Personal Archives | Page 16 of 120

Generalization Fail

Post author:Guy LeCharles Gonzalez
Post published:February 3, 2010
Post category:Media Personal
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When you’re ranting about the evils of “Big Publishing”, it helps to remember that for every My Life Outside the Ring, there’s also Boneshaker, and The Poetry of Pablo Neruda, and the entire First Second catalog! All of those happen to fall under the Macmillan umbrella. I’m not saying publishing isn’t all screwed up right now, because it damn sure is, but it’s also full of people who really do give a shit about good books and I know and work with a lot of them. We may not be running the companies from the top, but we’re sure as…

Shout-Outs: Lanier, Wendig and the Robots

Post author:Guy LeCharles Gonzalez
Post published:January 24, 2010
Post category:Media Personal
Post comments:6 Comments

"The combination of hive mind and advertising has resulted in a new kind of social contract. The basic idea of this contract is that authors, journalists, musicians, and artists are encouraged to treat the fruits of their intellects and imaginations as fragments to be given without pay to the hive mind. Reciprocity takes the form of self-promotion. Culture is to become precisely nothing but advertising." Jaron Lanier, You Are Not a Gadget I'm knee-deep in final preparations for Digital Book World next week (look for the new website to relaunch by Tuesday, built by me!), but I wanted to give…

It’s Hard Out Here for a Pragmatic Optimist

Post author:Guy LeCharles Gonzalez
Post published:January 7, 2010
Post category:Media Personal
Post comments:3 Comments

“Publishing was never a business based on Wharton standards. It was a rich boy’s hobby.”

–Steve Wasserman (Kneerim & Williams)

Working in publishing isn’t for the meek. Neither is writing for that matter. They’re two things I’m really passionate about, though, and I’ve always counted myself lucky to work in the publishing industry, despite the ever-present danger of familiarity breeding contempt.

Over the past couple of years, though, it’s been particularly tough; like playing on a solid defense for a football team that has a terrible offense, constantly watching the QB get sacked, the RB get stuffed, WRs getting manhandled… and running on fumes by the 4th quarter as a result.

I consider myself a pragmatic idealist with an optimistic lean, but when you see colleagues and friends losing their jobs due to reasons beyond their control and underlying problems they didn’t create, it can be tough to feel good about the good things you’re involved in.

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New Year’s Publishing Predictions, Resolutions

Post author:Guy LeCharles Gonzalez
Post published:December 21, 2009
Post category:Media Personal
Post comments:8 Comments

I’m not usually one for making predictions — the only thing I hate more than gurus and pundits are self-proclaimed futurists! — but I couldn’t pass up offering my two cents to Folio: for their 2010 round-up of magazine and media predictions:

Consolidation and debt restructuring will continue apace. More niche brands will focus on ‘communitizing’, with magazines becoming part of a larger ecosystem that will include virtual events and books, both print and electronic. Advertising will finally stabilize, but “growth” will mainly come from search and custom initiatives, including some ill-conceived “conversational marketing” programs that imagine Twitter as a viable hub. Digital magazines and mobile apps will be a bust for all but a few brands as the ROI fails to materialize. The Apple Tablet will be more horse than unicorn, becoming a major player in portable gaming but with minimal impact on publishing.

New Year’s resolutions have never been my thing, either, but in light of all of the negativity and DOOM! surrounding the “future of publishing”, I thought it would be fun to make a few public resolutions, if for no other reason than to see which ones I can stick with, and how long before I break the others.

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My Next Tattoo?

Post author:Guy LeCharles Gonzalez
Post published:November 18, 2009
Post category:Personal
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The 100 Greatest Movie Characters | Empire | 79. Boba Fett “Before his back story was rewritten, Boba Fett was the coolest thing in the Star Wars universe that wasn’t played by Harrison Ford.” I’ve been trying to decide what my next tattoo would be for about 3-4 years, and have wavered between text and image. I recently saw a very cool tattoo of Boba Fett, my favorite character in Star Wars, and easily one of my Top 10 favorite characters ever. Pop culture tattoos can be really corny, though; plus, the one I saw was likely no less than…

Bury Me in the Leaning Rest (for Veteran’s Day)

Post author:Guy LeCharles Gonzalez
Post published:November 11, 2009
Post category:Personal
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Bury Me in the Leaning Rest C-130 rollin’ down the strip Airborne Daddy gonna take a little trip Mission Top Secret Destination Unknown He don’t know if he’s ever coming home… An old Army buddy emailed me out of the blue a while back. Found me on the Internet amongst too many "friends" I barely knew and wouldn't take a bullet for. Fills me in on the guys we used to run with, some in, some out, some completely off the grid. He puts me in touch with one whose name rings a bell --out now, married with kids-- and…

My To-Read Pile is Growing

Post author:Guy LeCharles Gonzalez
Post published:November 6, 2009
Post category:Personal
Post comments:0 Comments

Something old, something new, something recommended, and something downloaded for free that will likely never be read... Year of the Gun by Giff Cheshire Day of the Guns by Mickey Spillaine Stormbringer by Michael Moorcock Thriving on Chaos by Tom Peters Trail of Feathers by Tahir Shah Spaceman Blues by Brian Francis Slattery South by South Bronx by Abraham Rodriguez Boneshaker by Cherie Priest Funny Papers by Tom de Haven Everything is Every Thing: Poems by Cristin O'Keefe Aptowicz Dialect of a Skirt by Erica Miriam Fabri Kokopelli: The Magic, Myth, and Mischief of Ancient Symbols by Dennis Slifer Technology…