Uppercase of the Mondays: Now on the BloGG!

We recently started a weekly series on our Facebook and Twitter called "Uppercase of the Mondays": humorous comics and images relating to publishing, grammar, and the like to brighten up the beginning of your work week. And now, Uppercase is coming to the BloGG!

Here's a roundup of all the posts so far. Have a funny writing-related comic of your own? Send it our way!

Happy Uppercase : )

Around the Word

Crisis of Creativity or Just History Repeating? With the Jonah Lehrer scandal in full swing, a summer during which the box office has been almost nothing but remakes and sequels, knock-off ebooks, and a unparalleled literary phenom that could be flirting with copyright infringement, it's hard not to ask whether there are any original ideas left to be had. Animator and filmmaker Drew Christie explores this conundrum in a recent NY Times op-doc, "Allergy to Originality." Through a very creative use of various Wikipedia entries (solidly in the Creative Commons), the animated video explores the age-old question of whether a idea can ever be truly unique, or if everything is just an appropriation or amalgamation of previous cultural memes and icons. Is it really Hollywood's fault that we seem to find comfort in reworkings and extensions of the familiar (reflected in booming box office sales)? What do you think? Are there any original thoughts left to be thought?

Before They Were Stars. Ever wondered what your favorite celebrity New York Times columnists were up to before they were granted tenure and guaranteed precious column inches to fritter away? Most of them were actually out chasing down leads and risking their jobs in pursuit of the story. In this great article from The Awl, we learn that before Nicholas Kristoff got a little "White Man's Burden," he gave us stories about the people in crisis instead of preaching to them. Tom Friedman was on the ground in Beirut, and Maureen Dowd, now best known for her politics-lite repartee, authored one of the first long-form pieces to shed light on those in the shadows of the AIDS epidemic. While not heralded far and wide, Dowd's profile of Gay Men's Health Crisis challenged some of the more traditional views held by Times editorial staff, and almost cost her the job. 

The Book Critic's Burden. It happens to all heavy readers at one time or another: you start a book and then realize you're just not feeling it. Most of us ditch it in favor of something more enticing, but what if your job depends on powering through? Getting paid to read and review books may seem like a charmed life, but a reviewer has to read them all—the good, mediocre, and the painfully bad. What's a critic to do? In a recent column, "I Hate This Book So Much: A Mediation," Times book critic Lev Grossman discusses the anxiety and inner conflict he faces when he has to review a book he dislikes. Should he dig in and write that negative review? What if he's missing a point that's obvious to everyone else? How does he face someone whose novel he's dissed? It's a a heavy cross to bear. How do you, dear editors and writers, deal with a despised project?

Of Books and Booze. Writers are notorious drinkers, perhaps none more so than Earnest Hemingway. Did you know that one of Hemingway's favorite drinks was the daiquiri? That may seem a little incongruous with his "man's man" image, but apparently he developed a taste for them during the twenty years he spent in Cuba. So to commemorate his 113th birthday, Havana watering hole El Floridita decided to mix up the world's largest daiquiri in honor of the author's love for the drink and his ties to the island. If you want to pay homage to your favorite author through drink, or make your next cocktail hour a little more literate, here are a few sites that offer authors' favorite cocktails, drinks inspired by books and authors, and drinks from classic literature. If going out is more your style, check out the The Dead Poet on Manhattan's Upper West Side, which is owned by a former English teacher and features an actual lending library.

Q&A with Aziz Isham of reKiosk.com

reKiosk is not like any other online marketplace you’ve seen. With this new site, now in beta with a launch planned for August, you act as your own distributor for your favorite books and music, and instead of the marketplace eating up a big chunk of the payment, most of the profit goes to the creator, with a small slice for you. 

So say you buy your friend's ebook from their reKiosk page and share it on your own kiosk. If someone then buys the book through you, your friend gets 70 percent and you get 25 percent of the profit. It’s kind of like owning your own private store that only sells things you like, and it’s certainly a great venue for promoting self-publishing.

Aziz Isham

We talked to founder and CEO Aziz Isham to get the full scoop.

How is reKiosk different from other online marketplaces?
We were built with two things in mind: 1) How do we make an alternative marketplace that puts creatives in control and remunerates them for their work; and 2) How do we empower curators (bloggers, publishers, or aspiring digital storeowners) to become an active (and paid) part of the process. We found that if we keep things simple and take as small a portion of each sale as possible, we could do both of these things and still create a beautiful, engaging e-commerce experience.

What inspired the idea for the site?
You could say that I've been working on this project for the last decade, in various forms. Three of my four grandparents are artists, and I've always been attracted to business models that try to make creativity a more economically sustainable occupation for as many people as possible. We all have enough toaster ovens, but I've never met anyone who's got enough poetry.

Who would you say is the “average” reKiosk user?
Either a content provider (a musician, record label, publisher, or writer, for example) or a curator. One person or company could be both, of course. The average customer is probably someone who's already interested in independent media, as that's the lion's share of what's on the site right now, though we hope that might change in the not-too-distant future.

How do you think reKiosk will benefit writers?
Any easy-to-use marketplace that encourages smaller, curated marketplaces will benefit writers. Right now we have a huge market for front-list titles and lots of strong, small niche markets, but we're in danger of loosing the mid-list, and that’s really scary. Some of the best authors of the twentieth century were firmly mid-list—James Salter, Phillip Dick, and Mike Davis, to name a few personal favorites. Would any of these writers have viable careers in today's publishing landscape?

Where do you see reKiosk heading in the future?
Hard to say. We've had some great advance praise so far and a lot of interest from all sectors, but we're really hoping to become a way to usher in a new form of the independent, digital bookstore or record shop, the internet version of the great spaces you could once find in any mid-size town or city, but which have since been replaced by Walmarts and e-retailers.

Request an invite at www.rekiosk.com to get a head-start before the site is fully open. The possibilities seem almost endless, and we definitely agree about not needing another toaster!

The Writing Life Rocks

Our friends at Ragan recently published the results of a poll, in which they ask freelance writers and editors what they enjoy about the writing life. We thought this was a great question, and we were curious to know what keeps our Gotham Ghostwriters (and editors) going. So we asked, "What's the best part of having a job as a writer or editor?" We got a lot of creative and informative answers.  

The basic breakdown:

• I get to be creative every day: 5
• I get to write for a variety of platforms: 2
• I help others sound better: 5
• I produce a tangible finished product: 3
• Other (please elaborate!)
• I get to be alone
• I get to meet interesting (and famous) people
• I like seeing my name in print

And here are some of our favorite answers :

"Permit me to offer a quote from English writer W. Somerset Maugham (1874-1965), from his novel, 'Cakes and Ale': 'Whenever he has anything on his mind, whether it be a harassing reflection, grief at the death of a friend, unrequited love, wounded pride, anger at the treachery of someone to whom he has shown kindness, in short any emotion or perplexing thought, he has only to put it down in black and white, using it as the theme of a story or the decoration of an essay, to forget all about it. He is the only free man.'" - Harold Gordon

"...when people ask me what I do for a living, it's a kick to say, 'I'm a writer.' Always the same thing follows. 'Do I know your work? Have you written any books?' That I can say 'yes and 'yes' is rewarding. Books are not all I write or edit or direct. At this point in my career I write, edit and direct it all, and I've learned more about such an array of businesses, industries and topics that this in and of itself is very rewarding. I can even talk about hernia repair and medical conditions. Now that's something!" - Sandra Rea-McGinty

"The money, the travel, the danger, and the women." - Peter Roff

Our Latest Workshop: Making the Most of Your Online Profile

For our latest brown bag writer lunch last week, we were treated to a tip-tastic presentation on how to make the most of your online presence by two digital marketing gurus from Sonnet Media and Your Expert Nation: Sean Concannon and Rich Kelley.

Rich Kelley (left) and Sean Concannon (right)

We videotaped* the session for those of you who want to take a deep dive—watch below.

But if you’re pressed for time and just want to browse the highlights, here’s a quick summary of Sean and Rich’s top tips.

Have all your information lead to one place

• The best way for potential clients to find you is to have one central online hub. That primary site, whether it’s a personal web page or your LinkedIn profile, should include:
• Your brief biography
• A photo of yourself
• Your areas of expertise
• All the places you’ve worked
• All the places you’ve been published
• Links to pieces you’ve written
• A link to your blog (not essential, but very beneficial)
• No pictures of cats (That one is from Dan, but we think it’s a very good rule.)
• A way to contact you

All your other online profiles should link back to that hub. Use a tool like Sitemeter or Google Analytics to analyze and track the incoming traffic.

A personal website is the gold standard for your hub
If you make your own website, you’ll have full control over the content, the layout, the links, and the aesthetics. Plus, technically all the content you post on sites like Facebook and Twitter belongs to them; having your own site means you retain all rights to the things you post.

Getting your own site is simple—even for those who aren’t particularly tech-savvy. Buy a URL (something like yourname.com), and then choose from the wide range of templates offered by WordPress, Tumblr, and similar sites to build yours. Of course, if you want something fancier, you can always hire a web developer. No matter what, make sure that all your information is clear and easy to find.

What other online profiles should you have?
Twitter: Twitter is great for conversations, promotions, and building your brand. Get followers by following people with similar interests, and interact with them by replying, retweeting, and thanking them if they do the same for you. See which users influential people follow and do the same, especially the first few people on their follow list. Tweet as much or as little as you want, but the gurus recommend at least 2–3 times per day. If you only have five minutes for social media, find two tweets to “favorite,” two to retweet, and two to respond to.

Sean and Rich also highlighted a handful of tools to help you manage your account:

• HootSuite—A popular application that can integrate your Facebook and Twitter posts
• Twellow—Lets you search for people to follow by category, complete with rankings.
• Twit Cleaner—Identifies which of the people you follow you should consider unfollowing because they are inactive, uninteresting, or engage in dodgy behavior
• Tweriod—Analyzes the behavior of your followers and recommends what time would be best for you to tweet
• Friend or Follow—Shows which of the people you follow are following you (friends), and who is following you that you aren’t following back (fans)

LinkedIn: LinkedIn is terrific for connecting with people and expanding your professional network. Join groups in your areas of expertise to further broaden your reach and increase your credibility, or start your own group and moderate the conversations. New apps allow you to link to your blog and creative portfolio.

Facebook: Everyone and their dog is now on Facebook, but business pages are more discoverable than personal ones, so make yourself an author page. Facebook can also be used as your blogging platform.

Google+: Studies are beginning to show that Google+ users are much happier than Facebook users. Of course, far fewer people can be found on Google+, but having a presence there can improve your search results and your Google Knowledge Graph.

Amazon and Goodreads: These are for authors with published books. If that’s you, both sites offer great ways to be found by clients and to engage with readers. Published authors can set up a content-rich profile. These sites also allow you to syndicate your blog directly to your profile.

Search engine optimization (SEO) is crucial
One of the most important things to remember is to optimize your profiles for search engines. Make sure to put keywords on your site that prospective clients would use to search for writers in your areas of expertise—for instance, if you specialize in writing cookbooks, optimal keywords would be “food writing,” “cookbook writer,” “writing about cooking,” etc. Remember: search engines read the title of pages and articles first, so jam-pack them full of keywords!

Keep content fresh and update your profiles often
Search engines “reward” you when your pages have frequently updated content, so blast away. Share your thoughts, engage your audience, and if you’ve written something new, don’t be afraid to tweet or post about it more than once—just make sure you post about other things between mentions. And don’t forget to interact with others as much as you can, so your profile doesn’t just read “me me me.”

Want more from Sean and Rich? Hop on over to Your Expert Nation or Sonnet Media, or check them out on Twitter at @seanconcannon and @rpmkel.

*Our apologies, we had some technical difficulties so there are a couple places where the video skips.

Around the (Inked) Word

Guest post by Liza Sokol, GG intern

Liza, image credit: Laura Murray Photography

For my eighteenth birthday, my father, who has two full-sleeve tattoos, took me to get my first, and I haven't stopped getting inked since. A few years later, we came up with the idea to get matching tattoos. We first thought hockey (Flyers forever!), and then maybe a sushi roll (our favorite food), but neither seemed quite right. Then it hit me: why not pay homage to the one and only Kurt Vonnegut, whose brute charm had won both me and my dad over with every book he published? We haven't gotten them yet, but soon Kurt's ever-present asterisk will be permanently inked on both our bodies.

Tattoos and literature are becoming increasingly complimentary art forms. So for this week's Around the Word, I decided to collect several pieces of tattoo-lit news.

Flesh, Blood, and Ink. A few years ago, writers Justin Taylor and Eva Talmadge started The Word Made Flesh, a blog dedicated to sharing pictures of people's literary tattoos. It was immediately successful, and in 2010 The Word Made Flesh: Literary Tattoos From Bookworms Worldwide was published. The blog is still being updated all the time, with everything from Sylvia Plath quotes to tattoo portraits of writers and literary characters.

The Ultimate Tribute. Buzzfeed has a list of twenty of the best literary tats floating around the internet, including a beautiful Great Gatsby portrait and a Virginia Woolf chest piece. If Shakespeare is more your scene, there's some of that too.

Inked, Themselves. Flavorwire took a different tack and recently showcased the tattoos that famous authors themselves have, including Patti Smith's Crazy Horse–inspired lightning bolt and John Irving's maple leaf, which he got for his Canadian-born wife.

A Story on Many Canvases. Possibly the greatest collision of the literary and tattoo worlds, however, is Shelley Jackson's Skin Project. Participants each get one word (and possibly a punctuation mark) from Jackson's story tattooed on them, so that once the project is complete, the entire text will be perpetually floating around the world. The story will never be published anywhere else, and cannot be summarized, quoted, or adapted to any other medium.

So, GG readers, are there any books or authors you would pay permanent tribute to on your body? After all, it's just a different kind of ink.

You Are Your Website: Our Next Writer Seminar

Anyone hiring a writer needs a quick means of getting up to speed on your skill set, talent, and expertise. Online profiles can provide a perfect snapshot of what you have to offer—if they're properly done. The look and feel of your site speaks volumes about who who are as a writer and a professional, and can be the deciding factor in whether or not you get the job. 

That's why the next workshop in our brown-bag-lunch series will teach participants how to create a pitch-perfect (and worthy) site. Tomorrow, web and social-media-marketing experts Sean Concannon and Rich Kelley from Your Expert Nation will lead a talk on "Making the Most of Your Online Profile." They'll present strategies for getting your information online, the tools available to do this yourself, and how to work with a web developer for a more customized profile. They'll discuss ways to maximize the information you’re putting out on your personal website, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Google+, Quora, and on and on. Expanding on the lessons from our previous seminar by Business Ghost Michael Levin, this one will be a deeper dive into self-promotion and ways of impressing clients before you even talk to them.


*Unfortunately, this event is full. But watch this space for a writeup and video of the seminar later this week!