‘The Earth cooled…’ and other bad places to begin your story

On his flight to Los Angeles earlier this month, my friend John was listening to Walter Isaacson’s biography of Steve Jobs. He reported finding it slow going, particularly because it started so early in Jobs’ life. I’m paraphrasing John here, but he said something like, “He didn’t have to start with, ‘The Earth cooled…’”

“The Earth Cooled” is the perfect way to describe opening paragraphs that are so wrapped up in back story, “context,” or establishing an author’s bona fides, that they disengage reader. It happens a lot.

Two common causes: The writer has fallen back on chronology as a structure, or the he’s pointlessly clearing his throat before he comes to what he really wants to say. In the latter case, if I look down two or three paragraphs, I discover the true starting point. You might think that writers would not want to hear that an editor wants to lop off their first 200 words, but most are grateful. They knew the point they were trying to get to, they just didn’t know how to get started. Once we’ve eliminated “the Earth cooled” segment, the writer and I can get to work solving the real problem: how to start on-point with style and punch.

Particularly when writing essays and articles, the best starting point is not the beginning of time. Its the moment that makes the reader care.

So my friend Kathleen, who is a professional jazz singer and vocal teacher, discovered country music and the results are striking. She and her songwriting partner formed a band called Fleeting Heart. Album to come soon.

Amy and I went to see Fleeting Heart do a short set at a little “hickster” joint in Echo Park this week, and they were fantastic live. The whole room fell silent, totally absorbed by their first three songs, including this one.

E-book price fixing and the agency model

So the DoJ fired a warning shot over the bows of book publishers, suggesting that they were colluding to fix prices for e-books. (If you didn’t, the WSJ has a clear story on the situation here. Link good for one week.) Buyers of e-books probably cheered. Why should we be paying $15 or more for a digital book?

Well, as The Guardian explained last year:

Most people instinctively feel that ebooks should be substantially cheaper than paper books, because an ebook is not physically “made”: there are no printing costs. But if, says [author Robert] Levine, the real value of a book resides in the “text itself”, then the delivery method shouldn’t much matter. The fixed costs – acquiring, editing, marketing – remain unchanged.

In truth, paper is cheap. So is printing and binding. The largest advantage to publishers about e-books is not that they don’t have to print them, but that they don’t have to store and ship them, or take them back as remainders.

So what’s this about price-fixing? It’s complicated, but the tale is essentially one of publishers squirming between two tech behemoths: Amazon and Apple. Amazon, eager to sell Kindles, would “buy” e-books from publishers, and then sell them below their wholesale price. You can see how really cheap e-books would make a voracious reader want a Kindle.

That spooked publishers, who didn’t like seeing their fresh-to-markets (essentially “hardback”) titles sold for mass-market paperback prices. But there was little they could do. If Amazon wanted to take a loss on every e-book it sold, that was their business.

Along comes Apple with its shiny new iPad. Apple offers book publishers more or less the same deal it offered music companies: we’ll sell your product and take a 30 percent cut. The difference here was the book publishers got to set their own prices. They liked that. (This is the “agency model.” Think of the reseller — Amazon, or the iBooks store — as an “agent” who gets a cut of the sale, like a real estate agent.)

The DoJ says that by imposing the agency-style payment system on other resellers (read: Amazon, but also Barnes and Noble) that they were colluding to raise prices.

I just looked at Amazon’s Kindle best-sellers. Jonathan Kellerman’s new “Victims” (Ballantine) is $14.99. William Landay’s new thriller “Defending Jacob” (Random House) is $12.99. “The Hunger Games” (Scholastic) and its sequels are selling for $5-$7. Prices drop the longer something is out… but isn’t that the same way with other media? One week a movie is $10 at the theater ($14 here in L.A.), and in a month, it’s at the $5 cinema, then a $3 DVD rental. Surely there is more price variation, especially over time, than the $.99 or $1.29 iTunes single.

I think Amazon is doing really innovative things with digital publishing, truly. But which is closer to oligopoly-style power over e-book sales — Amazon and Apple, or the five big book publishers who have to compete with dozens of smaller houses and an increasing number of self-publishing writers?

Book buyers may howl, but over the long term, an agency model actually aligns the interests of publishers and resellers—and maybe readers too. Both make the most money if they find the optimal price to move the most books.

What giving away news did to newspapers in two easy charts

My friend Wynne says that for so long newspapers made so much money that any dumb asshole could get rich owning one — and that that’s why so many dumb assholes own them.

Those days are over. This short piece from The Atlantic’s business writer Derek Thompson shows how print advertising and circulation fell off a cliff in the 2000s — and just how steep that cliff was. Interesting that the bright spot was the Wall Street Journal, which has kept its circulation up even when instituting a pay wall for online content. The NY Times finally got around to that about a year ago, and the LA Times started it’s pay-only system this week.

I suspect we’ll be seeing lots more pay for content on all sorts of web sites. I just had a chance to do some editing for a start-up company here in L.A. called MediaPass. (Note: the new Get Rauzi-improved words not online yet.) Their business is to sell subscriptions to any online content with just a bit of javascript code. It’s like AdSense for paid or premium content: you put the code on your page, and they collect all the revenue, take a cut, and send you monthly checks. The hurdle to pay walls has been expense, and that expense is now effectively gone.

Question is, when you stop giving your articles away for free, will subscriptions climb again? Or at least level off?

Don’t let the intern write the job posting

I do a lot of editing work for a talent management company. (Not “Hollywood movie star” talent, but high-paid executive talent.) As a result, I hear a lot about how companies “brand” themselves as employers. This is not something I gave much thought to before, but now examples, good and bad, jump out to me all the time.

In short, there are lots of things that go into a decision to seek employment at a particular company. Pay, opportunity, benefits — those are all aspects. But the reputation of the company is all-important. The companies that everyone wants to work for the most, after all, gets its pick of the best people out there.

So it was with horror that I read this job posting for a supposedly high-end luxury magazine last week:

Looking for a editor that loves to write, and is very familar with Los Angeles Area. Looking for someone that wants to be a part of a growing brand, that deals directly with the luxury lifestyle. Someone that can blog daily in regards to Los Angeles, along with help us get good stories for our Magazine.

Looking for someone that is very good in writing profiles, and understand the Beverly Hills, Malibu, Orange County, etc market. We are looking for someone that can blog 2-3 times a day in regards to Los Angeles, along with write profiles and assist us with our West Coast Publications.

Please apply only if you are located in Los Angeles as we are looking for someone that loves to write profiles, understands our market, and can be a great addition to our team. Please apply if you are a winner and want to be part of a winning brand.

What part of this suggests any level of “winning brand?” The random capitalization? The subject-verb disagreement? The lack of adherence to any discernible style? The repetition? The incorrect prepositions? What part suggests luxury lifestyle magazine? Also, why post a job for an editor when what you want is a feature writer?

When you read an job posting like that, and it claims to offer a “very competitive salary,” do you believe it?

Think about the pain of breathing →

This is a video art piece I saw in Lisbon in 2003, and I think about it a lot. Or, at least, I think about the pain of breathing. It’s at the fantastic Gulbenkian.

If you are paying an editor... →

Joining the Pomodoro cult

Yesterday, reading the comments on a WSJ story, I stumbled on a mention of “The Pomodoro Technique.” I’m suspicious of such endorsements in comments, but this one seemed genuine, and so I clicked through to the Pomodoro Technique Web site.

I was so instantly hooked that I read the 45-page PDF (a free download) and started applying the principles today. Admittedly, it’s been one day. But it feels revolutionary. For instance, it’s 5:56, and I’m done with work, having completed everything on my to-do list and then some.

Pomodoro has it roots in Francesco Cirillo’s first years in college, when apparently he felt like he was getting his ass kicked. He felt his problem was that he couldn’t study or concentrate effectively. So he got a kitchen timer shaped like a tomato, and set it for 10 minutes with a goal of studying without interruption. Over time and through trial, he came up with a formula: 25 minutes on and a five minute break equals one “Pomodoro.” Every four Pomodoros, take a 15-20 minute break.

The gist is that anyone can focus—really focus—on a task for 25 minutes. (Considering that’s the length of a sitcom, even ADD types should be able to manage.) And if you string together 25-minute blocks, you get a lot done. It’s been embraced by students, understandably, and also engineers and programmers who need to concentrate without interruption. But it also seems like the perfect tool for writers and editors.

There are three parts of the philosophy of Pomodoro that speak to me and how I work. First, planning is essential. You can’t use this method without a list of activities that you want to accomplish, and an estimate of how much time (how many Pomodoros) each will take. I always work more efficiently when I have such a list, but I can get lazy about maintaining them.

Second, rest is part of progress. We knew that “study breaks” were necessary in college, but that’s quickly forgotten in the work world where you are trying to cram in as much as possible to every day. But mental effort requires a refresh. And I was amazed at how accurate this system was. After four pomodoros — just over two hours of concentrated work — I needed more than just a five-minute break. This is also one of the aspects I like about yoga: resting at the end is part of the exercise.

Third — and Cirillo writes about this — the Pomodoro Technique shifts your philosophy of time. It is your friend and your tool, not the source of anxiety. Progress becomes not hours past, but a succession of activities. And if I thought of something I need or want to do (buy new lightbulbs) I just put it on the list, and I know I’ll get to it later, so little things don’t nag at me, causing anxiety.

Pomodoro has surely been easier for me to implement because I work at home, where there are few external distractions, few standing meetings, and most of those (phone, email) I can choose to ignore for 25-minute stretches. My big distractions are, “What in the heck is the cat doing in the closet?” and “Ooh, is the mailman here?” But even in those five-minute breaks, I felt I got more done around the house. Bringing in the trash cans from the street, playing with the cat, emptying the dishwasher, vacuuming under the bed — these were all perfect five-minute breaks. But the breaks were also only five minutes; I didn’t let them drag on much more. But that was OK, because I got another one in a half hour.

Cirillo says that with experience, Pomodoro-ing also leads to self-improvement. That you’ll get better at creating estimates of how much time certain tasks are going to take, and then more effective in each Pomodoro period itself. That certainly seems likely. But if I just have more productive days like today, I’ll be a happy Pomodorian.

(Source: pomodorotechnique.com)

What happens when a community loses its newspaper? →

This piece focuses on Massachusetts, but makes note of an interesting study done when the Cincinnati Post folded:

In the 12 months encompassed by the study, which included the 2008 election cycle, the authors found that fewer people offered themselves for local offices, fewer incumbents faced challenges, and voter turnout fell. The authors rightly cautioned that the study’s inherent limitations—a relatively short time span and the continued existence of another paper in the region, al­though not in those particular suburbs—made it more anecdotal than conclusive. Nonetheless, they cited the work of another scholar who argued that the newspaper industry’s decline “raises practical questions for anyone concerned about the future of Ameri­can democracy.”

Unedited Quarterly

Noticed that writer/editor Mark Lisanti (late of Defamer and Yahoo, recently added to Grantland) calls his blog Lisanti Quarterly. That’s a good idea I might have to adopt. Lets me off the hook for only posting four times a year.

All beauty that has not a foundation in use, soon grows distasteful, and needs continual replacement with something new. That which has in itself the highest use possesses the greatest beauty.

—  Shaker Declaration

Continuing education

I’ve been sort of fascinated by the New York Times’ foray into what can only be for-profit education. If you read their web site, or paper, you’ve certainly come across the ads for The Knowledge Network. Despite the slick web site, it’s a hodgepodge of online classes — some full semester, college-credit (Global Issues in Health and Human Services), others more of the community-college extension variety (Designing a Custom House or Extensive Remodel).

There are, not surprisingly, a disproportionate number of classes in writing, creative writing, nonfiction writing, and new media journalism. I’ve checked the latter out before, and they’re offered by Ball State, a certainly respectable j-school in Indiana. But why is the NYT interested in bestowing Ball State with its imprimatur?

The other question I can’t quite nail down is value. For instance, my alma mater, USC and the NYT Knowledge network are offering a three-week class in effective business writing. It’s 12 to 18 hours, online and on-demand. Meaning it’s video lectures, homework you email in, and an online discussion board. You also get “access to USC faculty,” which I guess means they’ll take your calls? It costs $975 and is limited to 40 students.

I created a custom class for a half-dozen employees on effective business writing, taught it over three weeks, and I charged them about $1,000 for the whole thing. Which tells me I need to get into this online education racket.

Second, I found an e-Publishing Graduate Certificate Program, which is the kind of think that interests me. It’s five, three-unit courses at $1950 each, taught by Rosemont College. So, nearly $10,000 in sum. I just don’t think there’s $10,000 worth of knowledge in e-publishing. Each course sounds like material that could be covered in a single two-hour lecture. And it’s not like I don’t have a frame of reference. At Simon Frasier University, where I spent two weeks at a Summer Publishing Workshop, we covered the basics of ALL publishing in two weeks at 1/4th the price. Pubworks also offers a class in e-books called, “E-books in a Day.” It costs $225. Of course that’s Canadian dollars, so $229.28.

I’ve read repeatedly about how education, like health care, is one of America’s growth industries. But at what point are consumers going to wise up?

Now with 65% less blond

For New Year’s I resolved to try 25 new things this year, but the one new thing that got the most attention was bleaching my hair. I did it just before Memorial Day with the intention of keeping it through about Labor Day — for the summer.

I never got used to it.

Maybe that’s a good thing. It meant that every morning, every time I looked in the mirror, that I had to mentally reaffirm, “This is really me.”  It also gave me a lot of empathy of people who, for whatever reason, don’t feel like themselves in their body. They may need bigger breasts or more muscles or red hair. Or even — and I already feel this — feel that as they age they aren’t in control of themselves any more.

Anyway, yesterday was my day to go back to normal, and dye my hair back to brown. Except something happened.

It came out khaki.

At first I thought it was just ash blonde. But the more I look at it, I think there is a definite green-ish tint. Either way, it has not alleviated the who’s-in-the-mirror feeling. Which is why I’m headed back down to the salon this afternoon to see if I can get closer back to normal. At lest 85% less blond.

Jobless rate in California above 12% →

L.A. musical moment

On Monday, I took my Ohioian visitors Meg and her godson Nick to a nearby market. I think of it as a Latino market because it’s where I buy great carne asada and Mexican Coke, but the owners seem to be Koreans.

As we were waiting to buy our fajita meat and tortillas, a song began to filter into my consciousness. I definitely knew the melody, but the words were in Spanish. And was that… tuba?

Oh yes it was.

It was Rogelio Martinez Sinaloa-flavored cover of Shania Twain’s “You’re Still the One,” below for your listening pleasure. It is so terrible that I sort of love it.