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Topic of the Night: Learning in the New Year
At the professional writer lunch today, a lot of the conversation on writing turned to how the industry is changing, bookstores, and so much more about the future. Great conversation. And tonight on a nifty program on the Travel Channel, I learned a little about how books were sold door-to-door after the Civil War and up into the last century. It was a major way books were distributed, and publishing company sales forces were basically door-to-door salesmen. When I came into the business in the early 1970s, the major publishing sales force had morphed into selling to bookstores, and only encyclopedias were sold door-to-door. Wow, has publishing changed. (grin) Now…
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The New World of Publishing: The Learning Must Continue
Strange world we live in these days. I have run across a number of writers lately that think they have this all down, that they know what they are doing, and they are happy with their sales. And some of them should be, I grant that. But thinking they know what they are doing just sort of makes me laugh. The one thing that is an absolute in publishing and the art of storytelling is that the learning never stops. It’s not even a rule. It’s just a fact. So for a post here, I thought I would tell a story about myself and my golf days that will illustrate…