Category: books

Wanna be a groupie?

This fits/agrees with the post about audio quality of MP3 files.

From Seth Godin:

The thing is, when you dumb stuff down, you know what you get?

Dumb customers.

And (I’m generalizing here) dumb customers don’t spend as much, don’t talk as much, don’t blog as much, don’t vote as much and don’t evangelize as much. In other words, they’re the worst ones to end up with.

Link.

You want quality customers/fans/groupies, give them quality schtuff. For example, the books I design are carefully crafted. A book is a book is a book, you may say. But in this info age, a book needs to be packaged as a souvenir in much the same way an album is packaged as a CD. Why is this important? Regarding the books I design, they are lifestyle objects. When people buy a copy of one of the books I design I want them to emotionally and intellectually connect with the book as one might connect with a new friend. My desire is that these book buyers invite/introduce other people to the experience. This translates to quality customers/fans/groupies.

Writers at Home Series

Yesterday afternoon I attended a Writers at Home Series which featured Marc Fitten, editor, of the The Chattahoochee Review at Malaprop’s Bookstore/Café.

Most of the audience in the cafe consisted of poets and writers seeking information from a benevolent editor who accepts or rejects submissions to a literary publication at his good pleasure. Sadly, most the questions were predictable. Any writer who desires to be published in a literary journal and asks questions like, “Should I call the editor to check on the status of a submission?” obviously has not done enough research in the field. Other fatuous questions include:
“What are you looking for in a manuscript?”
“What turns you off when reading a short story or essay?”

Puerile questions about writers wanting… no… lusting to be published almost drove me from the Café. You might as well tell the editor: “Sleep with me… I’ll bear your children… I’ll do anything… just publish my short fiction for the love of God.”

I sighed, doodled in my notebook and then the gracious Director of the Great Smokies Writing Program asked Marc Fitten to describe the life a manuscript once it makes it to the literary journal’s mail box. I listened.

I listened because Marc Fitten opened my eyes to the possibility that an editor of a literary journal might have a very rewarding job. The dream of all poets and writers is to get published, but another take on that dream is to publish a poet or writer of significance.

After the presentation, I told Marc I was almost persuaded to abandon writing and pursue publishing. With amiable fashion he smiled and said, “Yeah, it’s great.”