[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dxkpm7bH7j4]
Strung together, it’s actually pretty amazing Canada or Mexico didn’t decide we were ripe for the picking and invade. WTF?!?!
Also, “eight years in eight minutes” from Keith Olbermann:
I raved about my former Writer’s Digest colleague, Maria Schneider, a couple of weeks back — towards the end of a long rambling post that no one but my wife probably read — because she’s put together one of the best websites for writers out there at editorunleashed.com.
She’s not only producing some great content including tips on writing and getting published and links to great free resources, she’s interviewing writers and agents, hosting a vibrant and active community, and has even started offering workshops on everything from writing an effective query letter to intensive fiction workshops designed to help you finish that novel.
Her post today about Twitter was particularly timely as I’ve started using it a lot lately, both personally and professionally, but I’m not sold yet on its real value. I’m still in the early stage of what she likens to “being at a cocktail party where you know no one”, but her tips on how writers can get the most out of it and 25 Twitterers to follow is a great resource:
There’s a bunch of publishing types using Twitter and following them is tapping into the zeitgeist—a never-ending stream of conversations, random thoughts and links. It gives you access to lots of smart, interesting, connected people.
But if you’re just getting started on Twitter it can be really intimidating, so I’ve made this list of 25 good follows for writers composed of the twitterati, book bloggers, agents, publishers and writers. This is by no means an exhaustive list of twitterati, but it may be a good start for you. Check out who these folks follow to find many more.
There are several people on her list I wasn’t following whom I added, including Bo Sacks (who surprisingly only has 83 followers?!?!) and Ron Hogan, and I was glad to see my old publisher Soft Skull there, as Richard Nash has a very high signal:noise ratio (something many Twitterers, myself included, haven’t quite figured out yet).
I’ll add to her tips that you can also do a version of Google Alerts on Twitter Search, and get an RSS feed for any topic of interest being discussed on Twitter.
[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ov3bqmSKW28] Part of me appreciates the wry humor, and part of me is totally offended by the young black mailroom guy playing the lottery. I thinks it's really advertising the lottery itself that's bothering me, as it's basically a sucker tax on the poor, "acceptable" because some of the revenue supposedly goes to schools. Of course, not in direct proportion to the neighborhoods where the most tickets are bought. In these tough times, it's like advertising liquor at an AA meeting.
Check out @themediaisdying on Twitter for a glimpse at the convulsions of an industry that’s either at death’s door or, for the more optimistically inclined, in the midst of a violent but necessary transformation.
I’ve worked in magazine publishing for 15 years now — consumer, B2B and non-profit — and as has been noted pretty much everywhere recently, 2008 was an ugly year. Mass consumer and B2B brands are getting hit the hardest, but even local and niche brands with strong subscriber bases are getting hammered by this perfect storm, and surprisingly to almost no one with any sense some people, the Internet has turned out to not be the magic bullet it was proclaimed to be.
(In fact, in many cases, online publishing is effectively “trading dollars for pennies“, and the economic fallout that’s affected print advertising is undoubtedly going to affect online advertising, too. ETA: It already has.)
Flip through the most recent issues of your favorite magazines and you’ll probably notice they’re a little bit lighter than they used to be. Less editorial content; thinner paper; deeply discounted, sometimes desperately worded subscription offers.
Almost all of them likely have less ads (and in many cases less relevant ads) than they used to, too.
I was cautiously optimistic that the major damage might be limited to 2008, and 2009 could be a rebuilding year for most brands on flat revenues, with some going under and a few even pulling off a Miami Dolphins-style turnaround, but 13 days into the new year, it looks like things still haven’t quite hit bottom.
When it comes to Spindle, I often refer to “we” but the reality is that it’s 99.5% me; I’m a control freak and have no shame admitting it.
Of course, that has a rather extreme down side to it, too.
I have a couple of poetry editors who are more like consultants whom I run poems that I’m on the fence about for a second opinion, but I read every single submission first — poetry, fiction, non-fiction, photography — and reply to every one of them myself. For a while, I was offering critical feedback on the majority of the rejections, but as anyone who has ever been an editor before, that’s a recipe for disaster on so many levels.
[Side note: Badly rhymed poems centered on the page make my eyes bleed and baby Jeebus cry. DO NOT submit such poems. To me, or to anyone!]
Plus, I’m Spindle‘s sole webmonkey, posting all of the content and optimizing the Joomla platform, the latter of which often takes up more time than it should because I love the technical side as much as the creative side.
I sent out an email yesterday to everyone who’d submitted something last year and hadn’t received a response yet — or in some cases, who’d received acceptances but their work was never posted — explaining that we’d been on “unofficial hiatus since last Spring when I changed jobs and things only got crazier and further delayed when I bought a house, moved to New Jersey, and changed jobs again; plus the election, the crashing economy, blah blah blah. I’m not offering excuses, just context, to explain why you haven’t heard back from me yet.”
I knew I was way behind, but I was stunned to realize some of these submissions went back as far as February 2008! Ridiculous, and quite frankly, a little bit embarassing, regardless of the legitimate circumstances.
One of the most gratifying things was seeing how excited my 8-year-old son was about helping out in the garden and I'm really looking forward to having him out there with me again in the Spring.
4:00pm: I’m seriously conflicted.
I’ve been a NY Jets fan forever, since way back in the days of Mattel’s crack-like handheld Football, when I pretended the little glowing dashes were Richard Todd, Wesley Walker and Bruce Harper. Unlike the Mets, to whom I converted in the early 80s after my favorite Yankees moved on, my allegiance to the Jets has never wavered, even during the darkest days of Rich Kotite and Rick Mirer.
As much as I’ve loved some individual players (Wayne Chrebet is the prototypical Jet, IMO) and loathed others (Neil O’Donnell, I’m looking at you) I’ve always been a JETS fan, no matter what, but when they cut Chad Pennington — the best, most loyal QB they’ve ever had — in the pre-season in favor of the unretiring Brett Favre, I was personally insulted. It was a move as much about PR and attempting to smooth over the exorbitant cost of Personal Seat Licenses next season, as it was about putting the best team on the field after a terrible 2007 season, a team I said back then was looking at a 10-6 season no matter whom the QB was.
Ahem.
When Pennington landed in Miami, the one team I’ve hated much longer and with more reason than the Patriots, I was torn down the middle, especially with Bill Parcells running their ship and cleaning house, and immediately marked today on the calendar as a must-see game. Back then, I expected this game might have the Jets on the verge of a playoff spot with a victory and Pennington looking at playing spoiler. That it’s turned into so much more, is amazing.
I actually had a last-minute chance to go to the game in person, but couldn’t adjust my schedule to take advantage of it. Part of me is glad to not be there as I imagine I’ll be a bit schizophrenic throughout the game, simultaneously cheering Pennington and the Dolphins on to victory, but also wanting to see Leon Washington have a big game.
And so it begins…