The editorial director for the international publishing strategy and services agency Somersault Group (http://somersaultgroup.com) (@smrsault), Dave Lambert, is a finalist for Fiction Editor of the Year, a category in the 2011 Golden Scroll Awards sponsored by the Advanced Writers & Speakers Association (AWSA).
Responsible for managing the editorial development process for each manuscript at Somersault, Lambert is also the owner of Lambert Editorial. He’s the author of 10 books (including The Missionary); a requested speaker; former senior fiction editor at Howard Publishing, a division of Simon & Schuster; and former executive editor for fiction at Zondervan, a HarperCollins company. Lambert was a previous finalist in this category in 2009 and the winner in 2002.
Honored for outstanding ministry partnerships with their authors, nominees for this award are selected by authors, and the voting is done by authors. “Dave has a reputation of pushing authors beyond their comfort zone to help them hone their writing craft and achieve their best book possible,” says John Topliff, Somersault general manager. “This recognition reflects Somersault’s commitment to the highest editorial standards.”
Other finalists for Fiction Editor of the Year are Vicki Crumpton of Baker Publishing Group and Jan Stob of Tyndale House Publishers. Along with Fiction Editor of the Year, the 2011 Golden Scroll Award categories are Publisher of the Year, Editor of the Year, Novel of the Year, and Nonfiction Book of the Year. The winners will be announced at the AWSA awards banquet, July 10, at the Omni at CNN Center in Atlanta during the International Christian Retail Show annual convention.
Today is singled out internationally to promote reading, publishing, and the protection of intellectual property through copyright. According to Wikipedia,
World Book and Copyright Day (also known as International Day of the Book or World Book Days) is a yearly event on 23 April, organized by UNESCO. The Day was first celebrated in 1995.
The connection between 23 April and books was first made in 1923 by booksellers in Spain as a way to honor the author Miguel de Cervantes who died on that day.
The radio program On the Media (@onthemedia) has a segment that discusses the complexity of copyright protection and the Internt. And The Blog Herald (@blogherald) has a post on how bloggers should know the difference between copyright, patent, and trademark.
UNESCO’s World Forum on Culture and Cultural Industries this year has as its theme “The Book Tomorrow: The Future of the Written Word.” It’ll be held June 6-8 in Monza, Milan.
What books that you publish today will contribute to character building in tomorrow’s generation?
Digital Book World (@DigiBookWorld) recently hosted the webcast “Reader Experience and E-books: What UX Experts Can Teach Publishers.” Here are a few take-aways:
- The digital reader experience isn’t just about the container, but also about the content.
- Readers should be able to control their own digital reading experience.
- Choose the right platform for the right content.
- Think about the experience through the lens of the medium. What’s important in print may not be important in digital.
- Look to textbook and academic journal publishing for lessons in how to integrate digital and multimedia components, online access, and community engagement with printed books.
- Workflow processes must change.
- Ebooks have actually restored interest in a good reading experience.
- Stay open to change.
Let Somersault help you navigate 21st century publishing. And be sure to bookmark and use daily the SomersaultNOW online dashboard created especially for publishing and marketing professionals.
Jon Hirst (@generousmind), account manager at Novo Ink (@novoink), identifies the problem of non-working Web URLs linked to by authors in their ebooks. He says, “With the instability of links on the Web, I am finding that many of the links that authors share in their books do not work even a short time after their book is published.” Among the solutions he suggests:
- The first and most obvious is to discipline yourself to use references and citations from major organizations or Web sites that will be more stable than “Joe’s Favorite Founding Fathers Quotes.” You know that if you use Wikipedia, The New York Times, American Heart Association, etc. you will be more likely to present a valid resource to your readers.
- When dealing with links to connect with the author, the publisher should encourage the author to centralize all such links to the URL they are most likely to keep over time. Many times this ends up being the author’s name or the name of their organization. Book websites seem like a good idea when the book launches, but after five years many of them are gone and that contact is lost.
Read other solutions he offers.
Provide your suggestions in the comments below.
The NPR program On The Media (@on_the_media) reports that professors at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania have been meticulously studying what kinds of articles make the “most emailed list,” specifically at The New York Times.
They've combed through more than 7,000 stories using computers to check The Times homepage and most emailed list every 15 minutes for months. What they've found is surprising. The list does not look like Google News. It’s not heavy with Justin Bieber or top 10 Victoria’s Secret models or “Your air conditioner is killing you.” Instead, according to Professor Katherine Milkman, what gets most shared is what most inspires awe.
As publishers and authors, are you looking for manuscripts that “inspire awe”? Would what motivates people to forward emails also prompt them to buy books?
As of March 1, the Jerry B. Jenkins Christian Writers Guild (@CWGuild) will have acquired Sally Stuart's Christian Writers Market Guide, the annual comprehensive resource guide offering up-to-date information on the Christian publishing industry. Stuart's annual publication, now in its 26th year, has become a reliable source for the critical information needed by those seeking to publish their work in the Christian community. The resource will still be published by Tyndale House (@TyndaleHouse), but with the 2012 edition will change its title to The Christian Writer's Market Guide and the byline will switch from Sally Stuart (@stuartmarket) to Jerry B. Jenkins (@JerryBJenkins).
Christian Writers' Market Guide offers tips and ideas for Christian writers and includes contact information, pay rates, submission guidelines for more than 400 book publishers, 600 periodicals and websites as well as information on hundreds of literary agents, contests, conferences and editorial services.
In an article in Christianity Today (@ctmagazine), Marilyn Chandler McEntyre writes about the importance of reading, saying it “can change the way we listen to the most ordinary conversation.”
I have long valued literary theorist Kenneth Burke's simple observation that literature is ‘equipment for living.’ We glean what we need from it as we go. In each reading of a book or poem or play, we may be addressed in new ways, depending on what we need from it, even if we are not fully aware of those needs. The skill of good reading is not only to notice what we notice, but also to allow ourselves to be addressed. To take it personally. To ask, even as we read secular texts, that the Holy Spirit enable us to receive whatever gift is there for our growth and our use. What we hope for most is that as we make our way through a wilderness of printed, spoken, and electronically transmitted words, we will continue to glean what will help us navigate wisely and kindly—and also wittily—a world in which competing discourses can so easily confuse us in seeking truth and entice us falsely.
In all our concentration trying to forecast where publishing is headed as a result of the digital revolution, we must remember the basic premise remains foundational just as it did centuries ago: reading, itself, sparks vitality.
Tell us your comments on the matter.
When you write copy, you own the right of copyright to the copy you write, if the copy is right. If, however, your copy falls over, you must right your copy. If you write religious services, you write rite, and own the right of copyright to the rite you write.
Conservatives write Right copy, and own the right of copyright, to the Right copy they write. A right-wing cleric would write Right rite, and owns the right of copyright to the Right rite he has the right to write. His editor has the job of making the Right rite copy right before the copyright can be right.
Should Reverend Jim Wright decide to write Right rite, then Wright would write right rite, to which Wright has the right of copyright. Duplicating his rite would be to copy Wright's Right rite, and violate copyright, to which Wright would have the right to right.
Right?
(Source: Mikey's Funnies)