The struggling magazine with a historic brand has structured a comeback around "creating a solid brand identity; a digital-first strategy; building a marketing services operation; expanding live events; and maintaining a relentless focus on hiring top talent," writes Bill Mickey in Behind The Atlantic's Brand Reinvention (Audience Development, June 9, 2010). Atlantic media president Justin Smith, in his keynote address at the Folio: Show, was reported as saying The Atlantic's brand had suffered from a lack of definition. It's new tagline, "Brave Thinking," defines the brand's essence. Read More
Writers and Editors (RSS feed)
Wiley's Deceptive Letter to Bloomberg Press Authors:
June 11, 2010
""We are pleased to inform you" that we will be slicing your royalties up to 50%, is the essence of a letter from John Wiley & Sons to Bloomberg Press authors. "John Wiley & Sons acquired Bloomberg Press, the books division of Bloomberg, in March," says the June 2010 Authors Guild alert. "At the end of April, it began sending a letter to hundreds of Bloomberg Press authors purporting to inform them 'about a few differences in the accounting systems of Bloomberg and Wiley Read More
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Metadata: something else to learn about -- fast!
June 9, 2010
Metadata is the new most important thing to know about writes Mike Shatzkin, IdeaLogical, 6-8-10. A publishing professional asks: What's the best way to index an e-book? As the reader enlarges or downsizes type on the page, the paging in an e-book will change, Read More
"How Can Creators Get a Fair Deal in the Digital World?"
June 6, 2010
Edward Hasbrouck's blog The Practical Nomad provides links to a trail of fascinating discussions about the role or rights of creators, readers, and publishers in the current huge many-faceted struggle going on about rights in the new digital environment. He writes that Readers' interests lie with writers, not with publishers Read More
'Vanity' Press Goes Digital
June 3, 2010
Digital Self-Publishing Shakes up Traditional Publishing. "Much as blogs have bitten into the news business and YouTube has challenged television, digital self-publishing is creating a powerful new niche in books that's threatening the traditional industry," write Geoffrey A. Fowler and Jeffrey A. Trachtenberg in the Wall Street Journal online. "Once derided as 'vanity' titles by the publishing establishment, self-published books suddenly are able to Read More
BEA: Why Small Publishing Will Save the World
May 29, 2010
Literary agent Janet Reid reports from Book Expo about the coming artistic revolution, in BEA: Why Small Publishing Will Save the World. She doesn't know what will do the trick--maybe an enhanced e-book--but it won't come from traditional book publishing, which is not set up to invent Read More
How to Choose an Online Bookstore Selling E-Books
May 28, 2010
Geoffrey A. Fowler's piece, The Chapter and Verse on E-Bookstores, in the Wall Street Journal (5-7-10), will confirm any suspicions you may have had that competitors fighting to capture the e-book (and e-book reader/gadget) market are making it tough for Read More
Book Publishing: After the blockbuster, the niche
May 28, 2010
Book Publishing 3.0, a video of Richard Eoin Nash's provocative half-hour talk on the future of book publishing. Nash's start-up, Cursor, is "a portfolio of niche social publishing communities, one of which will be called Read More
Your elevator speech
May 19, 2010
Marcia Yudkin suggests this template for your elevator speech: "I specialize in helping ___ (who?) who have ___ (what problem?) get ___ (what result?)" (from (Marcia's Mantras, a nanozine) This echoes a theme in Roar! Get Heard in the Sales and Marketing Jungle: A Business Fable
Ten reasons why it's better to be a docent than a writer
May 17, 2010
Kathryn Lance writes: After 35 years of freelance writing, in which I produced hundreds of articles and more than fifty books, I have hung up my keyboard in favor of work as a volunteer docent at a local nature park. Now that I am "KL, Tohono Chul Docent," rather than "Kathryn Lance, Writer," I find my new identity offers many advantages over the old one Read More