Consider this quote from a high-ranking book publisher who should know better, “We must do everything in our power to uphold the value of our content against the downward pressures exerted by the marketplace and the perception that ‘digital’ means ‘cheap.’ …”
Hello?
You don’t have the power. Maybe if every person who has ever published a book or is ever considering publishing a book got together and made a pact, then they’d have enough power to fight the market. But solo? Exhort all you want, it’s not going to do anything but make you hoarse.
Movie execs thought they had the power to fight TV. Record execs thought they had the power to fight iTunes. Magazine execs thought they had the power to fight the web. Newspaper execs thought they had the power to fight Craigslist.
Here’s a way to think about it, inspired by Merlin Mann: Imagine that next year your company is going to make 10 million dollars instead of a hundred million dollars in profit. What would you do knowing that your profits were going to be far less than they are today? Because that’s exactly what the upstart with nothing to lose is going to do. Ten million in profit is a lot to someone starting with zero and trying to gain share. They don’t care that you made a hundred million last year from the old model.
If I’m an upstart publisher or a little-known author, you can bet I’m happy to sell my work at $5 and earn seventy cents a copy if I can sell a million.
Smart businesspeople focus on the things they have the power to change, not whining about the things they don’t.
Existing publishers have the power to change the form of what they do, increase the value, increase the speed, segment the audience, create communities, lead tribes, generate breakthroughs that make us gasp. They don’t have the power to demand that we pay more for the same stuff that others will sell for much less.
And if you think this is a post about the publishing business, I hope you’ll re-read it and think about how digital will change your industry too.
Competition and the market are like water. They go where they want.
Via Seth Godin
Category: general
I can no more understand the totality of God than the pancake I made for breakfast understands the complexity of me
The 7 Components Of Design
(via vanseodesign)
dear tumblr
i really, really need to quit you… you’re interrupting my work…
palinoia
wordjournal: noun • (pal-ih-NOI-uh) • compulsive repetition of an act until it is perfect
brocatus: Mike gives a very good example here. mikearauz: We’ve trained ourselves to recognize videos, images, and messages that will be most appropriate for spreading, repeating, and remixing. The concepts of “viral” and “memes,” i.e. things that spread on their own without human control or volition, are dead (Read Henry Jenkins and co. if you don’t believe me). And with each new Susan Boyle we discover, the creation of overnight internet celebrities becomes an even more deliberate and conscious act.
“Moral #1: “If you work hard, stay focused, and never give up, you will eventually get what you want in life.”
Moral #2: Sometimes the things we want most in life are the things that will kill us. “
Donald Miller
Moral #1: “If you work hard, stay focused, and never give up, you will eventually get what you want in life.”
Moral #2: Sometimes the things we want most in life are the things that will kill us.
Writing is a form of therapy. Sometimes I wonder how all those who do not write, compose or paint can manage to escape the madness, the melancholia, the panic fear which is inherent in the human situation.
Graham Greene.
(via kari-shma) (via quote-book) (via cassket) (via lottieeeee) (via oneay) (via ilovereadingandwriting)
A good book should leave you… slightly exhausted at the end. You live several lives while reading it.
~William Styron, interview, Writers at Work, 1958 (via ilovereadingandwriting)
somedays i miss smoking. then i walk to starbucks, order a coffee & enjoy that burnt java taste. reminds me of unfiltered camel cigarettes.
“USA Today leads with new Census data showing immigrants who’ve arrived in the Aughties have come with slightly more education than in previous decades. (From Eric Umansky’s article “Oui Are Family” in Slate Magazine 2/22/05).” (via)
I am something of a recluse by nature. I am that cordless screwdriver that has to charge for twenty hours to earn ten minutes use. I need that much downtime.
Taking requests
For those who are familiar with my work, is there a poem I wrote that you would like me to read at Friday’s poetry reading at Malaprop’s? Email me at coffeehousejunkie@gmail.com to make a request and I’ll dedicate the poem(s) to you during the reading: http://www.malaprops.com/NASApp/store/IndexJsp?s=storeevents&eventId=433391
putting together my reading set list for Friday’s reading: http://ping.fm/BXSD4
a dying part of the graphic arts
so, i work at a company that makes videos. that means lots of props. since it’s much easier to just make something like a giant fake ticket with custom text than edit/composite it in later, there’s lots of fun stuff to be made.
in the world of digital art/graphic-making, this is totally dying. why make something to photograph when you can just composite the image from assets on the screen?
because it never. looks. as. good. (seriously!)
examples that will always fail: why hand draw type when you can just pick a handwriting font? why write on a box when i can just draw on the box with my tablet? why take a certain photograph when i can just digitally change his/her hair color and possibly move that arm over somewhere else…
answers: because the handwritten effect is lost when every duplicate letter looks exactly the same. because it will always look like you just drew on a box with your tablet and skewed it (and no layer blending property can achieve the correct texture). because the photo will always be just slightly off.
so, if you want to make some text out of yarn or whatever. don’t go looking for a photoshop brush, just friggin’ do it. on your desk, on a big white piece of paper. your results will thank you.
Cool
- Taking party photos and printing them for your friends instead of blogging them.
- Reading cookbooks like novels and not necessarily cooking the recipes.
- Introducing two real life friends you know will love each other.
- If you see a solo tourist trying to take their own photo in front of a landmark, stopping and taking it for them.
Fool
- Flashmobs put on by commercial enterprises or organisations.
- Stories about Twitter in newspapers.
- People who say “I’m sorry I haven’t posted on Twitter/my blog for so long I’ve been soooo busy.”
- Marketing and online strategy blogs that are completely removed from the real people who make up the internet.
…knowledge workers believe they are paid to be effective, not to work 9 to 5.
Eric Schmidt (via azspot)
Coffeehouse Junkie Podcast – Episode 014
This episode features an essay titled “The Hunger.” Listen to episode 14 here: http://ping.fm/GnC9W
join me on Jan. 22, Fri., 7pm, i’ll read new & selected poems: http://ping.fm/YQ1GD
five or so years ago i would post something on my blog almost every day. now i type 400 or so words almost every day & then delete them…
People magazine is pretty sure that Conan O’Brian’s last day as host of the ‘Tonight Show’ will be January 22.
just returned from a very production meeting @starbucks & now processing notes gtd style
Coffeehouse Junkie 