Bottled Liquor Newsstand by Bill on Capitol Hill

This fervid desire for the Web bespeaks a longing so intense that it can only be understood as spiritual. A longing indicates that something is missing in our lives. What is missing is the sound of the human voice.

David Weinberger, The Cluetrain Manifesto

A year ago, I used to get most of my information from a variety of traditional and new media sources primarily via Google Reader. Now, loathe as I am to admit it, Twitter has replaced it as my primary aggregator, and the mix of sources is very different, too.

This past weekend, I did a major purge of my RSS feeds in Reader, clearing out more than 2/3rds of them (now down to 61 feeds), including some that were duplicates of Twitter feeds I follow, and many others I realized weren’t terribly essential when a hectic day found me hitting “Mark all as read” on 1,000+ items. But while Twitter is good for taking the pulse of the moment and flashes of conversation (or debate), I still look to blogs for more thoughtful insight and, increasingly, a sense of community.

I’ve noted before that Twitter is a great professional networking tool, more cocktail party than office, and the people I follow there are primarily in publishing and marketing, but there’s a specific subset of which I’ve become particularly fond: writers with great blogs.

Here’s 6 blogs I’ve recently started following, and in some cases, I’ve already found a home in their comments sections when 140 characters just isn’t enough room to express my self:

The Gist: I “met” Will Hindmarch a while back during the first go-round here of the FREE debate, and have become a big fan ever since. He’s a cut-the-vein open kind of blogger, but he’s also smart, talented and an inspiration.

Terrible Minds: I just started reading Chuck Wendig’s blog a week or two ago, but he’s already inspired me to stop making excuses about not writing fiction, and wrote perhaps the hands-down funniest bit of writing advice I’ve ever read in Hateful Avatars: How (Not) To Create Characters. He’s also, coincidentally, a partner of Will’s in Jet Pack.

The Man Who Painted Agnieszka’s Shoes: I also “met” Dan Holloway via the FREE debate, and was so impressed with his point of view that I asked him to write a guest post for me that became one of my most viewed and commented upon of the year. He’s a pragmatic DIY activist who believes in transparency over hype, and his actions and sense of community far exceed his talk.

Don’t Publish Me!: Jenn to the T is a militant indie author with attitude to spare and a rational head on her shoulders. She’s a provocative writer who sees the big picture, and is, coincidentally, a member of Dan’s Year Zero Writers collective.

Ditchwalk: Mark Barrett’s that guy at the end of the bar who never gets drunk and always has something insightful to add to the discussion. Over the past two months I’ve been following him, he’s written a variety of thought-provoking posts, from his take on the writer/reviewer relationship, to his perceptive warning about Scribd, to his level-headed take on finding common ground.

Dan Blank: Publishing, Innovation & the Web: Dan Blank is one of the smartest bloggers I’ve ever come across, and I’ve actually been reading him for longer than anyone else on this list;  he’s also the only one I’ve ever met in person. He gets publishing, he gets community, he gets analysis, and his passion for what he does is apparent in every post; he also doesn’t feel the need to post every day for the sake of steady traffic, so whenever he pops up in Google Reader, I know I’m getting something insightful and worth reading.

NOTE: I still use Reader like a micro-blog, too, and also import those items of interest here on my site as The Gonzalez Reader.

Those are some of the more interesting people in my neighborhood. Who are the people in yours?

Hammer birds by andy castro

Why is it that with over 60 years of improvements in cameras, lens sharpness and film grain, resolution and dynamic range that no one has been able to equal what Ansel Adams did back in the 1940s?

Ken Rockwell, Your Camera Doesn’t Matter

First, disclosure: this post is primarily about the day job and is a total sales pitch for Digital Book World. If you follow me on Twitter, you’re probably already aware of my connection to it, but this is the first time I’m explicitly writing about it here.

As I’ve noted before, I’m very optimistic about the future of what I call the community service of publishing, and the underlying mission of Digital Book World is to get past the hype surrounding the digital toys du jour and provide real strategies for consumer publishers to transform their business models and thrive in the digital age. It’s not about eBooks or Twitter or any other tree in the forest–it’s about the fundamental strategies publishers need to profitably maximize their assets in the short term while developing and executing a digital strategy for the long-term.

I’m very excited about this Conference for a number of reasons, not the least of which is that I’m playing several roles, from Audience Development and Sponsorship Sales, to managing the DBW blog, to programming our series of free webinars that kicked off with last month’s The Truth About eBooks: Devices, Formats, Pirates (Oh, My!).

But the main reason I’m excited about it is so much simpler: I’m getting to work on something that I’m truly passionate about and fully believe in, and am in on the proverbial ground floor.

When the opportunity arose over the summer to become involved with my company’s newest initiative, I didn’t hesitate. I was already thrilled about its mission, so being a part of it in any way was exciting since I figured it guaranteed I could attend! It was initially a side project, focused on sponsorship sales, but as I jumped in with both feet and got more and more involved, it became my primary focus, with some really exciting plans for the future in the works… but I can’t talk about those just yet.

I can mention our next free webinar, Marketing in the Digital Age: Batteries Not Included (11/11 @ 1pm EST), and can also announce that I’ll be speaking on one of our panel sessions in January, How Publishers Can Build Their Own Communities: Using Social Media Tools. I even have a special registration code that offers a significant discount if you sign up before November 20th: DBWspeaker.

The program is strong (and there’s several great presentations we haven’t announced yet), the speaker lineup is impressively diverse, and I’m especially excited about our keynote speaker, Shiv Singh — Ad Age Media Maven, and VP and Global Social Media Lead for Razorfish. I’d tapped Singh for our shortlist because I believed his expertise in integrating social media into multi-channel marketing programs, and his understanding of what it takes to engage and empower communities, would make him the perfect speaker to set the tone for our inaugural conference, and I’m glad we got him.

Obvious bias aside, if you work in consumer publishing in any manner — and that includes my business-savvy indie author friends — I firmly believe this is going to be THE conference to attend in 2010.

Hell, I’ve bet my job on it!

It's a giant cupcake and Android! (@ Googleplex - B44) by David Recordon

Just as many entrepreneurs no longer need venture capitalists to launch their companies, authors no longer need publishers to publish.

Mark Coker, Do Authors Still Need Publishers?

Picture this: In the future, as the risks of publishing shift from the publisher to the author, publishers will be able to invest in technologies that allow them to bypass authors completely, developing sophisticated algorithms to scrape their content from the Internet, repurpose and repackage it for non-discriminating readers, and charge advertisers fistfuls of money for their wandering eyeballs!

It sounds even better if you say it out loud in Dr. Evil’s voice. Or Chris Anderson’s. Or Arianna Huffington’s.

Resistance is futile!

If Coker’s second linkbait advertorial for the Huffington Post didn’t add anything new to the conversation, it did at least spawn a new hashtag on Twitter, #publishersmatter, and generate some interesting discussion around the value publishers do, and don’t, offer authors nowadays.

My take?

Despite all the hype about the democratization of the Internet and the fact that anyone can now be a “publisher” — in the absolute loosest definition of the word; more verb than noun — the fact of the matter is that the act of publishing and the fundamentals involved aren’t changing, only the players are.

Real publishers, regardless of size, finance writers, facilitate distribution, make markets and, ideally, curate for a specific community. In newer models, they may partner with authors (e.g.: Harper Studio) or communities (e.g.: Cursor) instead of “financing” them via exorbitant advances that rarely earn out, but the other aspects remain critical to the role of being a publisher.

Direct access to distribution doesn’t mean equal access. Publishers will change but remain relevant, even if eBooks eventually equal 100% of the market.

In a smart response to Coker’s post, Kate Eltham, CEO of Queensland Writers Centre, addressed the reality of the situation in “What Do Authors Need?“:

Barriers to entry to publishing have reached almost zero, sure. But being able to publish isn’t the same as being able to profitably publish. Production is easy. Distribution is not. Even digital distribution, while frictionless, is not easy to convert to sales without the ability to engage a readership who’ll fork over money for your product.

That independent-minded authors who are willing and able to simultaneously act as small businesses now have all the necessary tools to be a legitimate publisher isn’t a debatable point. It’s also not a terribly new or interesting one. Most small presses that were established long before the Internet existed sprang from the same independent, DIY mindset (e.g.: Soft Skull) and are now successful niche publishers, offering opportunities to non-commercial authors who write outside of the narrow confines of the NY Times Bestsellers Lists.

The current discussions about the viability of publishers and publishing are primarily being driven by digital ideologues with self-serving agendas. I’d much rather shift gears and focus on the issue of where publishers’ and authors’ interests overlap, and more importantly, where the READER fits into the overall equation.

And for my independent-minded author friends, it’s worth noting that you’re now publishers, too, so that discussion includes you as well.

The Mashable Effect, via TwitterCounter

Twitter will not save your business model any more than a hammer will prevent foreclosure on the house you can’t afford.

Me, on Twitter

If you’re on Twitter because you think it will save publishing, qualify you as a marketing professional, or are hoping for the auto-follow to quickly increase your own followers, please save me the time and hassle of blocking you and unfollow me now.

Last week, I had the pleasure and honor of being named as one of 15 Twitter Users Shaping the Future of Publishing on Mashable, thanks to my former colleague Maria Schneider, and as you can see in the above chart, my followers have almost doubled as a result! Schneider flatteringly included me among a number of people I greatly admire and respect, especially Richard Nash, Dominique Raccah, Debbie Stier and Don Linn.  I’d recommend following all 15 of us, as well as Maria herself.

(Also, check out Hugh McGuire’s follow-up, 15 (More) Twitter Users Shaping the Future of Publishing and follow them all, too.)

Realistically speaking, though, even if you’re using Twitter for all the right reasons, I probably won’t follow you back.

I’ve been on Twitter for about a year and a half now, actively using it since January when I finally figured out how it could work best for me, and I’ve had a couple of very hard rules that have remained pretty consistent:

1. 1) 60:30:10 — community:self-promo:conversation.
2. 2) Always add value.

With some exceptions for family, friends and notable side interests, I primarily follow people and brands that are directly related to publishing, new media and marketing, and am militant about keeping a very high signal:noise ratio in my stream. I have no interest in using filtering clients like TweetDeck to “follow” a bunch of people I don’t have the time or intention to engage with, and  I don’t tend to get into too many in-depth conversations on Twitter, preferring to move them to DMs or email after a round or two, or addressing the topic via a blog post.

(NOTE: Once they’re active, I will use Twitter Lists to group people, but it won’t be a reason to follow a ton more people.)

Prior to the Mashable surge, I used to check out my new followers on a regular basis, reciprocating or blocking as appropriate, but that pretty much became impossible after last week.

The six main reasons I don’t choose to reciprocate a follow — beyond someone being an obvious social media “guru”, spammer affiliate marketer or web-cam girl — are:

1. 1) You don’t work in, or have some connection to, publishing.
2. 2) You’re a devout member of the Social Media Kool-Aid Cult.
3. 3) You already have thousands of followers RTing your every thought.
4. 4) Your community:self-promo:conversation ratio is skewed towards self-promotion.
5. 5) Your tweets are predominantly personal in nature or your account is private.
6. 6) I don’t actually know you’re following me, and you’ve never engaged.

It’s not an ego thing; it’s a time and value management, thing.

No offense, none taken!

My Bookshelf (one of them)

The only thing I was fit for was to be a writer, and this notion rested solely on my suspicion that I would never be fit for real work, and that writing didn’t require any.

–Russell Baker

I’ve been “a writer” since the 5th grade, when the combination of praise I received for a plagiarized homework assignment and fear of getting caught, pushed me to start writing my own stories, and I quickly discovered that I both liked it and was pretty good at it. Over the years, I’ve published poetry and articles in school papers, magazines, journals, and anthologies; performed my poetry in slams, and featured at various bars, coffee shops and the occasional college gig across the country; finished the prerequisite, semi-auto-biographical screenplay (that I even tried to film myself at one point!); and even cranked out 15,000 words of a “novel” during NaNoWriMo in 2004.

Arguably my “biggest” publishing credit is co-authoring Burning Down the House: Selected Poems from the Nuyorican Poets Cafe’s National Poetry Slam Champions (Soft Skull Press, 2000), and while I am both proud of and eternally grateful for its publication, its existence has more to do with timing and opportunism than the quality of the work therein.

Besides my own attempts at zines and chapbooks, it was my first real introduction to the world of publishing, and it left a permanent mark that partly explains my cynical passion and/or pragmatic idealism for the publishing industry.

NOTE: The blank pages on 141-142 in the book are probably my fault.

I’d never heard of Soft Skull Press back in the Summer of 1999 when my Nuyorican teammate, Steve Colman, approached us with their offer to publish a book. It was a totally opportunistic move by Sander Hicks, Soft Skull’s founder, capitalizing on our having won the National Poetry Slam the summer before, the first (and still only) team from the Nuyorican to do so. There’d been a lot of media coverage that year, and the following summer in Chicago, our coach, Roger Bonair-Agard, won the individual title (while representing the team I’d formed after splintering from the Nuyorican; read Words In Your Face for that true story) and appeared on both 60 Minutes and the front page of the NY Times Arts section.

It was kind of the equivalent of Chesley Sullenberger’s book of poetry, except with 14 fewer minutes of fame and no advance, and since it was poetry, SLAM poetry at that, no one could call Hicks a fraud, or claim he was killing the publishing industry.

I didn’t have a real relationship with him at all — if I passed him on the street tomorrow, I probably wouldn’t recognize him — but I liked his energy; his punk/DIY/zinester/steal-from-Kinkos vibe. For all of his faults, primarily financial, Hicks was driven by the kind of passion that attracts a real community of “true fans”, and it’s unfortunate that there’s not much, if anything, written about him on the Soft Skull site or their Wikipedia entry, though his own page is an interesting read.

When we all (except Steve, I think) ended up in his “office” (I believe he was working as the super of a building on the Lower East Side, and he ran Soft Skull out of its basement) the night the manuscript was due, and I ended up on his Mac after winning the debate on how to order and credit the poems; writing the Foreword; and adding in an Afterword — it didn’t seem odd or unprofessional; it was pretty much the way I was always used to doing things: myself.

So, in all likelihood, the blank pages on 141-142 in the book are probably my fault.

But that night confirmed what I’d already known to be true for a long time: as much as I loved to write, I was absolutely enamored with the idea of being a publisher, and with the act of publishing itself. There’s something special about having a direct hand in a crafting a book that would freeze a moment in time, capture the embodiment of an idea, and put it in a format that would allow it to be shared with people the authors would never have an opportunity to meet.

This was long before Facebook and Twitter, when AOL ruled the Internet and having an email list was cutting edge.

I firmly believe that publishers should be idea advocates and that publishing is a community service, and while the pay sucks, much like the royalties I got for Burning Down the House (mostly via more copies of the book!), there’s no other industry I’d rather work in.

And eventually, I’ll get around to writing that novel I’ve dreamed of since the first time I read Stephen King’s The Stand back in 1986, and possibly publish it myself, on my own Soft Skull-inspired imprint.

True (if kind of random) story.

PS: If you can’t wait for that novel, check out my free poetry echapbook, Crazy White Devil, over at Smashwords!

Theme 1: Change by xcode

Only those who know nothing of the history of technology believe that a tecnology is entirely netural… Each technology has an agenda of its own. It is, as I have suggested, a metaphor waiting to unfold.

Neil Postman, Amusing Ourselves to Death

There’s a lot of hand-wringing and finger-pointing happening in publishing these days, both by those struggling to find solutions to the challenges the industry faces, and by various Joker-pundits who apparently “just want to see the world burn.” Demagogues and idealogues love the spotlight, and attention-seeking media outlets happily provide them a stage to stoke faux controversies over what’s not being done, or is being done wrong, yelling loudly about the inevitable end of publishing as we know it!

Personally, I’m pretty confident that the end is not near; in fact, I’m very optimistic that new generations of readers will continue to be served by ambitious authors, passionate publishers, and brazen booksellers for many years to come. The individual players and channels may will change, of course, but that’s neither new nor a bad thing.

Change is good, inevitable, and in publishing, very necessary.

For all the talk of publishing’s supposedly imminent demise, there are far too many passionate people working in and around the industry, at every level, to let that happen. And whether they realize it or not, it doesn’t matter if they’re working for one of the major publishers or an independent press, in senior management or as an editor, author or bookseller — there’s a wide and fertile common ground we all share and it’s best represented by the community we all serve: the readers.

Ultimately, it’s readers’ changing habits that are driving the fundamental changes in the publishing industry – everything from the types of books they’re reading to the formats they prefer reading them in – and as a result, it’s the current business model of most publishers that’s under stress, not the community service of publishing itself.

I’m in Frankfurt this week for Tools of Change and the Book Fair, and I’m particularly excited about the opportunity to see Cory Doctorow, Richard Nash, Dominique Raccah, and the Pecha Kucha presentations at the former; and to get a glimpse of the global publishing community, including this year’s guest of honor, China, at the latter. I’m also here on behalf of Digital Book World, meeting some of our Advisory Board and sponsors, and getting feedback on the exciting program we’ve put together for the event in January.

Among the hot publishing topics of the moment, the eBook debate is perhaps the most torrid, and a particularly annoying one when it’s treated like a zero-sum game — Print vs. eBooks in a Battle to the Death! Death!! DEATH!!! It’s also fraught with larger implications for both publishers and authors alike that too many pundits willfully overlook (while pushing their own self-serving agendas), like DRM, international rights, and unequal access to information and technology.

Publishers are also facing the difficult question of justifying their role in the supply chain when the Internet has cracked the playing field wide open, making verticality a more viable model than it’s ever been, and enabling savvy authors and small presses to outmaneuver their larger, more established competitors.

On the flight over I caught up on some reading, a one-two punch of the July/August issue of the Harvard Business Review, and Neil Postman’s Amusing Ourselves to Death.

Postman’s must-read classic could easily have been written in 2009 about the current Internet era; many of his critiques of television apply doubly today, especially with regards to social media, and there are many interesting parallels to be made in the current “battle” of print vs. eBooks.

HBR’s “Managing in the New World” special issue offered a thorough and insightful look at what’s changed and what needs to change for businesses to survive in 2010 and beyond, noting that, “An organization that depends solely on its senior managers to deal with the challenges risks failure.”

Coupled with that statement, perhaps the most relevant article in the issue is Henry Mitzenberg’s “Rebuilding Companies as Communities“, which argues that in order to succeed in the future, companies have to become places “where people are committed to one another and their enterprise.”

Leadership at the center. A robust community requires a form of leadership quite different from the models that have it driving transformation from the top. Community leaders see themselves as being in the center, reaching out rather than down. They facilitate change, recognizing that much of it must be driven by others.

This week, I’ll be giving a lot of thought to what I can do to help move the industry forward in a community-centric direction, and I already have a few intriguing ideas that will unfold over the coming months.

What are some of the things you’re doing from your vantage point to serve the publishing industry’s community of readers?

book from above by stephmcg

come celebrate
with me that everyday
something has tried to kill me
and has failed.

— from Lucille Clifton’s Book of Light (Copper Canyon Press, 1993)

I kept notebooks as a little girl, and I always knew I had books in me – books other people would want to publish and read. I still have one of my handmade books, bound with purple yarn, the lavender construction paper cover sealed in clear shelf paper. The title in purple marker reads “Differences”. It’s the earliest collection of my poems that I still have.

Since then, I’ve published poems, essays, and articles in noted journals and anthologies in the U.S. and other countries; written for magazines about hip hop and literature; and blogged about whatever mattered to me. I toured across the country and trekked to London and Cuba where I led and took workshops and performed my work. I shared poems on Chicago radio stations that I listened to as a high school student in Kankakee, IL, and eventually appeared on television doing the thing I loved most—sharing my poems.

These were all things that no one expected from people where I grew up.  Kankakee is a small town, just south of Chicago, predominantly Black and hit very hard when the last factory downsized and eventually closed while I was still in high school.  At one point, our town was voted the worst place to live in America, and the economy still has never really recovered. Before that, my friends and I talked about writing, making music, starting businesses, and going to college as our escape into adulthood and away from Kankakee. We talked about all these big dreams.

The thing is, no one ever told you how to get past the dreaming and get to the doing.

I want to let people know that no one can really tell you. Persistence sounds like some tired adage, and there are times when I can honestly say the only time I feel like my whole self is when words fill the blank pages of a notebook, or when the screen becomes a march of paragraphs across that blank white square. This is what sustains me every time I hear the word NO.

I had people tell me when I was performing, that I was a woman and somehow less engaging, unless I was sexier. People were confused because my light-skinned appearance, which favors my white mother, didn’t match the black-identified content in my work. People still ask me, even though I haven’t been on a poetry slam team in seven years, how do you balance publishing and spoken word? Or before I began teaching at the university level, I heard, “Where’d you receive your degree?” or “What institution are you affiliated with?”

There was always a box that somehow solidified a rejection in my mind. Luckily, rejection has never been much of a stumbling block for me. I didn’t get into the first MFA programs that I applied to, or every journal that I submitted to, but I knew that the acceptances would come as long as I was persistent.

When it came time to submit my manuscript, I shared it with people I trusted. Revised it, took out poems, added poems, changed the sequence, and tried to get to know the book in a new way. I changed the title three times before deciding on Arc & Hue, from a poem in the book where I sketch with a little boy using sidewalk chalk. Jabari will probably not remember this moment or cradle it, small and precious. I found myself thinking about how much of life is like such poems that consider memory as something that rarely lingers in expected ways. Instead, nostalgia often clings to whatever is left of what we understand as the past.

I plotted and daydreamed about my release party and outlined all the ways I’d promote the book.  I made a list of every press that focused on women, writers of color, first book prizes, and books that I liked. I looked up all their guidelines and followed them to the letter.  I began making trips to the post office, taking at least 3 manuscripts at a time to drop in the mail; one trip weighed in at 6 copies of my 60-plus page manuscript.  The money spent on photocopies, inkjet cartridges, postage, and reading fees was shocking to my part-time salary.

When the first rejections poured in, I felt like I was avoiding hail stones, but I kept on sending it out, not stopping until 33 presses and prizes. By the time most of these submissions had been rejected, I received a call from the poetry editor at Aquarius Press who said that they might be interested in the book. I didn’t believe it until the contract arrived, and I signed it. I still couldn’t get excited, though.

Now that I had a publisher, how could I make sure that the book would get out and get the attention it deserved?  I mean, it is poetry from a small press, not a novel from a mainstream publisher with distribution into every major chain. So, it started all over again: Where can I read to let people know the book exists? How are bookstores going to know the book is out there? How do we get the review copies to people who should have them?

Arc & Hue is an important step for me, but it is only a first step.

This book might help me get a better teaching job or open the door for me to read in more prestigious places. I am also applying for prizes that I would not have been eligible for before as an unpublished writer, which starts the entire submission cycle over again, but this is the life I have chosen to keep writing.

My writing also represents a lot of people who may never write anything deemed worthy of a perfect-bound cover and its own ISBN number.

There will be other books, but I am hoping this is the one that all the emails and letters I’ve received say they have been waiting for. Maybe there will be a woman in a library or a bookstore who picks up my book and utters a soft “yes” in the aisle when she reads one of the poems. Perhaps there will be a young brother who says, “I ain’t into poetry, but I dig what this poet is saying; check it.”

Part of me waits for these whisperers and sharers because that’s my clan; in spite of what anyone says about the decline of publishing or poetry’s lack of popularity, I’ve seen otherwise. I just know that as poets, we have to grow tentacles, not just deeper roots.  We have to keep coming and extending into new spaces and opportunities. When the world speaks the simple-minded language of “no”, I find myself remembering my childhood, the challenges of growing up in a small town that factories left behind, and the people that first heard the dreams that are just starting to become real.

Being published means that what I wanted to do as a little girl is finally happening, and it’s because I didn’t take “no” for an answer.

Tara Betts is the author of Arc & Hue (Willow Books, 2009). She is a Cave Canem fellow and teaches writing classes at Rutgers University. Her work appears in numerous journals and anthologies, and has also been adapted for several theater productions; featured on HBO’s “Def Poetry Jam” and “SPOKEN” with Jessica Care Moore.

diversity matters by andres musta

A recent meeting with two Caucasian well-respected literary agent friends of mine cemented that concern when one announced, “We’re all the same, [people the publishing industry]. We’re all white, we’re all over-educated, Ivy-leaguers, many of whom are trust fund babies.”

Jeff Rivera, Declining Book Sales?

WTF? Seriously?

This is apparently going to be remembered as Rant Week since I’ve been forced to emphasize the loud in loudpoet way more than usual, so bear with me a minute and don’t jump to any conclusions.

One of the few things I hate more than pundits are stereotypes, especially when they’re being used to make a point I might otherwise be inclined to agree with, but Rivera’s well-intentioned point in his GalleyCat op-ed so overshoots the mark that it’s kind of embarrassing, especially in light of his usual editorial role there as, well, the token guy of color.

Or so it felt for his first few months when the majority of his posts included the qualifier… “of Color“.

In the op-ed, Rivera argues that the decline in book sales is partly because the “publishing industry has lost touch with… who the consumer actually is.” No argument there, but then he takes the rather bizarre angle of citing a US Census Bureau projection that “by 2042 the minority (aka person of color) will actually become the majority” and concludes that “there are not enough people of color working in the book publishing industry.”

Despite the industry having a lot more immediately pressing concerns than the racial make-up of the country 33 years from now (?!?!), I’m still kind of with him overall — I’ve been in way too many meetings in my career where I was the only naturally tan face in the room — but then he totally jumps the shark with the “Trust Fund Muffy from Harvard” nonsense that’s the diversity-in-media equivalent of Godwin’s Law.

Does publishing have a diversity problem? Hell yes; of course it does! But just like comparing someone to Hitler tends to stop a debate in its tracks and makes the person making the comparison look foolish, dropping the trust fund stereotype into this particular debate — even if it’s your Caucasian friend saying it — has a similar effect.

Justine Larbalestier garnered a lot of attention earlier this summer when she intelligently and rationally spoke out about the whitewashing of the cover of her latest novel, Liar, by its U.S. publisher, Bloomsbury, jumpstarting an invaluable conversation that ultimately led to the cover being changed after the backlash become too loud to ignore. A white woman from Sydney, Australia, Larbalestier once answered the question asking why her protagonists weren’t white by noting: “Because no white teen has ever complained about their lack of representation in those books.”

That’s an issue I’ve wrestled in the past, particularly in relation to comic books, noting that I wanted “heroes that I can share with my kids as they grow up so they don’t have to look to a Boba Fett, his face always hidden behind a mask, his true identity unclear.” (Funny that, years later, he’d actually turn out to look a little bit like me after all. Closer than Luke Skywalker, at least!)

On the question of whether or not “black books” sell, Larbalestier smartly notes:

The notion that “black books” don’t sell is pervasive at every level of publishing. Yet I have found few examples of books with a person of colour on the cover that have had the full weight of a publishing house behind them…

There is, in fact, a large audience for “black books” but they weren’t discovered until African American authors started self-publishing and selling their books on the subway and on the street and directly into schools. And, yet, the publishing industry still doesn’t seem to get it. Perhaps the whole “black books don’t sell” thing is a self-fulfilling prophecy?

In the end, it all comes back to marketing and an exaggerated sense of entitlement.

MOST books don’t sell, and it’s typically only the sure bets that get a publisher’s marketing muscle, ineffective and out of shape as it may be in many cases. Unless they’re already a well-established name, every author is going to have to bust their ass to market their own work, whether it’s published by a traditional publisher or self-published. I used to run into many of those authors Larbalestier mentions, on the subway and on the street, hand-selling their books to anyone who’d show interest, and the poetry slam and indie comics scenes are powered by the exact same kind of ambition and drive.

While the major publishing houses could certainly do more to encourage diversity in their staffs, both on the editorial and business sides, most of them aren’t exactly standing on the firmest ground these days, so why worry about them anyway?

I’m inclined to go back to my comic book days and quote Cheryl Lynn of Digital Femme, whom, frustrated by the sad state of the comics union, nailed the solution back in 2007:

“I can see that I am going to have to make the fucking comics.

…right now I’m doing the second easiest thing. And that is to not-so-politely bitch. Because I suppose I’m still hoping that someone else will make the fucking comics. Because there are a ton of people out there with infinitely more talent and monetary resources than I possess. People who already have an established reputation and a publishing house that adores them. And I don’t. But they don’t give a damn. And I do.”

At the end of the day, we have two choices: complain and hope somebody fixes things for us, or STFU and get to work being the change we want to see in the world.

Rivera, for the most part, seems to be a good guy trying to do his part to change things for the better via his well-intentioned “People of Color” contributions to GalleyCat, and his own project, GumboWriters, but that op-ed is the rare case of words speaking louder than actions and potentially doing more harm than good.

typewriter of capricorn by emdot

There’s been a notable spike in new traffic here lately, partly from Twitter and partly from the blog being favorably cited recently by Editor Unleashed and ASMP’s Strictly Business Blog. (Thanks!) In light of my last two posts being a bit more ranty than usual, and my schedule next week being crazy, I thought it would be a good idea to pull together some of my favorite posts so far this year, starting with those focused on writers and marketing.

Developing a Platform

Tone Deaf Publishers Need Savvy Writers

After offering our individual takes on a variety of topics and looking into our crystal balls to speculate on where things were going — a unanimous vision of increased disintermediation and the power of writers to control their own careers — we took questions and what was most notable was that the majority in attendance were not terribly marketing savvy and something as simple as setting up a blog struck many of them as being a significant challenge. A few didn’t see the value of it at all, missing the forest for the trees, seemingly still believing that a writer’s only job is to write.

Platform 101 For Busy Writers: 3 Simple Steps

I’ve realized over the past several months that there’s a tendency to oversimplify things, to assume everyone has a certain level of web and marketing savvy (not to mention free time), starting discussions about writers’ platforms, curating communities and “free vs. freemium” way too far ahead of the curve. For a lot of writers. something as seemingly simple as setting up a blog can become a huge, time-consuming effort for which the long-term value isn’t always quite clear or worthwhile.

Platform 201 for Busy Writers: 1,000 True Fans

It’s not about YOU. The most common mistake writers make when developing a platform is narcissism, thinking that “it’s all about ME!” The strongest communities share something in common, and it’s rarely the glorification of a specific individual, brand or distribution model. (Those are cults, and while some writers certainly have them, they’re not the norm.) Barack Obama made his Presidential campaign about our hopes for America (”Yes WE can!”), and while he had an extremely fanatical base of “true fans”, the vast majority of his supporters were brought together by what he stood for and how it related to their own hopes, dreams and goals.

The FREE Debate

The Limitations of FREE; Godin vs. Gladwell

When I ran my weekly poetry series back in the late-90s, the least-attended nights were usually the free open mics, when the smaller audiences were predominantly poets looking for stage time. The best, most-attended nights had a cover charge and were a curated mix of featured poets plus an open mic that attracted both poets and non-poets. It’s a pattern I’ve seen remain consistent over the years here in New York City, and it’s one that’s not unique to poetry readings.

Free is wrong for writers; Freemium might not be

For the unknown (or unproven) writer, a “freemium” approach is a strategic question that should be based on one’s long-term goals, and is arguably more appropriate for non-fiction writers and poets than fiction writers, as there are fewer ancillary opportunities for the latter beyond licensing deals. For non-fiction writers, speaking gigs can be more lucrative than the average book deal, and there’s still a viable freelance market for quality content in many niche publications. (Fiction writers can and should leverage the freelance market, too, and could potentially position themselves for speaking gigs.) Poets can follow the indie music model by selling limited-edition chapbooks and MP3s; assuming they have an engaging stage presence, they can also get paying college gigs and workshops.

Freemium for writers is two debates

[A guest post by Dan Holloway.] For me, as for the majority of people with a great cultural product looking to break into the market, that means what matters most is getting exposure. For many of us, going through the traditional channels just isn’t an option; I write gentle, thought-provoking literary fiction that will never sell more than a few thousand copies. I don’t make financial sense for publishers.

Reality Checks

The Problem With Self-Publishing

The vast majority of self-published books are vanity projects, most by authors who never bothered to attempt to go the traditional route because their primary goal was getting the finished product in their hands, not the “validation” and “legitimization” so many tend to associate with a traditional publisher. As a result, the closest they’ve come to being edited is a cursory reading by a couple of friends or family members followed by compliments and encouragement to pursue their dreams. It’s like poetry slams where 10s are mandatory; most of it is self-indulgent dreck with a narrowly defined audience of one.

6Qs: Maria Schneider, Editor Unleashed

Six months may as well be six years for how much things have changed and I don’t think it’s just my perception. I left the magazine industry right before the bottom fell out of the economy and I’m very glad I wasn’t trying to land another publishing job at the time because, as you know, industry layoffs have been relentless. But I think there’s never been a better time to be a writer. There’s nothing to hold you back now if you have the initiative and talent to succeed. There are no gates to hold back a talented writer any more.

NOTE: Check out the Marketing and Publishing categories for everything I’ve written on those topics, from both the writer’s perspective as well as that of a publisher and marketer.

thou shalt not shill by duncan

By offering consumers a low cost digital product, the economics of ebooks create a virtuous, self-reinforcing cycle. The low price expands the available market by making it affordable to more consumers; low production and distribution expenses allow the publisher to earn a healthy margin; and the larger addressable market allows publishers to sell more units at greater profit margins.

Mark Coker, Why We Need $4.00 Books

One of the problems with the new media business model of trading exposure for content and attempting to monetize the eyeballs (a la The Huffington Post, The Daily Beast, Geek Dad, etc; all a variation on the B2B editorial model, but with even more of a self-promotional angle) is that it makes the content suspect. Without a firm editorial vision, the result is typically a mish-mash of shallow opinion and punditry, with the occasional gem slipping through.

In his first essay for The Huffington Post’s new Books section, Smashwords founder Mark Coker offers a half-hearted op-ed on ebook pricing, taking the narrow position that print books are too expensive for many consumers, especially those in developing economies, and that $4 ebooks are the mass-market paperback of the future.

Of course, there’s not a single mention of the prohibitive costs of eReaders, smartphones and their expensive data plans, or broadband Internet access. It’s a classic case of willfully ignoring the forest for the trees.

As a counterpoint, HuffPo also published author Jason Pinter’s “Why the Digital Revolution is Missing the Big Picture“, taking on the misguided marketing of eReaders to people who already read:

By marketing the Kindle to people like me — i.e. ‘adults’ who already read regularly and don’t need to be sold on how great books are– publishing is merely doubling down on the biggest problem facing the industry: not enough people read books. Right now, e-readers are being touted as an alternative to paper. Big mistake. E-readers should be promoted as a cool option for non readers or hesitant readers. Instead, those readers are stunningly being ignored.

It’s a strong piece, and while both Coker and Pinter are obviously writing for HuffPo to raise their profiles and sell more of their stuff — freemium in effect, and absolutely nothing wrong that — Pinter’s contribution actually adds something of value to the discussion (and doesn’t try to take some faux moral high ground), whereas Coker’s feels more like self-serving filler.

Much like the ad-supported print magazines that have been shuttered over the past few years, when the emphasis is on page views and ad impressions, content becomes a commodity and the editorial focus becomes fuzzy. As a result, the brand not only faces a credibility problem, but its long-term viability is challenged as commodities are more easily challenged by competitors and there’s no shortage of contributors willing to offer up free content if it gets them a broader audience.