Colbert, who is good at compartmentalization, manages in spite of this exhausting schedule to make time for his family. For some of the writers, the job is more all-consuming. One of them, Opus Moreschi, told me that he solves the problem of how to balance the job and a life by forgoing the life. “Basically, I’ve never had a life except for comedy, so it isn’t that much of a problem,” he said. Yet for all the demands that Colbert puts on his staff members, he is apparently beloved by them. “There are a lot of unhappy people in comedy,” Purcell said, “and sometimes you get a very radioactive vibe. But Stephen has an excellent way of treating people. You should never underestimate the power of good manners.”

On a related front, I was at the meat counter at my local Whole Foods, trying to get the butchers to make a batch of ground chicken necks for me (dog food for Frankie), and sometimes they don’t really want to do this because I guess it’s a pain in the ass for them, but I made my pitch and ended it with “Please.” At that the butcher looked up at me and smiled. “In that case…” he said. “Doesn’t everyone say ‘please’ when they want something from you.” By his look, he said “no.” Which I found dispiriting. Really? People don’t say, “Could I get a pound of ground turkey, please?” Apparently not. Channel Nancy Reagan’s war on drugs motto and “Just say please.” Didn’t your mother teach you to always say “please”?

Photo by Steve Paine

Stumbled across a couple of blog posts recently that survey the current state of publishing, or at least the digital aspect of publishing. At the BookBaby.com blog (What BookBaby is), Chris Robley sums up where he thinks the publishing world is headed in the next five years. The title of his piece also includes “or sooner.” Of course all the things he writes about are already happening somewhere, somehow. I like his first point about digital remixes and the idea of sampling different chapters/sections from different books to create your own unique book. There’s a site called ebookpie that is currently doing just that. It’s in beta (what isn’t these days?), but I’ll be curious to see what comes of that idea.

His point two comes from Todd Sattersten who predicts that in the future physical books will be what audiobooks are now. That is, because of the high cost of producing an audiobook, publishers only make them for some authors. In the future, the physical book will be seen as the “expensive” version that only elite authors will get. I’m not quite so sure about this, because the cost of a paper book is nowhere near the cost of producing an audiobook—think audio engineers, producers, studio time, etc.

On a related front (I think) there’s a post from Julien Smith (co-author with Chris Brogan of Trust Agents) called The 6 Shifts of a Kindle Dominated Marketplace, in which he posits that “This is the time we all become authors.” Why? Because there are no gatekeepers, you are your own publisher (are you going to throw your own work into the slush pile?), you can sell stuff for cheap, you can buy stuff for cheap (though I recently had the experience of buying a Kindle single from someone who is an acquaintance and, you know, it was awful; it wasn’t even worth the $2.99 I paid for it), and so almost everyone who ever wanted to write something will be writing something. Which is exciting and good and a lot of good writing that might not otherwise have made it to the world will, though there will also be tons—tons!—of crap to wade through. (In the future everyone will need their own content curator.) To say nothing of the millions of Chinese fiction authors who are soon to launch their own writing careers.

Then, on the other hand, I was talking with a guy who helps business thought leaders write their books. He thinks books still work because it collects an author’s best thinking in one place. Rather than tracking down this ebook or that .pdf or this series of blog posts, you just put all your best thoughts in an organized fashion in a book. That’s what books are good for. Whether it’s paper or digital, that doesn’t matter. Just get all the thinking organized in one place. Something to be said for that.

If you look at the people who are ringing the death knell for paper-based books, you’ll see that most of them got to be a spokesperson because they authored a big paper-based book. Big books are still the primary way to claim authority, at least in the business book world. Is this all shifting rapidly? Yes. But at this point in time and at least for a few more years, if you want to get your ideas out there and make a business of selling those ideas, you’ll still want to write a big (or fairly big) book.

Having said that, I’m still a firm believer in experimentation. I always encourage any authors I’m working with to put their ideas out there in multiple formats and ways. Anyone who is working on a book should be creating ebooks or .pdfs and giving them away at their websites and perhaps trying to sell some of them at Amazon online. Try different things. And if you’re selling things, try different prices. It’s wild west time out there. Just try stuff. Of course that then brings us back to what Julien was saying in his blog post referenced above.

Flickr photo courtesy of Kaputniq

My new cause is for bicyclists to stop at stop signs and red lights as if they were a motorist. In Massachusetts, and perhaps elsewhere, it’s now a law. If you go through a red light on your bicycle, you can be ticketed. I shouldn’t get self-righteous here because I’ve bicycled through many a red light in my time. But now, my feeling is that if bicyclists will stop at red lights, then car drivers might respond to them differently; rather than as pesky lane swervers, motorists might see bicycles as legitimate vehicles, almost like another car. And I think that would be helpful for all of us. I’ve got to believe that that state of affairs would help cut down on car-bike accidents. And I believe that bicyclists have to make the first move. Because they have the most to lose; car drivers are never hurt when their cars collide with a bicyclist. (Please let me know if I’m wrong on this one.) Bicyclists think car drivers should shift their attitude, but that’s not going to happen. Cars are in the majority, cars rule the road. Our society reveres cars and car transportation; bicycles and their riders are second-class citizens at best, rebels, outliers, socialists at worst.

This past weekend a group of bicyclists passed me as I was returning home from a ride. There were six of them; one of the guys was not wearing a helmet, which is just downright stupid. They moved ahead of me and then there was a red light ahead. I was trying to catch up with them, but they slowed for the light, checked that no cars were coming in the cross street, then sped through. I called out half heartedly for them to stop and then I waited for the light to change. And then, well, I just got pissed off. I don’t know what it is. Why couldn’t I just let them go on their way? I poured on the speed and caught up with them at the crest of the next hill and as I passed I looked over at the two leaders, Mr. No Helmet and his friend. “I really wish you guys would stop for red lights!” I yelled as I continued on, pedaling hard. I was sort of hoping that the next light would be red and I’d be stopped and they’d have to make their way around me in order to go through the light. But it was green.

I just kept going and then there was my left turn light ahead. It was red, though for the two travel lanes the light was green. I stopped, and I was standing there with my right foot on the pavement, when Mr. No Helmet whooshed by screaming at me, “The light is green!” as he flew down Beacon Street. His glee! He was so thrilled to be able to “get me back.” I was startled at first, then realized in that moment the folly of my ways. (Though of course I wish I had had the wherewithal to reply with some snarky remark like, “You may be stupid but at least you’re not colorblind!”)

I’m not going to get bicyclists to stop at red lights by yelling at them after they’ve gone through one. At least I could approach the discussion differently, perhaps a reserved, “Have you thought about stopping at red lights?” as I pedal along beside them. Maybe I’ll do that, or maybe I’ll just continue to stop at red lights and let the other bicyclists do what they will. Perhaps in time I’ll serve as a role model. Maybe some other bicyclist will think, “Hey, that’s a good idea.” As I slowly made my way home, it was then that I truly understood the oft-quoted line from Mahatma Gandhi: “Be the change you want to see in the world.” So for now I’ll stop screaming and just do.

But I do think of places like the Netherlands where drivers are trained to open their car doors with their right hands, reaching across their bodies, turning themselves to the left, forcing them to look back at the road, thus enabling them to see any bicyclists who might be coming their way. (I’ve been “doored” by a car driver. It is no fun. Knocked me out of commission for a couple of months and to this day I have a left shoulder problem associated with that accident.) Meaning that we could find ways to accelerate a melding of the minds between car drivers and bicyclists. Hopefully that day will come in my lifetime here in the U.S. of A.

Post script: was visiting some friends who were sitting out on their front porch last night. (It was a beautiful evening.) Got talking about bikes and red lights with this friend who has taken up biking later in life and who I often see Sunday mornings making his way home from the store where he’s just bought fresh bagels. He told me that because of my example he is now stopping at red lights and stop signs. Not always, and not consistently, but he’s doing it more and more. All I could say was, “My work here is done.”

Well, if not done, at least a beginning.

Or, “Lights, Lights, and Lights.” A two-minute-twenty-second video about advantages of daylight light bulbs when making videos of yourself.

Image by k-ideas via Flickr

Then there’s this article at Mashable from Guy Kawasaki in which he shares a dozen things he’s done to promote his latest book, Enchantment: The Art of Changing Hearts, Minds, and Actions.

Some folks are quick to point out that this is Guy’s tenth book and that he’s got a lot of money to spend on promotion. True. But that doesn’t mean that these things don’t also apply to someone who’s working on her first book. Some things you can’t do because of cost, some things you do at a lower level. Where Guy hires people to do things, you can try to do them on your own. If you can’t do it, well, then, perhaps for your next book. Don’t be intimidated by what you can’t do; figure out what you can and build from there.

For instance, Guy mentions how he offered a free pdf version of his first book, The Macintosh Way, to people who “Liked” him on his Facebook fan page. So, yes, being a first-time author you don’t have a pdf version of your first book to give away. But you can create a short version of the book you are working on or an outline and chapter 1 or some version of your book. (If you’re not self-publishing, check with your publisher regarding what you can and cannot share of your book content. Which raises the issue of traditional publishers and their general un-willingness to let too much content out of the bag. I won’t go into my usual rant about how misguided that “stingy” approach is.)

Flickr photo by 802

Just stumbled across this rather caustic overview of the publishing industry from Mark Hurst. (It’s from 2008, so not recent.) Mark’s got a particularly cynical outlook about most (not all!) publishing houses.

He seems to be upset that the publishers aren’t risk-takers. Well, hello, until a few years ago these folks were running around with leather elbow patches on their herringbone sport coats! These folks aren’t bungee-jumpers! And Mark seems upset that these folks want a certain guarantee that a book is going to sell. Well, they are in business. They want to make money. Anyway, you could go on and on. Mark has some valid points. He does feel the publishers take too big a cut of the revenue given what they add to the process. That may or may not be true. For some folks, having the imprimatur of a big publishing house has a value above and beyond sales of books. But it does seem that he was overly disappointed by the whole experience of trying to work with publishers. It’s probably worth asking him what he expected going in. That might explain a lot of what happened. As it turns out, he self-published his book, Bit Literarcy.

I don’t entirely agree with Mark’s presumption about why you write. He says you don’t do it for the money, and that’s true in the short term, but you should look at a published book, particularly a business book, in a longer-term way. It is your calling card for a speaking and/or consulting career. We still live in a world where “author/authority” means something. Authors have authority. People are willing to pay to hear someone who knows what they’re talking about, someone with information that will help them in their personal and/or business lives.

Whatever authorship means moving forward, I suspect that the world of publishing will be a lot like the world of work. Work-wise, people no longer have one career; they won’t spend their working life at one place. In the old days, someone would get out of college, find employment at a big company and hang in there until age 65, then left with a gold watch. Hard to imagine, but it happened. Well, in a similar way, many authors found a home with a big publishing house and then stayed with them to their mutual benefit for a long time. These days you may work for a big company for a while and then go off on your own and you may go work for another big company. There’s no one way; there’s no linear route. That’s the same for publishing these days, too.

Look at David Meerman Scott, who is one of the commenters at Mark Hurst’s blogpost. (Read all the way through the comments.)  He self-published a couple books, then went to a small publisher and then went to a big publisher, Wiley. Where he is now. He says that he sold more copies in two weeks with Wiley than he did in years with his self-published titles. But in the future he may well revert to self-publishing again. J.K. Rowling, author of the Harry Potter books, has published all of her books with a big publishing house, but now she’s setting up a self-publishing operation called Pottermore.

All by way of saying there’s no one solution these days. You do what works best for you at any one time. The one thing that doesn’t change, though, is the marketing. That all falls on the shoulder of the author, whether she’s self-publishing or working with a traditional publisher. (This is one of the things that ticks off Mr. Hurst about the big publishers.) It’s not worth complaining about anymore. It just is. Look at this blog post from Michael Hyatt, chairman of Thomas Nelson Publishers. He lists four reasons why authors must take responsibility for their own marketing. He writes, “Yes, it is easier than ever to get a book into print, but it is more difficult than ever to sell it.”

If you’re going to self-publish, you need a following, you need people who are interested in what you have to say. That following doesn’t show up over night. I’ve heard Seth Godin say that you should give away your first book in digital form. As a way to attract an audience. If it’s good, it will spread. If it isn’t good, you’ll know soon. And that same audience is what the big publishers are looking for. Whichever way you go, you need your own audience.

Seth Godin’s advice to would-be authors. Here again, not recent, from 2006 in fact. But still relevant. Which I guess says something about how forward-thinking Seth is.

David Carnoy, a journalist at cnet.com, has published a list of 25 things you need to know about self-publishing.

Image by goXunuReviews via Flickr

Here’s what happens. I read something about an author I have interviewed in the past and then I want to look in their book to check up on something or just re-read a passage. When I was doing interviews at tompeters.com, books were sent from publishers or PR people, sometimes I bought them, sometimes the author sent them, and sometimes I was just reading a galley. In one case I printed most of the chapters of a book from pdf files. A waste of paper? Perhaps, but I must say that I still prefer to read from paper and prefer to make notes on paper. Just a condition of my age? Probably.

I like looking up at my bookshelves and seeing the spines of books I’ve read. I like being able to reach up there and pull one down. In some cases I don’t have a physical book. I may have just read a galley. But I always thought that an author I interviewed should have made sure that I received a hard copy version of the book if I hadn’t already got one. Not just me, anyone who interviews them. Or at least ought to ask the interviewer if she/he wants a good copy of the book. Or in this day and age, at least ask them if they want a kindle version. Can PR people send out Kindle versions of books the way they do hard copy versions?

Just a thought for you authors. Your interviewer may really like your book and may continue speaking about it beyond the publication of their audio, video, or text version of your talk with them. Ask your interviewer if she wants another copy/version of the book.

A new tradition: swim in Walden Pond on June 21st each year. Well, so I’ve done it twice now. Not exactly what I would call a tradition. But could be the start. Why not? And so, another go at it a couple days ago. I love Walden Pond. The association with Henry David Thoreau, an author I read in college. In a class I loved because of what we read but also because of the professor, a man who loved to read, who loved words, who loved literature. There was something about Thoreau and his adventure that really clicked for me. It wasn’t about living in nature, but it was about being aware of it. But I see this annual pilgrimage as a way to pay homage to Thoreau, as an annual baptism by/in nature. (Not that I only go there once a year; Walden Pond is half an hour—by car, though I go by bike as well—away from where I live.)

And speaking of awareness, I was out and about on the summer solstice, June 21st, first day of summer. The Walden Pond swim is part of a larger celebration. I want to be outside as much as possible on the longest day of the year and I particularly want to be out early and then late. The early-morning light and the evening into sunset light—the gloaming—are the best times to be outside. Was out early. With my dog, Frankie.  And I said to people, “happy longest day of the year” or “happy solstice” and you know, most people didn’t know what I was talking about. I’m surprised at how disconnected most people are from the natural rhythms of our world.

Maybe I need to start a club: Ways to Enjoy the Longest Day of the Year. Hmmm.

(Photo taken by Annette Lemieux, using her BlackBerry smartphone. Look closely and you’ll see me there in the center of the photo.)

My mother recently died. This post, however, is not about her death. It’s about others’ reactions to it. My wife has a colleague who I know and who I often find irritating. No big deal, just an annoying guy. He’s smart, he’s good at what he does, but he has a habit of getting in your face a little too much at times. To be fair, he can also be quite funny.

Without telling me, my wife let him know about my mother’s passing.

A few days ago, an envelope addressed to me arrived at our house. At first—and this is how sad our world is—I thought it was one of those direct marketing appeals where they imitate handwriting on the envelope. Right? Because how often do you get a handwritten envelope these days? A few at your birthday and at the holidays, but as for the day to day, not many at all. I didn’t recognize the last name on the return address. For that matter I could barely read it, it was written in such small letters.

Turns out it is a handwritten note from my wife’s colleague. Sincere. Heartfelt. (He had lost his mother not that long ago.) And on nice quality paper, cotton fiber, watermarked, ivory in color. It’s the kind of paper you enjoy holding in your hands. It has weight. It has meaning in and of itself. And all of those qualities translate into warmth and concern.

And in that moment, as I read his words, I realized I had to totally revise my thinking about him. I’ll forgive his brashness, his aggressiveness. Just because he took the time to write a handwritten note. On good paper.

(The image above is a picture I took of part of the letter. The actual color does not translate into the photo, unfortunately.)

Artwork/photo credit: Richard Shed

Seth Godin at his Domino Project blog provided a link to Craig Mod‘s essay titled “Post Artifact Books & Publishing: Digital’s effect on how we produce, distribute and consume content.” It’s a good discussion about how the publishing/authorship world  is being turned sideways and on its head. As for how the world of the author is changing, here’s Seth’s take:

In the first case, the yesterday case, the author has a job. She writes a book. In the second case, the tomorrow case, the author is the ringleader, cheerleader, ringmaster, organizer and jack of all trades of a process that might not ever end.

Craig’s essay reads well and looks good. He has done a nice job of designing it. (I’m referring to the online version. I don’t know if the design translates to the $2.99 Kindle version.) And in a David Foster Wallace-esque moment, Mr. Mod has thirty-two footnotes at the end of the essay. Rich resource there, my particular favorites being those pointers to online book experiments of one sort or another. Of particular note is the link to Frank Chimero’s blog. Frank is working on a book titled The Shape of Design and it’s quite interesting to see that his Kickstarter community has contributed $112,159.00 to keep him working on that project. That’s powerful stuff. (He’s also been very inventive about what you as a donor receive for the different levels of monetary participation.)

Then there’s this guy Peter Armstrong, co-founder of leanpub.com, an online publisher. (He appears in the comments section at the end of Craig’s essay.) Peter’s lean publishing motto: publish early, publish often. Peter’s idea is this:

Lean Publishing is the act of self-publishing a book while you are writing it, evolving the book with feedback from your readers and finishing a first draft before optionally using the traditional publishing workflow.

It’s worth reading the manifesto at Peter’s site, particularly the section called “The Lean Publishing How-To Guide for Non-fiction.” It’s all about writing and sharing what you’re writing with your community, and using feedback from those people as your revise your writing. In some ways there’s nothing new here, since people have always shared their writing with peers and colleagues and writing groups, but now you can reach out to more people more easily more quickly. (One question to consider is whether more/faster equals better, but that’s for another day.)

This all puts me in mind of David Weinberger, who, when he was writing Small Pieces Loosely Joined in 2001-2002 put chapters in progress out on the web and invited feedback. A fair number of people joined in the discussion at the time and David mentions a couple of them in his acknowledgments. All that resulted in a physical book, an artifact in Craig’s terms. One of his points is that now with books going digital you can continue to revise based on an ongoing discussion with your community. But how long will that last really? Any longer than it would with the “artifact”? The author will move on to new ideas, a new book. The community will move on as well. I’ll be curious to see if someone can track the discussions about books and their ideas. Will we something more substantive in the digital realm now available? Will the digital publishing realm result in a longer “shelf” life for ideas?