Print vs. Technology

With the collapse of several newspapers and print publications like USA Today International Edition, New York Sun, South Idaho Press, Christian Science Monitor, and Detroit Free Press, publishers are fearful of being shut down.

Most of this fear stems from the movement of print going online and the evolution of technology changing the industry.

Books can now be read on a kindle. Your news can be read online. I must admit I frequent www.cnn.com and www.msnbc.com, as well as turn to television to get my news fix.

Others argue that it is not the same and there is something to be said about having a physical book or paper to hold and read.

However, as a writer when asked if I would prefer to have my book published online or in print, I opted for print.

I feel that a tangible book that contains your work and your by line makes the success of being published feel concreted. Also, for a writer being published is the ultimate arrival.

Not everyone gets there, so there is an immense pride when you do. Print publications have always been competitive in this sense.

Unfortunately, online publications do not have the same reputation and the same level of competition as print publications. While online might be great for being accessible and reaching the masses; however, this is also a fault in that the quality of work published online is not monitored or questioned.

Anyone can publish, especially when it comes to self-publication. It is free to sign up for a blog and it’s a minimal cost to create your own website.

The New York Times has a great article about libraries moving into the digital age. In hopes to keep libraries from becoming obsolete, this institution is now offering the ability to download e-books.

The patron uses his library card in order to download a book to his laptop. About 5,400 public libraries nationwide offer this service for free.

The article also brings up the opposition felt by publishers. Although having only e-books would create a multitude of issues for publishers in regards to sales and creating subsequent , publishers are finding themselves having to quickly adapt.

In my own experience at textbook publishing companies, increase in demand for technological resources has added a competitive edge within the industry.

My company invested more money than they made to develop a technological platform specific to their textbooks and company. This investment paid off as many professors prefer to buy math textbooks that come with media options, such as MyMathLab.

MyMathLab is a platform that allows for e-books, supplements online, grade books for the professors, and additional practice through test generators.

Ideas are being brought up of having college lectures related to the textbooks as podcasts. In secondary school, publishers are developing better quality online games that reinforce concepts learned in the textbooks.

I am not sure if textbooks will ever become so archaic that they will be completely replaced by technology. Before I mentioned how I am an offender, by finding my news online and on television.

However, when it comes to textbooks, I would rather have the actual book in my hands. I tend to highlight and write notes in the margin, which enhance my learning. There is no online substitute for my education.

Big People Book Club

Book clubs can be intense, especially if the book club involves a bunch of members who edit and read books all day long. We are the mod book club; instead of the literati we are bookies (kind of like how gourmands are now considered foodies).

Those who choose the book must be careful, because choosing a bad book is social suicide. No one will show up to book club if it’s something that they did not want to read.

This happened to me once when I chose The Death of Vishnu by Manil Suri. It’s a fictional book about the death of an alcoholic in a Bombay apartment complex and the conflict of all his neighbors over who will pay for the ambulance to take him away.

I know within five pages whether I will enjoy a book. It’s all about the writing style for me, while for most people not in the literary world it’s all about story and character development.

This cartoon entitled "Baby Book Club" that comes from the amazing website www.toothpastefordinner.com sums up how I feel about The Da Vinci Code. I could not even make it through five pages of this book before I knew I could not handle another bland, obvious description by Dan Brown.

Yet, everyone in my life who is not part of this literary world seems to have enjoyed this book for the "story" (thanks Oprah…).

The best book that was read for book club was The Secret History by Donna Tartt. This book is about six bonded students studying classics at a New England college and a mysterious murder within the group.

I know… it sounds like this could be some hokey murder mystery, but the author includes fascinating details and parallels on Greek tragedies.

My book club recommendation is to research the reviews and subject matter of the book you choose, especially if it’s for such a captious audience.

Meeting Your Boss

All publishing companies want different background experiences for their Editors’ curriculum vitae. One company wants an Editor to have prior teaching experience (no publishing knowledge required). Another wants prior field sales representative experience.

Because most of our Acquisition Editors come from a position as a sales representative, they usually work off-site from wherever they settled down for their sales territory. My boss works out of his house in Colorado.

Although he is responsible for my maturation at the company, we have never met face to face. Until now…

My boss, Carl, flew in for a story reading meeting. Why wouldn’t they just have a teleconference for this meeting, you may ask? Well, I mean it is a very important meeting where editors and marketing managers have to make up a story line about their book lists and sales plans to present to the Publisher and Marketing VP.

My calculus books are like Batman and next year their sales will take over Gotham City, leaving our competitor The Joker in the dust. You know a meeting to express a five year sales plan through comic book characters or fairy tales…

I learned quickly that meeting your boss for the first time is like going on a first date. (In my case, a blind date.) You want to be reserved and polite, yet make a good impression. And in some ways your stomach ties up in knots because your mind starts to wonder… What if he doesn’t like me? What if I’m not good enough?

Carl and our Marketing Manager, Brenda, offered to take me and Brenda’s assistant, Michelle, out for lunch.

We left at prime lunch time and the restaurant was packed. Luckily, we assistants have mastered the art of reservation making. Michelle made a reservation at Thai Basil.

It ended up being one of those restaurants where you were required to take your shoes off before entering the private-room booth. (I’ve never seen this at a Thai restaurant before and only know of one Japanese restaurant that does this.)

I was wearing nylons, so removing my shoes left me nearly barefoot. Carl was embarrassed and at first he refused, but then Brenda made him do it.

There is nothing that builds an appetite more than the smell of feet in a contained area. It was even worse than the guy who thinks it’s ok to take his shoes off in an airplane. Even Janeane Garofalo has a comedy bit about guys’ feet in mandles (you know, guy sandals).

My advice is if you’re meeting your boss for the first time, like you would consider for a first date, find a neutral restaurant. Do not aim for anything exotic, but just in case the choice is not up to you, be prepared... with socks.

E-mail Etiquette and Eu De Toilette

You can probably relate to getting the annoying “reply all” e-mail from co-workers (unless you are the one who hits the reply all button.) You just want one answer from one person and all of a sudden everyone is hitting the reply all button.

One time at work there was a spam e-mail sent out to a distribution list of over a hundred people. I think it was a portion of text from Anna Karenina or some other literati nonsense that you would think publishing people would actually embrace instead of sending to quarantine in a spam mail box. Somehow the quarantine did not catch this one.

Next thing you know there was a reply all, “Please take my name off this list.” Then more reply-all e-mails follow with the same remove from list plea.

Then, of course, people became irate. Now, they replied “STOP SENDING REPLY ALL E-MAILS ABOUT NOT WANTING TO BE ON THE LIST. BY DOING THIS YOU ARE CREATING MORE SPAM FOR ME.” (The all caps means they are yelling, yelling! So angry that they must express it with capitals and again sending it to everyone just to ensure no more reply alls come in.)

However, this makes the reply-all people feel ashamed. (Insert sad emoticon here.) “Sorry, I didn’t mean to reply all” e-mails start pouring in to everyone. My typical 50 e-mails a day doubled in size. I became irate.

I started e-mailing (while only hitting the reply button because I understand these things) to the individuals responsible for the backlash. “Please do not hit reply all or send out any more e-mails. No one wants to be on this spam list but you are making it worse. Also, please do not even reply to this e-mail” I tell them.

And what do they do? They reply to my e-mail, apologizing. (Insert even sadder emoticon here.) This brings about another problem. The instant gratification of e-mails causes this other problem, where often the recipient doesn’t even read the whole thing and never makes it to the bottom.

Thus, my advice in writing a professional e-mail, cut the small talk “Hope all is well,” etc. and put the most important information at the top.

Perhaps people need to get in touch with Outlook's "unsend" application. Or Outlook needs to create some sort of warning system for those who want to press reply all like how Google created a function called E-mail Goggles against drunk e-mailing. If you want to g-mail late at night to who knows (probably an ex or a boss), this function makes you pass a quiz (such as completing multiplication problems within a given amount of seconds) to make sure you are sober enough.

It is also important to educate yourself on e-mail distribution lists. Know who is on the list before you send out a mass e-mail.

Like one time this guy Rick something or other (yeah, I have no idea who you are) sent an e-mail saying he’d be out on vacation on Friday. Did I need to know this just in case Friday was the day I was supposed to meet Rick for the first time and start working on a gigantic project that crosses two departments that have never heard of

each other? And thank you Rick for rubbing in the part about vacation.

Have you ever been on an e-mail distribution list that didn’t seem to apply to you at all? I received a mass e-mail from a manager, balding around the rim but still maintaining a long ponytail and hippy-like natural scent. Actually, it was from his secretary, oops I mean administrative assistant. (Insert angry emoticon here.)

The e-mail was about not wearing perfume in the office because that might offend people in the olfactory sense. Well, this guy clearly wasn’t thinking of the eu de toilette of natural BO that he sent out to the rest of the office. Nor did he consider that perhaps he is offensive with his pony tail or his tacky e-mail or his directing this to women only with “perfume” instead of cologne or deodorant that makes me think he is somewhat sexist or just insensitive?

Or maybe he is directing this to one person, and I should have placed him in the blog post about the passive-aggressive employee. And in fact the rest of us knew that he was most likely directing this to his own secretary administrative assistant.

So friends, be cognizant of proper e-mail etiquette in the professional realm. It is proper to reply to e-mails within 24 hours of receiving one (I didn’t mention this before but it is essential.) Check out your distribution lists before hitting send. And just remember not to hit reply all when the e-mail doesn’t really apply to all.

Merry Christmas and Happy Blue Year

If I could give one piece of advice to an employee, especially a new entry-level employee, it would be… do not over drink at office parties.

The first year our office holiday party was a fancy outing at the Ritz Carlton. The CEO of the company had hired a New Orleans Zydeco band complete with the instrumental washboard. There was a dance floor, appetizers passed around on trays with toothpicks and cocktail napkins galore, and of course, an open bar.

I had barely put in two weeks worth of work so I knew better than to drink too much. However, the editorial assistant named Olivia was not privy to this rule. She drank glass upon glass of wine.

The rest of us tried to do our due diligence to cut her off. I would hold her glass for her and then strategically place it on a buffet table. “Where did my drink go?” We told her we had no idea and maybe it’s time for some coffee.

Somehow Olivia made it back to the bar and on to the dance floor to join us. Mid-dance move she dropped her glass of red wine, which of course back splashed onto the khaki pants of one of the higher-up managers.

This was the more successful of the two holiday parties I attended. The second year I thought I could handle it all, especially when the head of the marketing department fell into the cheese platter (luckily most everyone had left).

The invitation told us that we’d be able to leave work early to attend the holiday party around 2:00 and appetizers would be served (not dinner which should have been the first hint to load up on breakfast or eat an early lunch). Again, open bar.

Not only were the group of well-bonded editorial assistants going to attend the holiday party, but it was also Ashley’s (beautiful Indian co-worker from last blog) birthday, so naturally we had to keep the party going with a bar crawl.

The holiday party went well and we all received our free booze and schmoozed with our co-workers. Then, off to the first bar of many, which at the end of the night would result in Ashley’s literal crawling up the steps inside her building to reach her apartment on the third floor.

There were probably four bars hopped to and the night may have involved some shots at one point. But we were young and thought we could handle it. However, we did not have the next day off from work.

Two of my co-workers woke me up the next morning (they slept over instead of making a the trek back home to the suburbs). I woke up feeling fine. We made it to work on time. I got an egg and cheese breakfast sandwich from Davio’s (usually when I’m hungover I do not like to eat anything).

The other distinct characteristic of my hangovers are that they get progressively worse as the day goes on. After breakfast, I didn’t feel so well, so I went to get a Gatorade. The convenient store only had Blue Frost Gatorade (I'm partial to lime or berry Rain).

I did not do any work. I sat in front of my computer screen with my elbows on the desk, propping my head up with my hands. Ashley had her stash of vitamin water on her desk too.

All of our older co-workers thought it was hilarious. Perhaps it spiked a bit of nostalgia for their drinking days. They jabbed jokes about being too hungover after the holiday party to us during our meetings. We declined to respond, knowing we deserved it.

At lunch, the administrative assistant who sits next to me told me her and the rest of the girls were going to go to Wendy’s to get some greasy food for lunch. I told her I wasn’t going to make it. The hangover had taken full control over me at this point.

I sat in my cubicle, trying to distract myself from feeling so crappy. Then, the nausea got to me. I was going to throw up. But the bathroom was a good walk down the hallway and if anyone saw me or happened to stop me in the hall to chat, it would be disastrous.

I debated for half a minute on whether I could make it. Physiologically I found my answer when the vomit rose up in my throat. I grabbed the trash bin in my cubicle and threw up. Some landed on my desk top, bright blue liquid vomit.

Thank gad everyone was out to lunch. I didn’t want anyone to know about the incident in fear of the repercussions, most likely to be written up or fired. But now I had a bucket full of puke in my cubicle.

I tied the trash bag in a knot and shoved the trash bin as far under the desktop as I could.

I asked one of my friends to come over to my cubicle. Do you smell anything horrible? She told me she didn’t (although I don’t know how) and I was relieved. I would keep this story a secret from her until days later.

At the end of the day I made sure to leave a little later than everyone else. I disposed of the trash bag in the ladies bathroom.

I got off pretty easy considering none of my bosses realized I acted so improperly. I also learned my lesson and in subsequent years remembered to both eat a hearty meal during the day and limit myself at the open bar.

So, again my advice... although the free booze may be wonderful, it is probably not worth your job.