One of the best panels I attended at
SXSW last year was
on the future of publishing where I was happy to hear that yes, there is one⎯ if old models give way to new, creative approaches. Recently I've come into contact with three authors taking unconventional approaches to the age-old business of transforming dead trees into handheld content. Interestingly, all concepts involve crowd sourcing, that model antithetical to revered image of lone writer scratching away in a garret.
Crowdsourcing Cover Art. Crowdsourcing content isn't a new concept, actually.
The book that's been a bible of sorts for getting into the ad business has been crowdsourced from creatives since the 80s. (Proud to say
recent update includes an essay from AdBroad.) The author/curator is
Maxine Paetro, who was manager of creative talent at some of the best agencies in New York before she segued
into writing bestselling thrillers. But crowdsourcing cover art? For recently edited update
now available for pre-order, her publisher offered three design choices , none of which Paetro felt was quite right. So she dreamed up a contest and sent out word to art and design schools, offering a bit of cash and the chance to be published. She received hundreds of Flickr entries from around the world, so many of which were good, she had a hard time deciding which she liked best.
Crowdsourcing an Advance, a Title, an Editorial Board. Strategy Director
Bud Caddell recently
launched a project on Kickstarter, to develop and publish a book that is an evaluation of how everything in the attention economy actually works, and how to profit by it. The genius of his idea was this: instead of circulating a proposal among agents, waiting for interest, then waiting for an agent to strongarm a publisher into shelling out an advance, Bud approached book writing as if he were setting up a nonprofit: he sent out
word to people passionate about the same subject he was and
wrote them a proposal, promising them an opportunity to help make a difference. Within a month, he enlisted not only 103 board members (including, full disclosure, myself) but over $18K which allows him, five weeks from the day he put out the book concept, to be travelling around the country doing interviews for it. Further brilliance of writing a book this way? You've got a built-in community of amenable readers, editors and fact-checkers, which relieves friends and loved ones of these onerous duties.
The Dickensian Approach: Blogging Installments Euro RSCG Chicago Chairman/CCO
Steffan Postaer, discouraged by the bleak house that publishing is these days, is
releasing his third novel a la Dickens whose books were first published serially in magazines. Postaer is
blogging a romantic comedy chapter by chapter via blog posts, an approach that gives him the benefit of further dimensionalizing the story world with visuals. He's also
staging a contest for cover art. Ironically, the winner will receive what many in publishing are fiercely resisting: an ipad.
Hopefully, many more writers are transforming old world publishing models out there. Aren't they?
Rate your customs inspector at PVG airport: Greatly Satisified? Satisfied? Basically satisfied? or Not Satisfied? Imagine if TSA instituted this. 
As you may know, I'm a huge Mad Men fan, but. Am I the only one who found Don's creative pitch to Jantzen as lame as a one-legged reporter? "So well built, we can't show you the second floor" Really? They're turning Don into a Catskills routine? C'mon folks! It's 1964! It's a creative revolution on Madison Ave! Down the street from Time/Life, DDB was winning awards for Alka Seltzer spots with Gene Wilder, running politically incorrect (even then) print ads for Jewish Rye and coming up with auto ads so inspired that an ugly little excuse for a car from enemy territory (consigned by Hitler himself!) started flying out the doors of factories in Germany. In November 1964, a man was elected president due in part to the TV creative of a copywriter (Tony Schwartz) whose spot ran only once, but remains one of the most controversial (and persuasive) political commercials ever made.
He could have told them that no shop in the history of start-ups has pitched a new prospect with a single, one-page print ad. Then again, given that the mustachioed gun-toter pictured right was the actual print ad Jantzen was running in 1963, perhaps writers can't be blamed for assuming anything they came up with would be an improvement.
Crowdsourcing Cover Art. Crowdsourcing content isn't a new concept, actually. The book that's been a bible of sorts for getting into the ad business has been crowdsourced from creatives since the 80s. (Proud to say recent update includes an essay from AdBroad.) The author/curator is Maxine Paetro, who was manager of creative talent at some of the best agencies in New York before she segued into writing bestselling thrillers. But crowdsourcing cover art? For recently edited update now available for pre-order, her publisher offered three design choices , none of which Paetro felt was quite right. So she dreamed up a contest and sent out word to art and design schools, offering a bit of cash and the chance to be published. She received hundreds of Flickr entries from around the world, so many of which were good, she had a hard time deciding which she liked best.
Crowdsourcing an Advance, a Title, an Editorial Board. Strategy Director Bud Caddell recently launched a project on Kickstarter, to develop and publish a book that is an evaluation of how everything in the attention economy actually works, and how to profit by it. The genius of his idea was this: instead of circulating a proposal among agents, waiting for interest, then waiting for an agent to strongarm a publisher into shelling out an advance, Bud approached book writing as if he were setting up a nonprofit: he sent out word to people passionate about the same subject he was and wrote them a proposal, promising them an opportunity to help make a difference. Within a month, he enlisted not only 103 board members (including, full disclosure, myself) but over $18K which allows him, five weeks from the day he put out the book concept, to be travelling around the country doing interviews for it. Further brilliance of writing a book this way? You've got a built-in community of amenable readers, editors and fact-checkers, which relieves friends and loved ones of these onerous duties.
The Dickensian Approach: Blogging Installments Euro RSCG Chicago Chairman/CCO Steffan Postaer, discouraged by the bleak house that publishing is these days, is releasing his third novel a la Dickens whose books were first published serially in magazines. Postaer is blogging a romantic comedy chapter by chapter via blog posts, an approach that gives him the benefit of further dimensionalizing the story world with visuals. He's also staging a contest for cover art. Ironically, the winner will receive what many in publishing are fiercely resisting: an ipad.
Next week, for the first time, you can plant a real crop on your pretend farm. According to the NYTimes, Cascadian Farm, a subsidiary of General Mills, is offering Farmville players a branded blueberry crop that can be "harvested faster" and "bring a bigger cash return." Marketers are hoping to incent real-world buying of Cascadian Farm's 75 organic products by seeding awareness of the brand in FarmVille’s audience: of 20 million who farm daily, 60% are female, 20-40 yrs. old.
Last night was a double-header by Allan Gurganus (Oldest Living Confederate Widow Tells All) and by one of my favorite poets: Franz Wright. Here is Franz (left) (ha) at the after-party, with another of my favorite poets: Frank Bidart. If you don't know their work, treat yourself to the pleasure. Even people who aren't poetry fans are taken in by Bidart's "Old Man at the Wheel". (If you like it, you'll love the rest of the book.) Wright has garnished many distinctions, including the distinction of publishing the first dot com poem, at the turn of the century when most people thinking about dot coms weren't poets.
