Please use this site as a hub to find my latest writings. My work always originates at other venues. Click here for a simple, partial list of the most recent work, since April 2013. Any picture will link you to an article, as well. Enjoy, and thanks for reading!

By Porter Anderson | @Porter_Anderson
Writing on the Ether: #DBW14 – The Biz of Books
[su_dropcap size=”4″]A[/su_dropcap]t some point during each year’s Digital Book World Conference & Expo (DBW), every one of us is probably tempted to stand up and ask the room, “Yes, but has anybody read a good book lately?”
Ironically, there may be more than 1,000 attendees there who, in fact, have read a good book lately. Maybe a whole lot of good books. Maybe a few not-so-good ones, too.
But that isn’t what’s on the table at DBW. And even as many in the author corps are beginning to wonder if we’ve let the digital disruption focus too much writerly attention on business matters—here’s agent Rachelle Gardner’s quick comment on last week’s Ether—the annual Digital Book World conclave is a moment for exactly such a concentration.
That’s hardly because DBW is doing anything wrong. DBW’s business is the business. That’s its mandate. This is where the industry! the industry! gets together to be just that! just that!
And DBW’s producers at F+W Media may take the mission even more seriously than usual next week: this DBW takes place in a winter without a Tools of Change (TOC) conference from O’Reilly Media.
The two great US industry ice-time events (preceding the late spring’s BookExpo America trade show and conferences) had become perceived as rivals, although they were quite different in their tones and approaches to the impact and potential of the digital dynamic in publishing.
As DBW has moved to capitalize on its survivor status since O’Reilly Media closed TOC, one of the first headliners announced was Tim O’Reilly, himself, who’ll be onstage on Tuesday morning (10:40 a.m. ET) with a presentation titled “The Real Book Revolution is Just Beginning.”
And if you haven’t followed along in the past as one or both of these large gatherings sat down in Midtown Manhattan, I recommend you keep an eye on this one.
- If you can be with us at the Sheraton New York Hotel & Towers, there are still seats to be had, but move very quickly. My code PORTER14 will save you 5 percent on a full registration or the Total Access ticket. For a catering headcount at the Digital Book Awardsevening presentation on January 14, you should make that ticket’s buy today, Thursday, as this Ether moves.
- If you’re not able to be on site, I suggest you set up a stream on the Twitter dashboard you like best for hashtag #DBW14. At this writing, more than 1,300 tweets already have been logged on the hashtag.
- My own live coverage begins at 9 a.m. ET on Monday (that’s 2 p.m. GMT, 3 p.m. CET, and 6 a.m. Pacific)—I’m about to give you a quick overview of some of the high points.
For the socially mediated: Be sure to watch the widest array of tweets hashing #DBW14 you can: there are things to be learned, especially in who tweets and who doesn’t. Many publishing executives still don’t have active Twitter accounts, despite the now-accepted understanding that direct communication with the readership is a new fact of digital life.
There are times at the conference when executives onstage will be busily discussed in real time by the DBW attendees—and by the vast publishing tweeterie in many countries—and those executives, themselves, will not be aware of the debate raging around and about them. Think about that.
Read the full post: JaneFriedman.com
Start Writing With Q2 Music (now)
Any questions? Tweet me at @Porter_Anderson. My colleague Roz Morris, a Q2-savvy writer and author of My Memories of a Future Life, has a weekly essay on music from a working author: Undercover Soundtrack.

There’s a picturesque loneliness that invades the mind when enough negative focus converges, as in the opening of Samuel Barber’s Medea’s Meditation and Dance of Vengeance. Caleb Burhans’ initial concentration on a few phrases is overtaken by a walking bass under an ironic theme.
Here is a list of my most recent writings, newest at the top.
Click on the bold headline in the center of a listing to jump to the story.
WRITING ON THE ETHER | #DBW14 The Biz of Books | JANEFRIEDMAN.COM
#ETHERISSUE | Book Prices | PUBLISHING PERSPECTIVES
WRITING ON THE ETHER | New Year’s Restitutions | JANEFRIEDMAN.COM
#PORTERMEETS | Kate Wilson | THE BOOKSELLER, LONDON
WRITING ON THE ETHER | Men Read Fiction | JANEFRIEDMAN.COM
#ETHERISSUE | Counting eBooks | PUBLISHING PERSPECTIVES
WRITING ON THE ETHER | The Wise Women | JANEFRIEDMAN.COM
#ETHERISSUE | eBooks’ “Flattening?” | PUBLISHING PERSPECTIVES
#PORTERMEETS | Author Hugh Howey | THE BOOKSELLER, LONDON
WRITING ON THE ETHER | Author Surveys | JANEFRIEDMAN.COM
#ETHERISSUE | Lists of Books…and Biases? | PUBLISHING PERSPECTIVES
#PORTERMEETS | Michael Tamblyn, Kobo | THE BOOKSELLER, LONDON
WRITING ON THE ETHER | Defensive Reading | JANEFRIEDMAN.COM
ETHER FOR AUTHORS | Amazon’s Disruption | PUBLISHING PERSPECTIVES
#PORTERMEETS | Dominique Raccah | THE BOOKSELLER, LONDON
WRITING ON THE ETHER | Kobo’s Feast of Burden | JANEFRIEDMAN.COM
FUTUREBOOK 2013 | Big Ideas | PUBLISHING PERSPECTIVES
ETHER FOR AUTHORS | Overstatement | PUBLISHING PERSPECTIVES
#PORTERMEETS | Dan Kieran, Unbound | THE BOOKSELLER, LONDON
WRITING ON THE ETHER | Self-Publishing & Literature | JANEFRIEDMAN.COM
ETHER FOR AUTHORS | Startups and Collaboration | PUBLISHING PERSPECTIVES
WRITER UNBOXED | Writer Dads | PROVOCATIONS IN PUBLISHING
WRITING ON THE ETHER | Charleston’s PubSmart | JANEFRIEDMAN.COM
ETHER FOR AUTHORS | Making ‘You Crime’ Pay | PUBLISHING PERSPECTIVES
WRITING ON THE ETHER | The Buffet Readers | JANEFRIEDMAN.COM
THE FUTUREBOOK | Twitter Interview with Peter Hudson of BitLit
ETHER FOR AUTHORS | Making ‘You Crime’ Pay | PUBLISHING PERSPECTIVES
BOOKS IN BROWSERS | Architecture of Collaboration | PUBLISHING PERSPECTIVES
WRITING ON THE ETHER | Haunting of NaNoWriMo | JANEFRIEDMAN.COM
ETHER FOR AUTHORS | Amazon in Retreat? | PUBLISHING PERSPECTIVES
WRITING ON THE ETHER | Toward ‘More Webby’ Books | JANEFRIEDMAN.COM
ETHER FOR AUTHORS | Publishing’s Jetpack | PUBLISHING PERSPECTIVES
WRITER UNBOXED | Spider and Fly | PROVOCATIONS IN PUBLISHING
FRANKFURT | Enthrill at the Trade Show | PUBLISHING PERSPECTIVES
FRANKFURT | A Truce for Publishing? | PUBLISHING PERSPECTIVES
FRANKFURT | Japan’s Discover 21 | PUBLISHING PERSPECTIVES
FRANKFURT | Beyond the Book | PUBLISHING PERSPECTIVES
FRANKFURT | FutureBook’s Innovation Awards | PUBLISHING PERSPECTIVES
FRANKFURT | Turning Corners | JANEFRIEDMAN.COM
FRANKFURT | At CONTEC: Questions | PUBLISHING PERSPECTIVES
WRITING ON THE ETHER | Publishers and Self-Publishers | JANEFRIEDMAN.COM
FRANKFURT’S CONTEC 2013 | Self-Publishing’s Impact | PUBLISHING PERSPECTIVES
WRITING ON THE ETHER | Contrarians Among Us | JANEFRIEDMAN.COM
ETHER FOR AUTHORS | Everybody’s a Critic | PUBLISHING PERSPECTIVES
WRITER UNBOXED | Rafa’s “Inflexible Routines” | PROVOCATIONS IN PUBLISHING
WRITING ON THE ETHER | What’s Wrong With Franzen? | JANEFRIEDMAN.COM
INTERVIEW | Is It Now All a “Data Game?” | PUBLISHING PERSPECTIVES
ETHER FOR AUTHORS | Booker Man Prize Debate | PUBLISHING PERSPECTIVES
WRITING ON THE ETHER | Do We Even Like Bundling? | JANEFRIEDMAN.COM
ETHER FOR AUTHORS | eBooks on the Half Shell | PUBLISHING PERSPECTIVES
INTERVIEW | It’s Good To Be Hugh Howey | PUBLISHING PERSPECTIVES
SIDEBAR | Howey’s Tips for Authors | PUBLISHING PERSPECTIVES
WRITING ON THE ETHER | Writerly Advice | JANEFRIEDMAN.COM
ETHER FOR AUTHORS | Dust-Up Over Kobo | PUBLISHING PERSPECTIVES
WRITING ON THE ETHER | Social Reading | JANEFRIEDMAN.COM
ETHER FOR AUTHORS | Dog Days of Disruption | PUBLISHING PERSPECTIVES
WRITING ON THE ETHER | Bad Things at Good Sites | JANEFRIEDMAN.COM
ETHER FOR AUTHORS | Save the Libraries | PUBLISHING PERSPECTIVES
WRITER UNBOXED | “Loneliness” of Writing | PROVOCATIONS IN PUBLISHING
WRITING ON THE ETHER | “Adjacent Fans” | JANEFRIEDMAN.COM
ETHER FOR AUTHORS | Our View of Publishing | PUBLISHING PERSPECTIVES
WRITING ON THE ETHER | No Black Hats | JANEFRIEDMAN.COM
ETHER FOR AUTHORS | More Gatekeepers? | PUBLISHING PERSPECTIVES
WRITING ON THE ETHER | Counting in the Dark | JANEFRIEDMAN.COM
ETHER FOR AUTHORS | Bashing Amazon | PUBLISHING PERSPECTIVES
WRITER UNBOXED | Nothing of Your Work | PROVOCATIONS IN PUBLISHING
WRITING ON THE ETHER | Trying To Count Our eBooks | JANEFRIEDMAN.COM
ETHER FOR AUTHORS | Author Solutions Tightrope | PUBLISHING PERSPECTIVES
SPECIAL COVERAGE | Book Country’s New Territory | PUBLISHING PERSPECTIVES
WRITING ON THE ETHER | Publishing’s Cuckoo Star System | JANEFRIEDMAN.COM
SPECIAL COVERAGE | MIX Making Day: Bath Spa Uni | PUBLISHING PERSPECTIVES
SPECIAL COVERAGE | Saying ‘Hi’ & MIX-ing It Up | PUBLISHING PERSPECTIVES
SPECIAL COVERAGE | Agents’ View: A Case Study | PUBLISHING PERSPECTIVES
SPECIAL COVERAGE | A Rogue By Any Other Name | PUBLISHING PERSPECTIVES
SPECIAL COVERAGE | Ro Cuzon of Rogue Reader | PUBLISHING PERSPECTIVES
SPECIAL COVERAGE | Agent-Author Relationships | PUBLISHING PERSPECTIVES
SPECIAL COVERAGE | Ether: Nelson Signs Freethy | PUBLISHING PERSPECTIVES
SPECIAL COVERAGE | London’s Agent-Publishers | PUBLISHING PERSPECTIVES
SPECIAL COVERAGE | Agent-Assisted Publishing | PUBLISHING PERSPECTIVES
SPECIAL COVERAGE | A “Literary Change Agent” | PUBLISHING PERSPECTIVES
WRITING ON THE ETHER | Literary Fiction and Digital | JANEFRIEDMAN.COM
ETHER FOR AUTHORS | Algorithmic Alchemy | PUBLISHING PERSPECTIVES
WRITING ON THE ETHER | Should You Link to Amazon? | JANEFRIEDMAN.COM
ETHER FOR AUTHORS | Which Way for B&N? | PUBLISHING PERSPECTIVES
WRITING ON THE ETHER | Let’s Review Criticism | JANEFRIEDMAN.COM
ETHER FOR AUTHORS | Silence of the Grands | PUBLISHING PERSPECTIVES
WRITER UNBOXED | Jumping the Shark | PROVOCATIONS IN PUBLISHING
WRITING ON THE ETHER | While You Were Bashing Amazon | JANEFRIEDMAN.COM
ETHER FOR AUTHORS | Beta Readers and Impatience | PUBLISHING PERSPECTIVES
WRITING ON THE ETHER | Faster, Authors, Faster! | JANEFRIEDMAN.COM
ETHER FOR AUTHORS | Firefights and the Mission | PUBLISHING PERSPECTIVES
THE FUTUREBOOK | Orna Ross, the Pudding Would Like a Word
WRITING ON THE ETHER | An Amazon Roundtable | JANEFRIEDMAN.COM
ETHER FOR AUTHORS | LBF Beat BEA’s Pants Off | PUBLISHING PERSPECTIVES
WRITING ON THE ETHER | BEA: Malcolm Gladwell Takes Aim | JANEFRIEDMAN.COM
ETHER FOR AUTHORS | BoatExpo America | PUBLISHING PERSPECTIVES
WRITER UNBOXED | Wins Without Losses | PROVOCATIONS IN PUBLISHING
ETHER FOR AUTHORS | United We Divide | PUBLISHING PERSPECTIVES
THE WRITING PLATFORM | Aerial Performance: Other People’s Audiences
ETHER FOR AUTHORS | Author Solutions Lawsuit | PUBLISHING PERSPECTIVES
WRITING ON THE ETHER | Are Your Books’ Covers Sexist? | JANEFRIEDMAN.COM
WRITING ON THE ETHER | Agents at the Coalface | JANEFRIEDMAN.COM
ETHER FOR AUTHORS | Establishment Snipes Back | PUBLISHING PERSPECTIVES
Come into my platform:Said the Online Retailer to the Entrepreneurial Author
And then your book disappears. The cautionary tale of Kobo in the UK when WHSmith didn’t like some ebooks.
Test It: Are your Books’ Covers Sexist?
Author Maureen Johnson takes us to a neighborhood of that ubiquitous, sexist cover smooch — Shirtless Men Kissing Beautiful Women.
Read WRITER UNBOXED
‘Social’ Media: ‘Sharing’ our Narcissism
Food pictures are pretty hard to interpret as anything but Face Down at the Me-Pond. And “In case you missed it?” #Cmonson.
Read WRITER UNBOXED
‘Social’ Media: Your Shadow Career?
Might not an author fall into emphasizing platforming over writing, thus slipping into a “shadow career?”
Read ‘WRITER UNBOXED: ‘Social’ Media: Over the Top
To praise someone’s work on Twitter, try getting beyond “fab,” “great,” “super,” and “must read.” Put your vocabulary into it.
Join me at Rachelle Gardner’s site for Get a Grip on Twitter Handles.
A great way for a platforming author to approach Twitter: as a language.