Melissa Walsh

Tuesday, April 19, 2011

Self-Publishing: The Author Revolution

It was Woodrow Wilson who said, “The seed of revolution is repression.” Have writers been repressed by big publishing?

For most writers, getting a book published by an established publishing house is like winning the lottery. Even if an acquisitions editor pulls your manuscript from the slushpile and likes it, your manuscript must impress several more layers of big-publishing management to win a book deal.

The good news for good writers is that self-publishing is making these management layers obsolete. True, earning income via ebook self-publishing might be a pipe dream for a writer trying to turn a poorly written manuscript into a commodity. But for a good writer, ebook self-publishing is a sound option for gaining ground in the market as an author, that is if she treats book development as a business and commissions the services of a good editor, a good artist, a good publicist, and a good distributer.

Done right, self-publishing meets content needs for a target market. A winning ebook would generate revenue that a writer could invest as capital for printing and distributing a print edition of the successful title. If an author has a knack for managing operation costs and a savvy for promoting books, self-publishing could replace the writer’s mundane day job and become a lucrative career. Authors whose products enjoy a niche market could even bring in additional revenue through merchandising title- or series-themed swag.

In a recent blog entry, Mark Coker, founder of Smashwords, an ebook conversion and distribution service, compared the downfall of traditional publishing houses to political revolution. Is his point valid? According to a recent article by Futurebook.net blogger Felicity Wood, only a quarter of consumers preferring e-reading would discontinue buying print books. Many ebook consumers purchase both the ebook and print editions of the same title. Though this is great news for the publishing industry at large, only authors and publishers who learn to adapt to the e-reading trend will benefit from its momentum.

Besides the obvious ― e-publishing technology, what other factors are contributing to Coker’s alleged downfall of big publishing? I would argue that little economic opportunity for emerging, and even established writers, is the most critical contributor. Writers have to write; they need to write, so much so that many would even write for free or little monetary reward. A big publisher knows how to take advantage of a writer’s addiction to writing, sucking the writer into a mediocre contract of a 5 to 10% royalty by promising him an increased royalty percentage in the hypothetical “next deal,” once he’s “more established.” With ebook self-publishing, writers may enjoy 70 to 80 percent of sales. The bottom line speaks for itself. Why would an author sign up for a low royalty percentage only to risk the publisher’s right to remove the title from its catalogue and from print before the book had enough time to reach its full readership potential?

With the ebook revolution, authors are empowered to respond to the coercive acts of big publishing. So are book publishing elites today’s publishing red coats? Is ebook self-publishing akin to Tom Paine’s patriot movement? Like Paine’s revolutionary pamphlets, ebook publishing APIs (Application Programming Interface) are connecting writers directly to readers. What’s more, the movement is purely democratic ― anyone can publish. And those reaping the economic rewards of ebook publishing are beneficiaries of a truly free hand of capitalism. If the book is any good, the market will find value in purchasing it.

Powerplay Communications as an Ebook Publisher

Recently, I decided to publish a revision of my 2005 print book The Rookie Hockey Mom. Within two weeks, I revised and reformatted the content and submitted it to Smashwords for ebook conversion and distribution. Now consumers can buy the e-edition of my book from Smashwords.com. Soon, they will be able to purchase it from premium ebook retailers like Amazon, Barnes & Noble, iBookstore, Sony, and Kobo.

If you’re a writer with a promising finished manuscript, I suggest investigating your options for ebook self-publishing. If you’re looking for help in editing and formatting your manuscript, Powerplay Communications can help.

For more, click here for a link to “The Uprising in Book Publishing,” a presentation by Smashwords founder Mark Coker.

Also check out Felicity Wood’s blog article “Trendspotting,” which shares statistics on readers’ attitudes toward ebooks.

Originally posted on Powerplay Communications' blog on March 13, 2011.

Great Moments Are Born from Great Opportunities.

By Melissa Walsh

Herb Brooks-isms are popular in my home. Five of us play hockey, and we’ve all seen Miracle more than a dozen times. Though viewing the game as a seventh-grader in 1980 is still a vivid memory for me, the lesson of the miracle game as applied by my four hockey-playing sons has had a deeper impact on my can-do spirit. The mental strength modeled by my goalie is the most remarkable.

I tell my boys, “There’s good-crazy and bad-crazy.” I believe living out a passion to mind the net falls under “good-crazy.” A true goalie amazes onlookers with his puck-blocking talent and his deflection of criticism when he can’t block them all. As a goalie develops, he trains his mind to counter the literal shots of the puck and the figurative shots of severe judgment. He grows his heart, quickness, and thick skin for his mission, focusing on one thing: making the next great save. And when he’s made a great save, he feels that he’s stopped time.

Great moments, like stopping time, are born from this opportunity of accepting the risk of playing net. When a goalie’s hot, wow, it’s magical — great split-second moments of staying big to stone the break-out shooter, or reading the attacker like a clairvoyant to foil the deke, or making a swift swoop of the glove to catch the snipe.

I don’t have the special, good-crazy gift to play net, but I have the passion to step out and use my head, heart and hands to raise four sons and build a business. I hear these words: “You were born for this. This is your time. Go out there and take it.” I’m seizing each great opportunity with the belief in great moments.

Published on The Rookie Hockey Mom Site on March 11, 2011.

Religious Hockey

By Melissa Walsh

If it weren’t for religion, chasing a puck around on skates would be meaningless. Anyone deeply involved with the spirited tradition of hockey is familiar with the sport’s rituals, mystics and gods.

Hockey certainly stretches your faith. It is a belief system that transcends rules and tactics, driving meaning and purpose into a player’s dedicated vision and a fan’s hopeful zeal. And in hockey’s victories and disappointments, joy and frustration, we ― hockey’s matriarchs ― choose always to keep the faith in religious hockey.

Like saints, memorable hockey players are known for courageous passion and humility. Outsiders don’t know this; they think hockey is a bully’s game. For the hockey player, greatness is a purpose, a mission from God ― whom hockey folks refer to with the euphemism “the hockey gods.” Like mysticism, hockey sense can’t be taught, only honed with the help of wise coaching. And the lore and culture of the hockey life are reinforced by hockey moms.

Hockey moms who know that 80 percent of the game is the mental part nurture hockey toughness in the home. Hockey toughness is nurtured by hockey moms in Canada, where the mystique of hockey’s past and future are strongly interwoven into its present and whose national history includes remarkable hockey moments, such as Henderson’s goal to seal the national team’s victory against the Soviets in the 1972 Summit Series. Hockey toughness is nurtured by American hockey moms old enough to remember how the hockey game presented a miracle for the United States in 1980 ― a blessing that wouldn’t have been realized without the fierce physical training and mental strength of Herb Brooks’ players.

Sure, religious hockey forces upon us hockey moms a certain fanaticism. We undertake the religious-hockey instruction of our home. We wear a hockey mom pin close to our heart next to a cross. We teach the kids about the stories of great players, how they controlled the puck for a purpose greater than themselves ― for the team and for the fans. We tell them that hockey players don’t act selfishly, don’t disrespect authority and don’t tattle. We adorn the kids’ bedrooms with images of Mr. Hockey, The Rocket, The Great One, The Next One and Mario the Magnificent. We dress them in the jersey’s of hockey’s finest armies and taken them on their first pilgrimage to Toronto. We allow them to grow hockey hair. We cooperate with the dervish behavior of our goalies, honoring pre-game rituals and superstitions. We buy the little ones tape in their lucky color and work with team managers to get them their lucky jersey number.

I like hockey because if you’re patient and loyal in fighting the good fight, you’ll eventually taste victory. Every hockey insider knows that. And though the hockey gods have been attributed with great disappointments, such as imposing a 54-year-long curse on the powerful city of New York, they’re not despised by the game’s great players and coaches. Rather, “the hockey gods,” or the purity in the momentum of the game, are respected. Mike Babcock said, “The hockey gods are fair. If you don’t play hard, you don’t win.” Occupying hockey’s core then is a faith in a divine justice. It pumps meaning into the tenacious backcheck, the relentless forecheck and the confident attack on net. And for goalies, the hockey game can give them the power to stop time.

So to the end of rearing my kids into sainthood, I raise them as hockey players, because in hockey there are no shortcuts. It’s just like life.

For its promotion of strong values, development of character and offering of lessons for the trials of real life, I believe in hockey.

Published on The Rookie Hockey Mom site on March 7, 2011.

The Hockey Club

By Melissa Walsh

Hockey is a club that holds its members tightly, the bond forged by shared hardship and mutual passion, by every trip to the pond, where your feet hurt and your face is cold and you might get a stick in the ribs or a puck in the mouth, and you still can’t wait to get back out there because you are smitten with the sound of blades scraping against ice and pucks clacking off sticks, and with the game’s speed and ever-changing geometry. It has a way of becoming the center of your life even when you’re not on the ice.

Wayne Coffey, The Boys of Winter

Hockey parents know that hockey is more than a sport; it’s a lifestyle. Add the thrill of playing hockey to the experience of hockey-parenting, and hockey will become a family passion.

The Rink Congregation

The hockey community is tight-knit. It’s fitting that we hockey families spend so many Sunday mornings together, because we function much like a church congregation, or often like a large dysfunctional family at Sunday brunch. Like a family or community of believers, hockey families are emotionally invested, not just in this sport, but in each other. Whether fond of one other or at odds with one other, one thing is certain, hockey families are not indifferent to one other. The hockey community takes care of hockey families experiencing crisis. And collectively, hockey parents look after the precious rink rats tooling through the rink lobby in their heelys. They hold babies for fellow parents getting little skaters geared up for practice. They take turns buying all the kids slushies.

Parents who had played hockey together as kids growing up partner in guiding today’s youth hockey players. Yet in their overzealousness to support their own kid’s development, they sometimes clash with one another, then, as families do, they make up, forgive and move on ― it’s for the good of the kids. After all, they will be spending many more weekends together and traveling numerous more miles together. Because there are no “snow days” for hockey families, they have already survived blizzards together, convoying their SUVs closely behind one another through blinding, blowing snow.

The Hockey-Playing Hockey Parent

I’ve been a hockey mom for about ten years now and have enjoyed the community of hockey more than any other community of friends in my life. But it wasn’t until I started playing the game myself eight years into my hockey parenting journey that I really became a good hockey mom. To know first-hand what it takes to dangle a puck, to feed a pass, to catch a pass, to score a goal, to feel the intensity of the game, to enjoy the camaraderie of the room ― that has enhanced my ability immeasurably to parent my players well.

America’s Hockey Club

So in honor of today’s 31st anniversary of the Miracle Game and the recent Hockey Day Across America celebration, I’ve come up with a little acrostic:

H is for the humility of hockey’s greatest players.

O is for the obsession to play this addictive game.

C is for the character that hockey builds in the player.

K is for hockey keepsakes, like tourney trophies and game pucks.

E is for the empowerment hockey players sense on the ice.

Y is for the youthfulness players of all ages feel during a game.

The hockey club is a memory-maker for my family. It is my family’s social life, my support network, and the gateway to my boys’ dreams. Hockey creates a rite of passage for my sons and a language I can use to communicate with them. Because hockey allows no shortcuts to glory, pursuing hockey greatness instills the values of perseverance, discipline, and humility.

So to all the volunteer coaches, league administrators and rink managers out there, thank you for helping this great sport thrive. My family is blessed to be part of this congregation of believers, also known as Greater Detroit’s outstanding hockey community.

Originally posted on Powerplay Communications' blog on February 22, 2011.

Democracy & the Power of Knowledge

By Melissa Walsh

In a letter to W. T. Barry in 1822, James Madison wrote,

A popular government without popular information, or the means of acquiring it, is but a prologue to a farce or a tragedy, or perhaps both. Knowledge will forever govern ignorance, and a people who mean to be their own governors must arm themselves with the power which knowledge gives.

Demand Fact-Based Content; Reject Sensationalism as “News”

Every new grad of journalism has a fundamental career decision to make. Sell sensationalism. Or aim for truth-telling. Call me “old-fashioned,” but I find the “the new journalism” of leading 1A stories with opinion, speculation, or rumor quite disturbing. Save it for the op-ed page or a blog entry.

Readers are accountable too, because the journalist’s commitment to truth-telling cannot sustain a democracy if the readership discontinues its demand for truth. For our American democracy to thrive, media consumers must make the effort to discern fact-based information from sensational speculation. They must actively support media outlets and independent journalists who value truth-telling over money and attention.

Filtering the good information from the clutter of unverified statements is difficult. It requires looking deeper than the morning paper and evening news, where headline stories may have been rapidly spun from content spoon-fed by press secretaries and decision-makers who are so high up the food chain that they have little to no sense of how those at the grassroots are subsisting. Becoming a critical thinker and good news reader requires becoming a student of history, an independent researcher, a fact-checker, and an informed and listening observer.

In his autobiography, Surprised by Joy, C.S. Lewis opines that newspapers alone offer little value for acquiring knowledge:
Even in peacetime I think those are very wrong who say that schoolboys should be encouraged to read the newspapers. Nearly all that a boy reads there in his teens will be seen before he is twenty to have been false in emphasis and interpretation, if not in fact as well, and most of it will have lost all importance. Most of what he remembers he will therefore have to unlearn; and he will probably have acquired an incurable taste for vulgarity and sensationalism and the fatal habit of fluttering from paragraph to paragraph to learn how an actress has been divorced in California, a train derailed in France, and quadruplets born in New Zealand.

When I’m on a quest for knowledge about a topic, I don’t accept as real or complete news that passes as “news” alone. Complex events are presented in a news story too quickly and too simply to teach us anything of substance. I know from living abroad where news was happening before my eyes that a newspaper reporter’s black and white rendering too often excludes the critical gray tones and colors of the truth. Therefore, to get the whole story, I invest my dollars and time in news supplements and alternatives:

Study history. Just as I might gain insight into Italian from studying Latin, I learn about today’s events from reading history. For, example, I know from studying history that there is a historical pattern of economic instability leading to political instability. Any history buff knows that poverty leads to unrest, that the want for bread generates a hunger for freedom. And look what we see in the headlines today ― rebellion triggered by damaged economies and rebels looking for a scapegoat.

Read the wires. Reading the wires regularly, I was able to connect the recent ousting of Tunisia’s Zine El Abidine Ben Ali to the demonstrations in Egypt. Wire services, such as AP and Reuters, function as boots-on-the-ground news services that consumers desperately need to sift through the muck of ratings-driven reporting and to find some essential pieces of information and insight that the mainstream talking heads have left out.

Check the facts. For issues that I have a special interest in understanding clearly and completely, I regularly consult primary source material to verify statements made on the networks and in the press. For example, I referred to the DoD’s Comptroller for the complete details of the proposed 2012 defense budget while reading news surrounding conflicts regarding the federal budget. I also check the U.S. Government Accountability Office’s website frequently. My concern for our service men and women serving in Operation Enduring Freedom (OEF) prompts me to review at least weekly the list of casualties. I also scan the DoD press releases.

Support Fair, Reasonable Critical Thinkers; Dismiss Hype-Mongering Pundits

As freedom-lovers, we must equip ourselves with knowledge to make our leaders and our press accountable. Passively listening to a tirade on Fox or MSNBC does not qualify as gaining knowledge. Just a little fact-checking, and you’ll find the cracks in the claims of these prime-time windbags who make a heck of a lot of money for their networks. A sign that our nation has become intellectually healthy would be the networks finally booting these guys from the airwaves due to low ratings. When consumers do their homework, interest in anti-intellectual, attention-seeking pundits withers. Pundits like these, whether on the right or the left of the political spectrum, are what I call “Hype Mongers.” And I would love to see the American public tune them right out of business.

Below I contrast the character of The Truth Seeker (the good pundit) against The Hype Monger (the evil pundit):

Challenge Policy Makers; Renounce Empty Partisan Rhetoric

Political leaders can be just as ugly and deceitful as hype mongers. Policy makers can severely damage businesses as they make decisions impacting industries for which they are not subject-matter experts, when they gain campaign support for votes. Surely, lobbyists drive policy-makers’ decisions just as ratings drive the headlines in the mainstream network teasers. Also, when policy makers legislate by presumptuously putting people in boxes and labeling them with sweeping generalizations, the lives of many individuals are affected. When defense contractors and commanders looking to put a feather in their cap push for war tactics based on new technology rather than the real needs of the servicemen in the fight, thousands of lives and billions of tax dollars are lost.

In his essay “Congressional Oversight Willing and Able or Willing to Enable?”¹ Winslow T. Wheeler described congressional oversight on executive branch national security decisions this way:

Mere words, in the form of prognostications at congressional hearings may catch the momentary eye—and the evening news—but their impact on policy, and history, vary from transitory to nonexistent. Beyond that, poorly informed questions, prosecuted ineffectually at a congressional hearing do little more than help us identify which politicians are the lightweights.

As constituents, we must challenge our senators and representatives to do their homework and truly become the check and balance they were prescribed to be in the U.S. Constitution.

If an informed citizenry held policy makers accountable, then we would have ourselves one fine democracy.

The Democracy We Deserve

George Bernard Shaw said, “Democracy is a device that insures we shall be governed no better than we deserve.”

Gaining knowledge is hard work, and it is our duty as citizens. Seeking truth isn’t a warm and fuzzy challenge; it forces one to look at evil in the world, to witness suffering, to come to terms with betrayal by those entrusted to lead. But knowledge can equip and inspire citizens to act. It will lead to a higher quality of democracy.

In this dynamic media age, I hope that media managers are considering new ways for supporting a readership’s truth quest, such as enhancing reports with historical notes, facts and figures, and statements from relevant, diverse, and grounded viewpoints.

Instead of following the money, news must follow the truth. This way, the people might prevent legislation from following the money and ensure it protects people. News consumers would stop passively accepting the arguments of the Republican or Democrat dynasties and their ruling heirs, and instead demand transparency, accountability, and truth-telling.

“Freedom had been hunted round the globe; reason was considered as rebellion; and the slavery of fear had made men afraid to think,” wrote American patriot Thomas Paine. “But such is the irresistible nature of truth, that all it asks and all it wants is the liberty of appearing.”²

Let truth be the magnet that attracts and energizes our American democracy. Let the hype fade.

¹ The Political Labyrinth, February 2011.

² Rights of Man, 1791.

Originally posted on Powerplay Communications' blog on February 10, 2011.

The Will to Win

By Melissa Walsh

The Green Bay Packers had to be tougher than steel to win Superbowl XLV. This year’s Superbowl match-up will be remembered fondly as a well-executed battle between two fierce teams fighting valiantly for the championship title. Of course, this is what makes a Superbowl game a great event ― the drama of the will to win.

Tenacity Leaves a Mark

What is celebrated, what will be remembered years later, is the story behind the Packers’ commitment to team and tenacity on the gridiron to achieve their mission of returning the Lombardi Trophy to Lambeau Field after 14 years.

Each year the media circus surrounding the over-analysis of the commercials and hype of the pre-game and half-time shows seems to attract increasingly more attention from the adventure of the game itself. This is unfortunate, because it is the lesson of the game that Americans, especially young American boys, really need.

To witness the will to win playing out in real time is a blessing. It is nutrition for the soul. Trophy namesake Vince T. Lombardi said, “The spirit, the will to win and the will to excel ― these are the things that endure and these are the qualities that are so much more important than any of the events that occasion them.”

Commenting to the press immediately following the game, Packers coaches and players quickly attributed the Superbowl win to the dedication of the Green Bay community, to the tight bond between Packers team mates, to the sage leadership of Head Coach Mike McCarthy, and to the steadfastness of Quarterback Aaron Rodgers.

Community

Honoring the commitment of Packers fans, in the wake of the great win, McCarthy explained to reporters, "We're a community-owned team, so you can see the fingerprints on the trophy." Indeed, the Green Bay Packers is the only non-profit, community-owned major professional sports franchise in the country. Green Bay’s little more than 100,000 residents own the team to prevent it from being purchased and moved to another city. The community is literally invested in the team.

Team

"We've been a team that's overcome adversity all year," Greg Jennings told Pam Oliver immediately after the game. "Our head captain [Charles Woodson] goes down, emotional in the locker room. Our No. 1 receiver [Donald Driver] goes down, more emotions are going, flying in the locker room. But we find a way to bottle it up and exert it all out here on the field.” He concluded, “To God be the glory.”

Leadership

McCarthy dismissed the jinx factor and led his players to hone confidence for the game in a kinesthetic way by having them fitted for rings the night before the Superbowl. He wanted his players to enter the field already feeling the win. Linebacker Desmond Bishop told ESPN, “We could see that it was right there. Everything we wanted was right there in our hands, literally and figuratively.” Rodgers praised McCarthy as “a players’ coach.”

Mental Toughness

Another significant element to the win was Rodgers’ attitude. Rodgers, who only a few years back landed in the center of the Brett Favre return-from-retirement controversy, demonstrated patience, resolve, and, very obviously given his performance last night, controlled skill. “That's kind of been my career. Waiting on an opportunity and making the most of it," Rodgers told reporters after the win. "This was another opportunity last night. ... I'm just real excited to be a part of it."

Hero Training

In a society that has lost a clear, cohesive, and consistent rite of passage into manhood for its boys, a society that equates “manning up” with beer commercials, a society that seeks to control an adolescent boy’s testosterone spikes with medication, sports are such an important part of community. Participation in sports may be the only way a boy will find his way to develop the will to win. Playing sports cultivates a boy’s innate seeker temperament into the character of a warrior who understands what it means to fight the good fight. In other words, sports train a boy’s brave heart, encouraging it to blossom into a hero’s heart.

Heros don’t win every battle, but they always have the will to win.

Originally posted on Powerplay Communications' blog on February 7, 2011.

Detroit's Big Three Play the Game with Heart.

By Melissa Walsh

In sports, sometimes a player has to get cut to get him to raise the level of his game and discover how good he can really be. For some players, a cut is the only way to get them to wake up and tap their raw talent through discipline and dedication. It’s the only way to make them realize how much they love playing the game.

Other than a few idiots in Congress, no one publicly disputed the Big Three’s potential for greatness. I’d bet that everyone on the planet has fantasized about owning a Motor City dream machine ― a 1968 L88 Corvette, a 1969 Boss 429 Mustang, or maybe a 1970 Hemi Cuda. These classics are what driving dreams are made of. No question that chicks and dudes alike dig Detroit muscle. Years ago, when I was in the scantool biz, one of my Toyota customers glowed as he told me all about his shiny new Ford Mustang. Motor City machinery is special.

Detroit’s players have something critically working for them in the market that the other players don’t have ― nostalgia. Few car buyers are indifferent to Detroit’s Big Three comeback in market-share tryouts. They hope that Ford, Chrysler and GM can dig deeper, find purpose in playing the game, and stop sitting back on their laurels as they take their talent and fans for granted. Last year car guys and gals watched the Big Three get back to the “gym” to retrain their muscle memory and to the videotape and chalkboard to improve their understanding of how the game is played in the twenty-first century.

The world cheers them on at the 2011 Detroit Auto Show, at the impressive site of Detroit’s players reentering the playing field with more tenacity and more finesse.

I’m looking forward to this year’s show. Word is that the Motor City players are performing strong, that they got their Detroit game on. A true Motor City girl, I’ve always bought Detroit-made wheels; so as a strong team supporter, I’ll be scouting them this weekend.

Originally posted on Powerplay Communications' blog on January 11, 2011.