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20 Years of Learning

On reaching their 20th anniversary, most magazines indulge in celebration of their accomplishments. That is not the case with Visual, a publication on design and architecture in Spain. Their reflection on the past two decades highlighted their mistakes. Are you guilty of any of these?

1. Their first designs were "terrible," they said, as they were just learning to use their new software and were dazzled by its new capabilities.
2. Technical discussions of new software dominated their content. 
3. Reliance on Anglo-Saxon models of design, particularly for ad content, that were inappropriate for their national context.
4. Taking risky editorial positions, described as "swimming without keeping [one's] clothes [dry]."
5. Not making sufficient and effective enough use of the Internet.
6. Being too flexible with contest entries.
7. Pricing. The magazine costs the same as it did nine years ago, though costs have increased.
8. Subsidies. They accepted one to support their book design awards program, making an exception to their general practice.
9. Parallel activities that are not always profitable though often interesting.

For the tenth error, they said it is up to their readers' discretion, but that on the whole Visual staff believe they have had more hits than misses in the past 20 years, for which they are grateful. The entire article in Spanish is available here.

If you were to make a similar list, what would it include? 

Favorite Books of 2008

Christianity Today Inc. magazine Books & Culture editor John Wilson lists his "Favorite Books of 2008." Take a look at his choices and see if you agree. He writes:

... we are here, again, to celebrate some particularly good books. Not the best books of the year, whatever those might be. (One influential reckoning is the New York Times' list, The Ten Best Books of 2008, posted on the web though not yet published in the print version.) What you have here is a personal list, not issued by any magisterium. These are some books that rose to the surface when I unsystematically thought about a year of reading.

What books would be on your list?

India: "Children's Literature Has Taken Off"

Wendy Cooling, an author speaking to The Hindu Literary Review, says: 

“The Indian publishing scene for children’s literature has taken off. There is a huge improvement in terms of design, illustration and presentation. It needs more direction, more choice, more access and most importantly a good library system in which parents are also involved. Kids should develop their own taste and begin to think about what they want and what they don’t.”

Cooling's comments may be applicable to general trade titles, but the situation regarding Christian children's books in India is quite different. Read more here.

Crisis Advice for Newspaper Publishers

Editor & Publisher magazine offers 11 suggestions to newspaper publishers in these times of economic crisis:

1. Issue an edict: digital is first.
2. Consolidate print and online editing functions.
3. Print edition: don't bother chasing young people.
4. Print edition: focus on the core demographic.
5. Guide older print loyalists to a life online.
6. Reduce the number of print editions.
7. Online: broaden definition of news to include micro-personal.
8. Hire a social [media] VP.
9. Experiment, fail, experiment more.
10. Leverage your remaining staffers, and augment them.
11. Consider retirement.

Consider just one of these suggestions: number 9. What was your last experiment? What did you learn from the experience? What experiments are you trying now?

Which additional suggestions should you apply or adapt in your book publishing company?

The Shack Publishing Phenomenon

Publisher's Weekly listed William P. Young's Christian fiction book The Shack as the number one trade paperback bestseller in 2008 after being rejected by 26 publishers, as the author told TheStar.com. Now, the bestseller is spurring critiques, says the Christian Post:

To date, The Shack has sold more than 4.4 million copies in 24 different countries ...

It has remained on the New York Times Bestsellers List for Paperback Trade Fiction for 29 weeks and currently retains the No. 1 spot.

[But] the book has been openly criticized by conservative Protestant heavyweights including R. Albert Mohler, president of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Ky.; Chuck Colson, founder of the Prison Fellowship Ministries; Mark Driscoll, pastor of Mars Hill Church in Seattle; and influential blogger Tim Challies, who wrote a downloadable 17-page review/guide on The Shack that compares the novel’s assertions to Scripture.

Azerbaijan: Religious Book Imports

Azerbaijan's Trend News reports on religious book imports in the country:

A problem on illegal import of religious literature to Azerbaijan has been solved, the chairman of the State Committee for Religious Organizations said.

“Import and publication of harmful religious literature in the country has been considerably cut as a result of joint measures of the Committee and relevant bodies,” Hidayat Orujov, the chairman of the State Committee for Religious Organizations said to journalists on Dec. 18.

The State Committee for Religious Organizations examined 750 religious books and prevented imports and spread of 140 of them...

So far, more than 530 religious communities have passed registration in Azerbaijan and 32 of them belong to non-Islam religions. Registration of seven religious communities has been cancelled.

The Azeri Press Agency, earlier this month, noted that 1,300 banned books were confiscated in the Southern region of Azerbaijan.

Books and Reading by Photographers in Spain

Spain's Ministry of Culture presents the work of 29 photographers depicting books and reading. The images include black and white and color photography, as well as collages including oil painting and other mixed media. See their work here.

Design Contests

Have you ever held a design contest to select the cover of one of your upcoming releases?  99 Designs is a site that allows companies to launch design contests for projects ranging from logos, posters, magazine templates and book covers to cups and even board games. But,

The topic of design contests is a polarizing one. Those who are against them are really against them, maintaining that they exploit designers and devalue the design industry. The NO!SPEC mantra has been adopted as a code of conduct by graphic design associations like AGDA and AIGA, and those who agree with this philosophy consider entering a design contest to be entirely unprofessional and just plain wrong.

Sitepoint interviewed one 99 Designs participant who says, "Design Contests Made Me a Better Designer." Read more here. 

Design and Information Overload

The International Herald Tribune describes the rise of new tools that can help designers and publishers convey information visually:

There's one simple reason why visualization is becoming so important, and that's our desire to understand what's happening in the world at a time when it's becoming harder and harder to do so. "Design always moves where it is needed most," said Paola Antonelli, curator of Design and the Elastic Mind, who is now working on a major visualization project. "The surge in computing power has generated a surge in information output, and heated up interest in visualization design."

Journalism, Multi-Tasking, and Information Overload

The Columbia Journalism Review discusses "journalism's battle for relevance in an age of too much information," starting with the news consumption habits of young adults around the world. Think about the future of our industry in light of this paragraph:

The idea that news consumers, even young ones, are overloaded should hardly come as a surprise. The information age is defined by output: we produce far more information than we can possibly manage, let alone absorb. Before the digital era, information was limited by our means to contain it. Publishing was restricted by paper and delivery costs; broadcasting was circumscribed by available frequencies and airtime. The Internet, on the other hand, has unlimited capacity at near-zero cost. There are more than 70 million blogs and 150 million Web sites today—a number that is expanding at a rate of approximately ten thousand an hour. Two hundred and ten billion e-mails are sent each day. Say goodbye to the gigabyte and hello to the exabyte, five of which are worth 37,000 Libraries of Congress. In 2006 alone, the world produced 161 exabytes of digital data, the equivalent of three million times the information contained in all the books ever written. By 2010, it is estimated that this number will increase to 988. Pick your metaphor: we’re drowning, buried, snowed under.

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