through their News University website from journalism basics to photo journalism, producing news with your mobile phone, and variety of other ways to develop new skill sets.

Many of these offerings, moreover, are free. And during the coming year, Poynter will begin offering entrepreneurial courses for journalists and citizens interested in creating their own start-ups.

An often overlooked organization that offers a treasure of training tools is the Special Libraries Association (SLA), a professional organization for librarian information specialists working in media, government, law and non-profit organizations.

Membership is $185 for those making between $34,000-75,000 a year. However, if you are unemployed or underemployed, and make less than $18,000, an SLA membership is only $40.000. Membership then gives you access to SLA's online programs, which offers a number of online tutorials, including social networking training, how to create podcasts, setting up your own Wikipedia, converting your articles and text into Adobe, and searching public records.

One major hurdle many former newspaper employees are finding by going it alone on their own websites and personal blogs is they are without many of the handy tools they had in the newsroom, such as Nexis and Factiva. Searching through Google News and the New York Times historical archives, can only carry you so far.

If you are under a tight budget, buying a subscription to Nexis is practically out of the question.

Thankfully, however, there are some options worth pursuing.

LexisNexis and MediaBistro have partnered to offer access to Nexis' archives, a perfect tool for independent journalists. Once establishing a membership with AvantGuild, Nexis archives, which includes thousands of national and international sources, are available to members for $59.00 a month.

Even if this package is still too rich for your blood, a spokesperson from Nexis said the company "will work with independent journalists directly to try and put together a package that makes sense for their unique needs.''

Aside from offering Nexis archives, MediaBistro also features a variety of online courses taught through their "On Demand Video'' section, which offers hundreds of tutorials on using social media platforms or building a media business through user content and engagement.

Yet another alternative available to independent journalists and news researchers looking for news articles is through NewsLibrary, where millions of full-text articles nationwide are available for $19.95 a month or $2.95 per article.

And for those hard to find news articles, Newsbank Inc. additionally offers News in History, featuring news articles from all 50 U.S. states published from 1800 through 2000 and searchable through a single database. The subscription is $9.95 a month or $69.95 for an annual membership.

But even with all these new online searching tools, photo gadgets, and social media platforms saturating journalism, and being embraced by newspapers, seasoned professionals caution that news professionals shouldn't neglect the basics of being a good reporter or a sound news researcher.

Contacted on her cell phone, Dana Canedy, a senior editor at The New York Times, whose job responsibilities also include recruiting, tells me "despite the painful time the industry is going through, we shouldn't forget that whatever the medium and whatever kind of delivery system, whether it be through the Internet or print publications, the same principles apply, the same skills sets still apply.''

While all the bells and whistles of the new journalism (twittering, social networking, capturing images with your cell phone are certainly an added bonus to any newsroom); Canedy thinks they are only part of the package of what most newspapers are looking for from their newsroom staff.

It was reporters fluent in French, Canedy points out, that became indispensable to editors with the Haiti earthquake; and strong vivid concise reporting skills that led to staffers being dispatched to Iran that became important, more important than podcasts and social networking.

Colleen Eddy, Director of the Career Center at Poynter, tells me the most common attributes editors' tell her they are looking for are those individuals who are "adaptable to change, able to learn on the fly, have technical savvy, and know the value of teamwork and collaboration.''

And for those out of work journalists who think they are being pushed aside by a younger breed of tech journalists, Eddy says, forget about age. Instead, focus on your value by getting a career coach who will help you list your most transferable skills and market yourself. "Network, network, network! and stay young at heart'' Eddy stresses.

Who can argue with staying young at heart?

Hurt Locker and Up in the Air win Writers Guild of America writing awards

Posted by John 22 Feb 2010:

Iraq war drama The Hurt Locker and recession romance Up in the Air won top honours at the Writers Guild of America awards in Los Angeles this weekend.

Journalist Mark Boal won best original screenplay for The Hurt Locker ahead of winning the same award at the Baftas.

Writer-director Jason Reitman and co-writer Sheldon Turner won the adapted screenplay prize for Up in the Air before going on to win again in London.

Mad Men and 30 Rock were named best TV drama and comedy series respectively.

The Writers Guild awards are the last major Hollywood awards ahead of the Oscars, held this year on 7 March.

Both The Hurt Locker and Up in the Air are up for screenplay awards at this year's event.

Also recognised on Saturday was The Cove, a film about the slaughter of dolphins in Japan that won the best documentary screenwriting award.

Writer-director Barry Levinson, of Diner and Rain Man fame, received a lifetime achievement accolade at the event.

So did Larry David, the acclaimed writer and performer behind the TV comedies Seinfeld and Curb Your Enthusiasm.

Reitman, who did not attend the Baftas, thanked his father Ivan, best known as the director of Ghostbusters, as he picked up his award.

Boal, meanwhile, acknowledged the troops in Iraq with whom he had been embedded as a journalist before he wrote his screenplay about bomb disposal experts stationed in the war-torn country.

Publishing: The Revolutionary Future

Posted by John 19 Feb 2010:

A vision of publishing in the digital age by veteran editor and publisher Jason Epstein, a founder of The New York Review:

The transition within the book publishing industry from physical inventory stored in a warehouse and trucked to retailers to digital files stored in cyberspace and delivered almost anywhere on earth as quickly and cheaply as e-mail is now underway and irreversible. This historic shift will radically transform worldwide book publishing, the cultures it affects and on which it depends. Meanwhile, for quite different reasons, the genteel book business that I joined more than a half-century ago is already on edge, suffering from a gambler's unbreakable addiction to risky, seasonal best sellers, many of which don't recoup their costs, and the simultaneous deterioration of backlist, the vital annuity on which book publishers had in better days relied for year-to-year stability through bad times and good. The crisis of confidence reflects these intersecting shocks, an overspecialized marketplace dominated by high-risk ephemera and a technological shift orders of magnitude greater than the momentous evolution from monkish scriptoria to movable type launched in Gutenberg's German city of Mainz six centuries ago.

Though Gutenberg's invention made possible our modern world with all its wonders and woes, no one, much less Gutenberg himself, could have foreseen that his press would have this effect. And no one today can foresee except in broad and sketchy outline the far greater impact that digitization will have on our own future. With the earth trembling beneath them, it is no wonder that publishers with one foot in the crumbling past and the other seeking solid ground in an uncertain future hesitate to seize the opportunity that digitization offers them to restore, expand, and promote their backlists to a decentralized, worldwide marketplace. New technologies, however, do not await permission. They are, to use Schumpeter's overused term, disruptive, as nonnegotiable as earthquakes.

Gutenberg's technology was the sine qua non for the rebirth of the West, as if literacy, scientific method, and constitutional government had been implicit all along, awaiting only Gutenberg to throw the switch. Within fifty years presses were operating from one end of Europe to the other, halting only at the borders of Islam, which shunned the press. Perhaps from the same fear of disruptive literacy that alarmed Islam, China ignored a phonetic transcription of its ideographs, attributed to a Korean emperor, that might have permitted the use of movable type.

The resistance today by publishers to the onrushing digital future does not arise from fear of disruptive literacy, but from the understandable fear of their own obsolescence and the complexity of the digital transformation that awaits them, one in which much of their traditional infrastructure and perhaps they too will be redundant. Karl Marx wrote of the revolutions of 1848 in his Communist Manifesto that all that is solid melts into air. His vision of a workers' paradise was of course wrong by 180 degrees, the triumph of wish over experience. What melted soon solidified as industrial capitalism, a paradise for some at the expense of the many. But Marx's potent image fits the publishing industry today as its capital-intensive infrastructure—presses, warehouses stacked with fully returnable physical inventory, its retail market constrained by costly real estate—faces dissolution within a vast cloud in which all the world's books will eventually reside as digital files to be downloaded instantly title by title wherever on earth connectivity exists, and printed and bound on demand at point of sale one copy at a time by the Espresso Book Machine[1] as library-quality paperbacks, or transmitted to electronic reading devices including Kindles, Sony Readers, and their multiuse successors, among them most recently Apple's iPad. The unprecedented ability of this technology to offer a vast new multilingual marketplace a practically limitless choice of titles will displace the Gutenberg system with or without the cooperation of its current executives.

Read more http://alturl.com/2m3z

Is This The Most Exciting Time Ever For Book Lovers?

Posted by John 17 Feb 2010:

At the same time that so many are decrying the shrinking publishing industry and the printed word, others are saying that with the introduction of eBooks, eReaders, slate computers, eInk, etc, etc...books and reading are on many more people's minds than ever before!

Jason Pinter, bestselling thriller writer, wrote the following for Huffington Post:
Amidst all the doom and gloom (Books are dying! Print is dead! The Kindle will destroy us all! Big Publishers want to kill your pets! ARMAGEDDON IS NIGH!!!), I just want to take a moment to proclaim that this is quite possibly the most exciting period to be a reader in my lifetime. Think about it: when was the last time books and publishing were as much a part of the daily conversation as they are now? So enough with the catastrophic headlines. They might draw traffic and get people riled up, but they're empty bloviations. The bottom line is that, in my opinion, the written word is healthier than ever. The health of the book industry is never about the success of one book--it's a rising tide that lifts all ships. And the tide of buzz about books and publishing is perhaps higher than ever.

Sure individual books and authors have garnered their share of headlines--J.K. Rowling, Dan Brown, Alice Sebold, Stephenie Meyer, etc...--but in my thirty years on this planet, I cannot remember a time when so many people were discussing books themselves, the future of books, and what it all means for everyone involved. All in all books have a 'buzz' about them that I can't recall ever sensing. The future of publishing feels like an important discussion well outside the cul-de-sac of the industry itself, and there are more books and book-related discussions than I can remember in a long, long time.

So this is my 'The glass is half full' column, but in fact I think the glass is way, way more than half full. Let's look at a few of these discussions:

--Ebooks are on the rise. Hachette Book Group--one of the "Big 5" publishers--recently stated that ebooks accounted for 5% of their earnings in December 2009. Remember, this is a billion dollar company, so 5% is hardly small potatoes. Back in October, Michael Pietsch, Publisher of Little, Brown, stated that for LB's biggest authors, ebooks accounted for up to 15% of total sales.

--A movie based on one of the most popular children's series in the last decade opened to huge numbers. No, not "Twilight," but "Percy Jackson and the Olympians: The Lightning Thief", based on the first book in Rick Riordan's series, which grossed over $38,000,000 over the President's Day weekend. Oh, and that whole "Twilight" thing? Well "Twilight: New Moon" has grossed over $295,000,000 since opening in October. Add to that the huge success of "The Blind Side," "Sherlock Holmes," "Up In The Air," "Dear John" and "Precious," and the hottest properties in Hollywood are based on literature. And that's not even counting films and television shows based on comic books and graphic novels.

--The Amazon/Macmillan brouhaha over ebook pricing spilled over into the mainstream media, covered everywhere from the New York Times to Gizmodo and earning comments from corporate titans like Rupert Murdoch. In the midst of al this, there was a public backlash towards the retailer in support of Macmillan authors whose books had their 'Buy Now' buttons removed, essentially cutting off their sales from that outlet. When was the last time the public at large cared this much about a corporate dispute about the pricing of books? Book publishing and pricing is no longer Inside Baseball, but something that the public now realizes impacts content creators and distributors, which in turn impacts their lives. I say that's a good thing.

--The Apple iPad was premiered, with Steve Jobs set to launch the new iBooks site, which he hopes will do for books what iTunes did for music. Between the iPad and the Barnes & Noble Nook we are ensured that there will be competition for the Amazon Kindle, so that books can be fairly priced and publishers can find the perfect X/Y axis at which to price ebooks, sell the most copies, without being bullied by one company with a grossly large market share.

--At CES, no fewer than a dozen e-readers were showcased and will soon hit the market. Clearly many manufacturers feel this is a growing industry, and one that publishers hope will expand the book market as a whole, drawing in hesitant and non-readers open to newfangled technology.

--Stieg Larsson, a Swedish journalist who died six years ago, has enthralled readers around the globe with his Millennium Trilogy (The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, The Girl Who Played With Fire, The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest). The trilogy has sold somewhere in the range of 30 million copies around the world (approximately 1 in 3 Swedes owns one), and the Swedish film adaptation is scheduled to be released in the U.S. in March with an American adaptation tentatively scheduled to be released in 2012. Add to that the scandal surrounding Larsson's death and subsequent fight for his millions between Larsson's longtime girlfriend and his family, and you have a thrilling book series with the backdrop of a family dispute worthy of Henrik Vanger himself.

--Book reviews are on the decline...but on the rise are hundreds of reader blogs and social networking sites such as Shelfari, Red Room, Goodreads and Bookcrossing that allow readers to interact with each other, write reviews, and recommend their favorite reads to one another. Not to mention the cornucopia of author blogs which grant us entry into the lives of authors--revealing the fascinating, irreverent and, of course, the truly mundane. Books and literature, at their heart, are communal experiences, and the Interwebs are a fertile soil for these communities to prosper.

--Social networking sites such as Twitter and Facebook (sorry MySpace) host hundreds and hundreds of authors who interact with their fans on a minute-to-minute basis. Authors are now able to construct their very own platforms, a necessity as book reviews and traditional coverage has dwindled. 'Off the Book Page' coverage is more important than ever. And never has it been easier for a reader to finish a book, post their thoughts, then get feedback from the author him/herself.

Enough with the gloom and doom. These days I'm excited to be an author and even more excited to be a reader. Never before has it been easier to find a new release or an out-of-print backlist title, from the comfort of your local independent to the ease of an online retailer to the portability of an e-reader. And never has it been easier for a book lover to communicate with their fellow readers and even authors themselves.

Books are about community and the joy of storytelling. For my money, this is the brightest the present and future of books has looked in a long, long time.

Publishers Fear the Bite of Apple's Revenue Model

Posted by John 15 Feb 2010:

Apple's Steve Jobs is meeting with reps of magazines and newspapers in addition to book publishers to also pull them into the iPad lifeboat...The publishing industries' lifesaver! Or so everyone hopes! But, many obstacles have to be overcome, such as subscriber data sharing by Apple to allow the periodical publishers to track and manage lists for future sales.

More details are included in this Financial Times article by Kenneth Li in New York:
When Steve Jobs, Apple chief executive, unveiled the iPad late last month, the big question among media executives was how it would transform their businesses. Now, they have at least two answers and a tangle of fresh questions.

Apple scored an early hit with the debut of an online bookstore to accompany the arrival of its digital tablet, in the process rewriting the economics of the e-books industry. But the device's ability to transform other media segments will be more challenging.

Apple answered one question by acknowledging that it wanted to go beyond the iBookstore that Mr Jobs unveiled last month and construct a well-stocked online shelf of newspapers and magazines, according to executives.

Discussions about selling publications through the new store have stumbled on key issues.

Mr Jobs, who looked "much healthier in person" than he did on stage a week ago, according to one publishing executive, and whose health has been the subject of speculation in recent years, spent the first week of February courting publishers and the news media in New York.

Over three days, he met executives and reporters at the New York Times and News Corp. He had private meetings with Rupert Murdoch, chairman of News Corp, and about a dozen editorial leaders at Time Inc, including Ann Moore, chief executive.

Mr Jobs articulated his belief that a "functioning media" is vital to a "functioning democracy" and how his "gorgeous" device would help safeguard that role. "It sounds good to hear that from someone who's making that kind of money that what you do is invaluable," says one person with knowledge of the meetings.

Still, Mr Jobs has been unable to shake off the suspicion among publishers that what he terms the "the most important thing I've done" could also come to represent the most important issue publishers will have to deal with in their careers.

The question haunting publishers is whether they will suffer the same fate as the music industry, which was hit by Apple's 2003 deal to unbundle the album format by offering downloads of individual songs via iTunes.

Alternatively, could the iPad become this generation's iPod - a galvanizing force that will alter the media landscape and retrain consumers weaned on free web content to begin paying again?

"There are lots of questions about the revenue model," according to Steve Hasker, president of media at Nielsen, the media measurement group. "Is it swapping analogue dollars for digital pennies, or a viable and exciting growth path for newspapers, magazines, book publishers and producers of video?"

Ideally, publishers hope Apple's periodicals store will operate as seamlessly as iTunes does for music, films and television shows by offering simple, one-click purchases.

But Apple's history of sharing limited consumer information with partners beyond sales volume data could prove a "deal breaker" for publishers, says one senior media executive in discussions with Apple.

"Customer data is everything," another magazine publisher said shortly after the iPad launch. With publishers' having spent decades gathering information from subscribers, Apple's policy could rob them of their most valuable asset.

"We have for many years relied on subscriptions to be able to communicate with our readers," said Sara Öhrvall , senior vicepresident of research at Swedish publisher Bonnier. "It is absolutely crucial to keep the data. That's something that our advertisers need. It is something that we need."

Without the ability to identify customers on different digital platforms, publishers would be unable to offer print subscribers discounts or free access to new digital versions.

Customers "will be really upset if we try to charge [them] again", Ms Öhrvall says. Whether it's an Apple device or another device, "it's a deal killer".

So far, newspapers such as News Corp's Wall Street Journal have got round the data issue by offering free software on Apple's Apps store that allows subscribers to log on to the Journal website from their iPhone web browser. But it is more complicated than purchasing directly from iTunes.

Publishers, that have flocked to Amazon.com's Kindle e-reader store since 2007, now face the prospect of losing connections with customers due to the burgeoning e-reader segment. After initially receiving limited sets of customer data from Amazon, the online retailer abruptly cut off access a few months later with little explanation, one newspaper publishing executive complained.

Getting Your Book Reviewed

Posted by John 13 Feb 2010:

Happy Valentines Day all! Hope every single one of you have found love in some significant way on this day...Or will in the remaining year.

Let's shed a little love and info on courageous self-publishers today! How does an unknown, self-published author get his book reviewed? This really does help sales. He uses professional "book review" companies or other critically acclaimed review venues such as amazon.com and the American Library Association (ALA) to name two.

Click here or go to amazon.com and click on the "Self-Publish with Us" link at the bottom of the page.

Book reviews give the prospective buyer an idea of the story without giving away the ending and surprise tid-bits; also, buyers are more likely to purchase if someone else likes or loves the book...

Anne Rice Tries Her First Video-Enchanced Book

Posted by John 11 Feb 2010:

Motoko Rich of the New York Times reported on a multimedia company that is enhancing e-

books with video:

Why E-Books Must Cost More

Posted by John 9 Feb 2010:

A good analysis of the subject is given by David Coursey of PCWorld:

Big increases in e-book prices seem like a bad deal for consumers. They may be necessary, however, to keep authors and publishers in business as e-books replace paper ones.

The occasion for this discussion is Amazon's capitulation to Macmillan and others over the publishers' demand for greater flexibility in e-book pricing. Amazon has been selling many e-books for $9.99, while Macmillan wanted to add perhaps $5 to the price.

Amazon gave in and other publishers have been following suit.

The reason for the sudden pressure on Amazon?

Steve Jobs.

Apple made iBooks deals that give publishers flexibility in pricing e-books for the iPad. This is, of course, a complete turn from Apple's firm demand for standardized, across-the-board iTunes pricing.

If you are in the media business or just interested in other people's business models, let me explain how the publishing industry works. The numbers and examples are from discussions with friends in the business and are intended to be fairly non-specific.

Before I continue, let me disclose that in the past I have authored two books, so I am not an unbiased observer. Still, I think I can present the matter fairly.

Here goes:

Until recently, Amazon demanded a 70 percent cut of e-book sales. At $9.99-a-book, that left a whopping $3.00 for the publisher. Compare that to a 50/50 split for a paper book that might cost $26.95 in a store. At that price, the publisher got about $13.50.

Sure, it costs more to print and distribute paper books, but not so much as you'd think. Publishers would much rather sell a hardcover or paperback and get $10-$15 a copy than sell an e-book at get $3.00.

Consider that the author, who might have spent weeks/months/years working on the book, may be paid a 10-15 percent commission on the wholesale price. At $3.00 that's 30-45-cents-per-book. At $13.50, it's $1.35 to $2.00. A huge difference for the author.

Amazon, I am told, recently increased publishers' share of e-book sales to 50 percent. Now our $9.99 e-book delivers $5 back to the publisher.

A new $14.99 e-book price gives the publisher $7.50, a price that according to my publishing industry friends more approaches the actual cost difference between e-books, paperbacks, and hardcover editions. It also makes the e-book a tad less attractive to bargain hunters who'd otherwise buy a "real" book.

At $14.99 with a 50/50 split, writing and publishing e-books looks like a real business. When the bookseller takes 70 percent of a $9.99 sale, it means that a lot of books won't be written or published. Only a blockbuster could possibly make real money at such a low price.

(I have seen reports that Amazon sometimes paid more for e-books and subsidized the price down to $9.99. Not a long term winning deal for anyone).

As a consumer, the price increase upsets me and makes me mad at publishers. As the author of two computer books, I have some understanding of publishing economics and I am impressed that Macmillan stood up to Amazon on their authors' (and their own) behalf.

If the world is ever going to replace physical books with electronic ones, a new pricing model in needed. Macmillan, with an assist from Apple, has pushed Amazon to accept what may be a sustainable business model.

And that's good for authors, publishers, and, ultimately, readers.

David Coursey has been writing about technology products and companies for more than 25 years. He tweets as @techinciter and may be contacted via his Web site.

America Is Not Yet Lost

Posted by John 8 Feb 2010:

Today, a writer's thoughts on the present political atmosphere...It just so happens that I've been a fan of Paul Krugman, pulitzer prize winning columnist for the New York Times, long before he won his prestigious award. His op-ed on the latest GOP obstructionism and semi-governmental paralysis expresses my feelings exactly:    

We’ve always known that America’s reign as the world’s greatest nation would eventually end. But most of us imagined that our downfall, when it came, would be something grand and tragic.

What we’re getting instead is less a tragedy than a deadly farce. Instead of fraying under the strain of imperial overstretch, we’re paralyzed by procedure. Instead of re-enacting the decline and fall of Rome, we’re re-enacting the dissolution of 18th-century Poland.

A brief history lesson: In the 17th and 18th centuries, the Polish legislature, the Sejm, operated on the unanimity principle: any member could nullify legislation by shouting “I do not allow!” This made the nation largely ungovernable, and neighboring regimes began hacking off pieces of its territory. By 1795 Poland had disappeared, not to re-emerge for more than a century.

Today, the U.S. Senate seems determined to make the Sejm look good by comparison.

Last week, after nine months, the Senate finally approved Martha Johnson to head the General Services Administration, which runs government buildings and purchases supplies. It’s an essentially nonpolitical position, and nobody questioned Ms. Johnson’s qualifications: she was approved by a vote of 94 to 2. But Senator Christopher Bond, Republican of Missouri, had put a “hold” on her appointment to pressure the government into approving a building project in Kansas City.

This dubious achievement may have inspired Senator Richard Shelby, Republican of Alabama. In any case, Mr. Shelby has now placed a hold on all outstanding Obama administration nominations — about 70 high-level government positions — until his state gets a tanker contract and a counterterrorism center.

What gives individual senators this kind of power? Much of the Senate’s business relies on unanimous consent: it’s difficult to get anything done unless everyone agrees on procedure. And a tradition has grown up under which senators, in return for not gumming up everything, get the right to block nominees they don’t like.

In the past, holds were used sparingly. That’s because, as a Congressional Research Service report on the practice says, the Senate used to be ruled by “traditions of comity, courtesy, reciprocity, and accommodation.” But that was then. Rules that used to be workable have become crippling now that one of the nation’s major political parties has descended into nihilism, seeing no harm — in fact, political dividends — in making the nation ungovernable.

How bad is it? It’s so bad that I miss Newt Gingrich.

Readers may recall that in 1995 Mr. Gingrich, then speaker of the House, cut off the federal government’s funding and forced a temporary government shutdown. It was ugly and extreme, but at least Mr. Gingrich had specific demands: he wanted Bill Clinton to agree to sharp cuts in Medicare.

Today, by contrast, the Republican leaders refuse to offer any specific proposals. They inveigh against the deficit — and last month their senators voted in lockstep against any increase in the federal debt limit, a move that would have precipitated another government shutdown if Democrats hadn’t had 60 votes. But they also denounce anything that might actually reduce the deficit, including, ironically, any effort to spend Medicare funds more wisely.

And with the national G.O.P. having abdicated any responsibility for making things work, it’s only natural that individual senators should feel free to take the nation hostage until they get their pet projects funded.

The truth is that given the state of American politics, the way the Senate works is no longer consistent with a functioning government. Senators themselves should recognize this fact and push through changes in those rules, including eliminating or at least limiting the filibuster. This is something they could and should do, by majority vote, on the first day of the next Senate session.

Don’t hold your breath. As it is, Democrats don’t even seem able to score political points by highlighting their opponents’ obstructionism.

It should be a simple message (and it should have been the central message in Massachusetts): a vote for a Republican, no matter what you think of him as a person, is a vote for paralysis. But by now, we know how the Obama administration deals with those who would destroy it: it goes straight for the capillaries. Sure enough, Robert Gibbs, the White House press secretary, accused Mr. Shelby of “silliness.” Yep, that will really resonate with voters.

After the dissolution of Poland, a Polish officer serving under Napoleon penned a song that eventually — after the country’s post-World War I resurrection — became the country’s national anthem. It begins, “Poland is not yet lost.”

Well, America is not yet lost. But the Senate is working on it.

NSFW: Hey, 1997 ? Macmillan Called, They Want the Net Book Agreement Back

Posted by John 7 Feb 2010:

Are the higher eBook prices fought for by Macmillan against Amazon really going to help publishers and authors?

Read what Paul Carr of The Washington Post thinks about this subject:

This time last week I rattled off the world's laziest column. I was struggling against my book deadline which expired 24 hours later and I simply didn't have time to write anything else. This week should have been different; I should have finished the book days ago and now be sitting on a beach in the Caribbean, sipping a Diet Coke martini and lazily writing a long, well-thought-out column about some vital issue of the day. Why it's inadvisable to write a mea culpa in the passive voice (otherwise it's just a 'culpa'). Something like that.

And yet, the fact that, seven days later, I'm still sitting at my desk and I still haven't delivered the manuscript to my publisher, should give a hint to how perilous things are right now. I'm Wile E. Coyote about five seconds after he looks down and realises he's overshot the cliff. And yet despite my urge to sack off this week's column and focus on lessening the size of crater I'm about to leave in the desert floor, there's something on which I can't remain silent on any longer. Four words which I've been seeing again and again all week, and which threaten to drive me mad.

"A victory for authors."

That's how some people are describing Amazon's capitulation to Macmillan over the pricing of ebooks. They say it in the same tone as people describe more expensive milk as "a victory for farmers" or subsidies for domestic cars as "a victory for American auto workers", which is to say the same tone as you might use to pity a cat with three legs.

Poor authors, after all, need all the help they can get. They work for years on their Great Novel, probably subsisting on stale cheese and rats' milk as they do so, and what thanks do they get? A measly royalty, chipped away at by heavy discounting in book stores. Thank God then for Macmillan taking a stand against Amazon and its aggressive discounting. And thank Jesus for all of the other publishers bravely following them.

Oh please.

First a few facts, in the form of a disclosure statement. I am an author. Before that I was a publisher. Although my publisher is now Hachette, I've been published in the past by Macmillan, both in the UK and the US. Macmillan were a partner of the publishing house I co-founded, and were responsible for distributing all of our titles. Richard Charkin, the former CEO of Macmillan, was an advisor. I like Macmillan. I feel, then, somewhat qualified to call bullshit on the claim that this deal is good for anyone...including Macmillan and especially including authors.

Read more at http://alturl.com/bjss

Publishers Line Up Against Amazon’s $9.99 E-books

Posted by John 5 Feb 2010:

The ten-dollar e-book may soon be gone, replaced by the fifteen-dollar eBook.

Last week, VentureBeat broke the news that Amazon had removed all Macmillan titles from its U.S. site and its Kindle downloads. You could look up the books, but you could only buy them from third party sellers, not from Amazon.

The move turned out to be a reaction against Macmillan’s shift from a wholesale-retail relationship with Amazon to what the book industry calls an “agency model” for Macmillan’s e-books.

The term has nothing to do with the book agents who wrangle writers. Rather, it means that Macmillan now treats Amazon as a selling agent, not a retailer. That means Macmillan gets to set the price of its e-book titles on Amazon. In return, Macmillan claimed in a public statement, Amazon will now get a larger commission from each e-book sale.

What this means for  you: Macmillan e-books will not longer be $9.99 on Amazon, a loss-leader price designed to drive adoption of Amazon’s Kindle e-reader. Instead, Macmillan will demand $14.99 to $15.99 per e-book, with new bestsellers possibly going for $12.99.

Since last week, two more publishers have switched to an agency model for e-books. HarperCollins and Hachette, two very large and very powerful publishers, have also moved against Amazon’s $9.99 price.

Unlike Macmillan, Amazon has not removed these publishers’ books. An Amazon statement last week said, “We will have to accept Macmillan’s terms.” Obviously, the same goes for Hachette and HarperCollins.

Technology blog SoftSailor whipped up an illustration that explains a big part of the causality behind these publishers’ moves: They’re all partnered with Apple to create e-books for Apple’s new iBook store. As announced last week by Apple chief Steve Jobs, iBook prices will be compatible with the higher pricing sought by the publishers. Macmillan, Hachette and HarperCollins were three of five publishers that Jobs showed on a slide during the launch event for Apple’s iPad tablet computer.

Conventional wisdom among book industry gossips is that the other two publishers on the slide, Penguin and Simon & Schuster, will soon follow with their own agency models for e-books.

In a post-event interview last week, Wall Street Journal tech columnist Walt Mossberg asked Jobs to justify Apple’s $14.99 price versus Amazon’s $9.99. “That won’t be the case,” Jobs replied. “The prices will be the same.” Notably, Jobs didn’t answer Mossberg’s question as to whether Apple’s price would come down, or Amazon’s price would go up. Now we know.

Five Things Your Digital Staff Is Dying To Tell You

Posted by John 4 Feb 2010:

Todays "Thought for the Day" is from Matt Kinsman of FOLIO magazine:

Digital media may have grown from basically zero to 8 to 15 percent of total revenue for most magazine publishers in recent years but the gulf between online staffers and traditional employees (particularly the executive level) remains large.

Below are five verbatims from a mix of e-media strategists, developers, project managers and digital marketers on what they would love for the rest of their colleagues to realize.

1. "Instead of designing a site around editorial or spending days fretting over what color to make a link, actually think about a business model. Too many times we are tasked with a huge design and programming effort only to have someone say, ‘Oh, we'll just sell ads on it.' And then they don't. There's money to be made online, but you actually need a product to sell."

2. "All the higher-ups are publishing people. You need C-level people who understand the technology and what it takes to market a successful web business. When they do hire someone with a digital background, it's almost never someone with any practical development or business experience. They prefer the types that like to sit around all day with overpriced agencies fantasizing about ‘user experience.'"

3. "Trust our advice. We're always happy to explain if you're willing to learn. Publishing people say they want to understand digital, but in practice they are stuck in their old ways, and keep going back to what they know."

4. "Don't launch a Web product without a serious marketing plan to drive traffic. And no, a few e-mails to our existing customer base and two Google ads don't cut it."

5. "I'm not in IT. I'm not here to fix your printer."

Top Tools for Writers

Posted by John 2 Feb 2010:

Allena Tapia of About.com gives excellent, consistent advice on freelance writing. She recently wrote on these top tools for writers to better practice their craft:

Although freelance writing is a relatively cheap undertaking, needing, at the very least, access to a computer, freelancers will find that a few tools of the trade will ramp up their prose and help them to more efficiently write the copy that gets them paid.

1. Chicago Manual of Style, or the Style Book of Your Choice
The style book that a writer uses depends on several factors, including the discipline in which you write, the needs of your clients, and perhaps even personal tastes. Many style books offer both an online subscription service in addition to a printed manual.

2. Digital Voice Recorder
Whether conducting interviews over the phone or in person, freelancers who write profiles or quote sources need a recording device. Prices vary widely, but a $30 no-frills recorder will be able to upload MP3s directly to your computer for transcription.

3. ReadPlease Software, Or the Proofreading Tool of Your Choice
ReadPlease is software that reads your text directly back to you, hence helping with proofreading, especially in errors of omission. However, writers swear by their text editing program of choice. One that was recently recommended to me: ErrNet. Get more polished copy by using whatever works for you!
Vendor's Site

4. Dictionaries, Word Books, Etc.
Again, your specific choice may be heavily dependent on the clients you serve. Certain industries will defer to certain dictionaries. In addition, some clients may require you to use specialized books. For example, an educational publisher that I worked for asked me to refer to a dictionary that assigned words to certain age levels- and I had to carefully mesh my vocab with the correct level..

5. Portable Writing Device
Let's face it, writers get ideas on-the-go. In addition, sometimes dragging the laptop around just isn't realistic. Portable writing systems like the Alphasmart Neo may be just the answer to the "should I pack my laptop or not?" question. In addition, it's a good idea to have an even smaller system for capturing ideas and pieces of copy. Many writers report using small journals, cell phone memo features, or smart phone/PDAs to quickly net ideas to take back to the office.
Manufacturer's SiteRead Review

Why Would a Designer Want an iPad?

Posted by John 30 Jan 2010:

Good question! This from Jacci Howard Bear's Blog at About.com:

Author J.D. Salinger Doesn't Go Out of Style

Posted by John 28 Jan 2010:

J. D. Salinger, who wrote about phonies in "The Catcher in the Rye" has past away at age 91. His work is still very relevent today and will be in the future. He has been a recluse for many years and we can only hope that in those years he wrote many magnificent works that might be published post-humously.

USA TODAY's Deirdre Donahue wrote this about Salinger:

J. D. Salinger turned his back on the world long before his death Wednesday in New Hampshire at age 91.
The last thing he published was a 25,000-word short story titled "Hapworth 16, 1924" in the June 19, 1965, issue of The New Yorker.

But the reclusive author's work, particularly The Catcher in the Rye, continues to connect with readers.

Narrated by Holden Caulfield, an angry prep school student who rails against "phonies," the novel has sold more than 60 million copies since its publication in 1951.

The Catcher in the Rye has spent 483 weeks in the Top 150 of USA TODAY's Best-Selling Books list, rising as high as No. 19 in July 2001, the month it turned 50.

Only three books have spent more weeks on the list since it was launched in October 1993.

The secret to The Catcher in the Rye's long-lived appeal? Caulfield.

"His voice reaches (readers) directly and immediately," says John Wenke, 57, a professor of English at Salisbury University in Maryland and author of the 1991 book J.D. Salinger:A Study of the Short Fiction. "He is unique in 20th-century literature."

Wenke has taught The Catcher in the Rye for 30 years and says his students today still respond to Caulfield: "He doesn't go out of style."

Salinger's seminal novel certainly spoke to one Minnesota high school student back in 1960.

Garrison Keillor tells USA TODAY that Salinger was "the great author of my teenage years. He was one of those authors you felt intimately friends with and wished you could call him up on the phone and talk, which is why, I suppose, he spent all those years in New Hampshire not taking phone calls. There must have been millions of young people who wanted to talk to him."

Another gauge of Salinger's influence: He still gets people riled up.

"The Catcher in the Rye has been a constant on our list of banned books for the past several decades," says Deborah Caldwell Stone of the American Library Association's Office for Intellectual Freedom. "It remains one of the most challenged books well into the 21st century."

One of the great literary mysteries of the last half-century is whether Salinger continued to write during his seclusion from the world.

"I'm guessing there is a trove of unpublished works," Wenke says. (Salinger's literary agent had no comment.)

Says novelist T.C. Boyle: "I wonder now if we'll see more stories. I absolutely hope so. I hope he's been writing some great stories that will blow us away."

Contributing: Anthony DeBarros and Bob Minzesheimer

Twin Cities literary publishers talk shop, make predictions

Posted by John 27 Jan 2010:

Three of the top five literary presses are located in the Twin Cities of Minnesota. Did you know that? I didn't. An interesting story.

Claude Peck of the Star Tribune fills us in:

Why would the Twin Cities be home to three of the top five independent literary presses in the United States? Publishers Fiona McCrae (Graywolf), Allan Kornblum (Coffee House) and Daniel Slager (Milkweed Editions) offered their explanations at a panel talk Tuesday at the central library in downtown Minneapolis. They were joined on stage by Jocelyn Hale, director of The Loft and moderator Marianne Combs of Minnesota Public Radio.

McCrae credited the “strong board of directors here,” who hustle to raise money for nonprofit publishers. For Slager, a culture of philanthropy is key, along with a literate, well-educated population of serious readers. Kornblum, who moved his small press here from Iowa in the mid-1980s, said he was originally drawn to the Twin Cities because of an offer to sleep free at someone’s house during a weekend-long literary event that also included free food.

In the ensuing years, Kornblum said, he also discovered that “there are no limits to how you can grow as an artist here.”

McCrae briefly outlined Gray Wolf’s biggest success to date, the 2007 publication of “Out Stealing Horses,” by Norwegian novelist Per Petterson, which went on to win prizes and sell more than 250,000 copies in hardcover and paperback, a nearly unheard of sales figure for a small-press title.

Despite studies citing a downturn in reading by young people, Milkweed has been publishing more books aimed at middle-schoolers, Slager said. Digital-only books are another niche, he said, and Milkweed will put out three or four dozen e-books by the middle of 2010.

Emerging technology was much on the minds of panelists, who all talked about new reading devices such as the Kindle and a new Apple tablet. Hale reported that The Loft is seeking funding to launch online creative-writing instruction for interested students who don’t live in the Twin Cities. McCrae said that Graywolf has an official “tweeter” with thousands of followers.

Gender plays an overlooked role in the dismal reports about the decline of young readers, McCrae said. “Girls read a lot, and boys are the ones driving down the statistics,” she said. The publishers seemed to take some comfort in the thought that young people, who may be reading fewer and fewer books, are actually spending more time than ever before “interacting with text” on their computers and handheld devices.
 

Will Apple Tablet Up the E-book Price Over Amazon?

Posted by John 26 Jan 2010:

The possible e-book pricing model being suggested by Apple for their Table will allow publishers more flexibility in pricing e-books above the $9.99 level set by Amazon. This will push more power back to the publishers and/or allow self-publishers to pocket more profits.

Jeffrey A. Trachtenberg, writing for the Wall Street Journal, puts it this way:

Book publishers were locked in secret 11th-hour negotiations with Apple Inc. that could rewrite the industry's revenue model after the technology giant unveils its highly anticipated tablet device Wednesday.

Apple's new multimedia tablet device, with a 10-inch touch screen that is expected to deliver video, text, navigation and social-networking applications, could change the way much of traditional media is delivered.

For the book industry, the Apple tablet is bringing to a head a brewing battle between Apple and industry heavyweight Amazon.com Inc. over how e-books—seen as the future of the book industry—will be priced and distributed.

 .Apple's business model for books, which the company has kept under tight wraps, shifts the focus away from the bargain-basement prices Amazon has made popular, according to publishers that have met directly with the company. Apple is asking publishers to set two e-book price points for hardcover best sellers: $12.99 and $14.99, with fewer titles offered at $9.99. In setting their own e-book prices, publishers would avoid the threat of heavy discounting. Apple would take a 30% cut of the book price, with publishers receiving the remaining 70%.

Among major publishers, News Corp.'s HarperCollins Publishers was in serious negotiations with Apple late on Tuesday to appear in the starting lineup for the tablet, set to be unveiled at a news conference in San Francisco Wednesday morning. News Corp. also owns The Wall Street Journal.

Apple's vision is at odds with Amazon.com, which has shaken the book industry by slashing prices of e-books on its Kindle reader and making the $9.99 e-book best seller an industry fixture.

The Apple tablet could reshape many corners of the media industry, just as Apple's iPod revolutionized the music business when it made its debut in 2001. Apple has been in discussions with television networks, magazines and videogame publishers about featuring their wares on the device. The stance of wireless carriers and some features of the first device were unclear on the eve of the launch.

Journal Community
..Many television networks remained skeptical of Apple's proposal to sell a "best of TV" subscription service under which customers would pay a monthly fee for access to programs. The networks are concerned about disrupting their relationships with cable and satellite-TV companies, which pay billions of dollars in annual fees to the networks.

In the newspaper and magazine industry, several executives were in the dark about how their content would be distributed and priced. Without much detail, some publishers have been readying electronic editions that could be adapted for the tablet.

Many media executives said they expected to get more clarity in meetings with Apple executives after Wednesday's presentation.

While some of the largest publishers may not be up on stage Wednesday, their books could appear on the device when it is shipped in March.

Harold McGraw III, chief executive of textbook publisher McGraw-Hill Cos., said on an analyst call Tuesday: "In the near future you will undoubtedly see a McGraw-Hill e-book for the college market running on an Apple tablet."

McGraw-Hill isn't expected to be part of Wednesday's unveiling.

Apple declined to comment on its pricing model or any aspect of the new device.

Publishers will likely have to choose between Apple and Amazon. While Amazon has established a dominant position in e-books with its cut-price titles and popular Kindle reader, publishers are anxious that consumers have come to expect such prices. By allowing publishers to set their own prices, Apple is enabling publishers to re-set the rules and reach a broad audience.

Aware of the threat, Amazon has been on its own offensive. In series of meetings in New York last week, the online behemoth made it clear to publishers that it is opposed to the Apple pricing model, according to people familiar with the situation.

"This is as intense a situation as the industry has ever had," said one publisher. "It's a huge chess match."

Amazon typically pays publishers about half of the cover price of a new hardcover book for e-book best sellers.

For example, Sarah Palin's recent memoir, "Going Rogue," has a hardcover price of $28.99, which means the publisher likely received about $14.50 for the e-book edition. Since Amazon today sells that e-book for $9.99, the bookseller is losing about $4.50 on each sale—a hit it has been willing to take to build a dominant market share in e-books and power sales of its Kindle reading device.

An Amazon spokesman declined comment.

The Apple model would bring in less revenue per title for publishers and authors. Since Apple will take a 30% fee on sales, a $14.99 e-book will generate $10.49 for publishers.

That publishers and authors stand to make lower revenue per book sold on the Apple model is one reason some are hesitating about signing up with the tablet.

But there is nevertheless a strong draw: In adopting the Apple model, the balance of power would shift at least partly back to publishers, which regain control of pricing. In setting higher prices, they could provide a level playing field for all e-book retailers. The potential for publishers is that the device may generate greater volume for e-book sales.

"The reason why publishers will consider this is to bring in Apple as a major distributor of e-books," said the publishing executive. "The gamble is if Apple comes to the table with their sexy device and their millions of customers, will they dramatically increase the e-book business the way that Kindle did?"

Amazon and Apple have gone to battle before on pricing, in the music industry. Even though Amazon has consistently undercut Apple on prices of digital music, it has made little headway in building market share. Since Apple's iTunes store, software and iPod work seamlessly together, few users see a reason to involve a third party retailer. In publishing, however, Amazon has had the advantage of being first to the game.

Michael Serbinis, CEO of Kobo Inc., an online e-book retailer, said that the new pricing model could add significant profitability to the e-book retail structure. "A good chunk, at least 20% to 30% of your e-books, are sold at a loss. This could bring up gross margins closer to those on physical books."

Whether publishers will be willing to risk a breach with Amazon is unclear.

"Amazon is a dedicated book channel, a long-time retail partner," said Arthur Klebanoff, co-founder and chief executive of New York-based RosettaBooks LLC, an e-book publisher. "Is there tension between the major publishers and Amazon today? Yes. But there are many overriding reasons why they will find resolution."

—Russell Adams and Shira Ovide contributed to this article.
Write to Jeffrey A. Trachtenberg at jeffrey.trachtenberg@wsj.com
 

Hopes and Fears for the iTablet

Posted by John 25 Jan 2010:

Many technophiles, advertisers and publishers have both hopes and fears for the upcoming Apple tablet. Mike Shields of mediaweek.com discusses these hopes and fears in his published article yesterday:

Technophiles are aroused. Advertisers are fantasizing. And battered, skeptical publishers are hopeful but trying to stay grounded as everyone awaits digital Christmas, scheduled for Jan. 27, when Apple is expected to introduce its long-rumored tablet device.

In classic form, Apple isn’t saying much, but rumors have the company releasing some sort of aesthetically gorgeous, paper-sized tablet device that combines computing, Web browsing, e-reading and multimedia. The last time Apple released a product this shrouded and hyped—the iPhone-—it pretty much singlehandedly elevated the entire mobile medium.

The excitement has some advertisers swooning over the possibilities of communicating via the tablet—envisioning a beautiful new canvas and maybe even a complete rethinking of what Web pages look like. “Advertising is, at its core, about storytelling. And since the advent of interactive media, we have had to make compromises in how we tell those stories: character limits, file sizes, small and odd dimensions,” explained Eric Bader, managing partner, BrandinHand. “This tablet is the next step in vastly improving the experiences.”

Buyers also foresee the tablet as a channel for better targeting data. But its personal, portable nature may also make it tougher to make an impact. “How do I insert my brand in an era where it’s increasingly impossible to disrupt somebody?” asked Greg March, digital group director at Wieden+Kennedy. “That doesn’t change with a tablet.”

Most expect Apple’s tablet, like Amazon’s Kindle, to sell magazine and newspaper subscriptions. But publishing experts cautioned against viewing the device as a lifesaver. Sean Reily, Los Angeles Times director of editorial business and planning, said that Apple’s brand should lift the profile of e-reading overall and provide an attractive distribution outlet.
“But the business of publishing is a whole other ballgame,” he said.

Given print’s inherent problems, it’s a question whether “those industries can even be saved,” said Josh Martin, senior analyst, Strategy Analytics. “The problem with a tablet is the same problem with print—it’s an older way of distributing content”—meaning that a digital version of a newspaper is instantly old by the time it publishes. And if, as expected, the tablet serves as a superior portable Web browsing tool, won’t most users opt to view free news sites rather than pay for subscriptions? That’s one reason there’s a rush to incorporate pay walls on many sites.

However, according to Roger Fidler, program director/digital publishing at the University of Missouri, research on e-readers has shown that there are “print-centric people who prefer editorial packaging” and don’t want Web distractions like links, e-mail and instant messaging when reading. Surprisingly, that even includes some student-aged users. Then there are “Web-centric people who say, ‘no one's ever going to buy an e-reader.’ There are such absolutist views. Apple needs to find the middle ground.”

Apple also needs to come down in price fast to appeal to mainstream consumers, say many observers. The Tablet is rumored to cost around $1,000. “That’s a crucial factor,” said Fidler.

Another major factor to watch for, said Reily, is whether Apple demands a cut of ad sales—something that is unheard of in publishing. “That would be like Barnes & Noble and Walmart getting a percentage of our print ad sales,” he said.

Plus, many fear that Apple will launch some kind of restrictive iTunes-esque print store that dictates costs for the industry—similar to what happened with music. As Matt Buchanan, contributing editor at Gizmodo (which has been ground zero for tablet rumors of late), puts it, “The music industry says that Apple basically raped and murdered its children. If Apple becomes a gatekeeper of publishing, that's scary for some people.”

Consumers might argue that they came out winners when iPods arrived, which helps explain the anticipation over Apple’s tablet.

Will the iTablet Save Publishing?

Posted by John 24 Jan 2010:

Apple's Tablet, a device where you can read the written word with audio and video supplimentation, just has to be a publishing game changer according to Jeff Harper, the owner of Flying Fish Multimedia. I believe him.

Jeff says: Will tablet computers save the newspaper industry?

Apple is expected to release its highly anticipated tablet computer, dubbed iTablet or iSlate by some, later this month.

Like every Apple product, it will most likely look cool and people will line up for days to buy it, but the big question on my mind is: Will the device, and others like it, have the power to revive a rapidly decaying newspaper and publishing industry?

It is no secret the newspaper industry, as a whole, took a huge hit in 2009. Most were forced to lay off staff and others shut their doors. Besides a massive recession, publishers were having trouble adapting traditional page layouts, with their power to draw readers in and give them something they weren’t looking for, to the Internet. Even some of the best designed papers in the world had home pages that featured small photos, small headlines and even smaller text on their home pages.

Some newer media sites have recently popped up on the web, giving us a glimpse of what publishing 2.0 may look like. Flypmedia.com is one site that I love, as it combines written words with audio, video and interactive information graphics in a format similar to a magazine that you can "flyp" through.

Another exciting site is Vook.com.

Vook combines the traditional written word with videos for each chapter. The company offers two versions, an online platform and a mobile version available on Apple iTunes store. I downloaded a recent bestseller and was amazed at how easy it was to read on my iPod Touch and loved the bonus video content. The best part was, instead of $25 at the bookstore, it was only $6.99, which made it an instant impulse buy.

Now enters Apple’s new tablet computer. Since company officials are masters at keeping everything secret until their products are released, little is actually known for sure about the device.

Some of the bigger tech sources on the web suggest that it will have about a 25-centimetre screen and a touch interface similar to the wildly popular iPhone/iPod Touch. It will also have book reader abilities like Kindle, but with all the photography, graphics and multimedia the web can provide.

If you’re in the publishing business, you have to think this is going to be a game changer — the prospect of your readers once again sitting back and flipping through your nicely designed page with large photos and video, plus the ability to interact with your readers in new ways.

An added bonus: the high costs of printing and distribution will be reduced to almost zero.

Newspapers that were struggling to make money with their online product will now be able to harness the power of Apple’s iTunes store and sell monthly subscriptions there. It also allows papers to reach readers outside each business’s traditional boundaries of provinces and state lines.

If your content is good, people will buy it.

Rupert Murdoch, Paywalls and Why It's Hard to Charge for Quality Bagels

Posted by John 22 Jan 2010:

Ahhh, coming up with a way to charge for online news...

By Shane Richmond of Telegraph Media Group

Rupert Murdoch CAN charge for content, Malcolm Coles argued in a post for Econsultancy yesterday. It’s a wide-ranging post and worth reading in full. I agree with some parts, notably charging for ‘added-value’ content, and disagree with others – I don’t think you can compare news to audiobooks or music, for example.

One of the things Coles points out in his post is that plenty of people pay for Telegraph Crosswords so there’s a type of content that you can sell. He’s right. As I wrote a couple of weeks ago:

“We have known for years that readers will pay for niche services, such as Fantasy Football or crosswords. So what services, what products, what scarce goods can we provide to our regulars, our loyal readers, our community? I’m certain that the answer to our problems lies in the answer to that question.”

Many of the suggestions Coles comes up with – relevant offers, discounts, free books – sound like those scarce goods that I was talking about. Target them at the right niche and you might have a business, albeit a small one.

It’s a direction that we know the New York Times is exploring and now it seems that the Guardian is considering a similar plan. Though, as Paul Bradshaw notes, it’s amusing that “the opportunity to communicate with our journalists” is one of the Guardian’s add-ons.

Anyway, I want to pick up on one particular point from Malcolm Coles’ article. He writes: “But what if Murdoch’s paid-for sites were breaking exclusive stories at 8am – especially ones that were picture- or video-based? Sure, competitors will have versions of that story up soon, but they won’t be as good.”

Video and picture-based stories can certainly be kept exclusive to an extent. You’ve either got the picture or you haven’t and most newspapers will take legal action if an exclusive photo is used elsewhere. Exclusive stories, though? Sadly, these quickly become generic. And it doesn’t matter that versions of the story on free sites “won’t be as good” because they’ll be free, which offsets the loss of quality considerably.

Take bagels, for example.

Interviewed by the New York Times last weekend, Brian Tierney, leader of the ownership group for Philadelphia Newspapers, attempted to use a bagel to prove that people would pay for quality news. The bagels sold in the office canteen are crap, he explained, and yet they cost $1.25. If people will pay $1.25 for a crap bagel then surely they’ll pay for quality news.

However, as King Kaufman writes at Open Salon, Tierney’s example proves exactly the opposite: “Tierney paid $1.25 for that bagel because he didn’t have what he considered a better option. There are plenty of options for getting news without buying the Philadelphia Inquirer or Daily News or visiting Philly.com. But here’s the really crazy part of his bagel theory: He’s arguing that people will pay for quality by pointing out that he was willing to settle for crap!”

Rupert Murdoch’s exclusives are the equivalent of quality bagels and plenty of people will settle for free, stale bagels from his competitors.

What Happens If (When) Big Trade Publishers Stop Publishing Magazines?

Posted by John 21 Jan 2010:

The title of todays post, extracted from an article by Jason Fell of FOLIO magazine, is an interesting question. I don't personally feel that big trade publishers will ever abandon magazines altogether...it's a media format that just has to be re-structured to find a new profitability...Just how will be more apparent when the dust settles around the newer digital formats.  

By Jason Fell:
Some recent events have pointed to the acceleration of two trade publishing giants leaving the magazine publishing industry.

After a failed auction in 2008 and closing all but one of the magazines published under its Associated Construction Publications group last spring, Reed Business Information in July said it was putting its portfolio of U.S.-based titles back on the block. Last month, it sold Broadcasting & Cable, Multichannel News and This Week in Consumer Electronics (TWICE) to Wicks Group-owned NewBay Media. And this month it ceased publication of Video Business, Manufacturing Business Technology and Industrial Distribution.

When it said it was putting its U.S.-based titles back on the block, RBI said it would retain its Reed Construction Data, RSMeans, Variety, MarketCast, LA411 and BuyerZone properties. Now, it seems even flagship Variety could be sold off.

Last month, Nielsen Business Media caused a stir when it agreed to sell eight of its media/entertainment brands—including Billboard and The Hollywood Reporter—to e5 Global Media, a new company formed by private equity firm Pluribus Capital Management and financial services firm Guggenheim Partners. The publisher then decided to shutter heralded newspaper industry magazine Editor & Publisher, along with sister publication Kirkus Reviews. (E&P has since been sold to a new owner.)

Now, president Greg Farrar is leaving the company and Nielsen said it does not have plans to name a replacement. After a "transition period," senior vice president Andy Bilbao will oversee Nielsen's magazines that are not associated with trade shows, while the company evaluates "strategic alternatives."

As of today, Nielsen still publishes 19 magazines.

Nielsen—whose parent company has been focused on its ratings business—for years has reportedly been looking for a buyer(s) for its trade magazines. It’s no wonder. Through the first nine months of 2009, Nielsen reported a $151 million operating loss for its business media segment, compared to an $85 million operating income during the same period in 2008. Revenues for the segment through the third quarter were $258 million, down more than 30 percent from $371 million during the same period last year.

Shortly before the New Year, FOLIO: spoke to a source with knowledge of Nielsen who said that insiders were saying the company was working on a deal to sell its three-magazine food group and said Nielsen’s travel group might also be on the block. The source said Nielsen most likely would use the proceeds from the e5 deal and any subsequent asset sale to either reposition or shut down its other magazine properties.

“When business was good, publishing was not strategic to the Nielsen Company. When business is bad, they want the hell out,” another knowledgeable source, who also wished to remain anonymous, told me this week. “If Nielsen sold its crown jewels, namely Billboard, THR, Adweek, etc., then why wouldn’t it sell off the remainder of its publishing assets?”

I asked Nielsen’s spokesperson Wednesday if the company was working on additional divestitures and if it is attempting to exit the trade magazine publishing business altogether. Her response, not surprisingly, was more of the same: “We are continuing to access the strategic fit of the remaining publications, but there are no immediate plans at this time.”

It’s no secret that trade magazine publishing is hurting right now and that revenues, especially from print, probably won’t rebound to levels seen before the economic fallout. Perhaps the bigger issue here is if major players like Nielsen and RBI are moving away from magazine publishing, then what, if anything, does that say about the sustainability and the future of the business for the rest of us?

Book Publishing - A World Market Analysis

Posted by John 20 Jan 2010:

"Book publishing, a huge market worldwide, is chiefly fostered by voracious readers, who make up the general consumer base and specific consumers such as students and professionals, and institutional buyers such as libraries. The market would be driven by the government's rising emphasis on education, higher enrollment in schools/colleges, rise in readership, and growing number of professionals in the modern workforce. However, there are challenges too in the form of the advent of information technology, and shifts in consumer preferences and hobbies towards other electronic forms of entertainment.

Despite the challenges, the book publishing market will stand enthused by market fundamentals, such as, conducive demographics, such as, students seeking educational books, reference volumes and textbooks, parents and governments focusing more on the spend on education, increasing number of women and the middle aged continuing with and reviving their reading habits, professionals in various industries seeking books that help them with their professions, parents wanting to read out to their children from books, and individuals wanting books that assist in self-improvement.

These and other market data and trends are presented in ""Book Publishing: A World Market Analysis"" by BizAcumen, Inc. Our reports are designed to be most comprehensive in geographic coverage and vertical market analyses. "

Book Publishing - A World Market Analysis: http://www.companiesandmarkets.com/r.ashx?id=I2W5OYNP8169267

Contact
CompaniesandMarkets.com
Mike King
info@companiesandmarkets.com
Tel: +44 203 086 8600        

Your Book Marketing Plan

Posted by John 19 Jan 2010:

I have often heard that writing your book is the EASY part! That it's what happens afterwards that is the hard part. Damn, ANOTHER little tid-bit that discourages new writers from pursuing their writing dreams...

Not only is it a small miracle to be chosen for representation by a literary agent...but a rather major miracle to be selected for publication...THEN you find out you must market and promote your own book!!! What the hell is wrong with the publishing industry anyway?

While I think the traditional publishing industry is in a state of great flux at present, due to new technology in media presentation and inroads in self-publishing, I feel everyone just dreams of being published in the old way by an established publishing house...So, we must accept all existing imperfections and plan accordingly!!!

A marketing plan to sell your book AFTER publication by an established house is, unfortunately, one of those imperfections (in most cases) and a fact of life that we must plan for accordingly...

I am therefore going to spend some time researching and recommending sites dealing with how to create good marketing plans.

First recommendation: http://ezinearticles.com/?Your-Marketing-Plan---The-Basics-of-Selling-Your-Writing&id=1239258

Fellowship Created To Honor Reporter Killed in Afghanistan

Posted by John 18 Jan 2010:

It is my honor to pass this on:

By Jamie Komarnicki, Canwest News Service

Michelle Lang, 34, a Calgary Herald reporter covering the conflict for Canwest News Service, was killed in Afghanistan during an IED attack December 30, 2009.Photograph by: file, Canwest News Service.

A new journalism fellowship has been created by Canwest Publishing in honour of award-winning Calgary Herald reporter Michelle Lang, who was killed by a roadside bomb in Afghanistan on Dec. 30.

The Michelle Lang Fellowship in Journalism is a national program that will give a recent Canadian university graduate the chance to combine a passion for writing with an interest in current events.

The trust will award up to $10,000 annually to fund a "special news project that holds significance for a Canadian audience," according to a news release from Canwest.

The candidate will be expected to develop a project "that would address the goals Michelle aspired to in her daily journalism: telling stories that have gone unreported or unnoticed on topics of social significance."

Further, Canwest Publishing will fund the salary of a full-year internship for the fellow: six months at the Calgary Herald and six months at Canwest News Service in Ottawa.

Lang, 34, was the first Canadian reporter killed while on assignment in Afghanistan. She was riding in an armoured vehicle when it was struck by an improvised explosive device, killing Lang and four Canadian soldiers.

A public memorial is planned for Lang in Calgary on Monday at 1:30 p.m. at First Alliance Church.

"Losing Michelle was shocking and tragic," said Dennis Skulsky, president and CEO Canwest Publishing. "Almost immediately there was overwhelming support for the creation of a lasting tribute.

"We believe the Michelle Lang Fellowship in Journalism will honour the memory of a great person and inspire passionate young journalists for years to come."

According to Canwest, the fellowship will continue in perpetuity.

The selection will be guided by Lang's own journalistic principles -- including a drive to highlight "ordinary Canadians in extraordinary circumstances" -- with a panel of senior Canwest News Service and Calgary Herald editors choosing the candidate.

Application details will be available in March, with the first fellowship expected to be awarded in the fall of 2010.

The trust was established with an initial investment of $100,000, including a personal contribution from David, Gail and Leonard Asper totalling $20,000 and an additional $80,000 from Canwest Publishing.

Contributions can be made at any Scotiabank Branch across Canada starting Jan. 18. Further inquiries can be sent to: michellelangfellowship@canwest.com .

A common question which I'll address here and now. In my research on this topic I stumbled across this comprehensive list of story lengths by South Australian writer Lee Masterson:

One common question asked by many writers is: "How long should my story be?"The simplest answer is: As long as it takes to tell the whole story.

However, there are certain word lengths that editors prefer to see when submitting work.
Here is an approximate guideline for story lengths.

Micro-Fiction - up to 100 words. This very abbreviated story is often difficult to write, and even harder to write well, but the markets for micro fiction are becoming increasingly popular in recent times. Publishers love them, as they take up almost no room and don't cost them their budgets. Pay rates are often low, but for so few words, the rate per word averages quite high.

Flash Fiction - 100 - 1,000 words. This is the type of short-short story you would expect to find in a glossy magazine, often used to fill one page of quick romance (or quick humor, in men's mags) Very popular, quick and easy to write, and easier to sell!

Short Story - 1,000 - 7,500 words. The 'regular' short story, usually found in periodicals or anthology collections. Most 'genre' zines will features works at this length.

Novellette - 7,500 - 20,000 words. Often a novellette-length work is difficult to sell to a publisher. It is considered too long for most publishers to insert comfortably into a magazine, yet too short for a novel. Generally, authors will piece together three or four novellette-length works into a compilation novel.

Novella - 20,000 - 50,000 words. Although most print publishers will balk at printing a novel this short, this is almost perfect for the electronic publishing market length. The online audience doesn't always have the time or the patience to sit through a 100,000 word novel. Alternatively, this is an acceptable length for a short work of non-fiction.

Novel - 50,000 -110,000 words. Most print publishers prefer a minimum word count of around 70,000 words for a first novel, and some even hesitate for any work shorter than 80,000. Yet any piece of fiction climbing over the 110,000 word mark also tends to give editors some pause. They need to be sure they can produce a product that won't over-extend their budget, but still be enticing enough to readers to be saleable. Imagine paying good money for a book less than a quarter-inch thick?

Epics and Sequels - Over 110,000 words. If your story extends too far over the 110,000 mark, perhaps consider where you could either condense the story to only include relevant details, or lengthen it to span out into a sequel, or perhaps even a trilogy. (Unless, of course, you're Stephen King - then it doesn't matter what length your manuscript is - a publisher is a little more lenient with an established author who has a well-established readership).

In part I we looked at the essentials of how scouting works and in Part II we discussed the changes scouting is going through. Today we look at what the future might hold for scouts.

The close professional ties scouts develop with their clients, sometimes over decades, are key to the role those scouts play in helping the editors they work with sort through the never-ending stream of new books on offer — a relationship where trust is fundamental. "This is what many people who haven’t been scouts don’t know," says Chandler Crawford, a former head of scouting at Sanford Greenburger, who has since started her own rights agency, "that at those meetings after Frankfurt or after BEA or after London, a foreign editor will say, ‘Well what do you think about this book?’ And the scout will say, ‘Oh it’s garbage, just forget about it,’ and then the editor puts a big cross by that title and it’s done. That editor is not even going to read it. And I think that’s the power of a scout that is probably not talked about very much."

This is why a negative assessment of a book is something a scout takes very seriously, because it often means the scout is making the decision for the clients, who won’t even look at the manuscript themselves. "But on the other hand," says Crawford, "if a scout loves and adores a book it can really help the cause. For instance with The Kite Runner, it was Mary Anne Thompson who was really pushing her clients Piemme and Belfond to buy the translation rights, and also Bettina Schrewe, who really pushed for her publishers in Sweden and in the Netherlands to buy the book. And when The Kite Runner was a manuscript, it was not a wanted item. For all four of those publishers the book was a huge bestseller, and they bought it very, very cheap, very, very early because they had really good scouts. So it works the other way as well."

Read more: http://publishingperspectives.com/?p=9897

Part I: How It Works

NEW YORK: For five years I was an international literary scout. That means for five years I groaned inside whenever anyone asked me what I did. Scouting occupies a strange niche in book publishing, itself a rather inscrutable business from the outside, and after a time most scouts resign themselves to working—very hard—at an occupation not even their closest family members will ever fully understand. (So, Mom and Dad, this one’s for you!)

My basic answer went something like this: publishing is a marketplace. Agents almost always submit a manuscript to more than one editor, and if that manuscript is good the editors who want to acquire it have to compete for it, both financially and by reputation. The same is true among international publishers—and film studios—who want to buy rights to the best American books. It’s competitive, and we help make sure the companies we work for know about the books that might interest them. In the best cases we can even position them so they have the first shot at something and get to read and make an offer before anyone else. The easiest way to understand it is as a consulting role—we’re our clients’ eyes and ears in New York, looking out for their best interests, keeping our finger on the pulse of the book world.

All true, but none of this manages to convey the cut-throat reality of a scout’s day-to-day: The endless piles of reading at night and on the weekends, the long work hours spent managing copious quantities of information, responding to clients in six different time zones, meeting and winning over anyone who might ever be in possession of an interesting book, and alternately strong-arming, cajoling or begging agents and editors in an attempt to get your hands on this week’s hot piece of material before any of your equally charming and savvy competitor scouts beat you to it.

Read more: http://alturl.com/t2ot 

It's important to have fun with new media

By Jeff VanderMeer -- Publishers Weekly, 11/9/2009

Publishers missed out in the development of eReaders but they are now jumping in on Apps for mobiles and new tablet computers. As reported by Stephanie Clifford in the NY Times:

Magazine publishers are taking a mulligan.

After letting the Internet slip away from them and watching electronic readers like the Kindle from Amazon develop without their input, publishers are trying again with Apple iPhones and, especially, tablet computers.

Although publishers have not exactly been on the cutting edge of technology, two magazines — Esquire and GQ — have developed iPhone versions, while Wired and Sports Illustrated have made mockups of tablet versions of their print editions, months before any such tablets come to market. Publishers are using the opportunity to fix their business model, too.

"It may help them reassert some, not just control, but reassert themselves and not be in the death spiral that some were in in the last years," said Ned May, director and lead analyst for the research firm Outsell.

When the magazine industry first made iPhone apps, the approach resembled how it had tiptoed onto the Web. The apps were free, the features were a little weak compared to what independent developers could do, and the rich design of print didn’t translate to a touch screen.

But the iPhone edition that Esquire expects to release alongside its January issue will offer robust interactive features, and it won’t be free. The price, $2.99 a month, is small, but it is a big statement.

"Throughout the magazine industry, with very few exceptions, we still charge too little for our products," said David Granger, editor in chief of Esquire, referring to both free Web versions and cheap print issues. In recent decades, publishers have discounted subscriptions to gain bigger audiences, assuming they would make it up with advertisers drawn by the big readerships.

Read more: http://alturl.com/xkq6

Writing good headlines is an excellent skill to master. It will help you in other areas of your writing by teaching you to eliminate useless words and still be clear and concise AND complete in thought conveyance as well. One place you can definitely use this skill is in writing query letters.

Apply the following rules when writing headlines. The best way to write a good headline is to keep it simple and direct. Be clever only when being clever is called for. Puns are good, but only on “punny” stories. (For examples of the good, the bad and the ugly, go to Good headlines and Problem headlines after you read these tips on “Writing Effective Headlines.”) 

Read the rest: http://alturl.com/5fta

Digital rights management (DRM)Is a generic term for access control technologies that can be used by hardware manufacturers, publishers, copyright holders and individuals to try to impose limitations on the usage of digital content and devices. The term is used to describe any technology which inhibits uses (legitimate or otherwise) of digital content that were not desired or foreseen by the content provider. The term generally doesn't refer to other forms of  copy protection which can be circumvented without modifying the file or device, such as serial numbers or key files. It can also refer to restrictions associated with specific instances of digital works or devices. Digital rights management is being used by companies such as Sony, Apple, Inc, Microsoft and the BBC.

The use of digital rights management is controversial. Proponents argue it is needed by copyright holders to prevent unauthorized duplication of their work, either to maintain artistic integrity or to ensure continued revenue streams. Some opponents, such as the Free Software Foundation, maintain that the use of the word "rights" is misleading and suggest that people instead use the term digital restrictions management. Their position is essentially that copyright holders are restricting the use of material in ways that are beyond the scope of existing copyright laws, and should not be covered by future laws. The Electronic Frontier Foundation, and other opponents, also consider DRM systems to be anti-competitive pratices.

In practice, all widely-used DRM systems are eventually defeated or circumvented. Completely restricting the copying of audio and visual material is impossible due to the inevitable analog hole.

For more on DRM go to: http://alturl.com/q8rc 

JOHN'S NOTE: I'm not too sure that I agree with this statement from Auden. If any readers have thoughts on this, please email me at gator1965@comcast.net and I will address here in future.