Saturday, March 6, 2010
Publishing Ten Years After...
Sunday, February 28, 2010
Wealth Care
Thursday, February 25, 2010
A Book with Shocking IMPACT
Many books have been instrumental in affecting and changing my perspective on the world and who I am. I remember fondly the early years of reading the whimsical and lyrical works of Ted “Dr. Seuss” Geisell to the canon of great literature I read in high school from Charles Dickens to Mark Twain to Kurt Vonnegut. Fiction was and continues to be part of the way I view the world since I also like tell stories through narrative fiction. It is through fiction that I can escape from the depressing realities that confront us each day, and go into a fictional world that may engage in its own set of depressing or humorous conventions, such as A Confederacy of Dunces and Catch-22.
These days, my reading habits are more focused on works of non-fiction and engaging the world I live in with information that helps me make sense of the world. Last year I heard an interview with Naomi Klein on Progressive Talk Radio on her new book: The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism. This book looks at the economic philosophy of the Milton Friedman Chicago School of Laissez faire economics and Naomi Klein puts that philosophy in context to both natural and manmade disasters around the world. Milton Friedman was also a subscriber to Ayn Rand and her "Objectivist" vision regarding limited government in order to unregulate the forces of capital. While I was familiar with the manmade disasters of CIA coups in Iran in 1953, Honduras in the 50s and last year, Chile in 1973, Iraq invasion 2002, coup in Haiti 2004 and 2009, I was not familiar with a particular socio/economic model of the Chicago school. This was a real eye opener that made me understand that unstable societies that have had either political or natural disasters such as New Orleans 2005 are ripe for the privatization of land and resources by private companies. Naomi uses the metaphor of multinational corporations as “vultures” that circle the carcass of vulnerable nations. The vultures wait for the right moment to dive in and privatize the common natural resources and industries of the vulnerable nation. This is the “shock” that Naomi talks about since the citizens of the country have no idea what just hit them. The companies, whether they be AT&T, ITT, Halliburton, KBR, Dynecorp, Blackwater (XE), etc. quickly seek to reap major profits over the shocked citizens.
While The Shock Doctrine may sound like a conspiracy novel, it is completely sourced with facts and brings the reader to an understanding that while the corporate charter is “profits at any cost,” the people will continue to lose. Naomi Klein only brings this to light in the systematic approach by the purveyors of the Milton Friedman/ Ayn Rand Chicago School. While the Chicago School is the theoretical and political arm of “objectivism,” we can take that “theoretical” school and see the practice of “objectivism” through the School of the Americas (now called the Western Hemisphere Institute of Security Cooperation in Ft. Benning, Georgia). This government institution of “We the People” is a training ground for insurgent forces of torture who help the Shock Doctrine make way for private industry. While these schools of “thought” are best hidden from the consciousness of public inquiry, many poor people in developing countries continue to be victims of what should be known as the Schools of Organized Crime.
Overall, The Shock Doctrine has been a valuable resource to me in my writing and my understanding of the pathology that goes into a philosophy based upon profit driven motives at the cost of human degradation. I also recommend another great book I read called Unequal Protection: The Rise of Corporate Dominance and the Theft of Human Rights by Thom Hartmann which gets into the history of corporate "personhood."
Sunday, February 21, 2010
CPAC and Stack
Bolton, Coulter, DeMint, and Tucker
Marco, Mitt and Rick didn't quit
To take out their violent rage?
Thursday, February 18, 2010
E-mail Campaigns for We the People
Sunday, February 14, 2010
Confessions of a Digital Blog Publisher
Behind the doors
Of dusty floors,
Are flickering computer screens.
Lights are dim,
Our thoughts begin;
We type thoughts in digital streams.
Millions sit
For mental trips,
But we're plainly out of sight,
And in the dark,
Our butts are parked
Well into the moonlight.
We sit at tables
With laptop fables,
And virtually organize,
Our cluttered thoughts
Where memories caught
In files of any size.
We’re millions strong,
With solo songs,
And distant e-letters to send.
We’re all about
The muscular clout
That twitch from numb rear ends.
We’re a nation,
In isolation,
With many virtual powers,
Through e-mail,
We cannot fail,
To stay up ridiculous hours.
From millions of home,
In bubbles and domes,
We’re a nation that’s out of sight.
But even alone,
We have a home,
“Agoraphobics UNITE!”
Friday, February 12, 2010
Search Engine Words for "42"
In a world of mysterious coincidences, George Olson struggles to understand why he is the central suspect in a Portland, Oregon murder mystery that’s wrapped in a numerical enigma of 42. This suspenseful thriller takes place in the great northwest city of Portland where George Olson’s paranoia seizes control of possible conspiracy theories that threaten his own perception of reality. Mr. Olson continues to see the recurring “42” throughout the story and builds conspiracy plots around his alleged crime. Is this a murder mystery with a mastermind conspiracy plot about to devour the mind of George Olson or is George Olson a delusional paranoid bent on his own self-destruction? Find out in the Ooligan Press novel “42.”
Sunday, February 7, 2010
Getting Dick Shelby
Friday, February 5, 2010
Amazon, MacMillan, and Sherman Anti-Trust
Amazon’s meteoric rise to online publishing and distribution in the print and digital media markets presents huge challenges for the state of late capitalism in global markets. Because of the World Wide Web as the distribution highway of content, the legislative challenges world wide to regulate markets are fraught with the inability to regulate from single nations. With no uniformity of legal regulations to prohibit a media giant such as Amazon from completely dictating the market, the state of democracy becomes a "balloon in a needle factory."
The recent decision by the largest online distributor, Amazon, to back down from threatening to undercut MacMillan’s profit by having Amazon lower it’s digital price to $9.99 for e-books would cut sharply into the profit margin of what MacMillan had in mind to sell their books, especially front lists. Since the arrival of the iPad by Apple, Amazon’s Kindle has seen the rise of a content exhibitor and competitor for digital publishing. The biggest differences between the two business models however vary greatly which may have led Amazon to back down. Steve Jobs announced with the iPad that Apple would only function as a digital distributor for a publisher and not the wholesaler. This would give the publisher that much more control over the pricing of their products, both digital and print. More publishers would be much more inclined to have the iPad as a digital exhibitor than the Kindle due to the overwhelming power that Amazon presents as a publisher, distributor, and wholesaler if digital and print media.
The rise of the internet as a world wide distribution marketplace has made doing business that much more complicated in terms of intellectual property rights, distribution rights, taxes, tariffs, etc. As Amazon is currently the largest player in its industry and has a monopolistic stranglehold in terms of its vertical integration as publisher, wholesaler, distributor, and exhibitioner of their line of products, the ability to regulate the market away from monopolistic practices becomes that much more difficult. Bob McChesney and John Nichols of The Nation magazine write about the corporate business structure just in terms of stranglehold on markets, ideas, and democracy in bringing more diverse players to free enterprise. In their new book, The Death and Life of American Journalism they speak about what happens when media ownership gets in fewer and fewer hands and how price fixing, collusion, propaganda, and anti-democratic values are eschewed upon the American people. If Amazon to some degree were to get into the broadcast ownership business, just as Comcast is seeking to acquire NBC, we would see a much more narrower field of players and points of view that don’t reflect the overall sentiment of what it means to live in a democracy with access to divergent points of view.
The founding fathers saw the threat of the early corporation known as the British East Indian Tea company and vowed to fight entrenched power to save the republic. Since Amazon’s overwhelming growth and vertical integration in the online publishing industry, I think it is time for the government of the people to regulate the industry and break up this disproportionate amount of power from the hands of one company. President Jimmy Carter saw the threat with AT&T and used the Sherman Anti-Trust Act to break up the monopolistic practices the telecom giant had on the American people. It’s time for Obama to use the Sherman Anti-trust act and break up these monopolistic companies like Amazon, Comcast, Qwest, etc. in order to save the republic from the tentacles of transnational corporations.
Saturday, January 30, 2010
The Eulogy
Friday, January 29, 2010
"To Brand Market or Product Market?" That is the Question...
Had the internet, radio, or TV broadcasting been around during the Bard’s day, perhaps we may have heard Shakespeare’s publicist say prior to Hamlet being ready for performance:
“To brand market or product market? That is the question. Whether tis nobler to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous product advertising, or to take arms with brands against the distractions of daily folly…”
While Hamlet was not written until later in Shakespeare’s life, he already enjoyed a popular fan base with his cannon of comedies and histories. Marketing during his day would have been with printed fliers, handbills, and word of mouth. Many people had already been adept to William Shakespeare’s celebrity through his personal appearance around England and so his face became his own brand marketing of developing a buzz on any upcoming new plays.
Jump forward three hundred years in the US and we see the appearance of what would later become the most highly identified product branding in the history of the United States, the Coca-Cola logo. The white cursive lettering on a red background became synonymous with not just a soft drink, but a way of life in the American culture that it exported. As Coca-Cola grew as a company and it products were shipped all over the world, the term “Cocacolonization” became synonymous with all things “American.”
The question in today’s book industry of what is more effective and logical form of marketing, brand versus product is one that can be asked in context to the type of product that is being sold. Books are not your “typical” products in that their value is not immediately visible the way say a chainsaw’s immediate value is measured in how it clears trees. The intrinsic value of books takes place inside the brains of each reader and the information that is dispensed. Books also cover as many different topics as the human imagination can muster and so do very different things in their dissemination of information. While the publishing industry continues to market books for their own bottom line, I believe that most publishing houses rely specifically on the “product” of each book since most readers are looking for specific information and not the brand of the publishing house overall. There are of course exceptions to the product marketing rule in that Harlequin books developed a very unique brand with their serial books and consistent graphic covers and became known as a publishing house of romance readers. When a reader heard the name “Harlequin” he or she would have an immediate impression of the type of serial romances that the publishing house was pushing instead of individual titles. One publishing house that effectively uses branding and product marketing are the “For Dummies” series by John Wiley & Sons who acquired the series from the publishing company Hungry Minds. While many readers of the “For Dummies” series couldn’t tell you the name of the publisher, the brand of the publishing company to use consistent design graphics of yellow background with a black band and white and yellow texts and a triangular cartoon face is immediately recognizable and is considered a media franchise success with over 1700 titles of various title and topics in the “how to” types of series.
While Harlequin effectively developed its name and serial graphic images and the “for Dummies” series has the name “for Dummies” (not John Wiley & Sons) and the yellow and black design with the cartoon face on each cover, brand marketing has worked effectively for these two particular publishers. The challenges ahead for small and medium publishers in the long tale of the internet will be to ultimately develop a kind of brand with the niche market that they hope to sell, but early on will need to product market the individual titles in order to stand out. Readers will continue to search for individual titles to fulfill their information needs so the most immediate marketing will be product marketing for individual titles.
Saturday, January 23, 2010
Declaration of Corporate Independence
The Preamble:
When in the course of corporate events
Dissolving bands with people must end.
Capital is what matters most
And with any means business defends.
We hold these markets to be self-evident
That not all profits are equal;
They're endowed by laissez-faire
To meet their quarterly sequels.
We hold NAFTA, CAFTA, and WTO
As well as other forms of "free" trade,
To bring "free" markets for corporations,
Despite labor concessions made.
We reserve the right to squeeze out life
As we have liberty and happiness at home,
The quaint idea that people have rights,
Is bought or sold or loaned.
The amble:
From its day of artificial birth,
In the year 1886,
A corporation assumed human rights,
Its place had been fixed.
And then in 1978,
It learned to speak with big money;
In Belotti versus First National Bank,
Campaign bucks flowed like honey.
The rulings over the years sustained
For corporations and their vast wealth;
FOX reporters defied BGH omissions,
But a judge ruled against public health.
The Supremes have now ruled in favor
Of tort reform for punitive damages.
Exxon lessoned its punitive load
Like sociopathic savages.
And now the hammer has come down
Of unbridled wealth and greed;
The ruling of Citizens United
Saw the FEC's weak knees.
Corporate capital’s now in control;
The founding fathers roll in their graves.
Democracy's coffin’s now shut tight
Under the corporate road that’s paved.
Friday, January 22, 2010
Kingdom Houses and Small Houses: Two Different Strategies in Online Presence
It is very interesting to find, compare and contrast the very different models of marketing, sales and distribution in the online book trade. Two distinct models that address different market pressures and concerns can be seen in the Kingdom Houses and the Small Houses. I say “Kingdom” because the business model of corporate media with large houses reflects the conglomeration of power and the top down decision making from CEOs to presidents to all the vice-presidents in all of the corporate divisions that play a compartmentalized role in the book/media industry. Those companies such as the Lagadere Media conglomerate who owns the Hatchette Group and Time Warner Books and the imprint of Little, Brown and Co. have a different presence in the online book industry as opposed to the smaller publishers.
The small Houses typically are designed in more of a democratic role in their own pursuit for capital and sales. The social relations around the small publishing house can be seen as more of a horizontal distribution of power in what may be relegated as a cooperative environment of shared power. With less capital and leverage there is slimmer profit margin, which depends collectively on everyone in the smaller house sharing equal responsibilities in the house. While the small publishing house has a president, leader, manager, etc., the head of the company may be more accessible and open to various other departments that make up the press and can turn more quickly to make market pressure decisions without needing to meet with a board of directors for permission and clarification.
Getting back to the online presence, I found the kingdom model prevalent with companies such as the Hatchette Book Group and Little, Brown and Co. After sifting through digital pages of subsidiaries, imprints, genres of the various imprints, authors, and finally titles, it became clear that HBG and LBC are not in the book business to deal directly with online sales. The volume of books, authors, accounting, and legal issues would be another division to add to the company’s overall expenses and probably prohibitive to their bottom line. While they could make some money from direct publisher to consumer, it would only be a small percentage of their overall revenue as opposed to going with a specific distributor and or wholesaler to market and sell their books. The purpose of the online presence is more designed as a branding mechanism with links to retailers on how to purchase the books. The kingdom companies would not want to compete with their distributors and alienate the designated purpose of the distributor, to sell the publisher’s books.
I found the small publishing house model to have a much different feel on their online presence as opposed to the kingdom model. The publishing company, Permuted Press (www.permutedpress.com) was immediately apparent to me that this is a small publishing house with a niche market in the horror industry. The motto at the top of the page is: “the Formula has been Changed, Shifted, Altered, Twisted…” This motto seems to have two meanings. On the surface, the theme of horror is clearly apparent with the graphics of zombies and vampires on the title pictures of the books, but Permuted Press also promotes the direct to consumer online presence with an order button under each book title with the price. Permuted Press describes itself as a traditional press in terms of how they select books and go through the editing filters with a sales and marketing mindset to promote their titles, but their online presence doesn’t utilize the traditional distributorship of physical retail bookstores such as B&N and Borders. The website also has a margin on the left side with links to “Home,” “News Blog,” “Bookstore,” “Kindle Store,” “T-shirts,” “Read Excerpts,” “Watch Teasers,” “Contact,” “Message Board,” “Mailing List,” “Submissions,” “Anthologies,” “Novels,” “FAQ,” “Wholesale,” and “About Us.” Interesting that the “Wholesale” link describes the publishers rules around a 40% discount for wholesalers and NO RETURNS. Buyer also pays for shipping unless the order is over 10 books.
Personally, I like the idea of small publishers whose websites are set up as direct sales to customers over the internet. While medium to large publishers still stick with the traditional distribution channels of sales and marketing through an independent contractor like Ingram, it ultimately breaks down to economies of scale. For large publishers dealing with a volume of a million plus copies for best selling authors, it makes sense to outsource the distribution to an independent contractor. I think we will continue to see small independent publishers carving out their own niche market with their own online sales. The only thing that would prevent independent publishers in continuing to pursue their online sales through their own website would be if net neutrality is struck down and the internet providers start charging publishers with tolls to users to download content. Net neutrality has been a contentious issue in congress with the Right-wing wanting to privatize the internet against common sense Americans who want to keep the internet free as a public resource for the health of democracy. We should all cross our fingers that net neutrality will always be upheld for the free distribution of ideas. If the Supreme Court can decide however that a corporation is a person and a corporation can give unbridled amounts of money to politicians and campaigns to influence elections, we should prepare ourselves for the worst.
Sunday, January 17, 2010
The Scandalous Evangelist & The Flushing Rush
Friday, January 15, 2010
Identifying Audience: Revolution or Convolution?
While there are many Left leaning, Liberal, and progressive websites, one book publisher that stands out is McMillan Publishers’ imprint Metropolitan Press (http://us.macmillan.com/Metropolitan.aspx.). This imprint has a very clean and distinct voice. The first thing I noticed with McMillan Press is the clean look of the logo and name. The next immediate thing I noticed are the book cover images of the press’ new titles: The Checklist Manifest by Atul Gawande, Footprints in Gaza by Joe Sacco and Rewilding the World by Caroline Fraser. The books on the front page are appealing to a liberal/progressive educated audience of college students, teachers, and other academics and activists. The front page contains two blog columns: Barbara Ehrenreich’s Working in America which covers labor issues and the blog The American Empire Project which discusses the role of the expansion of the American empire and global militarism. Also on the front page are videos of feeds for other websites: The Daily Show featuring an interview with Barbara Ehrenreich and a video of author Thomas Frank discussing his book The Wrecking Crew. There are is also a “News” feed for some authors and politically relevant authors in the news as well as a Twitter page to follow the press and develop a fan base. The very top of the website has tabs for Home, Books, Authors, Our Imprints, News, FAQs, and Contacts.
A progressive publishing website that seemed very cluttered and hard to read is AK Press (http://akpress.org). Much of the front page is dominated by tons of text in 8 point fonts with a black, white, and red colors dominating the page. The left hand column of the page displays in tiny type the list of subjects that dominate articles e.g. Anarchism, Armed Struggle, Atheism, Avant Garde/Surrealism, Beat, Calendars/Organizers, Comics/Graphoc/Photo, Cookbooks, Drugs, Eco/Green, Economics, Fascism/Anti-Fascism, Feminism, Fiction, Film, etc… There are 54 links in the column and all the subjects are listed in alphabetiocal order. This website appears to want to be everything for everyone on the Left. There are small graphics of 8 book covers on the front page with two or three paragraphs each giving a brief summary of the books. The books range from You Don’t Have to Fuck People Over to Survive by Seth Tobacman to the history of Italian Anarchists by Nunzio Pernicone. Nine tabs across the top display: Home, AK Press Blog, Bookstore, AK Picks, Friends/Bookmobile, Events, About AK/Acera de AK Press, and Links. While the audience is clearly a Leftist audience, it does appear to be overwhelmingly broad that one on the Left could be overwhelmed by a sense of ADD.
