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An arm with a tattoo: "I was made for the library, not the classroom."

Twitter Tips for Writers

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.

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An arm with a tattoo: "I was made for the library, not the classroom."

Is Print Advertising Dead?

Vintage Baby Ruth Ad by dklimke
Vintage Baby Ruth Ad by dklimke

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.

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An arm with a tattoo: "I was made for the library, not the classroom."

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?

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An arm with a tattoo: "I was made for the library, not the classroom."

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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An arm with a tattoo: "I was made for the library, not the classroom."

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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An arm with a tattoo: "I was made for the library, not the classroom."

Poetry: Where Your Vote Really Counts

Tired of the never-ending Democratic Primary and annoyed that, in the end, your vote might not really count anyway if the Super Delegates opt to nominate the candidate not in the lead when all is said and done? As in many other aspects of life, poetry offers a much-needed alternative. Blogsboro.com is running an election for the Poet Laureate of the Blogosphere and Tony Brown, a good friend and worthy candidate, is currently leading the race by a narrow margin over someone named Rob McClennan whom, in the spirit of Presidential elections, I know nothing about and won't bother to…

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An arm with a tattoo: "I was made for the library, not the classroom."

The Problem With John McCain

I said elsewhere recently that I thought John McCain would be the least likely Republican candidate to make a Freudian slip and drop a racial epithet if running against Barack Obama. I’d forgotten about his reference to “gooks” during the 2000 presidential primaries, though. And then, during last night’s Republican debate on Fox — one of the most depressing things I’ve watched in years, BTW — he dropped this beauty and I realized exactly how important this year’s election is: 

“I’m not interested in trading with al-Qaeda. All they want to trade is burqas. I don’t want to travel with them. They like one-way tickets.”

Generally speaking, I had considered McCain the most palatable of the Republican field despite his aggressive stance on the war, but this kind of casually racist — and clearly pre-scripted — comment, presumably okay because it’s in reference to an enemy — his justification for the “gook” comment, too — brings to mind Stephen King’s Dead Zone, visions of his crazy ass starting World War III being even clearer than those I’ve had of Dubya. (Fred Thompson has a noticeably itchy trigger finger, too, and is looking more like a potential VP choice for McCain, which is scary as hell.)

I watched about 30 minutes of the debate before I couldn’t take it anymore and came away with a better understanding of the appeal of Mike Huckabee and Ron Paul, who at least come off as sincere representatives of their respective platforms, even though the latter seems easily distracted from the point he’s making at any given moment. Paul was the recipient of some unwarranted contempt and derision from both the moderator, the insufferable Britt Hume, as well as several of his fellow candidates, and while he has no real shot at winning the nomination, with the impressive financial support he’s received, I can see him launching a 3rd party candidacy that siphons some votes from the Republicans and possibly even some of the ill-informed progressives who blindly backed Howard Dean in 2004.

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