1) The first article was published in Forbes magazine. The title says it all: How Publishers Can Ready Themselves For Digital Media’s Evolution? The article nicely summarizes what’s at stake. They “need to start thinking of themselves more as publishing engines that can drive content creation, distribution and consumption in an innovative and scalable way. For many, this will be hard and challenging – if not downright impossible.” (Does the prescription sound like what Amazon is doing?)

2) The second article is an excerpt from an article by Kristine Kathryn Rusch.  It argues that writers are undervaluing their talent and should look at writing as a business.

3) The third article is a short blog post by literary agent, Jane Dystel entitled A Sure Thing? It expresses her disappointment at publishers for their “narrow-minded” approach in limiting themselves to signing what they believe will be a best-seller.

4) The fourth article highlights the growing number of indie titles that populate the top of the best-seller lists on Amazon’s site.

Telephones are the classic example used to show the value of a network. Economists use the term network effect to describe the phenomenon of goods and services that increase in value the more widely they are adopted. Every person who opts in for telephone service, without wanting to, adds value to the existing network. It is a powerful network precisely because almost everyone is connected to it.

In this blog post, I point out that belonging to a small network can have benefits that large networks are unable to deliver.

It’s generally not good for public relations when any internal company memo is leaked. It’s much worse when it is the memo of an industry-leader that explains why the industry is still relevant.

Below is a short excerpt from the absolutely hilarious response by Eisler and Konrath, two successful, self-published authors.

Publishers should stop trying to convince themselves and others that they’re relevant, and start actually being relevant. Here’s how:

1. Offer much better royalties to authors.

2. Release titles faster. It can take 18 months after a book is turned in to be published. I can do it myself in a week.

3. Use up-to-date accounting methods that are trackable by the author, and pay royalties monthly.

4. Lower e-book prices.

5. Stop futilely fighting piracy.

6. Start marketing effectively. Ads and catalogue copy aren’t enough. Neither is your imprint’s Twitter feed.

This blog post explains why Edan Lepucki’s “Reasons Not to Self-Publish” don’t make any sense. I was prompted to conduct the search when I saw the Association of American Publisher’s September 2011 sales report. Here it is:

• ❧ The mass paperback category declined 54 percent (to $31 million)
• ❧ Adult hardcover sales dropped 18 percent (to $148.3 million)
• ❧ Ebook sales doubled (grew to $80.3 million)

The goals don’t have to be earth shattering, simply meaningful enough that you want to hold yourself accountable. Membership is an opportunity to forge relationships with fellow writers and also an opportunity to test the boundaries of our talents, knowledge and creativity. Setting a few manageable goals will foster a feeling of accomplishment for our victories. The more challenging and difficult goals help to keep us engaged, learning and striving. You can see my life list of goals on the page linked above. As of today’s date, the list only has a few items on it, but I’m planning to add more.