How to Write and Sell Your Book: a Webinar

Posted on | May 18, 2013 | No Comments

Writer’s Digest Uni­ver­sity has an array of work­shops and webi­nars. This one costs $199 and runs from May 21 through May 23. That’s this week! It is designed for those of us who are writ­ing or con­sid­er­ing writ­ing a book. This is the Writer’s Digest descrip­tion of the online course/webinar:

If your goal is to write and sell a novel, you need to know what agents and edi­tors look for and what fac­tors influ­ence read­ers to pur­chase books. 

In this boot camp, lit­er­ary agent Jim McCarthy will dis­cuss the top 10 ele­ments of a suc­cess­ful novel—that sells. Then, you’ll sub­mit your first five pages and query let­ter to be reviewed by an agent from Dys­tel & Goderich Lit­er­ary Man­age­ment so you can get direct feed­back on what can make your novel and query let­ter meet those criteria.

If you’re won­der­ing what exactly makes a novel saleable, what makes agents and edi­tors say no to a sub­mis­sion, and how the cri­te­ria is dif­fer­ent today from 10, 20, or 50 years ago, these ques­tions (and more!) will be answered in this live online instruc­tional boot camp taught by McCarthy, who has decades of expe­ri­ence in the pub­lish­ing busi­ness. He will offer insight into the kinds of sto­ries agents and pub­lish­ers are seek­ing, and com­men­tary on the prin­ci­ples every writer must be aware of to suc­ceed in a dynamic and excit­ing time of change in the pub­lish­ing world.

Use McCarthy’s advice and tips to ensure your novel has what it takes to catch the eye of read­ers on the book­shelf and online!

Here’s how it works:

On Tues­day, May 21, at 1:00 PM EDT (East­ern Day­light Time), you’ll attend a spe­cial 60-minute live webi­nar taught by Jim McCarthy. In this live webi­nar, you’ll learn the prin­ci­ples every writer must be aware of to suc­ceed in a dynamic and excit­ing time of change in the pub­lish­ing world. You’ll also gain an insider per­spec­tive on what an agent looks for in a query let­ter and open­ing novel pages.

Fol­low­ing the live webi­nar, you’ll spend Tues­day night and Wednes­day morn­ing assess­ing and fine-tuning your novel and query letter

From 1:00 to 4:00 p.m. EDT on Wednes­day, May 22, you’ll have access to an exclu­sive mes­sage board through which you’ll be able to ask Jim and his fel­low Dys­tel & Goderich agents (Miriam Goderich, Jes­sica Papin, and Stacey Glick) ques­tions about your spe­cific project. Use this oppor­tu­nity to get help­ful insight and learn how to enhance your work to make it suc­cess­ful.. You can also use this oppor­tu­nity to net­work and con­verse with your fel­low boot camp atten­dees. Feel free to share your work and gain sup­port from your peers dur­ing the mes­sage board ses­sion. (Only reg­is­tered stu­dents can access these boards.)

By 3:00 p.m. EDT on Thurs­day, May 23, you’ll sub­mit the first five pages of your novel and your one-page query let­ter to your assigned agent for review. Your assigned agent will care­fully read your mate­ri­als and will return their feed­back to you by mid­night on Thurs­day, May 30.

In addi­tion to the live webi­nar, the mes­sage board, and the per­son­al­ized feed­back from a lit­er­ary agent, atten­dees will also receive:

• A one-year sub­scrip­tion to the Writer’s Mar­ket data­base, which pro­vides you with con­tact info and pro­to­cols for hun­dreds of lit­er­ary agen­cies, pub­lish­ers, and publications.
• This boot camp focuses on fic­tion. Atten­dees should have com­pleted the first chap­ter their novel and have a draft of their query let­ter writ­ten prior to this boot camp.

About the presenters:

Jim McCarthy is a lit­er­ary agent and vice pres­i­dent at Dys­tel & Goderich Lit­er­ary Man­age­ment where he has worked his entire pro­fes­sional life since he started as an intern back in 1999. Jim focuses on adult and young adult fic­tion across cat­e­gories from cozy mys­ter­ies and para­nor­mal romance to lit­er­ary fic­tion and some deeply quirky come­dies. He is a fre­quent guest at writ­ers’ con­fer­ences nation­wide. His clients include New York Timesbest­sellers Richelle Mead, Juliet Black­well, Alyssa Day, and Vic­to­ria Lau­rie, who was the sec­ond client he ever signed on back in 2003.  Read more at Writ­ers Digest Uni­ver­sity.

Jobs: Multimedia Content Producers Sought

Posted on | April 13, 2013 | No Comments

Mother Jones Seeks Story Editor in DC

Posted on | March 20, 2013 | No Comments

Story editor—Washington, DC

You are a sea­soned news pro­fes­sional equally at home in 10,000 char­ac­ters and 140. You love the nar­ra­tive fea­ture, the deep doc­u­ments dive, the timely polit­i­cal scoop and the on-the-fly blog post. You make inves­tiga­tive sto­ries more lyri­cal, lyri­cal ones more polit­i­cal. You rel­ish work­ing in a fast-paced set­ting, break­ing news—and explain­ing the news.

If that’s you, come join a grow­ing team of ded­i­cated, inno­v­a­tive jour­nal­ists who broke the 47 per­cent story and so much more. Our staff in Wash­ing­ton, DC, is expand­ing, and we’re look­ing for a story edi­tor to han­dle every­thing from break­ing sto­ries and inter­ac­tives for our 24/7 news site to print fea­tures for our bimonthly magazine.

Must have:

• Five years of edit­ing expe­ri­ence in a mul­ti­plat­form news envi­ron­ment con­ceiv­ing, assign­ing, edit­ing, and rewrit­ing stories
• Head­line and pack­ag­ing magic
• The abil­lity to work well and fast in dig­i­tal pub­lish­ing and social media
• Mas­tery of the alchemy that turns “impor­tant” into “interesting”
• Famil­iar­ity with the chal­lenges and oppor­tu­ni­ties of an ever-quickening news cycle
• Sense of humor and team spirit

Nice to have:

• Data visualization/non-narrative sto­ry­telling chops
• Back­ground in envi­ron­men­tal policy/technology/business
• Expe­ri­ence man­ag­ing reporters
• Inter­est in (and abil­ity to occa­sion­ally swing) own reporting/writing projects

This full-time staff posi­tion is based in our Wash­ing­ton, DC, office. Remote not an option. Com­pet­i­tive salary and ben­e­fits package.

Mother Jones’ par­ent foun­da­tion, the Foun­da­tion for National Progress, is com­mit­ted to build­ing and main­tain­ing a diverse and wel­com­ing work­place. Absolutely no calls. To apply, please send a resume and cover let­ter to jobs at Mother Jones.

Update: Tomorrow Last Day to Apply for Commonwealth Club of California Fellowship

Posted on | March 20, 2013 | No Comments

But­ler Koshland Fel­low­ships is look­ing for an inde­pen­dent, intel­li­gent, and highly-motivated per­son to serve as a fel­low to Dr. Glo­ria Duffy, Pres­i­dent and CEO of The Com­mon­wealth Club of California.

The Com­mon­wealth Club of Cal­i­for­nia is the nation’s old­est and largest pub­lic affairs forum. A non­profit, non­par­ti­san edu­ca­tional orga­ni­za­tion, they bring over 400 annual events on top­ics rang­ing across pol­i­tics, cul­ture, soci­ety and the econ­omy to 16,000 mem­bers. Their mis­sion is to be the lead­ing national forum open to all for the impar­tial dis­cus­sion of pub­lic issues impor­tant to the mem­ber­ship, com­mu­nity and nation. To learn more about The Com­mon­wealth Club of Cal­i­for­nia, please visit their web­site: www.commonwealthclub.org

But­ler Koshland Fel­low­ships is a unique pro­gram designed to pass on pub­lic ser­vice lead­er­ship skills and legacy. Our model is sim­ple and personal—we ask extra­or­di­nary lead­ers to men­tor an emerg­ing leader. Each men­tor and fel­low pair work closely together on a project for one year, dur­ing which time we fund the fellow’s salary. The fel­low is also inte­grated into and sup­ported by a com­mu­nity of But­ler Koshland fel­lows and mentors—past, cur­rent, and future—doing impor­tant work for the com­mon good.  To learn more about But­ler Koshland Fel­low­ships, please visit our web­site: www.bkfellowships.org

Begin­ning in mid-April, 2013, the fel­low would work under the direc­tion and guid­ance of Dr. Duffy as a But­ler Koshland Fel­low. In this role, the fel­low would sup­port the executive-level goals of The Com­mon­wealth Club of Cal­i­for­nia. The fel­low will expe­ri­ence the array of duties and respon­si­bil­i­ties required to suc­cess­fully lead a non­profit orga­ni­za­tion in today’s world. This is an excep­tional oppor­tu­nity for some­one to par­tic­i­pate at the man­age­ment level of a major non­profit orga­ni­za­tion dur­ing an espe­cially excit­ing period of expan­sion and possibility.

Rep­re­sen­ta­tive projects and learn­ing oppor­tu­ni­ties may include:

Devel­op­ment: Cur­rently The Com­mon­wealth Club has a suc­cess­ful $14.5M cap­i­tal cam­paign under­way, the pur­pose of which is to fund the pur­chase and ren­o­va­tion of a his­toric build­ing at 110 Embar­cadero to serve as its new head­quar­ters. Work­ing closely with Dr. Duffy to fundraise from indi­vid­u­als, foun­da­tions, and cor­po­ra­tions, the fel­low will have the oppor­tu­nity to sup­port the cam­paign, learn­ing first-hand from a team of expert fundraisers.

Con­tent cre­ation: In order to more fully real­ize its mis­sion to be a pub­lic forum for the ben­e­fit of all, The Com­mon­wealth Club is look­ing for new ways to share its live pro­gram­ming con­tent with a broader audi­ence. In sup­port of this effort, the fel­low will be respon­si­ble for act­ing as an in-house journalist—reporting with neu­tral­ity on key events at the Club, select­ing the most impor­tant ideas from hun­dreds pro­grams and pan­els pre­sented dur­ing their tenure with an eye towards the content’s news­wor­thi­ness and poten­tial for inform­ing pub­lic pol­icy. The fel­low will also work with the PR and Media Depart­ment to place and dis­sem­i­nate these mul­ti­me­dia reports via inter­nal and exter­nal chan­nels, in both tra­di­tional and new media formats.

Con­tent man­age­ment: As the ter­rain under tra­di­tional news media out­lets con­tin­ues to shift and in some cases dis­ap­pear, The Com­mon­wealth Club is inter­ested in explor­ing its poten­tial to fill some of this space. To this end, the fel­low will be tasked with sup­port­ing efforts to orga­nize and broad­cast the Club’s rich repos­i­tory of content—both his­tor­i­cal and contemporary—across its many inter­nal chan­nels (e.g. mag­a­zine, radio pro­gram, web­site) as well as to exter­nal out­lets. One espe­cially excit­ing pos­si­bil­ity is the oppor­tu­nity to work with the design and prepa­ra­tion of the architecturally-based mul­ti­me­dia ele­ments for the new state-of-the-art head­quar­ters build­ing, which will include inset wall screens and other means of broad­cast­ing archival and live con­tent within the building.

Qual­i­fi­ca­tions

Can­di­dates should have at least 3 years of related work expe­ri­ence. Rel­e­vant expe­ri­ence could include: expe­ri­ence in com­mu­ni­ca­tions and mar­ket­ing such as aca­d­e­mic or work expe­ri­ence in a com­mu­ni­ca­tions, com­mu­nity out­reach, media or pub­lic affairs posi­tion; expe­ri­ence with social media as a tool for com­mu­ni­ca­tions, stake­holder devel­op­ment, feed­back, and busi­ness goals; expe­ri­ence in pub­lic and non­profit admin­is­tra­tion such as aca­d­e­mic or work expe­ri­ence in pub­lic admin­is­tra­tion, pro­gram man­age­ment, busi­ness devel­op­ment and analy­sis, or non­profit man­age­ment; aca­d­e­mic or work expe­ri­ence in related fields related to the posi­tion such as jour­nal­ism, infor­ma­tion sci­ence, or pub­lic policy.

Because the duties of the fel­low involve strong com­mu­ni­ca­tion and ana­lyt­i­cal skills, this posi­tion requires some­one with a diverse set of abil­i­ties and per­son­al­ity traits, includ­ing: intel­lec­tual agility, friend­li­ness, abil­ity to inter­face with diplo­macy and con­ge­nial­ity while fac­ing mul­ti­ple dead­lines, excel­lent writ­ing abil­i­ties, good pre­sen­ta­tion and ver­bal com­mu­ni­ca­tion skills, abil­ity to main­tain calm in pub­lic set­tings, acu­men for research, sense of humor, and cul­tural sen­si­tiv­ity. Appli­cants also must be adept at orga­niz­ing both their own work and the work of oth­ers, have prac­ti­cal expe­ri­ence in mak­ing things hap­pen, and know when to be appro­pri­ately dis­creet with con­fi­den­tial information.

To Apply

The appli­ca­tion dead­line is March 20, 2013. (Update: This has been extended one day. You may apply through March 21, 2013.) To apply please sub­mit a cover let­ter and resume address­ing your qual­i­fi­ca­tions and inter­est in this fel­low­ship along with a writ­ing sam­ple of no more than 10 pages. Please be sure to detail any tech­ni­cal skills you may have. We encour­age appli­cants to also include rel­e­vant, short sam­ples of their pre­vi­ous work—written reports, links to web-based pub­li­ca­tions, pod­casts, ad copy, pitch let­ters, press releases, videos, and any other mate­ri­als demon­strat­ing com­mu­ni­ca­tion skills are welcome.

Please send all appli­ca­tion mate­ri­als via email to the atten­tion of But­ler Koshland Fel­low­ships’ Exec­u­tive Direc­tor, Kate Bru­mage, at apply@bkfellowships.org with the sub­ject line “Duffy Fel­low­ship.” Only those cho­sen to inter­view will be con­tacted.  Do not con­tact Dr. Duffy or The Com­mon­wealth Club of Cal­i­for­nia directly.

The fel­low will work from the down­town San Fran­cisco office of The Com­mon­wealth Club of Cal­i­for­nia. Fel­low com­pen­sa­tion will be $40,000 per year plus employer pro­vided health and other ben­e­fits. The fel­low will work a stan­dard 40-hour work-week and should be avail­able to attend evening pro­grams as needed.

But­ler Koshland Fel­low­ships is open to all appli­cants.  Women and peo­ple of color are encour­aged to apply.

To Heck with a Grammy, He’s Got a ‘Linkie’

Posted on | February 19, 2013 | No Comments

Editor’s note: This is slightly dated, but it’s good and it’s funny. Most of us who are on LinkedIn got sim­i­lar email mes­sages weeks ago. Most of us learned that it may have looked like a hoax, but the email really came from LinkedIn — just some kind of wild mar­ket­ing ploy to get more of us to upgrade and to tweet about our LinkedIn popularity.

By G. Peters, Feb­ru­ary 2013

Good news boys and girls, LinkedIn just informed me that I am in the top 1 per­cent of most-viewed pro­files for 2012.

Check this out, I’m look­ing into the cam­era, and here it comes. “I’m going to Dis­ney­world.” And there it was, spo­ken just like a Super Bowl MVP caught on cam­era just after the game. I’m in the top 1 per­cent; I scored a trip to Mouse-Land.

Being one of LinkedIn’s top 1 per­cent is an honor I’ve worked a life­time to achieve. Pulitzer Prize be damned. Nobel Peace prize? Noth­ing doing. Grammy shmammy, I’ve won myself a Linkie. I just know Barack or Oprah will be call­ing me soon.

I need to know what sort of stan­dards the fash­ion police have put on the Linkie Awards Show before I spring for a low-cut gown with a high-rise slit in the side. It could be a deal-breaker.

I trust that thongs are still “prob­lem­atic.” You can all thank your lucky stars on that one.

Oy vey, how did things get this far out of hand? How did I land in the top 1 percent?

Per­haps this is a good thing. On the plus side, being ranked in the top 1 per­cent means a lot of peo­ple looked at my pro­file in the past year. Maybe I should add some bling to make the thing really sing.

If I could mon­e­tize all those peep­ing Toms that took the time to check me out, I wouldn’t be sit­ting here at 2 a.m. blog­ging while I wait for my late-night free­lance edit­ing shift to end. I’d be home free sit­ting in tall cotton.

LinkedIn says in the past three days I’ve shown up 57 times in people’s searches. Bet­ter than that, 23 peo­ple have looked at my pro­file in the past 15 days. Last week, I appeared in search results 265 times.

If I’m read­ing this chart right, I’ve been in search results 2,446 times since Novem­ber. These are hall of fame num­bers, and I did it all with­out the ben­e­fit of performance-enhancing tweets .

Holy Moly Bat Man, I am rockin’ the Linkies with num­bers like these. How can I not be employed?

Why just yes­ter­day two peo­ple, who I have no idea who they are or why they’re look­ing, were caught by the LinkedIn grem­lins peer­ing at my pro­file. Now I know how super model Kate Upton feels with all those ogling eyes on her.

I’ve got 1,492 con­nec­tions on my LinkedIn account, and that’s some pretty rare air even for the most sea­soned social media type. Those 1,400-plus con­nec­tions put me within one click of more than 9 mil­lion pro­fes­sion­als — 39,564 of which are new to my net­work since Sat­ur­day. Yah, Sat­ur­day a cou­ple of days ago.

My guess is that this brand of fame and for­tune is a lot like Bay Watch star David Has­sel­hoff being huge in Germany.

How can I not be employed?

After a day of think­ing about my Linkie, I’ve decided to honor the spirit in which it is given.

They always say any news is good news so long as they spell your name right. And if peo­ple are look­ing, that means I’m still in play. That or I’ve annoyed the heck out of enough peo­ple with my blog that they have clicked over to LinkedIn to make sure I’m for real and not just another Cyber stalker.

Either way, thanks for the clicking.

There is a part of me that won­ders what the end game is for all this traf­fic? How does one end up on the high end of the view­ing scale, but on the low end of the job offer scale?

Maybe sim­ple answer is that I’ve had numer­ous inter­views in the past year, and I’m sure many can be attrib­uted to the peo­ple who looked at my LI pro­file. So I’m say­ing the glass is half full.

Now I firmly believe that Lee Har­vey Oswald acted alone and there are no space aliens. But I’m won­der­ing if it’s just coin­ci­dence that LinkedIn gave me this honor the day after I signed up for its pre­mium service?

Con­spir­acy or not, it’s my Linkie, and I’m putting that party dress on order and I’m head­ing to the Linkies.

Mother Jones Climate Desk Job: SF, NYC or DC

Posted on | February 11, 2013 | No Comments

Posted Feb. 11, 2013

Senior Project Man­ager — Cli­mate Desk/Mother Jones

Loca­tion: New York, D.C. or San Francisco

Job Descrip­tion

The Cli­mate Desk is an inno­v­a­tive jour­nal­is­tic part­ner­ship between eight news orga­ni­za­tions—The Atlantic, Cen­ter for Inves­tiga­tive Report­ing, The Guardian, Grist, Mother Jones, Slate, Wired, and PBS’s public-affairs show Need To Know—ded­i­cated to explor­ing the impact of a chang­ing cli­mate. With the part­ner­ship expand­ing in scope and reach, we seek a com­pul­sive net­worker to coör­di­nate and guide new approaches to cli­mate journalism.

The project man­ager must be a senior jour­nal­ist and project leader with seri­ous dig­i­tal chops who is excited about learn­ing from and con­tribut­ing to all the part­ner orga­ni­za­tions. We’re look­ing for a dynamic inno­va­tor and skilled cat-herder who can spear­head a big report­ing project (or two or five), pro­vide sup­port and guid­ance for a far-flung sta­ble of pro­duc­ers and writ­ers, and main­tain close rap­port with part­ner editors.

The project man­ager will be the key liai­son with part­ner orga­ni­za­tions, each with vary­ing and chang­ing edi­to­r­ial needs, seek­ing to deter­mine sto­ries and strate­gies that com­ple­ment their mis­sion. She or he will work with CD’s pro­duc­ers and writ­ers to cre­ate cov­er­age that informs, reveals, and sur­prises, and will obses­sively pur­sue ways to amplify that cov­er­age far beyond the green choir.

Job Openings at NPR — D.C. Metro Area

Posted on | February 11, 2013 | No Comments

Deputy Man­ag­ing Edi­tor, NPR — D.C. metro area

Overview:

A thriv­ing, mission-driven mul­ti­me­dia orga­ni­za­tion, NPR pro­duces award-winning news,

infor­ma­tion and music pro­gram­ming in part­ner­ship with hun­dreds of inde­pen­dent pub­lic radio sta­tions across the nation.  NPR lis­ten­ers value infor­ma­tion, cre­ativ­ity, curios­ity and social respon­si­bil­ity – our employ­ees do too.  We are inno­va­tors and lead­ers in diverse fields from jour­nal­ism and dig­i­tal media to IT and devel­op­ment.  Every day, our employ­ees and mem­ber sta­tions touch the lives of mil­lions worldwide.

Dri­ves the daily news agenda for all NPR News prod­ucts, across deliv­ery sys­tems. Builds col­lab­o­ra­tion and coör­di­na­tion across plat­forms on daily news cov­er­age to develop a fully inte­grated news­room.  Eval­u­ates and com­mu­ni­cates to desks, shows, dig­i­tal and News­cast all news devel­op­ment dur­ing the course of the day in order to ensure timely and effec­tive cov­er­age and decision-making for assign­ments.  Leads edi­to­r­ial meet­ings as nec­es­sary, edits copy and sto­ries as nec­es­sary and over­sees spe­cial cov­er­age and break­ing news cov­er­age as necessary.

Cur­rently seek­ing two Deputy Man­ag­ing Edi­tor can­di­dates to drive news excel­lence around the clock.  Core hours for cur­rent oppor­tu­ni­ties include: Monday-Friday 6 am-3 pm or Thursday-Sunday 7:30am-6pm.

Essen­tial Duties Include:

• Part­ners with other news lead­ers across NPR’s desks, shows and dig­i­tal oper­a­tions to direct the daily edi­to­r­ial process to deter­mine cov­er­age and assignments.
• Devel­ops and fos­ters an open dia­logue about cov­er­age and chal­lenges and encour­ages staff to think beyond the con­fines of a nar­row job description
• Eval­u­ates break­ing news sto­ries and works with news man­agers across all plat­forms to deter­mine news pri­or­i­ties for NPR
• Over­sees logis­tics of daily cov­er­age across all plat­forms to ensure coör­di­na­tion of sub­jects and edi­to­r­ial content
• Rec­om­mends which events should be cov­ered live and dis­trib­uted to mem­ber stations
• Leads edi­to­r­ial meet­ings as necessary
• Ensures that work pro­duced by NPR News com­plies with NPR and pro­fes­sional stan­dards for bal­ance, fair­ness and accuracy
• Man­ages the assign­ment of resources, peo­ple and dol­lars, as part of daily news cov­er­age but also as war­ranted by fast mov­ing break­ing news events
• Develop staff via per­for­mance man­age­ment includ­ing: goal set­ting, annual appraisals, reg­u­lar coach­ing and per­for­mance discussions

Qual­i­fi­ca­tions

 Edu­ca­tion: Bachelor’s degree or equiv­a­lent work experience

 Required:

• 6–8 years expe­ri­ence man­ag­ing in news or pro­gram­ming orga­ni­za­tions (in a union envi­ron­ment is a plus).

Writer’s Lifeguard: Money, Favors, Fifty Shades

Posted on | February 5, 2013 | 1 Comment

 

By Jules Older, Feb. 5, 2013

Any­one? Anyone?

Mak­ing Money

You may recall, in Writer’s Life­guard 78, I announced, “My goal, my aim, my early resolution

for 2013 is to start mak­ing money again.”

Too early to tell if that will work, but I’ve started putting it into prac­tice. Three examples…

1.    After my ski quiz appeared in the San Fran­cisco Chron­i­cle (if you know some­thing about ski­ing, you can take the quiz here), a PR friend wrote that she’d love it if I cre­ated a sim­i­lar quiz about her client. I wrote back, in slightly dif­fer­ent words, “If you got the money, honey, I got the time.”

2.    Then, an edi­tor friend said she’d like to con­sider it for a reprint in her jour­nal. I wrote back, in slightly dif­fer­ent words, “Money must change hands.”

3.    After see­ing one of our videos, another pub­li­cist sug­gested that Effin and I make one for her client in exchange for din­ner and a night at his small resort. I wrote back, in slightly dif­fer­ent words, “We don’t work for food.”

Per­sonal Best

If you’ve been a Life­guard long enough, you may recall that I have a ten­dency to kill off air­lines whose inflight mag­a­zines are fool­ish enough to hire me. (If you don’t recall, I’ve attached Writ­ers Life­guard 7, Air­line Shiva to this mes­sage.) I wrote: “Tower Air was my great tri­umph.” They’d sent us to do a piece on caves in Puerto Rico. “While we were in the cave, the air­line folded. They had to fly us back on American.”

That was my great­est tri­umph. Now, it’s num­ber two. While on a press trip to the snowy Sierra last week, I pitched a story to a ski mag. Emailed it at 10am. By the time I’d returned to my room at 4pm, the mag had folded. Try and beat that speed, Lance Armstrong!

The New Black

I am happy to say I have a reg­u­lar seg­ment on a won­der­ful radio pro­gram, Radio New Zealand’s Jim Mora Show. I’m their “IT Guy in San Fran­cisco,” and I always open with a quiz ques­tion. My first seg­ment of the year begins, “In 2012, what was the new black?”

Any­one? Anyone?

The answer is grey, as in “Fifty Shades of Grey.” In this seg­ment, I ask and try to answer this ques­tion, “What were the three biggest Dig­i­tal Age-related sto­ries in 2012? One is edu­ca­tional, one musi­cal and one lit­er­ary, sort of.”

Any­one? Anyone?

Here’s my answer…

MOOCs (look it up), Gang­nam Style and yes, the nearly inex­plic­a­ble pop­u­lar­ity of  the “Fifty Shades” tril­ogy. How can so many adult women in so many places (it’s Num­ber One in Brazil) in our post-feminist age, so adore a badly writ­ten series where women are turned on by whips and chains?

I asked every­body I knew, got a zil­lion dif­fer­ent answers, and then got the right one. It’s from Katie Beers, “The Wake Up Call on 107.9” in Sacra­mento, California.

Any­one? Anyone?

Katie said, “I under­stand it. Fifty Shades is about an only slightly above-average-looking woman who is wor­shipped by a drop-dead gor­geous, emo­tion­ally dam­aged bil­lion­aire — and only she can heal him. And he is obsessed with her safety, doesn’t want her to cook, clean or work, man­ages to make her orgasm every sin­gle time they have sex, and her plea­sure is his pri­mary focus.”

Oh.

— jules
Jules Older (amaz­ingly, no rela­tion to Susan Older) is a free­lance travel writer, the author of children’s books, a speaker, a broad­caster, a con­sul­tant and, with Effin Older, the cre­ator of the iPhone/iPad apps: San Fran­cisco Restau­rants and Auck­land (New Zealand) Insider. Learn more about Jules here.

Ad Age: Time Inc. Cuts Some 500 Jobs

Posted on | January 30, 2013 | 2 Comments

 

By Nat Ives, Ad Age, Jan. 30, 2013

Time Inc., the pub­lisher of mag­a­zines includ­ing Time and Sports Illus­trated, has begun elim­i­nat­ing about 6% of its head count — nearly 500 jobs — in the biggest round of cuts at the com­pany since 2008.

“With the sig­nif­i­cant and ongo­ing changes in our indus­try, we must con­tinue to trans­form our com­pany into one that is leaner, more nim­ble and more innately multi-platform,” CEO Laura Lang said in a memo to employ­ees today. “To make this change, we need to oper­ate as smartly and effi­ciently as pos­si­ble to cre­ate room for crit­i­cal invest­ments and new ini­tia­tives. These reduc­tions are part of this impor­tant trans­for­ma­tion process. ”

Read more here.

Job: Digital Media War Room Chief in DC

Posted on | January 26, 2013 | No Comments

 

DDC Advo­cacy has posted this new job opening:

We’re look­ing for a dig­i­tal media man­ager to run a really, really fun account — it’s going to be a dig­i­tal war room for a client.

Learn more about the posi­tion and apply here.

Dig­i­tal Media Manager 

DDC Advo­cacy is look­ing for a tal­ented and pas­sion­ate Dig­i­tal Media Man­ager to join our Advo­cacy Ser­vices team. This per­son will be respon­si­ble for man­ag­ing a team of asso­ciates mon­i­tor­ing, track­ing, and ana­lyz­ing large quan­ti­ties of online, dig­i­tal, and tra­di­tional media cov­er­age for mul­ti­ple clients. As part of our broader cam­paign efforts, the Dig­i­tal Media Man­ager will be tasked with rep­u­ta­tional enhance­ment, link-building and viral social­iza­tion of DDCA client online con­tent and with gen­er­at­ing mea­sur­able results for clients.

The suc­cess­ful can­di­date will have cam­paign or pub­lic affairs expe­ri­ence, a high polit­i­cal acu­men, be media savvy, and have advanced level famil­iar­ity with the dig­i­tal media and the inter­net, includ­ing: social media sites; search engines; dis­cus­sion boards/threads; blogs; video shar­ing sites; and var­i­ous forms of vir­tual multimedia.

Respon­si­bil­i­ties:

• Man­age a team of asso­ciates mon­i­tor­ing social net­works for poten­tial brand­ing threats or opportunities
• Develop strate­gies to lever­age social net­works such as Face­book and Twit­ter to build alle­giance with or advo­cacy on behalf of a com­pany, prod­uct or issue position
• Lever­age video shar­ing sites like YouTube to advance a client’s mes­sage or image
• Con­duct online research to iden­tify Web sites and online influ­encers for outreach
• Develop and man­age online strate­gic part­ner­ships for client projects
• Con­cep­tu­al­ize and help­ing man­age “paid place­ment” oppor­tu­ni­ties, includ­ing spon­sor­ships and search engine and ban­ner advertising
• Enhance cam­paign vis­i­bil­ity through search engine opti­miza­tion (SEO)
• Con­tribute strat­egy and solu­tions to new busi­ness efforts
• Proac­tively intro­duce new ideas for client initiatives
• Pro­duce reports and analy­sis for clients

Require­ments:

• Min­i­mum of 3 years pro­fes­sional expe­ri­ence, polit­i­cal cam­paign expe­ri­ence strongly desired
• Strong under­stand­ing of and expe­ri­ence with using social media, search based tech­nolo­gies, blogs, and dis­cus­sion threads
• High polit­i­cal acu­men and proven abil­ity to grasp com­plex political/public affairs concepts
• Out­stand­ing com­mu­ni­ca­tion and orga­ni­za­tions skills
• Proven abil­ity to work effec­tively under tight dead­lines in cam­paign style work environment

DDC Advo­cacy is the nation’s largest full ser­vice advo­cacy com­mu­ni­ca­tions firm, with offices in Wash­ing­ton, DC and National Har­bor, MD. We are proud to part­ner with many of the largest cor­po­ra­tions and asso­ci­a­tions in the world, includ­ing a major­ity of the For­tune 500. Pub­lic affairs lead­ers from these orga­ni­za­tions count on DDC Advo­cacy to empower advo­cates to par­tic­i­pate in the pub­lic pol­icy process and help them win on issues. Please visit www.ddcadvocacy.com to learn more about our com­pany and our story.

This is a full-time posi­tion that offers a com­pet­i­tive salary, out­stand­ing ben­e­fits includ­ing com­pany paid med­ical insur­ance, 401(k), park­ing, casual dress and a fast-paced cam­paign style work environment.

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Susan Older Founder Dis­placed­Jour­nal­ists™and its par­ent companyReal World Media™

    Is there life – or work – after news­pa­pers? A lot of us are in the process of find­ing out. Because it’s gen­er­ally a some­what lonely endeavor, it struck me, in Jan­u­ary 2010, that it might be com­fort­ing – and pos­si­bly very pro­duc­tive – to go through it together.

    Dis­placed Jour­nal­ists is a com­mu­nity – our com­mu­nity – where we find com­mon ground, where we can begin to pick our­selves up, dust our­selves off and get on with our lives and liveli­hoods. [more]

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