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Hoofing it

Transit strike...One of my friends, a die-hard socialist, says this is the first time he's not supported a strike - ever. But New York is not a car-friendly town - should one be so foolish as to actually own a car while living in the city, the insurance premiums coupled with the car payments mean you could be paying as much as another whole apartment's worth of rent.

As a card-carrying member of the pajamuhadeen, it obviously hasn't affected me that much but the truth is, my cranky level is up - I had planned on last-minute holiday shopping and now I am doomed to what my neighborhood has to offer, or the good graces of FedEx.

But listening to Bloomberg's address this afternoon - kinda like an episode of Batman, with the mayor on the steps of Gotham City Hall - one had to feel for the shopkeepers in Lower Manhattan, who rely so heavily on retail traffic this time of year and aren't getting it; one had to feel for the restaurant workers who aren't getting the tips they normally would; one had to feel for parents whose kids couldn't go to school. (The kids, of course, were probably not all that upset.) One had to feel for all those marching around in the cold, their commutes extended by hours in some cases, with blood-pressure-raising frustration.

And I'm all about the little guy - but the transit workers are NOT the little guy. The little guy here is everyone who relies on the subway and the bus to get to their UNDER $48,000K/year-with-no-benefits jobs. Housecleaners. Teachers. Line cooks. Retail clerks. All the people who make this city go - all the people who carry this city on their BACKS, with their hourly (frequently under-the-table) wages and their nonexistent health care and their nonexistent pensions - THAT's who the real victims of this strike are.

Sorry, guys - I just ain't feelin' the love for you tonight.
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Posted by Laura Dawson , December 20, 05, 6:12 PM , comments(0) , permalink , Email this post

Mommy's late to the bandwagon

All right, I finally got an iPod. Ostensibly for business reasons, so I could record meetings, and give  yet another way to keep me organized (transcribe them into Word documents with action items and etc.). Naturally, the first thing I did was load it with all manner of music (I will NOT bore people with my playlists), and photos, and my contacts list and my calendar, and now I'm listening with my Bose headphones and my kids think I'm lame. Except my iPod is cooler than theirs are. Because it's brand new, super-thin, and has a color display.

Which is to say, I'm sold. Some of us take longer than others. Maybe next I'll start a blog.
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Posted by Laura Dawson , December 9, 05, 7:50 PM , comments(0) , permalink , Email this post

POD, ASAP

Category: Publishing
Well, it's December and the new Print on Demand Publishers Directory is available for 2006. If you haven't got yours now, this is the time. Question: Is it a POD title itself? The squib doesn't say.

I'm hearing more and more burbling up from the land of POD, however - it is such a sensible way of running a small house, and the quality of the publications now is indistinguishable from more "traditional" publications. So the question becomes: why is doing a print run in advance (which is a huge gamble, and if you're a small publisher, you want to reduce your gambling as much as you can) still THE way of doing things? Why such a stigma attached to POD?

I have a book coming out next year from Demimonde Books, which has used a POD model primarily for its first title, Girly. They are now moving to a more traditional model simply because of demand - a good reason! But my book will probably be released, initially, as a POD title - why print up more than you know you can sell? Cosimo Books is another small house that uses a POD model primarily. Again, all that PP&B is a huge investment of materials, and if you can postpone making that investment until you've got orders - and match the orders to the investment - it makes SO MUCH SENSE.

POD used to be derided as a form of vanity publishing, but now we've got Lulu. As The Bookseller points out, they don't do editorial or marketing, but they do take care of printing the actual product for you, and the royalty split is 80-20 in your favor. Obviously, who doesn't need an editor - but there are plenty of editorial services out there, and freelance publicists and marketers - publishing is not rocket science, or alchemy. Naturally traditional publishers try to make a big deal about how much more they offer in services and publicity - if you can get past the bouncers and the velvet ropes and actually get IN the damn club.

Yeah, well.
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Posted by Laura Dawson , December 2, 05, 2:20 PM , comments(0) , permalink , Email this post
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