Grub Street Printing Newsletter #67, November 2014

I don't intend this to be a criticism of criticism. I agree with Churchill when he wrote, “Criticism may not be agreeable, but it is necessary.”Learning from criticism requires the ability to ignore the critic and judge the veracity of the criticism.

That all sounds so quaint in this digital age.

One of the unfortunate side effects of “social media” is that it supports a very nasty strain of “anti-social media”. And sometimes worse.

Before there were LCD screens to hide behind, criticism was generally not anonymous. Newspapers cautioned that unsigned “Letters to the Editor” would not be printed. No printed media would bother acknowledging an anonymous critique of a painting or drama; critics needed to be some sort of authority, someone educated in the given field with broad knowledge of the form. They didn't need to be nice people (many Broadway critics were said to be quite vile) or as gifted as the artists whose creations they scrutinized.

Many authors have bristled over harsh criticism, sometimes rightly so. Even the opinion of an expert is just an opinion. But knowing the identity of the critic can either turn their criticism into a learning experience or understood to be just so much unfounded rubbish.

My how things have changed.

Consider Kathleen Hale, author of No One Else Can Have You. The book was generally well-received by Publishers Weekly, Booklist and others.

But someone posted ongoing criticism on Goodreads, panning it as she read. The comments were described as “derisive running commentary”. And the commentary's author was protected behind a pseudonym.

Many, if not most, believe Hale responded inappropriately. She trolled the internet to discover her critic's actual identity, finally going so far as attempting to speak with the writer at her home.

Hale confessed her obsession in an article in the British newspaper Guardian. Reaction to her pursuit has ranged from horror to accolades.

Some months ago I may have joined the shocked and disgusted camp.

Recently, however, I became aware of just how insidious anonymous criticism can

become. A group known as #Gamergate with a website called Gamasutra was used by some members of the gaming community to belittle a female game creator, Zoe Quinn, who authored a game exploring depression, a subject she was intimately acquainted with.

The game clearly was on a different level than the popular “kill or be killed” games and when some contributors pointed out that it would fail in the angry young male audience which gobbled up bloodier fare, her game was defended by others, and the critics were described as angry old men.

The battle began. Instead of posting with familiar user names identifiable in the gaming community, new anonymous identities sprang up and the vitriol began. Twitter also offered anonymity equal to the forums and email. Quinn moved out of her apartment and has yet to return.

All of this action soon drew the attention of those who study gaming, including Anita Sarkeesian who posts regularly on the Feminist Frequency web site about the sexist depiction of women in video games. Sarkeesian was scheduled to speak at Utah State University in mid-October, but a torrent of threats on her life induced her to request an additional security presence, including barring firearms at the lecture. When her request was turned down, she canceled her presentation.

Not only did the director of the Center for Women and Gender “receive an email threatening a 'massacre style attack' if the talk proceeded”, Sarkeesian herself was forced from her home after receiving threats through posts that included her home address.

Four days prior to the event's cancellation, game creator Brianna Wu was also forced to leave her home after receiving threats.

The gaming community vehemently denies it supports those who make the threats, but another gaming site “Kotaku has banned its writers from contributing to developers on Patreon, a crowdfunding website popular with women in games—notably Gamergate targets Zoë Quinn and Anita Sarkeesian”.

My first reaction was, “My god people, you're talking about GAMES here. Games!” But when it was pointed out that these games haul in $70 billion each year I understood that there's considerably more at stake than defending their morbid misogyny.

The fact that this brouhaha is occurring is not particularly surprising. What does surprise me is that threats of death and violence can be posted so nonchalantly in cyber-space. I see no challenge to first amendment rights here. A death threat can be freely made but can also be freely prosecuted.

Some of the articles I read about Gamergate claim that many in the gaming community are fighting for recognition as real writers and journalists.

Dudes, that is seriously not going to happen. So far as I know, sublimation can produce great art, but in and of itself is just a mental work-around.

Amazon About to be Attacked?

Seemingly strange bedfellows Apple and Chinese uber-middleman Alibaba believe working in concert they could beat Amazon at its own game in the US (as well as Walmart, BestBuy, etc.).

O2O?

They say that the main battlefield to be contested in the Apple Alibaba vs Amazon war will be O2O commerce. I'd never heard of it either but it involves web retailers setting up brick and mortar stores, then selling their wares and shipping them to the customer, Online to Offline.

Learning From Borders

A lot of people and businesses were devastated when Borders closed in 2011. And while many helpful, literate employees ended up flipping burgers, the top brass finished with extra cash in their wallets. While the executive suite had a revolving door on it, it's clear that Borders' wounds were self-inflicted.

Matt Iglesias Doesn't Get Publishers. So?

Apparently a neo-liberal (whatever THAT is) had a free market hallucination and determined that publishers are an unneeded drag on society and the arts... all the while recommending books from a number of publishers.

Amazon, Hachette, and Iglesias in Context

While Iglesias argues that the Amazon vs. Hachette is a money spat, others argue that the broad spectrum of book selling itself is being tested.

                                          

                New Punctuation Marks 

Have you considered that additional punctuation marks could add precision and clarity? An example would be these 13 new punctuation marks, like the “question-comma”.

Best Reading Device

Apparently, using the word “device” eliminates consideration of actual books. Smart phones are the best because you can hold them in one hand? Wait until the writer gets his new Apple Smart Watch and he can “read” with no hands!

If eReserves Aren't the New Coursepacks, What Are They?

While reversing a lower court decision that seemed to allow professors to assign unlimited reading of copyrighted material in league with the school's library, the court also advised that the old copyright rules used to create photocopied coursepacks no longer applied.

Talk About a “Rush Job”

The San Francisco Giants won the World Series on Wednesday night and on Friday morning Dome Printing delivered 4,500 copies of the commemorative book detailing their season.

The Golden Age of Books

Over the years I've discussed the possibility that some of us were fortunate enough to have participated in the Golden Age of Books with a number of established publishers. While there are no firm dates to mark the beginning or end, I tend to think that the arrival of soft-cover books in the 1930s marked the beginning and it continued roughly to Y2K when big box retailers were killing the indies, digital book production was a necessary evil requiring enormous investment, and Amazon was a money losing web start-up. Today's younger pundits think the Golden Age of Books is now, thanks to Amazon!

Print Trade Show Uneventful

Admittedly the yearly Graph Expo Chicago trade show has suffered from diminishing attendance, but apparently the glitz is gone too. Back in the day, there were dozens of 20 ton presses throughout the show displaying their ever increasing capabilities. This years show had exactly one running offset press.

Final thought

“I would rather be attacked than unnoticed. For the worst thing you can do to an author is to be silent as to his works.” - Samuel Johnson

Gruub Street Printing Newsletter #66, October 2014

1989 was a busy year for me. Charlie Baker and I worked all summer in a sweltering warehouse, converting 11,000 square feet into a book manufacturing plant.

And my family sold our home beside I-94 in Ypsilanti to reside in the bucolic Township of Hamburg, Michigan.

And in the first week-end of June, I attended the ABA trade show (now BEA) in Washington DC with my wife and children in tow so I could publicize the fact that South East Michigan would have a new book manufacturer opening in the fall, Baker Johnson, Inc.

But something far bigger than the ABA show was happening on the other side of the world, something whose roots I had been only dimly aware of.

Late on Sunday in the District of Columbia I decided that our family should drive through our country's center of government on a sunny, steamy afternoon.

But not far from our hotel we found blocked streets and detours everywhere we tried to go.

The city was cut in two by marchers, many dressed in white robes, carrying signs, mostly in an Asian script, but occasionally in English, demanding democracy for the citizens of what had until recently been called Red China.

Being no stranger to outsized marches and protests, I figured to wait a few minutes and let the procession pass. But minute after minute passed with no end in sight. In fact as more marchers appeared to be wearing western garb, the protest seemed to be attracting sympathetic observers.

Later we found out that early that morning in China, troops had fired on protesting citizens in Tienanmen Square. To this day there are no known figures on the number killed or injured.

On the next day, 70,000 people in the British Dependent Territory of Hong Kong staged their protest over the violence of the Chinese government and siding with the pro-democracy protesters.

As I shut down the computer last night, the last picture I saw was a Chinese armored personnel carrier slipping through a tunnel in Hong Kong in the middle of the night.

Again there are 70,000 protestors (or more) in the streets and again the issue is democracy, the right of the citizens of Hong Kong to choose their own officials through transparent elections.

The Chinese government doesn't seem to be budging, preferring to retain it's hand-picked committee of 1,200 Beijing loyalists who will do all of the voting for the Hong Kong government leaders in 2017.

One man, one vote holds no sway on Hong Kong, although many citizens believe that's exactly what was promised when the Union Jack was taken down and the red and yellow flag of China was raised over the island on July 1, 1997.

Many of you have asked if I do any printing in China. I don't.

Ironically, however, Baker Johnson did manage to sell most of it's equipment to a Chinese equipment broker in 2005 as we closed shop, so it wouldn't be inconceivable for me to make books on the same equipment I made books on 25 years ago.

But that doesn't interest me either.

Without being preachy, I don't like the way that China works.

Last year I attended an event honoring Ardis publishers, founded by Carl and Ellendea Proffer, Russian Literature professors at the University of Michigan. I started doing their books in 1979 and printed nearly all of their titles for a couple of decades or so in the days before Glastnost. Not only did they publish beautiful translations from Russia's rich literary heritage, we worked with them to produce books small enough to be sewn into a trench coat, thin enough to hide in a suitcase lining.

Apart from being incredibly brilliant people, Carl and Ellendea had a love of Russian literature that couldn't be contained; they “battled” over new books to read that were smuggled out of Russia and they would read the best literature aloud to each other in the language in which it was written. From Gogol to Iskander, Pushkin to Brodsky our shop produced classic novels as well as works of many unknown dissidents for Ardis.

As the gathering in the U of M Rackham Building was winding to a close, Ellendea rose and addressed the attendees for a few minutes. For a printer sitting among authors, editors, and ambassadors, listening to an emotional Ellendea describe her and Carl's mission and their journey, the passion I carry for books and a free press was reignited.

With her parting remarks, Ellendea caught my attention by adding “...and if you think the fight for free literary expression in the world is over, pay attention to the situation in China...”

And I have.

If you need a book printed in Asia, I work with a wonderful group of people in India.

 

Asian Pulp&Paper Signs NY Declaration

The New York Declaration to stop deforestation and renew forests has received the support of the Asian Pulp and Paper Group.

B&N Installs Espressos

The all in one Espresso bookmaking machine will get a trial in some east coast B&N outlets. About 15 years ago I read an article that said that books wouldn't be stocked in bookstores by 2003 because all a bookstore would need is a machine like an Espresso. I remember the prediction but wish I'd saved the article. The hype from the digerati back then was hilarious.

The Rise and Fall of Indies

The extinction of Indie book-selling has been reversed and the trend is vaguely heartening. What did the confluence of investors, explosion of digital media and creation of the Amazon monolith have to do with the fall and rise? Everything.

Ikea Parodies Apple Ads

Please enjoy this hilarious Ikea advertisement for its 2015 catalog being introduced in the intuitive “bookbook” format.

UK Youth Prefer Conventional Books

In a poll of 900 youth in the UK and Ireland, 73% reported that they prefer printed books over digital or audio offerings. Fully 31% do not buy ebooks, although 27% prefer them.

Is Learning to Read and Write A Lost Art?

From Facebook to eBay, we all realize that spelling and grammar are dieing a slow death, but why? Is teaching English as painful as this?

There's Hope

A new study by Pew Research paints a brighter picture of literacy in the younger generations, those who grew up in the digital age. 88% of people 30 years old and younger have read at least one book in the past year, while just 79% of those older than 30 reported the same.

Authors Take On Amazon (Again)

Amazon's refusal to treat Hachette's titles equitably while their feud simmers has gotten the attention of a number of noted authors including many not published by Hachette. Authors United was formed to examine the machinations of the company that controls 50% of American book sales.

Ebook Sharing

Amazon and Apple just made ebooks much more attractive by allowing family members to share their ebooks on each others' devices. I was so impressed that I actually bought my daughter an ebook for her and her husband to share over their multiple devices.

                                  Book Covers 101 

While I can neither describe or design what makes a memorable book cover, I recognize that some covers are just over the top fantastic. Peter Mendelsund was the artist on many of them.

                             

                            WWII, The Great Gatsby and 6¢ Books

American publishers supplied the troops with over 122,000,000 books during WWII. Many believe that not only was the market for books “democratized”, but also that many GIs brought their new pastime of reading home from the war with them.

Crowd-Sourcing for Library Distribution

JukePop has begun fund raising on Kickstarter to establish distribution of independent and small press ebook titles into libraries. 


        Final Thought for Banned Books Week

"We all know that books burn, yet we have the greater knowledge that books cannot be killed by fire. People die, but books never die. No man and no force can put thought in a concentration camp forever. No man and no force can take from the world the books that embody man's eternal fight against tyranny of every kind."
—President Franklin D. Roosevelt

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Newsletters are archived with additional graphic material at http://grubstreetnews.blogspot.com/

Grub Street Printing Newsletter, September 2014, No. 65

I've been reading a newsletter entitled The Digital Nirvana for a few years now, more than occasionally to see what combination of e-something or another with the printing process has the writers worked into a frantic lather.

And one of the first and most basic options offered by wiring a Mac to a Heidelberg press was variable information printing for direct marketers: ie. junk mail pretending to be something else.

Now, I've got about five years in the print industry before I discovered book printing, and I appreciate that there are some pedestrian ways to make a buck with a press. And printing books is the apex of the print industry as far as I'm concerned.

So getting misty-eyed about getting the latest personalized AmEx credit card deal stuffed into a million mailboxes doesn't happen to give me a warm fuzzy feeling. Still, I can appreciate that some printer got paid for printing something that I may not open, surely won't read. and that's destined for either my industrial strength shredder or the shopping bag for paper recycling by my desk.

And in spite of all the great advice proffered in The Digital Nirvana (here, here and here for example), when personalization doesn't work quite right, the results can be funny...and depressing. And the point isn't lost on them as they point out the consequences of personalized flubs on the internet and bemoan the goofs of direct mail when it lands in their mailbox.

I remember getting a personalized flyer from HP back in 2004 or so at the Baker Johnson, Inc. shop promoting the variable data (personalization) opportunities of their new press. Except it was addressed to Johnson Baker, Inc., totally muffing two of the three words in the business name. Nice shot but you missed the backboard.

It happened again a couple of years later when I got a letter addressed to Merican Perspective, Ltd.

That just seemed an obvious typo at the time, a misspelling of American Perspective, Ltd., the company that I use for occasional publishing.

Except it wasn't a typo the way I think of a typo, a correctable error. Over the years the flow of mail to Merican Perspctive Ltd.has grown and grown. Here are 3 examples from the past two weeks.

This “typo” is so ingrained in the shroud of big data that when I was on a government web site this past spring, four business names were displayed with the question, “Do you now or have you ever had a business relationship with any of these companies?” And there it was, Merican Perspective Ltd.

What was the right answer? The digital cognoscenti would have you believe that since mail to Merican Perspective, Ltd. has been delivered to my address for at least ten years, there clearly is a business relationship. But since I know that Merican Perspective, Ltd doesn't even exist, is there a correct answer? (And why the hell doesn't the US Government know that there's no such company?)

I logged off and dialed the 800 number.

  

Flat Rate Priority Mail Rates Rise and Fall

While Flat Rate Priority Mail pricing will increase for you on September 7, your company will actually get a reduction in its Priority rates.

Big 5 vs. Amazon

Started to compete with Oyster and Scribd, Amazon's Kindle Unlimited all-you-can-read ebook service has showcased the split between the Big 5 publishers and Amazon. The list of available titles is huge but offers no ebooks from the Big 5. Amazon must disdain PR departments because it comes off as either a jerk or a bully these days.

Don't Pay for Kindle Unlimited

Sure, for around $120 per year you can download dozens of books you'll never read at Kindle Unlimited. Or you could do the same for free.

Charges Threatened Against RR Donnelly

International printer RR Donnelly declared its subsidiary in Argentina bankrupt when union contract talks broke off. Now the Argentine government is threatening RRD with criminal terrorist charges.

Typos of the Rich and Famous

I understand the chagrin you've experienced when a typo in the book you so carefully proofread and edited was found. Cheer up, you're in great company.

Printer's Row No Longer a Row

The area around Printer's Row has hosted many a Chicago Book Festival (now Printer's Row Lit Fest). But tough times for printers has whittled their numbers down to one surviving printer on Printer's Row, Palmer Printing.

 

Newspaper Publishes After Earthquake

Didn't you love those old movies where newspaper reporters used every trick possible to “break the story first”. In that same indefatigable spirit, the Napa Valley Register published its evening edition the same day its 50 ton press was relocated a few inches by the Napa Valley earthquake.

Are Your eBooks in Your Will?

A court in Delaware has ruled that the possessions of the deceased which can be legitimately passed on to the heirs includes all forms of digital accounts or devices. So glad that's settled!

Curation Questions

The Eaton Collection at UC Riverside houses the finest collection of science fiction and fantasy titles anywhere, with works dating back 500 years. Some faculty charge that new administrators are tampering with the very policies that led to the Collection's leadership role among writers and readers (such as abandoning physical books for e-editions).

Funny Money

A subjective gauge of an economy's health can be as simple as observing how consumers spend their money. When the rich treat it like Monopoly money there's usually trouble on the horizon. A $3.2 million comic book may portend some storms ahead. (As does the $38M recently spent at auction for a Ferrari 250 GT.)

$77M Counterfeit Ring Busted

A 15 year Secret Service investigation paid off when a sophisticated counterfeiting operation with bases in Israel and New Jersey was seized and the principles arrested. (that's 770,000 $100 bills.)

Design News

The Belgian Postal Department wanted to commemorate International Women's Day with a stamp. The design features 606 words of text from The Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination Against Women.

Final Thought

Books are delightful society. If you go into a room and find it full of books — even without taking them from the shelves they seem to speak to you, to bid you welcome. ~William Ewart Gladstone

A Substitute Newsletter: Remember the Maine!

Usually there's a big push to finish writing the newsletter at month's end. Generally I've waited until the last minute to finish it lest a major event occurs (like Amazon's stock dropping 99% when their delivery drone downs a 737) but the fact is that I need deadlines to ever finish anything.

This month was different. I wasn't around to write the newsletter. I skipped town for awhile and I don't enjoy typing on my laptop for long periods.

So there is no newsletter, per se, this month.

All you get is this. No doctor's excuse and the dog didn't eat the newsletter.

Just this story about how the world worked, how I believed it's supposed to work, and why so many of you with a history in this industry are coming to regard times past as the Golden Age of Publishing.

I know Thomas Wolfe wrote, “You can't go home again,” but also acknowledged that “All that he knew was that the years flow by like water, and that one day men come home again.”

This year, when we presented the idea of a family vacation to my grown children after a decade or so hiatus, we let them choose the destination.

I was a little surprised by their choice:York, Maine, a place we'd visited many times decades ago.

Years ago I traveled to York each August to spend a week-end or so with some of the nicest people I've ever known, eating, drinking and partying in Donald Weiser's backyard at the annual Weiser Books clambake. From Friday after hours until Monday afternoon, I spent my waking hours with these folks as they taught me the ins and outs of publishing and I shared what I knew of the process of book production.

Some years my whole family accompanied me to York. We'd stay along Long Sands in York, or occasionally by the beach in Ogunquit. And while I relaxed and partied with the Weiser staff on Saturday, my children spent their time on the beach, collecting little sea creatures then returning them to the tide pools and boogie-boarding in the shallow shore waters.

 Boogie boarding on Long Sands, mid 1990s

Telling the story of my relationship not only with Donald Weiser and his wife Betty Lunsted but all of their friends and associates would be far too expansive to relate here, but they were at once my customers, my friends, and my mentors.

My good friend Barbara (Aurora Press) had suggested I contact the Weisers back in the late1970s and while we were out East with our two year old daughter I stopped by the big blue house to actually meet Donald, Betty, Jay, Alden and a few others whose names elude me after these many years.

Jay Weiser, Whitney and me, October 1983

Who knew printers and publishers could form such a tight bond? I drove or flew first printings of their new titles to the Book Expo (then the ABA) because I would produce them on such a short schedule they couldn't be shipped. I often dined with them there, everyone exhausted from working the Expo all day, and not only met Weiser employees but publishers and distributors from around the world joined us. Each dinner was worth a semester of publishing graduate level courses. I tend to be somewhat out-going but I preferred listening to their discussions until Betty would bait me into offering a printer's perspective on whatever the topic was.

I had the same sort of discussions in York when I arrived on August Friday afternoons and they kindly included me in their TGIF get-together at a local watering hole. Some of the crew had attended BEA, some I hadn't seen in a year, and some were brand new rookies.

 TGIF Weiser style

Since it was difficult to bring a dish to pass when staying at the local motel, I arrived at the Weiser's house hours before the partiers arrived. Betty always asked me to trim the forsythia by the back stairs as its branches had grown over the stairs in the year since I'd last cut it. And chairs needed to be brought out from under the long porch, volleyball nets needed to be raised and croquet wickets placed. There were horseshoes to find, beer to ice and tablecloths to spread. I felt a part of the Weiser team on that day.

 One of the early clam bakes. (Russ the lobster man's truck in the foreground.)

Over the years the event grew and grew, from a large picnic in the backyard (moved inside to the porch when rainy) to a huge white tent with roll-down sides to block the elements if necessary. I'm guessing the first clambakes I attended had around twenty guests which swelled to over fifty in later years.

Socializing before the steamers are ready

After eating, the real socializing began. Again, publishers, book store owners, book distributors and authors were in attendance and while the volleyball game was playing, there were also many relaxed conversations between people from different sectors of our industry.

 

There were usually discussions between the publishers, editors, agents and store owners and authors after lunch

And always a wiffle ball game filled the late afternoon hours. Cans of beer sat at the outfielders' feet and many runners reached first base with one in their hand.

 

Wiffle ball with Donald playing a short stop “shift”

Finally the sun would set and the chill off the Atlantic pushed many from the yard to the porch. Interactions on the porch were varied not just year to year but hour by hour. Discussions about upcoming titles and analyzing new trends could devolve into singing and dancing at a moments notice.

Evenings on the porch swung between discussing the cosmos to abject silliness

It was often near midnight when I left, overwhelmed that I had just spent an afternoon with some of the most wonderful people I'd ever met.

I generally went to the office on Monday and tried to explain copy preparation or the differences in papers, their availability and pricing. Often we'd break for lunch, again with editors, designers, fellow publishers, etc.

 As close as I ever came to a Power Lunch

Afterward it was time for me to head back west. The drive home afforded me the opportunity to stop and visit many more of the publishers I worked with, each of whom I considered a special friend.

Howard proves he can pack books with his eyes closed

Unfortunately, this year, as in the past decade or so, there was no Weiser Books to visit, no clambake. I did, however have a chance to get together with friends from those wonderful times. I even ran into Howard by shear luck, a longtime friend of Donald and jack of all trades around Weiser Books.

There are publishers (and probably printers) who view the printer (or publisher) as an adversary, reducing all interaction to negotiating the best deal. I somehow think the internet has promoted that culture.

But I still believe that if you have a chance to work with your printer, you may get some suggestions that will improve the quality of your titles or even make your work a little easier.

Many people I work with in the industry believe (as I do) that we were part of the Golden Age of Publishing.

There are many in the industry today who could care less.

That's why I write to you each month. I'm proud of my industry friends, I respect their ability and integrity, and will gladly close up shop if I have to solicit work from people who don't share this ethic.

(PS Sorry Bob and Barb in Ohio, Paul and Amy in New York, Ehud in Vermont and Jean and Spencer in New Hampshire that I didn't stop by to say hello this trip. Maybe next time.)

The beat goes on: Myles meets Long Sands

Wayne A. Johnson
GrubStreetPrinting.com
wayne@grubstreetprinting.com
Toll-free & fax: 877.711.1229

Grub Street Printing Newsletter #63, July 2014

Do you have a web site? If so, you probably get recorded calls that begin, “Hi, I'm Sharon (sometimes Susan out west) your local Google specialist”.

Since it's a recorded message, anything (including all the blue language and invective I hurl back at old Sharon) is just a waste of time and breath (and at my age I'm increasingly cognizant of the finite amounts we have of each). Since some of our cordless phones don't have Caller ID, but even if they do, after stopping whatever I'm doing to walk down the hall to answer the phone call from Sharon, I feel entitled to a little psychic relief, and with children no longer running through the house, I unleash a full and increasingly creative barrage of invective that would make the devil himself blush. Cathy just smiles and asks, “Sharon?” and I nod.

Satisfied that I've created an ever more efficient way of cursing thieves and liars to eternal damnation, I continue my previous activity psychically cleansed if karmically damaged.

There is no greater proof of the impotence and corruption rampant in our federal government than the flagrant disregard corporations, ranging in size from Bruce the Window Cleaner to Wall Street banks sniffing out mortgage refi clients, exhibit by their incessant calling of persons unknown and unconnected with their enterprises, flagrantly breaking the “No Call” rules Congress introduced in 2003 as a way to rile up their contributors who throw bigger bags of money to legislators when they've been riled.

That these organizations have banded together with the lobbyists like the Association to Send Senators Hoards Of Loot Everyday to fight for their God-given right to behave like petulant jack-asses says more about campaign finance laws than corporate morality (an oxymoron if I've ever heard one).

Now this “Sharon” (who might be a shrew of the first order but it's doubtful she's stupid enough to use her real name) says she's a Google specialist. I've been using Google without need of a specialist for many years so I assumed that since Google knows more about me than I know about me, they simply called my phone number (which they of course already had) and decided to help me make better use of Boolean parameters when I did my searches.

Except that skank Sharon is to Google what I am to RR Donnelly...I've heard of them and know what business they're in. And that's about it.

It turns out that Sharon works for a company called Pacific Telecom Communications Group. Given that they use the word Pacific in their name, I've decided that they are either located in Southern California (having crawled out from under a rock in Death Valley) or outside of the US, probably in one of the Asian nations that sends us some sort of fatal flu each fall.

I want to believe that no one is so bored with life that they've actually listened to Sharon's spiel, but having attained a wizened perspective after all these years, I've come to revise P. T. Barnum's observation that,”there's a sucker born every minute.” While perhaps true during the 19^th century when Barnum was milking the suckers, the population of our country has expanded and to update his maxim, “there are at least dozens of suckers born every minute” would be more accurate.

But probably somebody ( I HOPE none of you) has actually forked over money to these cheating charlatans who promise zillions of clicks on your website but deliver common, freely available advice on search-engine-optimization (SEO). (At least that's what a Google search says they're hawking.)

But what's even worse than that is that it wouldn't even matter if we were all intelligently cautious and ignored their irritating come-on. While PTCG will happily take our dollars, they have an even greater revenue stream that makes our continual harassment inevitable.

PTCG collects money from telephone companies every time their information is displayed on your phone when you answer.

So the important thing isn't that you buy their lousy product or even listen to their insipid pitch. They're just happy when you pick up the receiver or press the little green icon, or whatever it is you do to answer your phone.

Of course the question becomes why hasn't the might of the Federal Government slaughtered these vermin? It's certainly not because they're unaware of their existence. They seem to know all about them.

Apparently the burden of dealing with life or death matters like “did the IRS mess with the Tea Party”, and “what planet is John Boehner really from”, annoyances that the hoi polloi endure are allowed to fester. Our letters and emails of complaint pile up in a warehouse or are routinely scrubbed from Washington DC servers so as not to interfere with the real business of governance.

So if filling out an FTC form ratting out these perps makes you feel like you've contributed to the peace and happiness of future generations, who am I to tell you that you're wasting your time? As a child of the 60's, I say “If it feels good, do it.”

Myself, I revel in the millions of combinations and iterations afforded by the richness of the American English vernacular and will continue to try to ensure that no one associated with such shameful deportment has even the most minute opportunity to enjoy anything but eternal pain and strife in their afterlife.

Hey, you do your thing and I'll do mine. I suspect we'll each have an equal level of success in eliminating this vile harassment, but mine makes my wife laugh.

 

Check Out This InfoGraphic

From the moment you click on this you'll get a second by second account about what's being sold in America in real time. Book sales are shown foremost but sales from Amazon to Walmart to 7-11 and even coupon savings are shown. Note that ebooks sell in great volume but the dollars aren't even close to printed books.

Weighing In on Amazon vs. Hachette

Stephen Colbert has weighed in on the Amazon v. Hachette (his publisher) brouhaha and has asked his legion of fans to purchase Hachette's title Californias online from Portland based Powell's Books, as well as offering free “I Didn't Buy It At Amazon” labels from his website.

Book Expo Attendance Off

Attendance at this year's BookExpo was down slightly (again) while their one day cheapie tickets (aka Book Con; take that either way I suppose) sold all 10,000 available tickets in three minutes. The Comments following the linked article indicate Book Con was not an unmitigated success. See you in Chicago 2016 (follow the link: are Atlanta and Dallas really in the same destination class as prison camps?).

Monopoly vs. Cartel

This business writer assures us the fuss over Amazon and two major publishers is merely a monopoly fighting a cartel. With 2,675 publishers in the US alone, that's one hell of a big cartel. The writer then admits that as an author, he's displeased with the publishing industry business model (surprise!).

Ultra Short Print Runs

I still work with a lot of new authors/publishers and the question about how few books can they produce comes up frequently. While Grub Street Printing shies away from ultra-short runs (less than 100), LightningSource (a division of Ingram Book Distributing) does very short runs of digital books and claims that their average print run is between one and two books per order.

Ebooks or Print

Now that the dust is settling, the fact that only 4% of readers exclusively read ebooks means that if you want to reach the broadest reader market, printing conventional books is necessary.

The Almost Lost Art of Craft Bookbinding

When all books were bound by hand, creativity was used to enhance their looks and functionality. This short, non-technical article describes some techniques which are so uncommon now that soon there may not be binders capable of their execution.

Authors Validate Words

Over the years I've noticed that many in the book industry nurture a curiosity about word usage and origins. For the budding lexicographers, here is what the printed word has meant to linguistic evolution.

Print Is Still Big

After riding out a tumultuous couple of decades, the world of print may have diminished a bit, but it remains a huge industry with incredible reach.

Letterpress Never Died...

...nor has it faded away. I bought a $5 book online for scanning, but when it arrived it was a lovely mid 50's letterpress edition with just-visible impressions from the type. I really didn't want to take it apart to scan. Here's more on desktop publishing, circa 1820.

E Bonds, Not eBonds

The sale of US Savings Bonds plummeted in 2012 after the Treasury Department decided to go paperless. Now some legislators are advocating a reversal of the paperless only bonds (H. Res. 97), saying the program provided a savings plan for many low income earners.

Final Thought

A truly good book teaches me better than to read it. I must soon lay it down, and commence living on its hint.... What I began by reading, I must finish by acting. Henry David Thoreau