Guy LeCharles Gonzalez

You’re losing control of your own destiny. Authors, distributors and readers are getting closer to each other.

–Shiv Singh, Engaging Readers in the Digital Age

Three weeks ago, when I last posted something here, I was on the verge of completely disappearing into Digital Book World, both the conference and the community that spun out of it, the latter now representing my day [and night, and some weekends] job.

So I’ve been pretty busy.

Thankfully, it’s been a good busy, and the next couple of months are going to be very exciting.

Digital Book World

The conference was a huge success by pretty much any measure — I had the extreme honor of giving the closing remarks, “The Future of Publishing is Bright” — and the community platform is quickly coming together, starting with a series of free WEBcasts; in-person seminars (Digitize Your Career); and more to be announced.

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Enter The Matrix by kirainet

“The combination of hive mind and advertising has resulted in a new kind of social contract. The basic idea of this contract is that authors, journalists, musicians, and artists are encouraged to treat the fruits of their intellects and imaginations as fragments to be given without pay to the hive mind. Reciprocity takes the form of self-promotion. Culture is to become precisely nothing but advertising.”

Jaron Lanier, You Are Not a Gadget

I’m knee-deep in final preparations for Digital Book World next week (look for the new website to relaunch by Tuesday, built by me!), but I wanted to give a quick shout-out to two people who are blowing my mind right now.

First, to Jaron Lanier. I’m in the middle of reading and enjoying You Are Not a Gadget, not just because it elaborates on my own thoughts about tech fetishism, but because it does it so intelligently and convincingly. Kudos to Stephanie Anderson for bringing it to my attention with her excellent, must-read review.

Second, to Chuck Wendig, blogger extraordinaire, who writes engagingly and entertainingly about writing practically every day, with a unique energy and style that so few writing bloggers can match. I anxiously await his first novel.

Chuck gave me the opportunity to stretch my legs on his blog while he was out of town last week doing very cool things, with a guest post about The Future of the Blog that went up this morning.

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Sanctum Sanctorum, 01/10 by glecharles

“Publishing was never a business based on Wharton standards. It was a rich boy’s hobby.”

–Steve Wasserman (Kneerim & Williams)

Working in publishing isn’t for the meek. Neither is writing for that matter. They’re two things I’m really passionate about, though, and I’ve always counted myself lucky to work in the publishing industry, despite the ever-present danger of familiarity breeding contempt.

Over the past couple of years, though, it’s been particularly tough; like playing on a solid defense for a football team that has a terrible offense, constantly watching the QB get sacked, the RB get stuffed, WRs getting manhandled… and running on fumes by the 4th quarter as a result.

I consider myself a pragmatic idealist with an optimistic lean, but when you see colleagues and friends losing their jobs due to reasons beyond their control and underlying problems they didn’t create, it can be tough to feel good about the good things you’re involved in.

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Two Cents by Skez

“You can make this year, this day, this moment a demarcation and declare that this will be the best year of your life, or you can continue down the same old road you’ve been down so many times before.”

–Debbie Ford (via 2010 Indiebound Eat Sleep Read Page-a-Day Calendar)

I’ve been blogging regularly since the end of January, 2003, when I launched the first iteration of this site on Blogger with a few posts about what happened in 2002 — without question (excepting the birth of our daughter), the worst year of my life. At that point, I’d spent a year out of publishing, working as a financial advisor for American Express, and had completely disconnected from the poetry scene that had been such a critical part of  my life for the five years prior.

Back then, Blogger didn’t have built-in comments; Google had slightly less than 1/3rd of the search market; and I’d never heard of The Cluetrain Manifesto.

Over the seven years since, this blog has gone through several changes in focus, the most recent being on marketing and publishing, and from a professional perspective, 2009 was without question my best year ever. I’ve connected with some incredibly smart people, learned a lot about the publishing industry, and on several occasions have added my own two cents to “the conversation”.

Unfortunately, the conversation has gotten rather repetitive and stultifying, and I’ve never been a fan of blogging just for the sake of adding my own two cents — that’s what Twitter’s for now! — so in the spirit of Debbie Ford’s advice, I think it’s the perfect time for a change.

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