Media

Commentary on various aspects of publishing and marketing, primarily focused on books, magazines, and social media.

Read more about the article Building and Curating Your Community, Part I

Building and Curating Your Community, Part I

Solitary Drinker in the Revolution Lounge by Bill Gracey
Solitary Drinker in the Revolution Lounge by Bill Gracey

With all of the negative news of late about the collapse of the publishing industry and the “death of print”, combined with the report that Captain America, Chesley Sullenberger, “scored a $3.2 million two-book deal with HarperCollins’ William Morrow imprint” for a memoir and a book of inspirational poetry, one might understandably think that jumping into the publishing game right now would be like investing in Ruth Alpern’s new hedge fund based on the advice of Jim Cramer, no?

Actually, no; not at all.

While the major publishing houses continue their suicidal death spiral, and being a mid-list author or aspiring newbie at one of them is less appealing than it’s ever been, this is arguably the proverbial moment of opportunity in a time of crisis for indie authors and publishers.

As I’ve noted previously, self-publishing is becoming an increasingly viable option for non-fiction writers and poets, as well as for ambitious genre fiction writers who understand that, no matter who their publisher is, they’re going to have to bust their ass to market their book and hand-sell it to as many people as possible, one copy at a time, in person and online. These savvy authors know that they have to build a platform for themselves over time — something almost every major publisher requires these days — and know how to use it, attracting a loyal tribe and continually nurturing it.

This exact same opportunity exists for indie publishers who can identify an under-served genre or topic of interest, carve themselves a niche and build a platform around it, and produce quality content that attracts a following that they can then nurture into a passionate community, or tribe.

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Read more about the article Your Entitlement Slip is Showing

Your Entitlement Slip is Showing

Stop Whining by ChrisB in SEA

Among the most tiresome memes dominating the publishing world right now — memes that I’ve admittedly contributed to at times — the worst are the self-righteous rants about self-publishing, Amazon, and the long-rumored death of print.

There are the writers who think their publishers should be doing more for them while smugly looking down their noses at the writers willing to do it all for themselves; and the passionate-to-a-fault DIYers who feel the need to answer every single ill-considered critique with defensive point-by-point rebuttals.

There’s the indie publishers and bookstores who complain about Amazon’s success while having no real online presence of their own to speak of, nor the good sense to leverage their respective strengths and develop their own niche communities around the two things Amazon will never be able to compete with: content and relationships.

And, of course, there’s the much belabored death of print, an arguably self-inflicted wound that’s far from lethal, unless whining and navel-gazing continue to be the priority.

Blame it on the state of the economy and the debatable bailouts of mismanaged, seemingly undeserving companies and/or homeowners, but underneath it all there is an overwhelming sense of entitlement, a belief that someone — publishers, writers, readers, the Internet itself — owes them something and their current plight is someone else’s fault.

My short response: STFU and GBTW.

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Read more about the article On Twitter: Always Add Value

On Twitter: Always Add Value

My flock of Twittersheep

I find it hard to believe that as recently as six months ago, I was dismissing Twitter as a pointless ripoff of Facebook’s status update, without any of the extras that make Facebook a “real” social network. From what I’d seen, it lived up to its negative reputation of mindless updates about eating lunch, waiting in traffic and unimaginative opinions on the pop culture distraction of the moment.

(Note: I’ve certainly been guilty of the latter, though in relative moderation; I vow to NEVER live-tweet a whole episode of American Idol!)

When I decided to start using Twitter for more than updating my Facebook status, and began to actively seek out quality tweeters in the publishing and media world to follow, I had a revelation.

The image above is from Twittersheep, “a word cloud generated from the bios” of the 200+ people currently following me on Twitter. The emphasis on “writer”, “media”, “book” and “marketing” tells me that I’ve tapped into the niche I was looking for and am, theoretically, adding value to that niche as the majority of my own tweets match up with those keywords. In fact, the number of people following me spiked dramatically a few weeks back during the Tools of Change conference, largely as a result of my following along on Twitter and adding my two cents to the conversation.

I’ll often throw in a little something about politics (check out @nprpolitics), pop culture (@Latinoreview), sports (@matthewcerrone), or how much I want to stab someone on any given day, but I expect the same additional personal spice from those I follow, too, as long as their primary focus remains on publishing, or in some cases, my peripheral interests.

Twitter is not for everyone, but I find the precision required to get your point across in only 140 characters without resorting to “text speak” a particularly inspiring endeavor that’s useful in many other forms of communication, from email to poetry. I’m actually rather surprised at the number of poets I know who dismiss it, especially slam poets, instead of rising to the challenge and turning it into a new creative form.

Beyond poetry, though, there are niches were it is an invaluable social networking tool, a perfect complement to blogging, an in-the-moment StumbleUpon, and absolutely nothing like Facebook or LinkedIn.

Publishing is definitely one such niche.

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Read more about the article Peter Shankman on the Future of Social Media

Peter Shankman on the Future of Social Media

When my CEO sent me a friend request on Facebook last year, I had to rethink how I was using the site.

When Facebook changed its Terms of Service earlier this month, before quickly backtracking in the face of a growing uproar, I started to rethink my approach to social media overall.

Last night, I had the pleasure of attending a presentation/Q&A with social networking guru Peter Shankman — who suffers from a self-described extreme case of ADOS (Attention Defici- Oh, Shiny!) and an abundance of eccentric charisma (one of his many claims to fame is as the original creator of the “It Sank. Get Over It!” t-shirts) — and while it was targeted to PR professionals and focused on his terrific Help a Reporter Out initiative, there were a lot of general marketing-related takeaways that I found interesting.

I wish I had taken notes, or live-Tweeted some of his comments, but I was so engaged in the moment that I didn’t want to be distracted by trying to share it with others!

PR is the most effective form of marketing and, these days, we’re all marketers at some level, no matter what our actual job title is or income bracket we’re in. We’re all influencers, and while our respective tribes might be small, through social networking we have exponentially more individual power than ever before. It’s something publishers are slowly realizing, though some might argue, much too late.

Shankman spoke a lot about Twitter, but went beyond the usual hype of it being the platform du jour, offering some excellent tips on communicating effectively that were just as applicable to email, telephone and in-person communication. We’re bombarded with an average of 17,000 separate demands on our attention every day — from family and co-workers to email to “don’t walk” signs —  so getting to the point quickly is crucial.

On Twitter (he’s @skydiver), brevity also happens to be a requirement: 140 characters to get your point across; always add value to the stream.

ie: don’t just Tweet “I’m eating yogurt.” Instead, Tweet “Pinkberry has 50% off coupons all day, today only.”

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Read more about the article Three Tips for Curating the Community #TOC

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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Read more about the article Rise of the Publetariat

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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