Author: Guy LeCharles Gonzalez

This author has written 1997 articles
An arm with a tattoo: "I was made for the library, not the classroom."

Garden Photography, Writing and Planthropology

I went to the Frelinghuysen Arboretum a few weeks ago to check out Ken Druse give a presentation of his amazing new book, Planthropology: The Myths, Mysteries, and Miracles of My Garden Favorites, and took my wife’s fancy new camera with me to take pictures.

After the presentation, I wandered the snow-covered grounds of the Arboretum and took a few pictures before heading over to Greenwood Gardens for a rare tour of the grounds and took a ton more pictures. While far from the level of Druse’s work, I think I did pretty good for the first time, while also realizing I’m more of a tree, statuary and structural person than plants, though the time of year could have had something to do with that. Check them out on Flickr (plus a few below the cut).

Speaking of Druse, if you asked him what his favorite plant is, his answer would most likely be “whichever one I’m looking at. Every plant has an incredible story.”

In Planthropology, he proves his point, engagingly bringing plants of all kinds to vivid life with entertaining and enlightening stories that will intrigue gardeners and non-gardeners alike. It’s a visual feast that will make waiting for warmer weather to return more bearable, and it’s not just inspirational reading for avid gardeners, but also an ideal gift for helping family and friends get a better appreciation for your own passion, perhaps even inspiring them to get outside and join you.

My second stab at garden writing for Horticulture came out of this trip, too, along with a whole new appreciation for gardening and gardeners themselves.

 

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An arm with a tattoo: "I was made for the library, not the classroom."

Submissions: Know Your Market… and Medium

Spindle Magazine: A New York State of Mind
Spindle Magazine: A New York State of Mind

The most basic advice usually given to writers looking to submit their work to magazines or literary journals is to know the market, aka read the guidelines and pick up a few issues before wasting your time and the editors’ by sending something that’s totally inappropriate for a publication.

With the increasing popularity of online-only publications, it might be time to suggest another piece of not-so-basic advice, and that’s the importance of knowing your MEDIUM.

There’s a number of differences between writing for print and writing for the web, no matter the format or genre, because the former is much more contextual than the latter.

In a print magazine, each page is designed, and the articles on them are laid out, with an intent to establish a steady flow from page to page, to carry the reader from cover to cover so they don’t miss anything, including the ads. An issue may have a specific theme, or have a number of different departments, each with their own themes, that can act as a subtle prop for the articles, stories or poems to lean on. While an online publication can mimic many of the page design elements of print, an article, poem or story has to be able to completely stand on its own, as it may be accessed in any number of ways that have nothing to do with the context of the site that published it. (aka Google, StumbleUpon, Twitter, etc.)

Online, a title is arguably even more important than usual, but especially for Spindle.

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An arm with a tattoo: "I was made for the library, not the classroom."

Three Tips for Curating the Community #TOC

communities already exist by Will Lion
communities already exist by Will Lion

This week’s Tools of Change Conference ended yesterday and even though I wasn’t in attendance, thanks to the laudable efforts of several Tweeters (@thewritermama, in particular), I felt like I was there the whole time. As is typically the case after a good conference, I’m simultaneously mentally exhausted and recharged by the ideas and opinions that came out of it.

Three specific takeaways really stood out for me and have been rolling around in my head all week:

1) It’s all about the tribe; everything else is secondary.

2) Technology is the icing and, many times, vanilla is just fine as long as the cake is good.

3) Publishers need to think more like community organizers.

Back in the late-90s, I founded a poetry reading series here in New York City called “a little bit louder” (now known as louderARTS) that you can read about in Cristin O’Keefe Aptowicz’ definitive history Words in Your Face: A Guided Tour Through Twenty Years of the New York City Poetry Slam. (Chapter 19 is my favorite!) In the four years I ran it — as curator, host, accountant, and occasionally even poet — I learned a lot about community organizing, and most of that experience is directly transferable to one of the primary themes of TOC, building communities around content.

Here are three fundamental tips for curating a community, whether it’s artistic, political or vegetable gardening:

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An arm with a tattoo: "I was made for the library, not the classroom."

Rise of the Publetariat

If you're a self-published author or independent micro-press, these are very interesting times we're living in as Amazon officially announced the new Kindle, major publishing companies are in meltdown mode, and the entire industry is scrambling to figure out what's next. While following the Tools of Change Conference on Twitter, I came across an intriguing tweet from @indieauthor: #TOC Publetariat.com "outed" in Rise of Ebooks panel - can't stuff the genie back in the bottle, so I'm going w/ it: www.publetariat.com Cool name, and intrigued by the alleged "outing", I clicked through to find a website that aims to fill what, to my knowledge,…

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An arm with a tattoo: "I was made for the library, not the classroom."

Building Communities Around Content #TOC

Today kicked off the Tools of Change for Publishing Conference here in NY, and while I wasn’t able to attend, I was following it throughout the day on Twitter (#TOC), particularly via the Tweets of @annmichael, @RonHogan and @thewritermama, the latter of whom practically transcribed what appeared to be the highlight of the day: Building Communities Around Content.

It’s a topic that’s become Priority #1 for many publishers, books and magazines alike, as well as more marketing-savvy writers, and it’s one I have both a personal and professional interest in, too.

Touching on everything from defining one’s community, to determining ROI, to leveraging the natural inclination to form tribes, this session alone was probably worth the cost of admission for most attendees, and it would have been a great opportunity for someone from Portfolio to be standing outside selling copies of Seth Godin’s Tribes!

There were two particularly interesting points raised that piqued my interest enough to retweet, the first of which was right out of Tribes:

@annmichael the social infrastructure of the community is much more important than the technology infrastructure #TOC

@RonHogan #toc what kind of Return On Attention are you offering readers?

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An arm with a tattoo: "I was made for the library, not the classroom."

The Problem With Self-Publishing

Creative independence by nattu
Creative independence by nattu

HarperStudio — one of a handful of publishers who really seems to understand how to use the internet and social media — is running a web poll on their home page right now that asks: “Are you less likely to read a book if it is self published?”

As I write this, there have been 15 votes and “YES” is winning with 60% of them. Of course, it’s not the least bit scientific (and doesn’t claim to be), but I wouldn’t be going too far out on a limb to predict that, barring some targeted effort by Author Solutions, no matter how many responses they end up getting, “YES” will win, because the phrasing and context of the question favor that response.

I voted “NO” because I know better.

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