Move Fast and Fix Things: BISG 2025
I took a ton of old-fashioned notes, most of which were reasonably legible a few days later, and here’s some of my favorite takeaways.
Commentary on various aspects of publishing and marketing, primarily focused on books, magazines, and social media.
Remember the Blogaround Challenge?
Cynics might consider this engagement bait nowadays, but this was pre-social media (as we currently know it), when blogs were peaking.
Why keep blogging in 2025?
Blogs have been declared dead multiple times, mostly "replaced" by Twitter and then newsletters that are really just blogs with email and paywall functionally baked in. And yet, here I still am, blogging again consistently (but not too hard) for the past few years. And I'm not alone. But why? If you've known me for a while, you know a Cluetrain quote is coming!
The “AI in Publishing” Hype Train needs to be derailed
The AI hype train is reaching predictably ridiculous extremes in a desperate attempt to force acceptance of its “inevitable” narrative, and it’s partly because credulous journalists who should absolutely know better by now happily platform the worst of this nonsense.
“Make progress among the willing.” The Good, Bad, and Ugly of #PIF24
It was an excellent reminder that the industry is so much bigger than Amazon and the Big 5, and if we prioritize making progress among the willing, we can disrupt the industry for the better — from within.
Is the Publishing Innovation Forum an event the industry really needs?
Unfortunately, DBW is long gone, and nothing's really come along since to fill the gap. Is the Publishing Innovation Forum an event the industry needs right now? I think so.
Catch-22: Thoughts on “AI” in Marketing and Inevitability
One of the biggest reasons "AI" is gaining traction in marketing circles so quickly is most marketing is actually pretty bad already. Sorry, not sorry.