A Canadian book blog: Publishing, marketing, books and technology from a Canadian perspective
SFU Summer Publishing Workshop on Digital Strategies featured Peter Armstrong talking about how a book is like a start-up and why a lean publishing model is the way to go. Here’s his presentation.
Posted by Monique at 11:24 AM. Filed under: Book Publisher • Marketing • Technology •
The internet is made of people and today my favourite person is Maureen Johnson. She writes books and she has a manifesto.
The internet is made of people. People matter. This includes you. Stop trying to sell everything about yourself to everyone. Don’t just hammer away and repeat and talk at people—talk TO people. It’s organic. Make stuff for the internet that matters to you, even if it seems stupid. Do it because it’s good and feels important. Put up more cat pictures. Make more songs. Show your doodles. Give things away and take things that are free. Look at what other people are doing, not to compete, imitate, or compare . . . but because you enjoy looking at the things other people make. Don’t shove yourself into that tiny, airless box called a brand—tiny, airless boxes are for trinkets and dead people.
Please read her full post. If you don’t and you consider yourself a brand, it’s just you and the baby seal.
http://twelvesouth.com/products/bookbook/gallery/
Oh yes, this looks nice. Thank you for the link Craig Riggs.
Book City Jackets offers printable PDF book jackets.
Follow me on Twitter or become a fan of the Boxcar Marketing Facebook page to be entered into the draw for a Reading Is Sexy Calendar.
I’ll make the draw on December 16 and promptly mail you the calendar. I have 2 calendars to give away, 1 for the Twitter followers and 1 for the Facebook fans. So yes, you could get more than one chance to win.
The 2010 Reading Is Sexy Calendar promotes literacy and raises funds to help kids and adults with dyslexia. Proceeds go to the Canadian Branch of The International Dyslexia Association.
You can look at my lovely mug for all of January.
See Emme’s behind-the-scenes photos.
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Attention Readers: This calendar is hot.
The 2010 Reading Is Sexy Calendar goes on sale this week to promote literacy and to raise funds to help kids and adults with dyslexia become literate.
I sat down (virtually) with Emme Rogers to talk about the calendar.
Who does the calendar supports?
The Canadian Branch of The International Dyslexia Association
http://www.interdys.org/
http://www.idaontario.com/
Our goal is to promote literacy and raise funds to support those with dyslexia.
What was the impetus behind the idea?
Back in the spring, Ian Martin (http://www.twitter.com/IanAMartin) was starting up his publishing house, Atomic Fez Publishing, and was trying to goad me into saying “Reading Is Sexy” as often as possible on twitter. This sparked the idea for doing a “Reading Is Sexy” calendar promoting literacy.
Initially the calendar was supposed to be shot “calendar girl” style, like the one Bryne Pen did on Salt Spring to raise funds and awareness for The Land Conservancy. Alas not all our models understood what I meant by that, so it will likely be our theme for next year.
We chose the International Association of Dyslexia as our charity because they interact with Emme online (@onbida) and Emme is dyslexic. That said, she is one of the lucky kids who had access to help, so she has never treated her dyslexia as a crutch, but rather as her secret superpower. It is why she looks at the world in a different way, is not limited to typical rules dictating how things work, and has approached life with perseverance, hard work and problem solving.
Who is Emme?
Emme is the girl next door. You know the one. She was the Tomboy who always out climbed the boys to reach the most precarious limits of the tree in the yard. The one who you just gave the ball or the puck to on the soccer field or hockey rink for fear of her side tackle or crosscheck. The one who loved making mud pies, but wouldn’t be caught dead at a tea party. You know the one. The one whose Mom couldn’t watch what she was up to for fear that she’d have a heart attack. That girl. The one whose friends you didn’t mess with, not because she was manipulative, but because she hated injustices and wasn’t afraid to say so. Just ask the boy next door. Maybe he’ll pull out the photo of the black eye he was sporting the day he was a ring bearer.
We’ll Emme’s all grown up now and she’s no longer “Leo the Late Bloomer.” A homosexual drama teacher has taught her how to put on makeup. Somewhere along the lines she lost her fear that her bum is too big and she wears fitted clothes now. And, if wonders will ever cease, she actually likes to put on a party dress, minus the runners and hockey jacket.
So in essence, Emme represents that secret hidden voice in many of us women—the things that go through the heads of our mothers, girlfriends and ourselves—the only difference is that she says these things aloud, and rather then be embarrassed about these thoughts or insecurities she screams them aloud for all the world to hear.
And yes, she’s a total character and given her tomboy past finds it totally hilarious that she is now seen as Vancouver’s / Canada’s gal-about-town and go to girl on all that is hot and sexy in this lovely world of ours.
Who’s in the calendar?
Photographers
If you’d like to support the Canadian Branch of the International Dyslexia Association, please buy the calendar.
And if you’d like your calendar signed by the men and women of “Reading Is Sexy”, please come out to the Launch Party and Literary Celebration on Thursday.
Local: Gudrun Wine & Cheese Bistro (150-3500 Moncton Street, Steveston, BC)
Date: Thursday December 3, 2009
Time: 7 pm until late
Stop by for author readings, calendar signings by the models, and the auctioning of some of Robert Shaer’s photos from the shoot. Plus Gudrun goodies, wine and beer will be on sale.
Oh, and have a closer look at Miss January.
I’m reading Andrew Zuckerman’s photography book, Creature.
Scent Marketing vs. Social Media via Neuromarketing by Roger Dooley on 10/30/09
The other day, Ad Age’s CMO Strategy Section ran a column by Harald Vogt on scent marketing. Vogt may not be entirely impartial on the topic – he is the founder and chief marketer of the Scent Marketing Institute – but he makes some good points when he questions why so few marketers employ olfactory marketing strategies [...]
Price wars typically hurt the retailers involved, and often times their suppliers, especially if the cost cutting is shared by the two parties. The Amazon and Wal-Mart recent decision to deeply discount a key group of titles just seems like a race to the bottom. What are they really trying to achieve with this? The suggestion in the New Yorker article is that deeply discounting a select group of things brings people to the store, and then you can sell them more stuff once they’re there. This has been the Wal-Mart model for years. Appear to be “the lowest price is the law” (on a lot of things) and you get people there for the discount, but once they’re there, they aren’t going to price compare, they’ll just purchase the non-discounted products as well.
What the two companies appear to be fighting over is a selection of bestsellers, but James Surowiecki argues that it’s really customers.
So you might wonder why Wal-Mart recently decided to start its own price war, taking on Amazon in the online book market. Wal-Mart began by marking down the prices of ten best-sellers—including the new Stephen King and the upcoming Sarah Palin—to ten bucks. When Amazon, predictably, matched that price, Wal-Mart went to nine dollars, and, when Amazon matched again, Wal-Mart went to $8.99, at which point Amazon rested. (Target, too, jumped in, leading Wal-Mart to drop to $8.98.) Since wholesale book prices are traditionally around fifty per cent off the cover price, and these books are now marked down sixty per cent or more, Amazon and Wal-Mart are surely losing money every time they sell one of the discounted titles. The more they sell, the less they make. That doesn’t sound like good business.
Not good business, if you’re involved in selling books and you’re not Amazon or Wal-Mart. For the two behemoths, they’re only taking a hit on about 10 titles and the impact on revenue is minimal, if they can bring in other sales. The price war is also worth the publicity. Wal-Mart certainly wasn’t top of mind yesterday but I’m thinking about them today. (Nasty thoughts, but thoughts nonetheless.)
Read the full article: New Yorker, Nov 9, 2009)
Chris Labonté, Douglas & McIntyre’s Assistant Publisher & Acquiring Editor, imagines a fiction program that features extraordinary writers. “Extraordinary writers willing to push the bounds of literature; to mess around with form and content and style; to bend genre and explore new ways of telling good stories.”
The result is the Fall 2009 “Imagine That” campaign and the Speak Easy podcast, hosted by John Burns.
Featured in my press kit are the following books.
Daniel O’Thunder: a Novel by Ian Weir
Heading South: a Novel by Dany Laferriere, translated by Wayne Grady
Red: A Haida Manga by Michael Nicoll Yahgulanaas
Also in my kit was a reminder that Douglas & McIntyre has been publishing Quebecois and French-Canadian literature in translation for nearly two decades. Included on the list are several works by Monique Proulx (I want to read Invisible Man at the Window) and works by Daniel Poliquin.
I’m looking forward to more podcasts and great fiction. Thanks for keeping me in the loop D&M.
Posted by Monique at 09:14 AM. Filed under: Book Publisher • Douglas & McIntyre • Books • Marketing • News •
Author Alain de Botton was installed at Heathrow Airport as its writer in residence for a week. And, the book he wrote at Heathrow was launched yesterday in the airport’s Terminal 5.
(Source: Springwise)
Alain de Botton’s Websites
Our publishing friends have been launching new websites like crazy. I can’t keep up. But I do want to call out two in particular.
Haig, Cam and Frederick, our friends at Lift Studios, redesigned the snazzy new ABPBC website.
Diana Douglas and team have significantly updated the website for Self-Counsel Press.
Notable features include:
BookCampTO was this weekend and it stimulated my brain.
Mitch Joel, who I admire greatly, was in attendance and we had a couple of excellent thought exchanges, one of which is playing out on his blog.
Here’s a fleshed out version of my comment “Gratis vs. Libre.”
The thing of value that publishers and authors have is the content of their books. Setting the value of that content at zero is not the way to go. (Although there are interesting examples of free PDFs that lead to great value for the publisher and author. See the D&M case study on The Tar Sands (PDF).—Thank you Alison for sharing!)
Giving the content away for free (in whatever format the book takes) is like my fellow apartment dwellers who toss books into the “free” box in the laundry room. Those books are gratis. They are one step above being thrown away. The value exchange between giver and taker is “meh”.
Freeing the content, as in libre, is what publishers and authors are after. It’s the quest to give—as in a gift—that allows the value exchange of the content to remain in tact.
Why did the D&M campaign meet its goals with the free PDF? Partly because it’s still early days for free PDFs. D&M captured our attention by giving away the entire book because there are few people doing that as a marketing strategy. There is value in the rarity.
More important though is that there was a strategy to this campaign. They set measurable goals in advance. And they didn’t set the only goal as increasing sales because they recognize that there’s not a direct correlation between a single marketing campaign (with multiple facets) to sales. But most important of all, they treated the PDF as a gift.
It was available for a limited time. And it was available, in particular, to journalists and bloggers as a file that they could gift to others. It was libre—free to travel, free to be shared.
And, quite cleverly, there are still reasons for us to talk about Tar Sands: Dirty Oil and the Future of a Continent by Andrew Nikiforuk because the publisher has created this case study to share as a gift to other publishers and authors who are debating the merits of posting a free PDF. Thank you again for sharing!
Book publishing is an industry in a cribbage game—and it’s not about avoiding getting skunked by your fellow publishers, it’s about avoiding getting skunked by every other industry vying for consumer attention. You are playing as an industry, not as individual players.
BookCampTO is one example of how we can work together and I really hope to bring that conversation to the west coast. Thank you for the Toronto hospitality.
I’ll be posting my BookCampTO notes at http://www.breakthespine.com/. If you’re interested in attending the Vancouver debrief session sign up for email alerts at Break the Spine, email me, DM me on twitter—chose your means.
Email Alerts from Break the Spine
Website: http://www.breakthespine.com/
Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/breakthespine or http://www.twitter.com/somisguided
Posted by Monique at 03:12 PM. Filed under: Blogging • Book Publisher • Douglas & McIntyre • Marketing •
Biblioasis and SeenReading have launched the Kill a Critic: A Revenge-Lit contest, to celebrate the Launch of Terry Griggs’s Thought You Were Dead.
The first entries are up at www.revengelit.blogspot.com and the deadline (pardon the pun) is June 12.
How to Entry
Write 250 words or so on the Death of a Critic (Literary or Art), and what they did to get there.
Send entries to .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)
Visit RevengeLit.Blogspot.com for details
Background
Everybody Hates a Critic. Some people hate them more than others.
Terry Griggs’s new comic-noir biblio-mystery Thought You Were Dead kicks, err, off with a literary critic found under a hedge with a knife in his head, and literary revenge plays an increasingly important role as the novel unfolds. The literary world, and especially the Canadian literary world, can be a small, spiteful – and occasionally murderous – place. Character assassinations abound, books are regularly murdered in the (shrinking) book pages across our fair land, while others are smothered with damningly faint praise. More than a few knives, even if thankfully metaphorical, have been buried hilt deep in authorial backs.
Do you bear the scars of CanLit’s internecine wars? Have you spent a small fortune on postage and only have a drawerful of rejection slips to show for it? Has the world been slow to recognize your evident talent? Then, dear reader, this contest is for you.
To celebrate the launch of Terry Griggs’s Thought You Were Dead, Biblioasis and Seen Reading are teaming up to help you unleash the murder we know is in your heart with our Revenge-Lit contest. Pen a flash fiction of 250 words or so (though, in truth, no one is likely to count them) on the (fictional) literary critic whose body once filled the chalk outline and what he did to get there and send it by June 12th to .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)
The best of the entries will be published as they are received at RevengeLit.blogspot.com. The winning entry will:
1) Receive a one hundred dollar cash prize
2) Be published in a forthcoming issue of CNQ: Canadian Notes & Queries
3) A Biblioasis press catalogue of in-print trade titles (approx. 40 books, retail value approx. $1000.00)
Entries to be judged by Dan Wells, Julie Wilson and Terry Griggs.
Come out to the Shebeen.
Old Publishers Have New Think Coming
The Shebeen Club
Monday, April 20, 2009
6:00pm - 9:00pmWhat: Old Publishers Have New Think Coming call to arms!
When: Monday, April 20th, 6pm-9
Where: The Shebeen, behind the Irish Heather, 210 Carrall Street.
$15 cash at the door includes dinner and a drink.
And yes, it’s okay to show up without RSVPing first.
Gutenberg was an early adopter. Very few people know that.
Call to action from Monique: I’m going to organize a panel in Vancouver. We’re going to create a model for publishing and marketing books. We’re going to move forward as an industry. Leaders will be identified. Roles will be assigned. If you’re not open to totally change everything you’re doing, then you are not ready for this revolution. Don’t come.
Who’s in?
Monique Trottier is the owner of Boxcar Marketing, an internet marketing company in Vancouver, BC. As the former internet marketing manager of Raincoast Books, she spearheaded major online marketing campaigns, including online promotion of Harry Potter and the creation of the first Canadian-publisher podcast and blog. Her thoughts on marketing and technology can be followed on Twitter at “somisguided” or on her blogs at http://www.boxcarmarketing.com/blog and http://www.SoMisguided.com.
Posted by Monique at 01:52 PM. Filed under: Blogging • Book Publisher • Books • Marketing • Technology •
From Farm to Table: A six-part Food and Culture series on sustainable food systems hosted by Barbara Jo’s Books to Cooks and Farmfed
I’m helping Anthony Nicalo and Natalie Jensen of Farmfed, a non-profit organization dedicated to building transparent, sustainable food systems, promote their six-part food and culture series entitled Provenance: You are what you eat.
If you want to help, grab the widget in the sidebar or pull some info from below. Or just come to the events! Hope to see you there.
From Farm to Table. Provenance: meaning source or origin. You Are What You Eat
Over the course of the series, experts will join host Anthony Nicalo for classes directed at understanding the origins and sources of the meat, seafood, wine, and produce that appear on our kitchen tables and restaurant tables.
Location
* Part 1-5: Barbara-Jo’s Books to Cooks in Vancouver at 1740 West 2nd Ave.
* Part 6: UBC Farm at UBC
Tickets
$65 for individual tickets or $360 for all 6.
Call Barbara Jo’s Books to Cooks at 604.688.6755.
Net proceeds from the series will benefit programs supporting transparent, sustainable food systems.
http://www.farmfed.com/programs/provenance/
Tuesday, April 21
Join Anthony Nicalo for the official book launch of Provenance: a blueprint for the modern eater. Guests will learn to assess the sources for food they eat and will learn practical tips for buying clean, healthy food.
Monday, April 27
Special guests include Mike McDermid, Program Manager of Ocean Wise, and Chef Robert Clark of [C] Restaurant discussing the importance of understanding seafood’s impacts on our oceans. Guests will enjoy sustainable seafood hors d’oeuvres prepared by Chef Robert Clark and fish-friendly wines.
Tuesday May 5
Jason Pleym, founder of Two Rivers Specialty Meats will shed light on what is really going on in grocers and butcher shops, while guests taste naturally raised meats.
Wednesday May 20
Mark Bomford, the Program Coordinator for the Centre of Sustainable Food Systems at UBC Farm will share tips for buying and growing sustainable produce.
Tuesday May 26
Farmstead Wines founder Anthony Nicalo lifts the veil on wine marketing and connects guests to authentic wine and artisan farmers.
Saturday June 6 at UBC Farm
This special fundraiser features international food expert and author of In Defense of Food, Michael Pollan. Pollan will share his manifesto for eating. Guests who participate in the full series will receive a gourmet picnic lunch at UBC Farm.
“Having these experts share their knowledge with us is very empowering”, remarked Anthony Nicalo. “Because the food we eat has clear implications for everything from clean water and climate change to hunger and obesity, the power to change the world is right in front of us, on our plates.”
If you can’t join us in Vancouver, the series will be broadcast live online via Ustream. http://www.ustream.tv/channel/farmfed
Plain Words, Uncommon Sense
A blog on books, writing, tap dancing, technology, and the other amusements of Monique Trottier.
Monique lives in Vancouver, BC, Canada and is a litblogger, among other things. Find out more ...
"So misguided." A comment often uttered in my eclectic salon.
Send me book galleys, ARCs or review copies. Contact me at
monique at somisguided dot com
Contact me at Boxcar Marketing
What I read, what I recommend: Amazon Listmania