Four new books arrived on my desk today.
Looking forward to reading this weekend.
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If you heard my interview on CFAX 1070 and are looking for info on BookCamp Vancouver, here’s the link:
http://bookcampvan.pbworks.com/
Just taunting you.
Chris Labonte, 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.
My friend Rachael Ashe brings photo canvases from imagination to life. She is currently working on a portrait series and recently I was in the camera light. But what really caught my eye was the altered books that she’s been working on.
If you like my photo, check out other work by Rachael.
Rachael’s Website
More Portrait Series and Other Photos on Flickr
Etsy for Rachael’s photography and altered books
Thank you Rachael for taking such a beautiful photo. And book nerds, you’ll notice that the majority of the books I picked are Canadian.
Reviewed from Uncorrected Proof
Friends with Benefits
A Social Media Marketing Handbook by Darren Barefoot and Julie Szabo is coming out this November. Just in time for my birthday.
Lucky for me, their book publisher, No Starch Press, understands geek entertainment and they sent me an advance PDF. Yahoo!
Friends with Benefits is the best book on social media marketing that I’ve read to date. Why is it so great?
Reason 1
My friends wrote it and 3/4s of the way through there’s a screenshot that includes one of my Facebook updates.
Ok, no really, there are better reasons than that.
Reason 2
Friends with Benefits is one of the few books that offers social media marketing case studies with accompanying stats. Although every company has to set their own baseline for metrics, having a reasonable idea of what to expect is critical. Much of this private info is never shared, which means it is hard for a marketer who’s new to social media to answer the boss’s question, “what do I get for this investment in social media.”
Reason 3
There are great passages and quotes.
“The connections we make with other people online are real.”
“The Internet has become a public venue where the audience responds to news reports, suggests stories to cover, and even reports on stories.”
“Marketing is a marathon, not a sprint. A successful campaign is usually the result of a hundred correct decisions and actions.”
Reason 4
Friends with Benefits answers the question, “Why would I want social media when my standard marketing practices are safe and known?”
If you’re a marketer dependent on mass media, then understanding web 2.0 as explained by Barefoot and Szabo will shoot you light years ahead of your competition.
The quick history in the first chapter helps establish the customs and culture that make up the web today; and how PR professionals can work within that framework.
Friends with Benefits is a must-read for social media marketers and those new to the field. There’s stuff for everyone, including the case studies I mentioned above, the reasonable expectations set around metrics, the how-to checklists and the great tips on the tools.
Who is Friends with Benefits for?
Anyone who wants:
- More website visitors
- More incoming links
- More subscribers to your RSS feeds
- More views of your content on video- and photo-sharing sites like YouTube and Flickr
- More references to your company, products, and services on blogs, podcasts, Twitter, MySpace, Facebook, …
- More followers on Twitter
- Better search engine optimization
- More genuine interactions with your customers
Good job Darren and Julie! I look forward to seeing the book in stores.
Darren and Julie with Andre Charland from Nitobi at IMC Vancouver 2008
Download Chapter 4 from the No Starch site: “Netiquette: Miss Manners for the Web” (PDF)
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
http://www.alaindebotton.com/a_week_at_the_airport.asp
(Press Release)
RALLY TO PROTEST ARTS FUNDING CUTS IN B.C.
——-
Where: In front of the Vancouver Art Gallery, 750 Hornby Street
When: Wednesday, September 9th, 2009 at noon
Wear Gray – the colour of life without art
Bring your family, friends, board members, audiences – anyone who feels that the cultural life of BC is important.
—–
British Columbia’s arts and culture sector is being decimated by a government that is clearly contemptuous of one of the province’s most productive economic sectors.
Arts funding has and is being cut despite recent headlines telling us it has been “restored” – This is only for a few and only temporarily. Despite what we are being told, the figures we have at present tell us that our sector will be cut by up to 92% by the end of this government’s mandate. This while their own studies show that for every $1 they invest, they receive a return of $1.38 in taxes.
We ask you to consider the ways that arts and culture touch your daily lives at home, in the streets, your children in schools, on TV, your music, on the internet, in videogames and in theatres. We ask you to think about culture as part of our individual and community identities, a way to connect with our origins with who we are today, and with what we care about.
Our world would be a gray place without our art and culture. Art is not a frill. Culture matters.
Please join.
For more information, visit the following links:
http://www.vancouversun.com/Victoria+backs+down+arts+funding+cuts+after+outcry/1957999/story.html
http://www.straight.com/content/arts/arts-notes
http://www.allianceforarts.com/
http://www.theprovince.com/life/Gambling+with+other+people+money/1957693/story.html
The Magicians by Lev Grossman is a novel about a bunch of kids who end up at a magic school–a daring feat (or author death wish) considering the world of Harry Potter hasn’t left our collective consciousness. But Grossman’s intention is to tie into the collective consciousness, in particular to the works of CS Lewis, Ursula LeGuin and JK Rowling. And he pulls it off. Grossman does, afterall, hold degrees in comparative literature from Harvard and Yale, and, based on writing style, is well versed in the traditions of modern fantasy and literary fiction.
Like Harry Potter, we have a couple of trios in the mix. Our main group being intellectually precocious high school senior Quentin Coldwater and his best friends James and Julia (who happen to be a couple). Quentin is our Harry, James and Julia our Ron and Hermione. But this trio doesn’t quite work out.
Quentin and James set off for their Princeton interviews. The interviewer turns up dead. The paramedic on scene is a bit odd and tries to give them envelopes with their names on them, and only Quentin accepts. Bonds are broken. Quentin moves to the next level.
The next level being an examination and then acceptance at Brakebills College for Magical Pedagogy.
Quote: The Magicians by Lev Grossman. Page 23
The test also changed as he took it. The reading-comprehension section showed him a paragraph that vanished as he read it, then quizzed him on its contents. Some new kind of computerized paper–hadn’t he read somewhere that somebody was working on that? Digital ink? Amazing resolution, though. He was asked to draw a rabbit that wouldn’t keepstill as he drew it–as soon as it had paws it scratched itself luxuriously and then went hopping off around the page, nibbling at the other questions, so that he had to chase it with the pencil to finish filling in the fur. He wound up pacifying it with some hastily sketched radishes and then drawing a fence around it to keep it in line.The Magicians by Lev Grossman (Viking)
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:
- Latest industry news headlines. Stay up-to-date with the most recent headlines in small business and personal legal issues. Read up on personal finance and real estate issues.
- Free articles and expert resources. Take advantage of tips and guides provided by Self-Counsel’s authors, editors, and experts. Topics ranging from divorce and legal wills to starting your own small business, and social media marketing are available for free on the site and in downloadable PDF format.
- Interactive forum. Users can connect with Self-Counsel authors and industry experts on subjects ranging from the latest trends in do-it-yourself legal topics to specific questions about starting and running a small business.
- Digital products. The new website features downloadable products, including small business and legal forms.
- Sample chapters. Users can download sample chapters of every book Self-Counsel publishes.
- Social media bookmarks. A “share” button under every article, news headline, and book allows users to share information with friends and family in an easy and efficient way. Users can also find links to book review blogs, book giveaways, and relevant videos.
- Tags. Users can add tags to each of the books on the site as a way of categorizing or labeling them for future reference.
- Book reviews. Readers can share their opinions as well as read what others have said about Self-Counsel’s books.