More on publishing and the inimitable Russell Davies is up to his tricks again. Giving away books to get more blog mentions to get more eyeballs to get more sales to hike his sales in the Amazon league tables. Is this a casual experiment -or a cunning trick to boost sales, or a wholly different way to market books. Probably a bit of all three if I know him.
Now here's a thing. I have a book by Nigel Slater called Eating for England. Which is a great read. But what to do about copyright? So here's me reading an extract all about Toblerone.
Download tobleronenigelslater.MP3
Something to chew on - Am I stealing from the author by reading out his work? If I had copied and pasted the text would that be theft? Should the publisher send me a writ or a cheque for promoting their work? Or should we split the commission and jointly invoice Toblerone? This is the problem content publishers have - what exactly is their product and how do they monetise it? At the moment the attempt to define what a text is leads to silly anomalies. But without the publisher would I ever have found the text? How much is that worth - a finders fee?
Check out this website for a very different feel to what a publisher's natural territory is. Is this about selling books, promoting authors or creating involvement in the process of writing? 
There was a very moving interview on the radio this morning with Terry Pratchett the author of Discworld series who has been diagnosed with Alzheimers at the age of 59. He claims he is now having to relearn how to type every day. He has started to lobby for more funding for Alzheimers - having given away half a million of his own money. He spoke of how the discourse of cancer was full of crisis and drama which made it easy to attract funds whereas the discourse of Alzheimers was muted and relentless and hopeless which was why so little was done for Alzheimers sufferers. It was very powerful listening to such an articulate man using the little time he has left before the disease 'takes his personality apart from the edges piece by piece' to try and change the discourse so we do something about it and stop treating patients as passive units of health consumption to be put quietly to one side and left to rot.
This is getting out of hand - John Grant very kindly mailed me his New Green Marketing Manifesto to read and review - that thudded onto the doormat this morning. Stephen King's collected works arrived yesterday - and I have to read this and unite it with the recording of the recent APG evening to launch the book. Then rather unexpectedly I got a proof copy of Readings in Account Planning edited by Hart Weichselbaum to check. This is so cool. The book isn't published yet - they are obviously going the selfpublished route of getting copies printed one at a time and sending them out for final checking. I have the honour of contributing a chapter which is my Admap article about planning outside of advertising which was published I think in 2003. This means that I am co-contributing with luminaries such as Malcolm Gladwell and Scott Bedbury no less. Plus Merry Baskin, Mike Hall, Paul Feldwick and Wendy Gordon. My cup runneth over. Not sure when the book is officially available but when it is I'll be sure to keep you posted. And I must remember to review Messr Gladwell more charitably next time he publishes. Planning Above and Beyond gets a fab name check as well which means I really need to sort accountplanning.net out by the end of the year and do something new.
Wed 18/07/2007 10:20 18072007 - Spotted this on Costin's desck - the set text these days for learning the advertising planning game. Now translated into Romanian. You saw it here first!!
