From AdAge:
The nation’s top 100 media companies saw a 4.6% revenue boost in 2007, their slowest growth since the recession year of 2001.
Media’s tempered growth mirrors that of the economy: GDP last year recorded its most tepid growth (2%) since 2002 amid signs the economy was heading into recession.
Media’s biggest winner is no surprise: digital, with revenue up 10.8%. Cable-network growth was close behind, at 10.6%. The biggest loser: newspapers, down 6.8%.
1. E-mail can wait.
2. Saying ‘no’ won’t get you fired.
3. Don’t multitask.
4. Give yourself a break.
5. Don’t eat lunch at your desk.
6. Schedule some “me” time.
Oh, really.
Does one really create ideas? I suspect I know what this writer is attempting to say. However, writing prose is about the story not the idea. Ideas embedded in the story make it great, but the idea itself won’t sell the story. The etymology of the word “idea” is “figure, image, symbol” and “to see.” A great idea is nothing unless it has a narrative substance. Besides, does one create an idea or does one have an idea?
Barrista: So you like spending money on higher education? What, you like got your degree lit… and… now it’s like sweet, I can’t get a job anywhere.
From Print is Dead blog:
…even though I wrote a book called Print is Dead, even I don’t think that publishing is over. Rather, it just needs to change and be willing to embrace new ideas and business models.
Link
sunili:(via theoisjonesing: tightgrip: thenausner)
Awesome! Analogue Sunday can’t come quick enough.
The advanced poetry class in which I am enrolled, began last night. Two of the four predictions I made regarding the class are right (the other two will be determined later):
1. 25 percent of the students are male
2. 16 percent of the students are under the age of 40
The first night of class was an amiable experience and it seems as if several of my classmates know each other from other writing classes. I’m bracing myself for an onslaught of confessional lyric poems about grandchildren or childhood or something along that line. A good gardening poem would be preferable, in my humble opinion.
One of the poetry books I am reviewing collects poems about the decline of the working class in America. It is a fantastic subject and book. Can’t wait to see what the editor thinks of my review. It’s that type of material I want to tackle in poetry; some subject that changes peoples life or at least causes a physical reaction. The editor of Main Street Rag once said that the poems he likes the most are ones that make him react physically; meaning he laughs or cusses or throws the book across the room. A few years ago, I witnessed someone shed a few tears after I read one of my poems. That’s the stuff I want to write (and hopefully publish); the stuff that creates a place for the reader to inhabit. The teacher told the class last night that the word “stanza” is Italian for “room.” If that is the only thing I learn from this class, it will be enough; the composition of inhabitable poems. Maybe that’s why I like today’s featured poem at Writer’s Almanac; I can get into its space.
“Literature in the 21st Century” by Ronald Wallace
Sometimes I wish I drank coffee
or smoked Marlboros, or maybe cigars—
yes, a hand-rolled Havana cigar
//read more
From Publishers Weekly:
“Some products belong in the tail not the head,” Elberse [Anita Elberse, associate professor at Harvard Business School] said.
Link
After scrambling to meet the overwhelming demand for its Sarah Palin biography… indie Epicenter Press has signed an exclusive distribution deal with Tyndale House. Tyndale has gone to press for 250,000 copies of the paperback about the newly minted Republican vice-presidential candidate and will begin shipping the books on September 10. Link
The little indie publisher I work with would love to secure a deal like that with our published authors. Oh, wait… it get’s better. Again from Publishers Weekly (just a few days later):
Tyndale House has ordered a second printing of 100,000 copies for Sarah: How A Hockey Mom Turned the Political Establishment Upside Down… Link
Here’s a dirty little publishing reality; how many of those books that ship to retailers will be returned to the publisher? Somewhere between 28 to 40 percent of books published return to the publisher (98,000 to 140,000 copies to return and recycle.). Unless, of course, you have a Dan Brown or Sarah Palin on your frontlist. But even then, consider the crowded head of publishing a best-seller versus a long tail best-seller like The Hobbit (selling, on average, over 1 million copies annually for more than 70 years). Working for an indie publisher, the hope is that I discover a long tail book that increases in value and enriches the world with beautiful literature and not waste the company’s efforts on immediate sales gratification.
*Further reading on the long tail here, here and here (notice that none of the links are to Wikipedia).
This weekend I picked up a copy of Poets Teaching Poets at Malaprop’s. It is the only required book for the advanced poetry in which I am enrolled. I read the introduction and first few pages of the opening chapter on the bus ride back home. I hope the class is as engaging as this book.
The first class is Tuesday and I have a few predictions about the class:
This sounds a bit cynical, but I’ve taken a few classes like this in recent years and that tends to be the trend. I’ll share the results of these predictions later in the week.
An email from the class teacher arrived this afternoon as instructed all students to bring the following to class this week:
I made a personal goal of trying to write a poem per day for the month September; or at least a sketch a day. Reality is a harsh master. A presentation project I am working on has kept my brain occupied with details regarding photo selection and event branding. I’ve only been able to compose a poem every other day. Normally, this would bring on a fit of frustration and depression, but not this time. Even a small sketch, the second one I composed, reminds me that patience and perseverance is essential and pursuing master of this craft. Here’s the second poem I wrote this month:
Half a pint down
eight minutes to go
half a porter to go
eight minutes ’til I leave
It’s a spare sketch; something in the vein of a hybrid haiku or tanka.
This excercise is to prepare me for an advance poetry class that I am taking. It begins this week.
Google has begun scanning microfilm from some newspapers’ historic archives to make them searchable online, first through Google News and eventually on the papers’ own Web sites…
From Print is Dead:
Google will then serve up scans of newspapers either via Google, or on the site of the originating newspapers, which provides income for Google (in the first example) and/or traffic and visitors (and potentially income from advertising) for the original newspapers (in the second example).
It is true that the arts keep us sane, but a larger bias for this perception is surely the fact that the arts keep us civilised. Once a poem is written, it belongs to the world, and its greatest destiny is its usefulness to the tribe.
I would like to think the purpose of poetry is to teach.
The nice thing about writing reviews of poetry books is the ongoing education I am receiving by reading contemporary poetry.
Often I am mistaken as a student on the bus. Last week an older woman asked me if I was a student at UNCA. I told her no and that I was reading a book to write a review of it. Later that week, a man on the bus asked me if I was in college. Again, I told him no and that I was reading a book (a different book of poems (I read two books last week)) to wrote a review about it. He then began to tell me about a book he read that absolutely amazed him. It was a narrative nonfiction book about Ernest Shackleton’s Antarctic expedition. The conversation was amiable.
I came away thinking that must I look like a student. I suppose there are worse things to look like.
Write Anything (formerly Write Stuff) asks a good question: Why do you do it?
I’ve been asking myself that question a lot recently: Why do I have the desire to compose poems and write prose? A few weeks ago I applied for a writing class–which begins next week–and thought I must be insane. Why should I spend money on an advanced poetry writing class when most readers in America don’t even read poetry. I mean, really, why do I torture myself? Why can’t I have a hobby like a normal American? Something like model trains or comic book collecting or kayaking. But no… I’ve got to do the hard things and hone my craft in the dark art of poetry. I might was well learn to speak Latin or something equally useful. I couldn’t even bring myself to attend the poetry event at Malaprop’s today.
From The Press Association:
Heavy metal fans are gentle, indie music listeners lack self-esteem and lovers of pop music are uncreative, according to research.
The study on the links between personality and music taste has been conducted by a psychology professor over the last three years.
He found that country and western fans are hard-working, rap fans outgoing and jazz and classical music supporters are innovative and bursting with self-confidence.
Contrary to the stereotype, heavy metal fans are gentle and at ease with themselves but they tend not to be hardworking.
Those who listen to heavy metal and classical music share character traits, according to the research, of being creative, at ease and introverted.
But classical music fans have high self-esteem while heavy rock fans lack self-belief.
Time: Friday, September 5, 2008 7:00 p.m.
Location: Malaprop’s Bookstore/Cafe
Title of Event: Jonathon Flaum-A Fable of Leadership
Local author and CEO of WriteMind Communications,Inc., Flaum will read from his new book, How the Red Wolf Found Its Howl: The Internal Journey to Leadership
Time: Sunday, September 7, 2008 3:00 p.m.
Location: Malaprop’s Bookstore/Cafe
Title of Event: Poetrio- 3 Readings by 3 Poets
Join us every first Sunday for Poetrio, poetry readings by three poets. This month’s featured poets are Scott Owens, author of The Fractured World, Beverly Jackson, author of Every Burning Thing, and Pat Riviere-Seel, author of No Turning Back Now (New Women’s Voices Series, No. 30)
Coffeehouse Junkie 