asucich@hotmail.com

(This is a follow-up to yesterday's post, The Kindle Assault: What does it say about--or do for--book publishing?)

A publisher from City Lights Books says MediaBistro.com misrepresented the publishing company’s 2010 catalog cover in their Ebooknewser blog by cropping the photo and including the title, "City Lights Says Smash Your Kindle.” That's just not true, says City Lights.

In a letter sent to and published by MediaBistro.com (City Lights Books Publisher Explains Smashed Kindle Photo), Elaine Katzenberger of City Lights Books criticizes the media site for its distortion of the catalog’s message and for doctoring the photo:

I also wish they would've posted the entire image of the cover of our new catalog, instead of cropping off the bottom, where the caption for that photo of smashed electronics vs. old paperbacks asks in quite large type, 'PAPER OR PLASTIC?' (Maybe I'm showing my age, but I'm assuming we all remember when it finally became clear that plastic bags were ecologically unsound, and that question was asked to consumers over and over, with almost every purchase we made, right? Heck, there are city ordinances prohibiting chain stores from using plastic bags in San Francisco now...) Quite obviously, the caption would have helped cue folks to interpret the image a bit differently, and I'm perplexed at the notion that the good people at MediaBistro are somehow intentionally misleading their readers in this way. What gives?

Follow this link to read the complete letter, which MediaBistro.com blogger Jason Boog describes as a “long and thoughtful response to our [original] post.”

Finally, as a medievalist I love the tenacity of the thread about medieval monks smashing printing presses that even Katzenberger picks up. (Read the comment posted by CNDudley in response to the original Media Bistro blog post and also quoted in a subsequent blog.)

 Katzenberger ends her letter by criticizing CNDudley's comment: 

Angela Sucich, Freelance Writer

www.angelasucich.com

In a recent Media Bistro.com posting (Amazon Kindle Resentment, May 18, 2010) blogger Jason Boogon comments on traditional publishing’s antipathy for Amazon’s Kindle, the most recognizable player and device in electronic book publishing. The resentment he notes is unsurprising (this is a competitive market, after all, and newer technologies ever threaten to supersede the old). What is surprising is the passé visual depictions of hostility that he links to his post, namely a video clip of an Office Space-esque assault on a Kindle device, and a City Lights Publishers catalog cover photo of a pile of smashed Kindles that expresses the electronic equivalent of book-burning.

Where does this visual expression of hostility take us? In depicting primal, transparent rage against the “enemy,” does the Kindle-assault video succeed in making us laugh at the luddite-caricatured traditional book publishing industry? Conversely, does the City Lights catalog cover (a pile of smashed Kindles juxtaposed with a towering stack of books) intend to communicate irony in its depiction of the triumphant perseverance of one technology (and repository of knowledge) alongside the willful destruction of another? If so, does the irony of this image push beyond hypocrisy and allow City Lights to achieve a level of humor that makes us think any better of them?

In his posting Boogon writes:

Yesterday we published a picture of the upcoming City Lights Books catalog--featuring a picture of a mountain of smashed Kindles. Reader reaction was mixed. CNDudley wrote: “Sad. Like monks smashing up printing presses because if they don't, who will read their illuminated manuscripts?”

As a medievalist myself, I reject that analogy. The printing revolution standardized texts, preserved knowledge and increased literacy, and although I mourn the loss of the skills that went into the art of producing illuminated manuscripts, the wider access to and greater flow of information made possible by print technology—and now, electronic publishing—can’t be denied.

I love illuminated manuscripts, perhaps in the same way that many Kindle-wary traditional readers love printed books. I am awed by the labor-intensive process of creating medieval books out of animal hide (vellum) and respect the art of the scribe and illuminator. There’s nothing like turning the pages of history with your own hands. Of course, I wouldn’t advise putting out the next best-seller on vellum.

Angela Sucich, Freelance Writer

www.angelasucich.com

Case in point: Today I read in a MediaJobsDaily post about how General Mills is giving away 12 boxes of Golden Grahams to 75 people a week for three months as part of their "Golden Grahams Golden Grant." All these lucky people have to do is share their job search stories in 122 characters or less. And get this--General Mills might animate their stories into videos. Of course, I'm sure the company will pick the funny stories over the pathetic ones, or make the pathetic ones sound funny, but given how dismal job prospects have been for most people in the last year, the idea sounds a bit insensitive. Do we really want to trivialize what may actually be a grueling process, or see how many people are in such desperate circumstances that they are willing to trade their dignity for a box--12 boxes, rather--of Golden Grahams goodness? They need jobs, not high fructose corn syrup.

The General Mills example reminded me of another questionable promotion I stumbled across about a month ago. In an Agency Spy blog I read an astounding email from Nestlé, chocolate giant and maker of other food products, forwarded by Noah Brier, head of strategy and planning of The Barbarian Group (a digital marketing strategies company). Brier had been contacted by Nestlé and offered "prizes and rewards" in exchange for Brier's best ideas and strategies for taking the Nestlé brand online. Trade his best ideas--the work he gets paid for--for chocolate. I tweeted about this seemingly incredulous and rather insulting request last month (Will Work for Chocolate? Who Needs Payment When Nestle's Got 'Prizes and Rewards' for Ideas?: http://bit.ly/9S2wyK).

The fact is, companies will continue to come up with new, creative campaigns to promote their product, and some of these promotions will fall beneath one's dignity to accept. I just hope that we will continue to call out these companies while maintaining our standards. Our work is only valuable if we continue to value it ourselves.

Freelance writers leave no rock unturned when looking for work, and while the search for contract jobs can get tedious, there is fun to be had in scanning the job postings, believe it or not. Case in point: online real estate company Redfin posted a cleverly-composed, albeit idealistic job ad for a writer/brand manager who they hope “can cut through all the baloney in online real estate to say something lively and real about our company, our industry and the whole home-buying process.” They may be asking for “lively and real,” but the ad unsurprisingly constructs an overly romantic portrait of the job itself, as well as a similarly-envisioned candidate. Do you think you might be the kind of literati-blogger they’re looking for? Check it out and see:

About you:
Live to write: like Proust in his cork-lined study.
Fun: storyteller, mesmerist, exhilarator. Your words will be our brand.
Perfectionist: "who" or "whom," "which" or "that"? You sweat the details.
Deep Space 9: you're plugged in to Twitter, Facebook, blogs.
Big-thinker: you see the shape of an idea in a red wheelbarrow and a bunch of chickens.
Truth-teller: you'd never write something untrue just to avoid denting a word or phrase.

About the job:
Writing: every word that goes on our website goes through you – and then out to two million people. You'll also handle monthly newsletters, fun & thought-provoking blog posts, just-the-facts-ma'am press releases.
Research: you dig into a bunch of numbers to understand what's really going on. You interview people in the field, chase down people in the office. Asking questions, sorting out contradictions, checking facts. Columbo. Woodward. Bernstein.
Program management: you'll often be describing something before it exists, in more precise terms than anyone else at Redfin has hitherto attempted. This usually means you'll be part of the team defining our site and our service as we go.
Story-telling: you cook up ideas that we can pitch to the press or develop for our own blog. One of the ways that Redfin asserts its relevance is by having something to say that nobody's ever heard before.
Strategy: you'll work with a startup team of executives on how we build our brand, serve our customers and drive revenue.

Other requirements:
Strong academic record.
Liberal arts degree: we want someone who not only writes clearly and precisely, but has some intellectual interests, and panache too.
Entrepreneurial energy, creativity: in your interview, we'll ask you for three or four ideas on how our website could be better. Come prepared!

Of course, you may be able to put that requisite liberal arts degree to use on the Redfin writer job, but be prepared to see your broad and deep knowledge frequently distilled to the point of sound bite or meme. True, such may be the experience of any commercial writer who plumbs everything from literature to politics to pop culture for the right word that will trigger recognition in readers’ minds and evoke a host of desired associations. For instance, Redfin’s “Columbo” reference personifies investigative rigor while throwing in a touch of understated street smarts to boot. “Proust in his cork-lined study” stands in for the purist's utter devotion to the arts—or maybe it refers to a Redfin employee’s utter devotion to the job. Who knows? But I’m afraid the image of a reclusive Proust also brings to mind a sense of isolationism that undermines the ad’s request two lines later for a social media expert. A Twittering and Facebook-befriending Proust? Clearly, Redfin wants a writer who can do it all—and so does every company out there looking for new hires.

The job ad that Redfin posted recently is entertaining to read—just as entertaining as it was several months ago when I read it the first time. Apparently, Redfin is still looking for the perfect fit. It must be that all those fun, meticulous, plugged-in, big-thinking truth-tellers who live to write are hard to come by these days. But hey, I do know of several good, accomplished, hard-working writers, if anyone’s truly interested in “lively and real.”

In a recent SEED Magazine article (“A Writing Revolution,” October 20, 2009) professors Denis Pelli and Charles Bigelow chart the increase of authorship since 1400. From their research, they extrapolate that “nearly universal authorship, like universal literacy before it, stands to reshape society by hastening the flow of information and making individuals more influential.” Surprisingly, their calculations assume the equal weight of books and blogs, literature and Twitter “tweets,” Facebook updates and . . . .the Bible.

Pelli and Bigelow, professors of psychology and graphic arts, respectively, state their position in simple terms: “Nearly everyone reads. Soon, nearly everyone will publish.” They might be right—up to a point. But the important details that begin to fall out of their equation are apparent in the article’s next two sentences: “Before 1455, books were handwritten, and it took a scribe a year to produce a Bible. Today, it takes only a minute to send a tweet or update a blog.” Certainly, communication is more efficacious and a willing audience more accessible in a Web 2.0 world, but comparisons between medieval book production and postmodern Twittering, and between Bible transcription and blogging, point out crucial assumptions governing this article. There may be a vast range of skills involved in these very different kinds of writing, as well as diverse functions and purposes, but hey, apples and oranges are both fruit, right?

From a New Historicist or Social Theorist or Functionalist perspective, then yes, any text is a Text. But the New Critic and writer in me insist that the differences between kinds of texts do matter. Even if we set aside Pelli and Bigelow’s not-quite perfect analogy between the development of reading and the development of writing (for example, the technical or artistic skill of writing in the Middle Ages did not necessarily correspond to the scribe’s ability to read), the assumptions that follow in the article reveal the glaring problem of effacing huge cultural and historical differences while arguing for a single, mono-logical, unilateral evolution of writing.

Pelli and Bigelow write that authorship is growing exponentially, though their most impressive calculation includes new media:

We found that the number of published authors per year increased nearly tenfold every century for six centuries. By 2000, there were 1 million book authors per year. One million authors is a lot, but they are only a tiny fraction, 0.01 percent, of the nearly 7 billion people on Earth. Since 1400, book authorship has grown nearly tenfold in each century. Currently, authorship, including books and new media, is growing nearly tenfold each year. That’s 100 times faster.

The writers provide a chart that graphs the distinctions between “book authors,” “blog authors,” “Facebook authors” and “Twitter authors”; however, their conclusions about trends in publishing do not explore these distinctions but instead draw from a generalized concept of “authorship” that ignores the differences in publishing standards across industries, genres and audiences. True, the Internet has made it possible for virtually any user to become an author—if “author” simply meant posting online. But to be clear, one needs to contextualize these terms in a particular historical moment.

In our current historical moment, Pelli and Bigelow are right to note how the rise of social media has increased users’ role not only in providing content but also influencing their communities. The comments and criticisms that users post on Twitter and Facebook often result in real-world changes, proving how “public discussion creates a social conscience.”This is certainly a great observation about the social function of new media, but the article does not address the question of literary merit or publishing standards that haven’t clearly translated into online publishing (not to mention sub-140-character “tweets”).

In fact, Pelli and Bigelow distinguish “published” texts from unpublished ones neither by specific industry standards nor by rigorous review by peers, but rather by number of views. They write:

In our analysis, we considered an author’s text “published” if 100 or more people read it. (Reaching 100 people may seem inconsequential, but new-media messages are often re-broadcast by recipients, and then by their recipients, and so on. In this way, a message can “go viral,” reaching millions.) Extrapolation of the Twitter-author curve (the dashed line) predicts that every person will publish in 2013. That is the ceiling: 100 percent participation. Provided current growth continues, the prediction of imminence is robust. Increasing the stringency of the criterion for “publishing” from 100 to 1,000 readers would reduce new-media authorship tenfold, but merely delays the predicted 100 percent participation by a year under this model.

Equating publishing with viral messaging requires further critical thought, I think, as does Pelli and Bigelow’s comparison between the rise of literacy over the ages and the more recent rise of (self-)publishing. Their analogy points out a sociological change in behavior—people have more tools at their disposal and more “practical” or “functional” literacy with which to use these tools, and thus may feel a greater sense of agency. But these abstractions fail to emphasize the vast range of types of readers that exist in the world, or the range of types of publishing. Just as the definition of literacy has changed over time and across cultural contexts—in the 19th century United States, for example, the ability to sign one's own name on a land deed or bank check or complete one's signature in a registry book for voting purposes, was a mark of literacy—so has the concept of publishing.

I’m not arguing here for an elitist notion of “author” that ventures into arguments about standards of art as a matter of cultured “taste”; I’m arguing for contexts that differentiate between kinds of writing based on function. Twittering to communicate news, excitement or outrage is not the same type of publishing—even if it is also presented to the public—than a personal blog that one’s Facebook friends read. Even as new media is changing the way we read, write and publish by introducing new genres, writing conventions and reader/viewer expectations, differences in genres, conventions and expectations do remain. A blog is a different kind of publication than a self-published e-book; an e-book is different than an e-journal publication; and so on. These important details should enter into one’s methodology when researching trends in authorship.

If we eliminate all distinctions about what it means to be published—and with what standards—what we are left to conclude is that people are communicating more online. But to call it “authorship” forecloses the discussion of what it means to be an author. That kind of “universal authorship” is not something to celebrate.

Don’t just give away content, all you citizen journalists! I’m not talking about personal blogs; I’m talking about online creative content buyers who offer $5-10 per 500-word article. All your scribbling—even quality scribbling—waters down the nectar that feeds us all when you give it away nearly for free.

It may seem like the Internet is the place for free content. But it’s a myth that everyone from media chiefs to lowly copywriters in the trenches want dispelled. In a recent article on Bloomberg.com (Diller Calls Free Web Content a ‘Myth, Joins Refrain), Barry Diller, CEO of IAC/InterActiveCorp, is quoted as dismissing free web content as a “mythology”:

“It is not free, and is not going to be.”

His words may seem like the antithesis of Internet communications, especially in the wake of Web 2.0 user-generated content, but Diller should know how to make new media pay. The chairman and CEO of IAC, a company that operates Internet businesses including Ask.com and Match.com (and also chairman of Expedia, Inc. and Ticketmaster Entertainment Inc. made his assessment of the current state of Internet content at the Fortune Brainstorm conference held July 22-24 in Pasadena, California. He was joined by other media chiefs like Walt Disney Co. CEO Robert Iger, who was quoted as saying:

“We have ample evidence both in traditional and new media that people are willing to pay for quality, to pay for choice and to pay for convenience.”

Internet users certainly look for resources to navigate and filter the deluge of content uploaded every minute of every day. People may be used to the illusion of a “free” Internet—I was one of those—but it’s time to recognize that we’re already paying for it. From the ubiquity of encroaching, user-tracking ads on your webpage, to the teasing “upgrade” buttons on “free content” new media sites that promise more access with paid subscriptions, the Internet reminds us that the adage that “nothing is free” is true.

But when highly popular social media companies like Facebook.com are still trying to figure out a viable revenue stream, it’s hard to believe that businesses are willing to risk alienating users accustomed to their “free” service who have already flocked to their sites. (The surreptitious permitting of advertisers on Facebook to exploit subscribers’ identities among their Facebook friends for commercial gain certainly didn’t win them any more fans.)

But what stuck with me most about the Bloomberg.com article was Iger’s subsequent comment:

“And [people] are willing to pay for what they perceive as value.”

Really? I hope so. And when users start paying more for their content, I hope that revenue stream trickles down to content writers. Let’s wait for it—and not sell our writing off cheaply, just because the supply of content created by Web 2.0 has temporarily skewed the perception of the demand for quality writing.

Yesterday evening some friends and I rode our bikes to Warren G. Magnuson Park to attend Cycle Fest, a local celebration of all things bike. This was a social event rather than an opportunity to network (I often do freelance work for the bike industry), because it’s always nice to touch base with your local community. The big events included a kid’s bike parade, sprint races, a screening of one segment of the Tour de France and an acrobatic performance by pro mountain bike stunt rider Ryan Leech of Norco bikes.

As a media professional, I had to appreciate the crowd-pleasing work that Leech does. The youthful pro spoke on a headset microphone while balancing atop a tiny platform on the roof of a truck. Between breaths, he gave instructions while demonstrating “trials” riding: balancing on his bike while jumping up and over and across obstacles. We in the audience overheard his heavy breathing from his exertions on the loudspeaker, as well as the occasional worried comment about the challenge of leaping from one raised platform to another. Leech’s nervous-sounding observation—“Well, that looks a little far from here, now that I look at it”—may have been designed to increase the crowd’s suspense before he successfully jumped the gap, but it seemed genuine to me at the time. I’d like to think he was just being his natural self in front of hundreds of people, and because he delivered on the promise of a spectacle, it didn’t matter that he wasn’t a brash, type-A, larger-than-life personality. His stage presence was self-effacing, but he was a real show stopper. During the finale, when he rode across a thin rail, jumped off and stuck the landing, his work spoke for itself.

Of course, most vocations don’t rely on spectacle as much as a pro stunt rider’s career does, so it can be harder for some to stand out in a crowd. If you don't happen to be a stunt rider, and you're not an A-type personality, there are strategies for getting noticed (from low-pressure meet-and-greets to social media tools to—ahem—blogging). But making sure you show up to social and work events is the first step in getting yourself out on that stage, and the more times that you stick the landing in the social interactions you have, in the contacts you make and in the work that you do, the more people will remember that you delivered. Who knows? People may even like your unassuming and down-to-earth demeanor.