I made 2 New Year’s resolutions for 2010.

1) Try to expand my food repertoire by cooking a recipe from a cookbook once a week. I’ve already broken this resolution after my first few recipes were flops.

2) Get out in the real world more. Everyone’s talking about online marketing and social networking these days…but I want to give a plug for getting together in real life too.

Yesterday I saw two authors in the “real world” and it was worth more than a million emails.

Turns out Ellen Galinsky isn’t just the President and Co-Founder of Families and Work Institute as well as the author of the forthcoming book Mind in the Making — she also happens to be an amazing photographer. I had the pleasure of seeing her latest exhibit yesterday in Dobbs Ferry.

After being inspired by Ellen, it was off to meet upcoming HarperStudio author Sascha Zuger for dinner with her son and parents. We’ve been Twitter buddies for a while, and I’ve been psyched to read her memoir about her journey from a 9 to 5 office job to working on a commercial shrimp boat on the Great Barrier Reef and sailing across the South Pacific — but nothing compares to hearing her awesome adventure stories over a bowl of pasta. Having a kid hasn’t seemed to slow her down an iota (if I heard her correctly, I believe she said she’s traveled to 20 countries with her 7 year old son?). Crazy. Inspiring. Can’t wait to read her book even more now.

And speaking of the real world, everyone’s always asking me if the book tour is dead — and honestly, I’m not sure. I do believe there’s a bigger opportunity to make it successful using the tools available today on the internet as well as by being extra creative. Here are two book tours that I want to point out as food for thought:

Stephen Elliott wrote about The D.I.Y Book Tour in the New York Times about a month ago. It doesn’t seem perfect, but certainly interesting and seemed worthwhile if you ask me.

Gretchen Rubin has done (and continues to do) a big tour. I’ve been following along on her blog and it seems that there are a lot of “Happiness is a Great Book Event in…” posts — so she did something right. I know she asked the readers of her blog early on where they’d be interested in having her visit, and I believe part of the tour may have been sponsored by a magazine (I don’t know more details than that), but I’m dying for the full wrap up from Gretchen on what worked and why, and what to skip in the future.

And then of course there was Gary’s tour which was a huge success. Check out the Facebook pages he created which really helped spread the word and gauge numbers in advance.

Would love to hear from anyone out there about what you find working in the real world…

Yesterday I came across Marian Schembari’s blog post titled A Gen Y’s Reaction to Macmillan’s Piracy Plan on the Digital Book World site.

I reblogged it on Tumblr.

I reblogged it mostly because I was impressed that a young woman in the publishing industry would be bold enough to fearlessly and intelligently state her opinion about the controversial subject of piracy in such a public forum. Whether one agrees or not with Marian, there is no denying that her candor is rare among young women, and for me, a cause for celebration.

Reading this quote from Marian’s blog, I can’t imagine she’s not representing many readers in her generation:

I’m poor, I understand technology, and I guarantee I can find any book online, for free, in 10 minutes or less. You can delete and sue all you want, but at the end of the day the internet is a wide and limitless place, meaning it’s a waste of time, money and energy to fight it. Embrace the change and find another way to make money without a) annoying your audience, b) suing your audience, and c) losing you audience by wasting cash on completely ineffective “precautions”.

My Tumblr automatically feeds to Facebook, and before I knew it, men from the publishing establishment were leaving comments that felt scolding about the post on my wall. Yes it’s controversial and it’s not the opinion of many (most?) people employed in mainstream publishing — but it’s an honest opinion by a young woman who’s brave enough to share it with us — and that’s RARE! A few women chimed in on my wall that a dose of honest opinion is good for us, her piece is smart, etc.

Here’s the bottom line for me — whether you agree or not with Marian Schembari’s views on piracy, she has given us a glimpse into the psyche of a Gen Y reader. I appreciate her honesty. I believe this is a gift. I think we should listen.

Of all the many remarkable things to notice about the exchange between Amazon and Macmillan this past weekend, perhaps the most remarkable, at least from a linguistic point of view, is Amazon’s use of the word “monopoly” in their message to their customers yesterday. Yes, the company that has frightened the book business so badly with its attempt to create a closed system for e-book delivery on its Kindles said that Macmillan had a “monopoly on its titles.”  This nasty monopoly of Macmillan’s was forcing Amazon–now the David to Macmillan’s Goliath–to “capitulate.”

Whatever your point of view on this, the use of “monopoly” to describe a publisher’s control of its content is a bit overheated, no?  Maybe we can go back to calling it what we used to in the old days: “copyright.”

1) For those people who might live under a rock, what are the X Games?

The X Games is an event that collects some of the world’s best extreme athletes in one place to compete in a series of events ranging from big air trick contests to mono skier crosses. The best athletes on snow come here every year to push their individual snowsport further, and as a result you get to see a lot of very different and very talented athletes all crammed together on one mountain. I’m in the athlete lounge right now, sitting across from the French Olympic team (competing in skier cross and wearing tight pink uniforms) and next to two girls getting ready to go out for halfpipe practice (wearing super baggy white ponchos).

2) I bet they don’t get many writers…

Hahaha – I don’t think so. I had to leave my corduroy blazer at home just so that I could fit in.

3) Which event are you participating in?

It’s called the Mono X, which is basically a skier cross for monoskis. You have a gated course that you and three other competitors must navigate at the same time in a race to the bottom of the hill. In between those gates, you have a series of features ranging from big air jumps (80 ft+ for the final), road gaps, step ups, step downs, and woopity woos. It’s pretty funny the names they give some of these features. It’s like they’re trying to take the edge of the insanity of the whole thing.

4) How much time goes into designing and building your monoski?

I started working on my gear back in August after a year’s hiatus. The design process, which I worked on in conjunction with a local R&D company, took about three months in which we stress-tested every other monoski on the market to find out their individual weak points for high-impact scenarios (something you get a lot of in the Mono X). After that, we went in fabrication mode, which was finished by December. By the second week of December I was working on custom valving the suspension (which is just a Fox Float shock taken from the front end of a snowmobile) with another Montana local. We put on the finishing touches about two weeks ago. All told – countless hours and thousands of dollars. And totally worth it. It’s called “Ullr”.

5) What kind of role does advertising play in the X Games?

In a lot of ways, X Games is the most widely publicized winter event in world (with exclusion of the Olympics every four years), and as a result, advertising plays a huge role in almost every aspect of the games. Almost every athlete here has a sponsor ranging from local support to having Yahoo! rent you a mansion on the mountain (well played, Shaun White). Everybody is beholden to somebody, so you end up seeing a lot of logos and free stuff floating around. It’s fun, but definitely nice to get back to the real world after a week of this.

6) You must be scared shitless before you race. How do you calm your nerves?

I just keep moving. When I’m at the hill, I’m trying to get in as many laps as I can just to keep my body warm and my head focused on skiing. I start playing head games with myself if I stay still for too long, so I just try always stay in motion.

7. What’s the craziest thing you’ve had happen during an X Games competition?

I think I’ll be able to give you a good answer by the end of the week. The course has been dramatically stepped up this year in terms of difficulties. Just inspecting it yesterday, the nerves amongst the other competitors was palpable. Also – there are no “optional” jumps, so I get the impression that the real crazy stuff is heading this way…

Kevin Connolly is the author of Double Take. You can watch him compete in the X Games this Sunday on ESPN.

In the month of December, the publishing Gods rained four amazing authors on me. I took it as a sign from the universe that I was in the right place.

After months of questions and angst about the future of the publishing industry and whether it was part of my future, my answer came in the form of Baratunde Thurston. I’d heard him speak at the Web 2.0 conference and I wanted desperately to work with him. After tracking him down, he came to my office for a brainstorm, and it was during that meeting that I had an epiphany: There is nothing in the world I’d rather be doing.  How cool is it that I get to go to conferences, hear really interesting speakers, then have them over to my office to figure out their book with them? And then I get to work on that book.

My fate became clear during that meeting with Baratunde Thurston. He’s writing a book for HarperStudio called How to be Black.

The next author to sign with HarperStudio was Kevin Rose, the founder of Digg.com. I’m a huge fan — have been following his blog, twitter, videos, etc. for some time, and think he’s one of the smartest tech entrepreneurs out there with lots of wisdom and experience to share .  He’ll be writing a book about the secrets behind his success called One to One Million.

Jill Kargman is a novelist. I saw her on Samantha Ettus’s show Obsessed TV six months ago and knew I wanted to work with her. We met a few times and completely clicked. The question was , what’s the “HarperStudio” book. In early December she came to my office to have another brainstorm and told me some terrible personal news. The thing was, she told the story with such humor and grace that instead tears and sadness, we were hysterically laughing…and it was in that moment that we realized that’s her gift: she sprinkles the funny everywhere, even on the tough times. Jill’s going to write two books for HarperStudio. The first is called Sometimes I Feel Like A Nut and will be essays about using humor as a tool to get through life — making the fun times funnier and the tough times bearable, in reference to Woody Allen’s magical math equation: COMEDY = TRAGEDY + TIME. The second will be a novel.

The fourth author to sign with HarperStudio during that lucky month of December 2009, was Ryan Tate from Gawker.  I’d been thinking a lot about merits and challenges of being a small company within a large corporation, and Bob suggested that there’s a book in that. Nick Bilton from the New York Times lead me to Ryan Tate at Gawker, and he is now writing a book for us called Skunkworks, which I can’t wait to read.

One more author who I want to mention who signed with HarperStudio, though it was slightly before that December epiphany, but still very much part of my process of realizing how much I love my job, is Melanie Notkin, the Savvy Auntie. She’s writing her Savvy Auntie’s Guide to Life.

So there you have it: now a total of five authors who make me so excited about my work and this industry that I feel like the luckiest girl in the world.

It was only a matter of time before someone made a biopic about Temple Grandin. When you stop and think about it, HBO makes perfect sense- so does Claire Danes. (Oh and add Sheila Nevins to my list of creative heroes.)

Ms. Grandin is currently reading a copy of Elaine Hall’s book Now I See The Moon (Elaine starred in the incredible HBO doc Autism: The Musical). I can’t wait to hear what she thinks!

(update! this just in from Temple Grandin: “Now I See the Moon provides insightful ways to teach and work with individuals with autism and severe disabilities.  It will give parents great hope.” Whoop! Whoop! JC)

Ladies on the interwebs are buzzing about Clay Shirky’s recent blog post in which he explains, in a nutshell, how women are less likely to adopt a blowhard, fake it till you make it attitude when it comes to their career. A student’s request for a letter of recommendation got Shirky going:

“So I get email from a good former student, applying for a job and asking for a recommendation. “Sure”, I say, “Tell me what you think I should say.” I then get a draft letter back in which the student has described their work and fitness for the job in terms so superlative it would make an Assistant Brand Manager blush.

So I write my letter, looking over the student’s self-assessment and toning it down so that it sounds like it’s coming from a person and not a PR department, and send it off. And then, as I get over my annoyance, I realize that, by overstating their abilities, the student has probably gotten the best letter out of me they could have gotten.

Now, can you guess the gender of the student involved?

Of course you can. My home, the Interactive Telecommunications Program at NYU, is fairly gender-balanced, and I’ve taught about as many women as men over the last decade. In theory, the gender of my former student should be a coin-toss. In practice, I might as well have given him the pseudonym Moustache McMasculine for all the mystery there was. And I’ve grown increasingly worried that most of the women in the department, past or present, simply couldn’t write a letter like that.

This worry isn’t about psychology; I’m not concerned that women don’t engage in enough building of self-confidence or self-esteem. I’m worried about something much simpler: not enough women have what it takes to behave like arrogant self-aggrandizing jerks.”

The reactions to Shirky’s comments were mixed among my friends. One person said “I know a SHITTON of self-aggrandizing blowhards who also happen to be women. Regardless of gender, I always think karma’s at work anyway and if you are ultimately just faking it, it will bite you in the ass in the end when people eventually realize you’re full of shit!”

I am curious to hear what people think. Is there some kind of ultimate karmic justice in the world? Do people agree with Clay Shirky’s take on women?

Traditionally, if an audio is done for a book, it’s recorded a few months before the hardcover publication so that they can be published simultaneously. The theory is that the audio will benefit from the hardcover marketing. Fair enough.

But what if it’s non-fiction and the world is changing at breakneck speed and there’s potentially updated information that happens in the six months between when the print book was finished being written and is finally published?

When Gary proposed the idea to us last Fall that he wait to record the audio until December, six months after the book was finished so that he could incorporate the latest info, we thought it was genius.

I love the idea that the hardcover is the mother ship, and then the other formats can be derivatives. Vook would fall in this category too.

So here it is for your listening pleasure: Crush It! the remix.

It was published the first week of January and has been selling incredibly well despite the fact that I can’t seem to find anywhere except for a few tweets from Gary that there’s new information here. About every few pages, Gary stops reading and adds off the cuff stories. Even if you’d read the book, it’s enough new info that you might want to listen too.

Check it out…It’s on sale for now $7.49 (from $13.22). Totally worth the $7.49.

In yesterday’s Publishers Weekly, Jim Milliot reported on a new study of online book piracy done by a company called Attributor. According to Attributor, publishers “could be losing out on as much as $3 billion to online book piracy.” On the face of it, this is bad news for publishers. We all know what Napster did to the music industry. And it sure would be nice to have that $3 billion back, no? But reading further into the report, we learn that the average number of free fiction downloads was just over 2,000 copies. Wait a minute. 2,000 copies? Is that a bad thing? It isn’t unusual for publishers to give away more than 2,000 advance reading copies of a piece of new fiction. Why? Because we want people to read the book and tell other people about it. And what about libraries? Don’t we sell copies to libraries that they then lend out over and over again—for free? How much money are we “losing” to free reading in libraries? (I shudder to think of how my wife and I may have contributed to the problem, taking our children to the library every Saturday and letting them each take out ten books. Who knew that we were raising a bunch of pirates?) Furthermore, how much money are we losing to people who lend a friend a book they’ve just read, saying, “You have to read this book!” We’d better put a stop to that right away…

We need to protect our author’s copyrights, and make sure that we don’t get Napstered by massive illegal online distribution. But small quantities of people reading our books for free may not be harmful, and may actually promote literacy, and the joy of reading…and the business we’re so worried about protecting.