Wednesday, February 25, 2009

Ah, Now he's Spoiled


When I was sixteen I moved to southern California to live with my mom and step-dad. My parents divorced when I was very young and Douglas(the step-dad) came into our lives not too long after. To make a long story short, there were custody issues, court battles, and a kidnapping (not as dramatic as it sounds.) Suffice to say sometimes I lived in Kansas and sometimes I lived in California.

Shortly after I arrived in California I went out and looked for a part-time job. I found one the Sporting Goods and Toy Department at Sears. It was a great job, I made both an hourly wage and commission on the sales. Like many people, on my breaks I would go wonder around in the mall.

One day while browsing the aisles of Waldenbooks I found myself in the Self-Help or Psychology section. I came across a book that struck my interest. I was called The Best Little Boy in the World by Andrew Tobias. I looked through it, and then, I stole it.

I stole it because it was a memoir about a young man coming out of the closet. I stole it because I didn't think that the cashier would sell it to a sixteen year old. I stole it because I didn't want anyone to know that I too might be gay.

When I got home I went to my room and read the book. It changed my life. I suppose I had been dealing with my sexuality for most of my life, but Tobias's book revealed a new world to me. I had always understood that I had a physical attraction to males. I had even had some sexual experiences with other boys. But I had no idea that this could actually impact how I may live my life. I had always thought that I would still marry a woman and have kids. I never understood that men could have relationships with each other. The concept of being a homosexual or gay was very different to me than being a fag--something that other kids had called me since fourth grade.

I knew that I should throw the book away, but I didn't. Since it revealed so much to me I wanted to hold on to it. I locked it my suitcase and stuck it back in the closet. About a week or so later I came home after school and work to find my mother in a really bad mood. She had found the book. I was caught. My secret was out of the closet and after that day things would never be the same as they were before.

Monday, February 23, 2009

A New Writing & Publishing Education Model

At the University of Baltimore the Creative Writing and Publishing Arts masters program not only incorporates publishing oriented classes into the curriculum but culminates in a publication of, “poetry, fiction, essay, or memoir, that the [students] not only write[s], but also design, and produce. “ The stated goal of the program is to produce graduates that can live a life of writing but are also “strong candidates for careers in teaching and publishing.” At the University of Melbourne the stated goal of the Masters in Creative Writing, Publishing, and Editing, is to, “demonstrate[s] the links and shared skills between writer, editor and publisher as well as between fiction and non-fiction writing.”
Both of these schools have created programs that fundamentally benefit writers. Over the course of a career a writer is likely going to learn many important facts about the publishing industry, but how much easier would it be to get started if a writer to had a more all-encompassing understanding of the business to begin with? At universities that have both a creative writing program and publishing program it makes sense for them to start working closer together. Writers should take several publishing classes; have the opportunity to participate in any publishing labs, and to intern at local presses. At universities that have creative writing programs but no publishing programs it would benefit the student if the school began to incorporate publishing oriented classes in to the program of study. For a writer to have the chance to study book publishing gives that writer a better understanding of the industry that he is trying to enter and a better understanding of his role in that industry.

Thursday, February 19, 2009

Buy Buy Buy Buy Buy Buy Buy Buy


I have bought because of an marketing e-mail campaign. Specifically through Amazon and Zappos, two of my favorite online retailers. Usually it has to do with a "free shipping" promotion or some kind of great discount. It doesn't happen very often but I am certainly willing to admit that these campaigns work for me. I love shopping online. Zappos is especially close to my heart. I think it's amazing that I can order a pair of shoes at noon on one day and then have them at my door the next day. And to top it off, if I don't like the shoes or they don't fit, I can just mail them back for free. I calculated my the amount that I spent in '08 and I spent more than $200 at Zappos. I'm sure that if I looked into it I would find I had spent a similar amount at Amazon.

All in all I have to say that at least with online store that I like e-mail marketing works for me.

Saturday, February 14, 2009

Writer, publisher, writing, publishing





As I quickly approach the end of my time in the publishing program at Portland State University I have just a few more hurdles before I can call myself a graduate. First, I need to pass the two classes that I am taking this term. Second, write a final essay and finally, defend my portfolio in front of my graduate committee. The topic that I have been assigned for my graduate essay is: What can publishing programs do that creative programs can't? Discuss the value to creative writers of an education in publishing.

Like many people who end up in the publishing industry, I am a writer. I discovered the program and was immediately attracted to the idea of going into publishing (or at least studying it) because I believed that as I continue to find myself as a writer it could only benefit me to understand the business of publishing. Like many outside of the publishing industry I didn't know a whole lot about the book biz. The extent of my knowledge began an ended with the notion of an editor. "Of course I would be a great editor," I thought. Yet, I had no real understanding of what that meant. And I certainly had no concept of the process of acquisitions, marketing, design, or publicity.

It is because of the time that I have spent in the publishing program that I now have a real understanding of how the industry works as a whole (at least in theory.) I have a sense of the of publishing history dating back to Gutenberg's printing press in the 13th century. I've learned how t he internet is changing the industry today as much as the printing press did over five hundred years ago. I have learned about the many different stages that go into the publishing of a book and hopefully I have learned how I can better market and present myself and my writing to both publishers and the public at large.

What do you writer's in publishing think?

Monday, February 9, 2009

Too Many Email Accounts?


So, I have four e-mail accounts. The main one that I use is my Yahoo! account. This is the account that I use for most of my correspondence and bills. I think that I have had this particular account since 2002. I also have three different Gmail accounts. I have one that I use for this blog and class, one that is connected to a few bills and a couple different social networking sites, and one that I opened with the intention of switching over to from my Yahoo! account, but haven't. Of these four accounts I check the Yahoo! account almost daily. The other accounts are checked once or twice a week.

Three of the four accounts have some form of my name attached to them and one doesn't so that I can be anonymous if I like. I think that my first email account was with Hotmail. If I remember correctly I had it from around '94 to '02. I got rid if it because I got way too much spam and the spam filters on Hotmail were crap.

Wow, I think that I could consolidate down by at least one account, but I probably won't

Oops, I totally forgot my student e-mail account that I have with Portland State. I mostly use this for my Ooligan correspondence. I also have an e-mail account for the internship that I doing with Graphic Arts, and then there are the accounts associated with the books that I do marketing for at Ooligan....

Thursday, February 5, 2009

The Fun Part of Marketing


When a press is getting ready to publish a book there are a lot of things that have to happen. One of those things happens to be writing the back cover copy that will be one of the things that may sale the book. So, I though it would be fun to share a little bit of that process. The first thing that needs to happen is that the manuscript should be read. I'm sure for a lot of marketers actually reading about what you are trying to sale isn't always possible. Fortunately for me, as a student, I had the time to read Lincoln's Daughter. So, then the task is how best to sum up the book and hopefully get people to buy it. Here is what I started off with for the back copy of the book:
The year is 1964 and Sarah, the only daughter of Abraham Lincoln, is ready to meet her father.

On a trip to New Salem, IL, Will Studebaker finds himself trapped in a blizzard. He wakes up in 1833, where he soon comes face to face with Abraham Lincoln, the subject of his life’s work. In Lincoln’s Daughter, the final volume of the Lincoln Out of Time trilogy, author Tony Wolk weaves together the story of Lincoln’s life as a young man with the story of a daughter searching for her fathers.

After coming up with my version of the copy it's time to meet with the marketing and editing team and, uh, "get their opinion" of it. Not always a fun process, but necessary none the less. Finally, after what seems like an eternity of the group debating it, tearing it apart, and generally finishing off any of your beliefs that you're a decent writer, it's all put back together again. Here is the final version of the text that is on the back cover of Lincoln's Daughter.

It's 1964 And Abraham Lincoln's daughter, Sarah, daydreams about meeting her father. Mer mother, Joan, met Lincoln nine years earlier when he was transported to 1950s Evanston, Illinois, from his own time and place for a day. When Sarah's stepfather, Will, a Lincoln scholar, doesn't return home from an overnight trip, Sarah and her mother have no way of knowing that he has gone back in time to 1833 in the same, mysterious way Lincoln came forward in time. The two grow more and more nervous while waiting for him to come home. A stranger's phone call and the discovery of an abandoned car will push daughter, mother, and their old dog, Rusty, away from home in search of Sarah's stepfather.

Sarah's journey has just begun.