‘The Ride Of Our Repertoire’ “What was that term you used? ‘Screechy?’” John Pickford Richards is laughing at me as he takes a question about how reachy — “not at all screechy, John,” I assure him — some of the music on the JACK Quartet’s new album may be for these artists. As personable a… Read More
Who Has Time For Publishing’s 'Long Tail'?
‘Sales Are Down For Most Authors’ Sales are down for most authors. You don’t see blog posts about it or tweets, but it’s a reality. And the reason is simple: there’s more content out there than ever before. That’s the self-publishing author-turned-publisher Bob Mayer in a blog post at Digital Book World (DBW), The Content… Read More
Innovation’s Momentum: A Digital-Only Publisher In Oz
“I Got Acquired” Over the weekend, an Australian author, Steve P. Vincent, was a guest blogger at Writer Unboxed, one of the best-read daily blog sites around. In his piece, Advice To My Newbie Self , Vincent made some perfectly cogent points familiar to many writers. Among them: After submitting your manuscript, it will take longer than you’d… Read More
Music for Writers: Anna Clyne's Collaborations
“A Shower Of Celestial Delight” London-born composer Anna Clyne talks warmly of her collaboration with visual artist Josh Dorman. After all, “my passion is collaborating,” Clyne has said in the past, “with innovative and risk-taking musicians, filmmakers, visual artists…choreographers.” She talks “fluid artistic dialogue,” “creative environment,” “interaction” when she remarks on her love of working with… Read More
Men And Masculinities: Leveling Up With Michael Kimmel
‘To Engage Men In Gender Equality’ All over the world there are amazing projects to engage men around gender equality. These projects range from HIV-risk reduction, to reproductive health and rights, involved fatherhood, violence against women…these people are doing amazing work, it’s really inspiring. What I know about these projects is this: They don’t know… Read More
Libiro, PODG, And A Flash Of Green
“The Libiro Platform Is Serving A Niche Market” It’s like the fabled “flash of green” said to be spotted at times just as the setting sun slips below the sea’s horizon: you’re never quite sure you’ve glimpsed the “indie-only audience.” You read mildly feverish references to these quicksilver consumers in blog comments, of course. Allusions… Read More
Music For Writers: Caleb Burhans’ Leap Of Faith
Thinner Air “Between 1959 and 1960, Joe Kittinger went to the top of the atmosphere in a helium balloon three times and performed record-breaking sky dives.” So what were you expecting composer Caleb Burhans to talk about? Music? Actually, he is talking about music. His newly released Excelsior is named for Kittinger’s 1960 Project Excelsior. What Burhans has done… Read More
Amazon: ‘The World’s Most Complicated Iceberg’
Depth Charge I think the difficult piece with Amazon is that everyone underestimates what they’ve built. Craig Mod does not underestimate it: If Gutenberg’s printing press was the equivalent of Amazon, you would look at the printing press and you’d go, “Oh, I can probably replicate that, it’s just a couple of dowels and a press… Read More
Paperbacks Are Selling eBooks
Paperbacks Sell eBooks: Surprised? Join us Friday for a #FutureChat on sales data in the books market: With major retailers not sharing their numbers, are we viewing the industry by candlelight? We’ll be live on Twitter at 4 p.m. London time, 11 a.m. New York time, 8 a.m. Los Angeles, 5 p.m. Berlin, 3 p.m.… Read More
Ten Ways To Look At Your Twitter Avatar
It’s Worth A Thousand Tweets The picture in question was sent to me by a publicity officer. She works at a major publishing house. She is a person in that company who is supposed to know exactly how to offer photos to the press. It was a shot of herself — the story carried smart, clever… Read More