Media

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

A guillotine, a Sister of Battle, and a scrapbook picture from the 2001 National Poetry Slam.

Goodbye Borders, Hello Kindle?

Things are looking shakier by the day for Borders, with GalleyCat now reporting that a Major Distributor Raises Concerns about their financial situation:

GalleyCat has received a copy of a “special alert” sent from a major book distributor specializing in independent publishers to its clients, warning them that Borders, whose financial difficulties are widely recognized, “now tell us that they will not be paying us for two months due to anticipated excessive returns,” a situation the company views with understandable concern. This distributor “typically carries receivables of approximately two million dollars with Borders,” the memo continues. “A default of that amount would by no means put [us] out of business, but it would be painful, weaken the short-term health of the company, and would mean we would have to defer some of our plans for future growth.”

This on top of Barnes & Noble announcing their expectations for a brutal holiday season and no sign of things getting better any time soon:

The chairman of Barnes & Noble Inc. last week told employees via an internal memo that the nation’s largest bookstore retailer is “bracing for a terrible holiday season,” and that he expects “the trend to continue well into 2009, and perhaps beyond.”

In his memo, Leonard Riggio, the retailer’s largest shareholder, noted that comparable store sales, a key retail indicator, recently declined for the first time in the retailer’s history.

“Never in all of the years I’ve been in business have I seen a worse outlook for the economy,” wrote Mr. Riggio. “And never in all my years as a bookseller have I seen a retail climate as poor as the one we are in. Nothing even close.”

So, if the two biggest brick-and-mortar book retailers in the country are having such a rough time of it, perhaps Amazon.com is picking up the slack and the future of bookselling lies online and the printed book slowly gives way to the Kindle and iPhone?

(more…)

Continue ReadingGoodbye Borders, Hello Kindle?
A guillotine, a Sister of Battle, and a scrapbook picture from the 2001 National Poetry Slam.

Apology Unnecessary

The K Chronicles: Tales From the Campaign Trail
The K Chronicles: Stories From the Campaign Trail

There’s a bit of a tempest in a teapot happening over at Montclair State University thanks to a “controversial” episode of the Keith Knight comic strip, The K Chronicles, that was published last week in the student newspaper, the Montclarion, and included the word “nigger”.

Twice!

Well, kind of…

Seemingly lost on most of those in a tizzy over the strip (reading some of the comments is just one more reason to not take anything for granted before the election results are in and officially certified) is the fact that Knight was simply repeating a story told by a canvasser in Western Pennsylvania, where conventional wisdom has it that people are simply too racist to support Obama, as evidenced partly by Hillary Clinton’s thumping him out there during the primary.

It’s a story that’s been referenced in several places over the past week or so, and Knight’s take on it was simply addressing what has become one of the more fascinating sub-plots of this election as the economy has taken center stage and helped turn John McCain’s ill-conceived selling of his soul campaign into a sputtering hot mess: Racists for Obama.

“I wouldn’t want a mixed marriage for my daughter, but I’m voting for Obama,” the wife of a retired Virginia coal miner, Sharon Fleming, told the Los Angeles Times recently.

One Obama volunteer told Politico after canvassing the working-class white Philadelphia neighborhood of Fishtown recently, “I was blown away by the outright racism, but these folks are … undecided. They would call him a [racial epithet] and mention how they don’t know what to do because of the economy.”

(more…)

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A guillotine, a Sister of Battle, and a scrapbook picture from the 2001 National Poetry Slam.

Why Your Book Will Never Be in Borders

The odds are pretty slim, and not just because they’re on the verge of going out of business:

“I market books for a living, so I can tell you an unpleasant truth: the order for any book, from any account, starts at zero,” [Andrew Wheeler, a marketing manager at Wiley] warns. “The publisher’s sales rep walks in the door with tipsheets and covers, past sales figures and promotional plans, to convince that bookseller’s buyer to buy that book… Sometimes, that buyer is not convinced, and the order stays at zero.”

(h/t GalleyCat)

The distribution system in publishing is arguably broken, partly a result of the industry’s major players’ short-term thinking, and partly because the overwhelming number of books being published these days is more than the system can support.

(Writer’s Digest publishes an aptly titled book: Some Writers Deserve to Starve! Think about it.)

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Continue ReadingWhy Your Book Will Never Be in Borders
A guillotine, a Sister of Battle, and a scrapbook picture from the 2001 National Poetry Slam.

And he has a sense of humor!

[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v5SWQJWm6Tg] "And I got my middle name from somebody who obviously didn't think I'd ever run for President." I just got around to watching Obama's speech at the Al Smith Dinner the other night and it's funny as hell, taking shots at McCain, Clinton, Schumer, Bloomberg, Giuliani, Wall Street and, most importantly, himself, showing a sense of humor that has rarely been on display during the campaign or in the majority of SNL's political skits.

Continue ReadingAnd he has a sense of humor!
A guillotine, a Sister of Battle, and a scrapbook picture from the 2001 National Poetry Slam.

Online vs. Print Reality Check

Buried in a glowing American Journalism Review article about the success of The Politico -- a politics-only news website that launched a couple of years ago and is getting 25 million page views/month -- is the fact that 60% of its revenue comes from its laser-targeted, thrice-weekly 27,000 circ print edition, without which, the site would  "be losing catastrophic amounts of money." THE PLIGHT OF POLITICO -- AND EVERYONE ELSE. The success of Politico actually seems like an incredibly discouraging sign for the media. Here you have this forward-thinking, primarily virtual venture to create a political news organization that marries…

Continue ReadingOnline vs. Print Reality Check
A guillotine, a Sister of Battle, and a scrapbook picture from the 2001 National Poetry Slam.

BroadAcres’ Bustling Business A Boon?

1455 Broad Street
1455 Broad Street

Taxes are pretty much Greek to me, especially property taxes, but as I understand them, a viable commercial tax base is critical for keeping residential property taxes down and is theoretically one of the reasons moving forward on the redevelopment of Bloomfield Center is such a critical issue. (Assuming, of course, that the plan isn’t loaded with the kinds of tax breaks and loopholes that end up costing taxpayers MORE money.) The New Jersey League of Municipalities has a nice primer, A SHORT AND SIMPLE GLIMPSE AT THE PROPERTY TAX IN NEW JERSEY, that is somewhat helpful, leaving me feeling mildly clueless instead of completely dumbfounded.

With taxes on the brain — Bloomfield Life, I think, had a recent article about the township-wide assessment happening this Fall that has me a little nervous — I figure it has to be a good thing to see that Prism Captial Partners is having success luring new tenants to their BroadAcres Office Park in northern Bloomfield, that they paid $52m for in 2006 and are in the process of an extensive renovation and upgrading of its grounds and infrastructure.

Four Leases Signed at BroadAcres

BLOOMFIELD, NJ-Prism Capital Partners has secured 27,000 sf of leases at its BroadAcres Office Park here. Four companies, three current tenants and one new occupant, have committed to space at the 380,000-sf, class A campus…

Kingsbridge Financial Group has relocated its headquarters from Seacaucus to 1455 Broad St., where it will occupy 5,000 sf on a five-year lease. Diversified Cos., Senior Financial Solutions and Kingsbridge were all represented by Prism Capital Partners principal Edwin Cohen, who also represented Prism, the owners of the property…

Rental rates for BroadAcres are listed as $25.50 per sf for 1455 Broad St. and $23.50 per sf for 200 and 300 Broadacres Dr. The property has seen a considerable amount of leasing activity in the past few months.

“We’re encouraged by the activity,” says Cohen. “Brokers are responding well to the improvements they’ve seen throughout the complex.”

(more…)

Continue ReadingBroadAcres’ Bustling Business A Boon?
A guillotine, a Sister of Battle, and a scrapbook picture from the 2001 National Poetry Slam.

Thrillerfest: Buzz Your Book

I was only able to make it to one session at Thrillerfest yesterday, but it was one I had a particular interest in as it focused on book marketing, a huge black hole in the industry as the minuscule budgets publishers set aside for it are invariably dedicated to the can’t miss A-list authors while the mid-list and debut authors receive little if any support at all. And that’s for commercial fiction; it’s even worse for literary fiction and poetry, never mind comic books.

M.J. Rose and Doug Clegg have their “Buzz Your Book” format down cold and after a brief introduction that noted how they both got lucky (translation: opportunity met preparation) with what they did for their own books, they explained that, while their successes aren’t necessarily duplicable, they do offer a fundamental model that any author can follow up on. Instead of prattling on in generalities, or offering examples of ideas that can’t be duplicated, they called on volunteers to pitch their own books and then offered specific ideas for them to market them effectively and interestingly.

Sadly, none of the ideas included traditional advertising in writing magazines!

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