Something old, something new, something recommended, and something downloaded for free that will likely never be read... Year of the Gun by Giff Cheshire Day of the Guns by Mickey Spillaine Stormbringer by Michael Moorcock Thriving on Chaos by Tom Peters Trail of Feathers by Tahir Shah Spaceman Blues by Brian Francis Slattery South by South Bronx by Abraham Rodriguez Boneshaker by Cherie Priest Funny Papers by Tom de Haven Everything is Every Thing: Poems by Cristin O'Keefe Aptowicz Dialect of a Skirt by Erica Miriam Fabri Kokopelli: The Magic, Myth, and Mischief of Ancient Symbols by Dennis Slifer Technology…
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.
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.
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?
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.
Third, what the hell was I waiting till November for? You want to want to be real boy, Pinocchio? Er, I mean, a real writer? Then don’t set 1/12th of the year aside to do it. Do it always, and do it unconditionally. You don’t have to write a novel between November 1st and 30th. That is not your limitation. When I did it, I didn’t want to cheat, and I wanted to hit the mark, but it was all… illusory. Somebody else made up these rules. Not me. You want to write a novel? Write a novel. Start now.…
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.
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.
Review by: Lori Freshwater on Oct. 24, 2009 : (no rating) Guy LeCharles Gonzalez takes the gloves right off in this wonderful collection of poetry. We know immediately that this is going to be poetry that lives up to its promise, it is going to be poetry that speaks truth. We know that because the poet tells us in “Crazy White Devil” that Evel Knievel was a better man than Elvis. “I was never inspired/to shake my hips to stolen glory/but I sped down glass-filled/urban ski slopes with abandon, /jumping curbs and milk crate ramps…” Okay, I’m an Elvis fan…
