Archive for the 'work' Category

The Dumping Ground

Published
by
Ehren
on July 12, 2008
in Mentions, philosophy and work
. 0 Comments

During my rather long commute home (2 hrs), as is typical of my mind, I was storming up thoughts and ideas.  Then it hit me — why is it that we are usually so keen on delegating work off to people that we don’t want to do or we supposedly don’t have time to do?

The answer: Simple, we want to focus on what is important to us, our goals, our role, and our responsibilities.  This answer includes something along the lines of doing what’s best for the company and the job that we do, etc.

The problem with this solution is that it frequently results in the creation of what I call The Dumping Ground.  This is the area of the office that usually seats the newbie, the assistant, and often mistakenly considered the least important person in the organization or department.  For some odd reason we carry on a tradition and belief that the least important person in the organization or department deserves the most amount of delegated work.  These are the people who are supposedly picking up the slack.

The ironic thing about this is that despite how most people have gone through the turmoil and stress of being dumped upon with the plentiful amount of what is referred to as effectively delegated work, we have no problem doing this to the next person in line — we have essentially accepted the fact that this is the way things are.  Therefore that’s okay right?

Wrong.  We have our opportunity to make a difference — here is that chance.

Here is an example of the typical chain of events:

1.  The HiPPO (Highest Paid Person in the Organization / most important … thank you Google) wants something done.  He or she tells senior management.

2.  Senior management looks at what needs to be done within the context of the bigger picture.

  • Option A:  Go to The Dumping Ground
  • Option B:  Go to Middle Management

3.  Middle Management identifies the steps involved with what needs to get done.

  • Option A: Go to The Dumping Ground
  • Option B: Go to Junior or General Staff

4.  Junior or General Staff either takes care of the problem or looks at how something is going to get done.

  • Option A:  Go to The Dumping Ground
  • Option B:  DIY - Do It Yourself

The problem with passing on work to The Dumping Ground is that there is not enough consideration and thought put into whether or not the work should be taken to The Dumping Ground or if there’s even a simpler way to deal with the work.

Quite often The Dumping Ground is where the ground-level action is taking place — things are getting done that everyone takes for granted.  Of course in the meantime, decisions taking place in management and even amongst general staff that create more projects which in turn, create more so-called effectively delegated work for the folks at The Dumping Ground.

What happens at the dumping ground

Solution:  The Trinity Approach

1. Listening.  Yes, actually listening, not just the token nod.  Listen for what the folks in The Dumping Ground actually strive for and observe how they thrive.  Living is different than thriving.

2. Consideration.  This just brings me back to my point when I had posted about the Employee Bill of Rights.  My #1 rule:

Never forget where you worked and never forget how you felt, and what you did when you started working.

And please don’t say that just because you sucked it up and put up with it means that everyone after you must too.  That’s pretty much saying that you’ll follow lemmings over a cliff.  At least try to change the environment for others.

3. Simplify.  Like fractions, we reduce and simplify.  Don’t make things complicated — accountability does not require bureaucratic-like red tape.  There are almost always a way to do things simpler and sometimes it may even be better to share 10 minutes of workload between five people than have one person deal with that one task alone.

The Result

It’s obvious.  You’ve made a difference that is greater and bigger than you.  Sometimes it isn’t just about getting the project done but how you do it.

Throughout my experience in different workplaces, I’ve been on both the receiving end and the person delegating work so I am just as guilty — I think it’s worthwhile to try and rid ourselves of bad habits.

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Lay Down the Blame Arrow and Look in the Mirror

Published
by
Ehren
on June 19, 2008
in Aspirations, Mentions, Ponderings, Unthinkables, books, economics, marketing and work
. 0 Comments

I’ve been itching to talk about the recently revamped copyright law in Canada but I’ve held back for the most part.  I decided otherwise after I was reading Matthew Ingram’s article in the Globe and Mail about music sales being the lowest in 20 years and that — yet again — the blame is placed on the customers, not buying enough and downloading illegal copies of music.  This by the way is untrue as new reports have surfaced.  This is beside the actual point of this post.

What I find amusing about every media industry (and I work in one) is that we continue to direct the blame away from ourselves.  The Music industry blames the internet and file-sharing sites; the video game industry blames the internet for game piracy; the movie industry of course blames the internet and file-sharing sites as well as video games; and the book industry blames all other industries for its troubles and for overshadowing the importance of books (plus one another internally).  What’s next?  Are we going to blame lower sales on the lack of fuel cell-powered vehicles in North America?

We all know the internet and customers are not really to blame.  We can try to delegate the blame but it really does not make a whole lot of sense in the end.  Many businesses are built upon taking advantage of current events, emotions and impulses that every consumer may have — if that’s the case, why wouldn’t a consumer do exactly the same to a business if provided with the opportunity?  Especially when there is usually little or no reason for a consumer to display any sign of loyalty.  Oh right, the law.

This law protects the rights of the creator or developer of a product and ensures that the creator or developer receives due credit ($$$) for their work.  I quite respect that.  This is vital to ensuring that people who are creative and innovative and who take risks will ultimately survive.  But where does it say that this risk is guaranteed to provide a complete return?

I think it is important for artists, authors, creators, and developers to receive credit for their work but I also feel that entire industries should not be complaining about customers and blaming them for their losses (or so-called losses in some cases) if they don’t receive the credit or attention that they expect for their work.

Why should we as customers care? Because customers don’t deserve the blame.  Customers deserve more — we all deserve something greater than what currently exists.

Businesses and creators currently dictate what should and shouldn’t be produced, what can and can’t be improved, what is and isn’t possible.  I respect business owners, shareholders, and in particular entrepreneurs because of the risk they take but I disagree with approaches that are focused on putting business before the customer.  Any company’s success is linked directly to their customers, not to the company internally.  It is we the customer who:

1. Decides what to pay for and what not to pay for.

2. Decide a product’s level of usefulness.

3. Ultimately find out the hard way what’s easy to use and not so easy to use

4. Discover which book was worth the read, what song was great to listen to, and what art we actually enjoy.

5. Are hurt or injured by the errors and mistakes in judgment that businesses make in the process of developing their product.

It is we the customer who deserve the right to want and demand more from businesses and creators.  Creators deserve the respect for their achievement but they ultimately serve those who are willing to embrace what they have produced and/or selling.

Customers are ultimately part of the product creation and development process — not simply the recipients.  I think social media websites are on the cutting edge in this field because they are forced to identify what they are doing wrong for the customer on an extremely frequent and consistent basis — and then make the appropriate changes.

I’m not saying that we have to take this route for all media, but I believe that it is important for all businesses to step in this direction.

Books and the Cycle of Blame

I can elaborate on books as a medium since I work in the book industry. It’s somewhat sad.  People blame video games taking attention away from reading.  People blame movies for that too … and television … and the internet … and anything else we can pretty much put our finger on.

That’s just reason number one for why books don’t sell as well as they used to.  Let’s take a look at other reasons that frequently pop up in the discussion, shall we?

Publishers blame booksellers for not pushing their books enough.

Publishers blame booksellers for not carrying greater numbers of books on their limited shelf space.

Publishers blame authors for not being more active and promoting the book.

Publishers blame government grants for not providing more support.

Booksellers blame publishers for not helping them out and doing more.

Booksellers blame publishers for selling direct over the internet.

Booksellers blame publishers for focusing on selling bulk quantities of books to larger chains such as Chapters, Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Costco, etc.

… and most recently, booksellers blame publishers for focusing on wholesalers and distributors.

Authors blame publishers for not pushing their books enough to booksellers.

Authors blame publishers for not helping them get more publicity.

This is all … wrong.

We complain about how people aren’t reading enough yet the opposite is true — there is more reading taking place than ever before.  Just not the way we think it SHOULD be.  Then again, when did we as the book industry earn the right to decide what SHOULD be?  The customer dictated what they wanted eons ago and now they are evolving.  The fact that we have tied ourselves so closely to what “should be” has ultimately hurt ourselves, damaged our credibility, while simultaneously forced us to ignore the customer.

Businesses and customers both have rights.  But the right to dictate what becomes successful and what doesn’t belongs to the customer.

Photograph by Jasoon

We have only ourselves to blame.  Just like the music industry, movie industry, and all other media industries.  We have not been listening to all of our customers.  We merely listened to the core group of people who refer to themselves as book readers/lovers.  Even when industry-wide sales started declining, we decided to point fingers at each other rather than look at ourselves or the way we actually do things — and instead of finding a way to adapt to the evolving customer, we continue to force the customer to adapt to us.  We argue amongst ourselves and tell each other this is simply how it is and that we need to keep publishing massive number of books in order to stay in business because the government grants favour specific types of books over others.  Is this the way we want to continue to operate into the future?

Now here is the true dilemma we face.  We keep thinking that ebooks are the future and are the solution to our problems — but they aren’t.  They are merely another medium that will converge with other media in time.  The key to solving our problems isn’t by looking for another way to push more books, it’s how we look at ourselves and what we sell.

Time to step in front of the mirror.

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Whilst at Book Expo…

Published
by
Ehren
on June 16, 2008
in Interests, Mentions, books, fun, marketing, web 2.0 and work
. 0 Comments

So I’ve spent the past weekend at Book Expo Canada.  A few of my colleagues are generally much more enthusiastic (and in some cases optimistic) than I am but I nonetheless tag along because it’s both amusing and fun to see my co-workers have so much fun (… right, and because it’s all part of the job of course).  Lots of meetings, lots of free books (more given out than received… or in my case — none).

The funniest thing that seemed to pop up in various conversations was the fact that whether it may be publicity, traditional or online marketing — the question from management always seems to be:  “Can we do it for less?” or “Can we do this for this small amount of $$?”

photograph by http2007

No this isn’t Book Expo Canada but if they offered free food, it might as well be!
Photograph by http2007

The answer is usually very simple.  You’re either going to provide me with the monetary resources or you are going to provide me with the time work on some form of initiative — either way, it’s not “free”.

What I found most amusing was that as soon as I got home was that my mind got hit with three ebooks.  Mind you, they are all books that are marketing and business driven so they don’t necessarily serve as the literary world’s finest examples but they do indicate how books can be more than just another book.

I ran across Dave Balter’s The Word of Mouth Mouth Manual Volume II which I should add is available in PDF format to download for free.  Haven’t fully read it yet but the few pages I have scanned have impressed me thus far.

I then ran across Dave Balter’s book again on Seth Godin’s own blog which reminded myself and all his other readers about Seth Godin’s Ideavirus — also free for download in PDF format.

And then … I was reminded of Darren Barefoot and Julie Szabo’s recent book on social media Getting to First Base which isn’t free but I did purchase it out of support for a great introduction to social media.  Despite the fact that I did get the ebook a while ago, I haven’t finished reading it yet — about half way through and it’s good for anyone who needs to hit management on the head with some sort of wake-up call, or even those in management themselves!

Seriously, I need an ebook reader … Amazon Kindle where are you in Canada?!  While we were all busy marketing books at a trade show and conference — the word continues to spread about books available online, one way or another.

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The Life of a Career Employee … or not?

Published
by
Ehren
on June 5, 2008
in Aspirations, Mentions, marketing and work
. 2 Comments

How do you approach your work at the workplace? Many people point out that it is wrong to give too much of yourself to the employer, but I disagree — it’s not that simple. True you don’t want to have your employer take advantage of you but at the same time, it is important to invest yourself in whatever you want to do and to do what you feel may be right for yourself and/or the people you work with.

Milo Sindell and Thuy Sindell, authors of The Career Bill of Rights, suggests that this is a definition of a career employee, particularly because the employee’s relationship with their job has become blurred:

A career employee is an individual who spends their career working as part of a company, as opposed to working for their own company.

Classic examples from Dilbert:

Obviously Dilbert is a little too involved with his work but I’m pretty sure that a lot of people are, myself included. The thing I recognize the most about engaged employees are that they are objective oriented and that they look for meaning in the work that they do. That said, is it worth it to do whatever it takes? That’s up to you. I can honestly say that the many different stints in various industries has taught me that there are three ground rules to work with:

1. Never forget where you worked and never forget how you felt, and what you did when you started working.

2. If you’re going to do something … don’t do it the way you think should be right — do it right for yourself, your colleagues, and for the people you serve (i.e. customers or citizens). (…or at least the best you can)

3. Make sure you fail over and over again until you manage to not fail. If you don’t fail, what’s the point?

That is how I generally operate. But what the Sindells are suggesting is quite interesting. They are proposing that career employees (aka. engaged employees) should formulate and embrace their own bill of rights. Here’s the gist of it:

Enter the Career Bill of Rights
1. You have the right to take advantage of your employer.

2. You have the right to only give as much as you can.

3. You have the right to roam.

4. You have the right to the truth.

5. You have the right to enjoy your work.

6. You have the right to more. [Look out for more of this!]

7. You have the right to leave an inspiring legacy.

8. You have the right to fire your employer.

As the Sindells’ state, “they are the rights you have as a person who chooses to work for another individual.” Whether you decide to exercise those rights is up to you. I don’t necessarily know if a bill of rights will make life easier for the engaged employee but it is something that I have pointed out to people before.

We have the freedom to decide where/when we want to go and where/when we want to stop. Just like we market our products, the act of hiring a particular employee is a form of marketing as well — except the fact that employees are the customer. We either buy into the work we do — or we lose interest and become disengaged. The funny thing about this is that it demonstrates the simple importance of a company’s ability to market their own product and policies to their own employees — if it doesn’t work for your own employees, why would it work for your customers?

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Going Beyond The Product

Published
by
Ehren
on June 2, 2008
in Aspirations, Mentions, Ponderings, marketing, technology and work
. 0 Comments

Funky Monday.

Today I ran across and shared two recent articles from the Globe and Mail at work. One being that the Globe and Mail was opening up its business model, and the other being that the Metallica was endorsing a new way of doing business on the web (but really it’s not that new).

I was asked … what does this mean?

It’s just what I’ve been stating over and over again. Book publishers are no longer able to be purely book publishers. Technology has provided a way for different forms of media to converge — take a look at the iPod (and other new mp3 players) or even newer ultra portable laptops like the Asus EEE. This means that your product must be flexible and adaptable (mostly figuratively speaking, although literally would be nice too). This doesn’t mean you can’t have a printed book, but rather that any static product is pretty much obsolete.

Sadly enough, publishers actually have a choice to focus on their core business or diversify. Their core business is typically the reader that literally consumes books at an incredible rate. The funny thing about this market is that despite that consumption level, book publishers still pump out way too many books and overwhelm that market. We expect slower readers or occasional readers to pick up the slack but it just doesn’t happen. Why? I don’t think we really put enough thought into the value of the product — what the customer wants or desires. A customer doesn’t necessarily know what they want but customers are smart. They have and will find more ways to ensure they are getting the best value and experience for their money. If a book uses cheap paper, they know. If we don’t invest time into a book cover, they know.

Production values are interesting because they appear to me as very similar to school work (remember that?). When we don’t put in the time and thoughtfulness into a project, it really shows.

Movies and music are two types of products that have been forced to continually re-examine the way they sell their product. In the late 90s, movie cinemas began raising prices after creating bigger screens and sound systems in order to improve the customer experience. Did that bigger screen and bolder sound help the movie industry? Yes but not necessarily as good as it could have if it were introduced earlier because it coincided with the increase of movie rentals. But the cash kept flowing because people were still interested in seeing a movie on the bigger screen.

Fast forward to 2001 and the mass adoption of DVDs. The bigger screen is in decline. Why? Because the customer experience has changed. DVDs now provides greater value directly into the hands of the customer than a night at the cinema. That and the seven reasons that The Big Picture lists out in an old blog posting. Will the DVD sales decline? Potentially as legal and DRM-free digital downloads become prominent, while pirated DVDs continue to propagate. Toss into the mix far-reaching/long range cellular frequencies and an uncapped/unlimited wireless connection — the movie purchasing equation will be altered forever.

Despite the long and controversial existence of the mp3 file, the music industry has been very lucky in the sense that the mp3 itself and Apple’s iPod infused the customer with a sense of power and freedom that they had not felt before. Sure it caused chaos on the sales of CDs but what really has happened is the resurgence of interest in a wide-range of music regardless of time. Cut the waste (i.e. CDs and albums), focus on the music itself, give the customer the freedom to do what they please with the product sans the packaging, a lower price point for the work they do (i.e. pick and choose individual songs) and they will come back for more to do more. People want to be able to customize their own little jukebox full of music and they want to do it in their own way.

Now with books, add on the fact that Acrobat 9 is about to be released and as Mark puts it, it’s a game changer. The ability for rich media to be embedded within PDF files has arrived. Can’t figure out what that means?

What if you could be read a book and watch movie clips as part of the story? What if you could interact with the characters? What if we could draw our own animation — upload it to the book and share it with other readers? Or on a particular connection point over the internet where all other readers of a book could meet up? What if we could discuss an idea directly within a book with all other readers? Can you imagine what it will be like in the future? Take a look at the introduction of Disney’s Treasure Planet. These ideas aren’t taking away the essence of a book; they are enriching what’s within every book — far beyond the means of text on a page.

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Every Author’s Challenge

Published
by
Ehren
on May 24, 2008
in Mentions, books, marketing and work
. 2 Comments

I’m really supposed to be focusing on programming a website but I felt it was necessary to share this after @nejsnave posted this link to this video(below) over twitter.  This’ll be a quick post.  The video is by a HarperCollins author, Dennis Cass.

 

This is the problem that every marketing department is facing in the book publishing industry.  It is wrong for a marketing or publicity department to throw everything at the author.  Promotion on the web does not require an author to throw themselves into every social medium — rather the idea is to ensure that there is a way for people to connect with an author and vice versa.  Marketing departments should be working with the author to develop what I refer to as a connection point. I’ll get into that another day but I think it’s pretty self-explanatory.

That said, authors still need a blog and they still need to blog on a not necessarily frequent but consistent basis.  I’d rather authors have a blog than a purely promotional website.  It is pretty much the same except the fact that a blog is the old classic homepage on Geocities that has evolved into a social and communication medium that is way more versatile.

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Why Book Promotion and Publishing MUST Change - Part 1

Published
by
Ehren
on April 7, 2008
in Aspirations, Ponderings, books, marketing, technology and work
. 6 Comments

Despite being employed in the book industry, I work in the realm of the web and everything I do involves thinking about how someone would interact with a website and ultimately, the product. I have always speculated and continue to state that book publishing (not publishing in general) as we know it is on the brink of experiencing an evolution and perhaps even a revolution. A number of recent blogs and articles that I’ve read over the past week caused me to thoroughly ponder why the traditional model of book publishing is dying. After lots of thought and help from a couple of friends (also fellow industry professionals), here is part one of my storm session.

Note: Thanks goes out to Tammy Cabral and Erin Winzer for taking the time to read over my messy blogging. You may also find a few opposing viewpoints from one of them on occasion throughout this post.

1. The Promotion Process Begins BEFORE a Book is Published

Traditionally book publishing involved a select number of people working within a publishing house/company who ultimately decides what should and shouldn’t be published. A book would then usually go through a scheduled process of editing, copyediting, designing, and proofreading before arriving from the printer. The sales, marketing and publicity staff would typically have a marketing plan in place that would begin as soon as the book is on the shelves of bookstores. A list of titles would be created for each of two major retail seasons — Fall/Winter, and Spring/Summer.

I had originally questioned this when I was first starting off in the book industry and as I observed how publishing companies operated, I realized that they were focusing on seasons because of the retail sector and the fiscal year. This still works — but it is no longer as effective as it used to be. Why? Because the time between the acquisition of the book and the arrival at bookstores is a lost opportunity to promote forthcoming titles — opportunity costs.

Now during this period I should point out that marketing and publicity departments are usually busy taking care of the current season but this is a time where authors can be and should be establishing themselves so that they build credibility. The other solution could be to simply have a team of staff dedicated to pre-publication promotion but that would still require the co-operation of an author.

Erin Winzer likes the idea but is concerned about the potential of saturating the market. My point is that this would not be any major promotional campaign as this team would be focused on helping the author establish his or her presence in different areas. This is vital for first-time authors.

A final solution would be to simply scrap the entire two-season model and run on a continuous basis. Most publishers use the two-season model because they operate along the lines of a fiscal year but it really shouldn’t matter. Changing an operating budget is not difficult although it may pose a challenge for the government grants (more on that later.)

Food for thought: If all the shelves in the world were suddenly warped, would we not change the way we produced and formatted our books? We need to address the need of the customer, the reader — not what we think they want or should want.

Shelflife by Charles Trevelyan

2. An Author Who Isn’t Online and Contributing to the Internet Will Go Unnoticed

Fellow blogger Maki at Dosh Dosh has written an excellent post on Why Are You Giving Away Content For Free? and is quick to point out Chris Anderson’s article in Wired — Free! Why $0.00 Is the Future of Business.

“It is important to keep in mind the reasons why you are publishing blog post after blog post, all full of ideas and information and giving them away.

Do you know that you might generate more income by creating content and packaging it into the form of an affordable eBook, or perhaps a membership site? In terms of earning efficiency, premium/paid content might be a more lucrative venture than the act of simply giving away all your content away.

Chris Anderson recently suggested that ‘free’ is the future of business because the low cost of the digital web facilities the proliferation of free products, services or content. The web allows you to have greater flexibility in market definition: you can essentially give freebies to some, while selling to others.” — Dosh Dosh

I won’t deny that both Maki and Chris are speaking the truth with regards to free content and increasing sales, but I will point out that more importantly from a marketing perspective, contributing to the information available online is vital to establishing credibility, and more importantly, a following. Think about it — when a book is published, it is competing against an enormous amount of content available to the public. Authors are not competing against other authors and they aren’t competing against other books — they are competing against content.

How does one distinguish one piece of content from another? The author. He or she is the key to establishing credibility — but only by providing content that is relevant and genuine to themselves, to their visitors, and to their book(s). Blogging is only one step — outreach is the next.

Erin Winzer inquired as to whether or not a blog can generate sales and if it can all be tracked. In her own words:

The author is still Joe Smith off the street other than the fact that Joe Smith is now known as someone one who is talking on a particular topic. Also how many people will read Joe Smith’s blog – will it generate sales and can these sales be tracked?

The funny thing about blogging is that rather than relying on traditional media to establish someone as an expert on a topic, a blogger can become an expert as long as they provide solid and reliable content. As I stated before, outreach is vital and there is no better way than to reach out to like-minded people around the world through the Internet. I am not suggesting that an author go around hard selling their book online, rather I am suggesting that authors need to be interacting with common folk by bringing their perspective and allowing others the opportunity to relate. Whether it may be through a new idea or a totally different world they have created, people require something to relate to or comprehend before they can formulate some level of interest. This is natural human interaction — the most basic and noble form of marketing. Look at Squidoo, look at the forthcoming Google Knol — both of which are built upon the underlying purpose of providing free content that is associated with some level of recognizable source of credibility or authority on a subject.

Where my opinion differs is that I believe authors can develop this online presence on their own without relying on the infrastructure of Squidoo or Google Knol which really should just be considered extensions of their online presence rather than the foundation.

With regards to sales and tracking — technically yes and no. Just like all sales, nothing is absolute until the actual sale is made (wherever that may be) and while we can determine the level of interest on a blog, sales can only be tracked by point of purchase over time. Since blogging can be considered as both a short and long-term marketing campaign, blogs can change over time and thus so does the marketing campaign.

So fine — we get the idea that authors should be bloggers, now what?

As stated in 15 Trends to Watch in 2008 from Publishers Weekly:

“#4 Publishers will start acquiring specialized Web sites to get content for their books and to target niche audiences. By year-end, every major publisher will need to have an understanding of how to put a value on Web sites, because the old measures—namely, sales and profits—won’t necessarily be relevant and because the acquisitions will be smaller than what the companies would normally consider. The process will be similar to acquiring books, requiring a bit of imagination to see how the deals will pay off.” — Publisher’s Weekly

Honestly, I don’t even think publishers need to figure this out by the end of this year. The Globe and Mail just pointed out a blogging superstar in Japan, Mieko Kamakami, who is now a literary superstar — more likely than not — through a cellphone! (That subject to be touched on later)

Another insightful point:

“Joichi Ito, Internet entrepreneur and Technorati board member, says Japanese tend to view blogs more as exchanges with friends and a personal outlet than as news sources as Americans do, for discussing politics, technology and other issues.” — Globe and Mail

Sorry folks but any argument that an author should not have to blog is pretty sad. Marketing and publicity can do the best campaign they can for an author but if there is no credibility or some level of association with being credible — authors don’t talk to me about your book because I don’t know you. Yes that is blunt but it’s also the truth. Recently Random House offered a contract to Canadian Christian Landers for his blog on Stuff White People Like. What does that say?

Perhaps publishers will quickly begin to realize this and start spending more time online.

3. Destroy the Bestselling Model and Actually Help the Customer Already

Everything is a bestseller in some way, shape, or form. Why? Could we get anymore boring and fake? Usually when you step into a big bookseller, someone has paid for special placement in the “Bestseller List” or for a book cover to be facing outwards so that people can get a better view of it while browsing the immensely large store.

We don’t have time to go through everything - Photo Courtesy of Sharkatude

There is no such thing as a bestseller — there are only better sellers than others and we are simply talking about getting the right book to the right reader. Fellow blogger Erin Balser points out that she values the helpful bookseller and the independent bookstore over the big-box giants. Amazon is also a prime example of how helpful bookselling ultimately benefits both customers and publishers with fewer returns. Publishers should be taking those cues and stop paying for placement, and for goodness sake — stop the bestselling nonsense. The focus should NOT be on forcing people to pay attention to your book, but rather helping people find your book.

My colleague Erin Winzer who works as a publicist points out that this is unfortunately idealistic, and booksellers (especially big companies *cough* Indigo) rarely hand sells books.

What Erin points out is true but I can also point out that the whole idea behind helping the customer would likely be initially considered idealistic until we actually start changing our perception of what a customer wants. I’m not saying that we have to follow Amazon’s example because it’s never a good idea to do exactly what another company does — I am saying that it’s time to rethink our role. Hand selling books only goes so far, particularly with so many books out there but if we replicate the exchange of ideas that takes place with hand selling books — we can ultimately help people find what they are looking for — possibly with better success if we combine it with effective use of technology.

Nothing is bestselling — there is only the right book for the right reader. This may involve associating books through search engines, tags, related subject matter, similar books, similar authors, opinions, reviews, etc. These are all considered helpful tools. Tools that require investing time over money.

On the bookselling side, independent booksellers complain about the big box chains (like Chapters Indigo in Canada) and the lack of support from publishers yet these same independent booksellers fail to help people find the store. I have to confess that prior to working in the publishing industry, I did not even know about the small independent bookstores — and I grew up in Toronto! Yes that is sad, but doesn’t it demonstrate to you that the independent bookseller organization (CBA - Canadian Booksellers Association) has failed to communicate with people like myself? How can I find something if I don’t know about it?

For those who tell me that I should look one up … sorry folks, but I am not going to look at the Yellow Pages for a local bookstore and I definitely am not going to cross the city in order to buy a book just to support a local bookstore. What does this mean? It means that any local bookstore must begin to rethink their role. As I’ve pointed out a couple of months ago — Booksense.com which operates in the United States is an excellent way for people to find a local bookstore — but that is just the first of many steps.

******* Intermission *******

Taken from both the Quill and Quire and Erin Balser: HarperCollins just recently announced a new imprint that would focus on experimenting with a new model — one that focuses on reducing author advances and reducing returns. There is however the brief hint at publishing in many different formats (woopie…) My opinion? This is still a traditional publishing model, just one that is more frugal. Let’s try and be a little more innovative shall we?

Till next time! There are plenty of other issues that need rethinking so I’ve got plenty more to say but I’ll leave it there for now for the sake of readers and the fact that this is one really big post — stay tuned for part deux!

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5 Tips for Presentation Inspiration

Published
by
Ehren
on March 19, 2008
in Unthinkables, applications, fun, marketing and work
. 0 Comments

I can’t count the number of times that I have been to conferences where presentations have been boring and people get restless. I don’t care what topic you may be presenting but if you stand up in front of a crowd and they are listening to you, you are held responsible for their mental wellbeing. Does that not make sense?

The Ultimate Presentation Formula (courtesy of simple algebra)

Mental Wellbeing = Interest + Enthusiasm - Drowsiness or Sleepiness - the “I don’t care” factor

1. Know your material inside out, outside in, backwards forwards, forwards backwards, right left, left right, diagonally, three-dimensionally, and so on and so forth. Pretty much you should know this stuff so well that you dream about it in your sleep.

2. If you have a multimedia presentation, don’t you ever ever EVER read from your presentation slides. Please stop mocking me — I can read too you know? Why am I here 8:30 in the morning listening to you read to me? If I wanted a bedtime story, sure I guess that works.

3. Be unique. I’m shy. I’ll admit it. But even shy people have their unique style to presenting. Do you love what you are talking about? Are you enthusiastic about it? Do you want to make a POSITIVE difference (not just any difference) in the lives of those you are speaking to? No one’s boring when they love the topic they are talking about.

4. Interact with the audience. There are phenomenal speeches that don’t interact with the audience but when you interact with the audience, you change the atmosphere around you and the people who are listening to you. No longer are you talking to them because you are now talking with them. Make sure you understand your audience and their needs and wants.

5. Practice until you can make your presentation in 50 different ways or more! Why? Because there are so many variables that may occur and it helps you re-learn and recall what you know in a different manner. This means there is a much smaller chance that something may knock you off guard and that you are as solid as possible in your presentation.

Oh yea … don’t use notes. At the very most, you can have an outline of what you are going to talk about. Why? Because you will be more likely to use the notes if you know you have them with you.

The people at VideoJug made this great video on How to Deliver an Oscar Winning Presentation. It’s decent…but it gets the point across at least.

Resource: Rands In Repose has an awesome blog posting on developing your presentation. I’d highly recommend reading it and Rands also highlights many of the points I made earlier as well.

Presentations have the power to change a person’s opinion or simply feel like they have wasted their time. Think of a good movie and a bad movie you’ve watched. It’s likely a very similar feeling except now with presentations — you hold the key to change.

Isn’t that brilliant?

Update: Check out Presentation Zen for tips on how to utilize Powerpoint effectively in different ways. (thanks to Melanie McBride)

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