The Eulogy

The unemployed minister

gave democracy its last rites.

The spirit of human freedom

left its body in the night.

But the prosperous Right-winger

in the mega church of sheep,

Said, "freedom's now everywhere

since the corporation's complete."

The last nail in Liberty's coffin

Nailed shut when Supremely courted;

The fascist five were revived

When human freedom got aborted.

Roberts, Alito, Thomas, Scalia

And Kennedy swore an oath,

Corporations can do what they want

Just like malignant growths.

Democracy died on January twenty-first

And the fascist baby was reborn.

The corporations strangle each of us

Like an octopus with scorn.

Since money buys our legislators

And people are left out in the old,

This is the end of democracy

As the epitaph foretold.

"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.

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.

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.

The Scandalous Evangelist & The Flushing Rush

The scandalous evangelist

muttered about a pact.

The flushing rush of hatred

kept on talking crap.

The scandalous evangelist said

the devil and Haiti had a deal.

The flushing Rush didn't blush

when his pig face began to squeal.

The scandalous evangelist

wants to float in heaven's bowl.

The flushing Rush loves to crush

poor victims and their souls.

The scandalous evangelist

and the flushing Rush agree,

they'll be neighbors on lakes of fire

when buying farms in Hades.

Identifying Audience: Revolution or Convolution?

The long tail of the internet continues to get longer as online traffic develops audiences for niche markets. There is no exception for the book publishing industry. In researching the look and design of several book publishing websites, I decided to narrow the scope to progressive book publishers. The common theme around the progressive book publishing industry is the idea of anti-corporate criticism and democratic inclusiveness of many marginalized and oppressed groups, e.g. G.L.B.T, labor/unions, Native Americans, African Americans, and other oppressed people around the world.

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.

I was hoping to find a leftist headache pain reliever button on the front page before a headache set, but the little "x" in the upper right hand corner worked just fine.

Garden of Light Publishing

Garden of Light Publishing is a blog designed to enlighten the readers with social and political satire and humor. This blog is also an examination of online book publishing and its marketing power on the world wide web. Thanks for subscribing to this blog and learning more about current social and political satire through poetry and its context to the online book marketing industry. Subscribers are encouraged to leave their thoughts on the blog posts. More to come soon...