Essential reading (and reference) for modern authors, regardless of experience.
To succeed in the brave new worlds of self- and e-publishing, according to Kawasaki and Welch’s indispensable guide, one must be an author/publisher with an entrepreneurial bent.
It’s hard to believe in our advanced stage of Kindles and iPads, but in 2011, Kawasaki’s publisher, Penguin, encountered difficulties trying to electronically distribute his New York Times best-seller for a promotional effort. After reading a book called Be the Monkey, which explains the advantages of self publishing, Kawasaki and Welch developed “APE,” a concept they unveil as The Chicago Manual of Style for authors interested in controlling their own fate and getting their words to the reading public. The authors demonstrate how the days of “vanity publishing” are gone; from plotting and pricing to pitching and press releases, determined authors are now doing it for themselves. Before breaking down the self-publishing revolution, or “democratization,” the authors examine traditional publishing, including “fantasy” versus “reality” scenarios. By illustrating the archaic processes of the old model and revealing the precarious hierarchy of redundant players—such as agents, who should be very nervous about this book—the authors herald the paradigm shift that has led to the renaissance of entrepreneurial writers. The result is a clean, concise “model for the future” of publishing’s “new electronic realities.” The authors shatter the myth that e-books currently outsell printed ones, and their book has the foresight to provide information on numerous “tools,” computer programs, online author-service providers and reviewing websites, including a four-page list of “things nobody tells you.” With hundreds of hyperlinks accessible to print readers through the book’s website, the diligent duo covers how to avoid “looking self-published,” how to upload your work without glitches or “gaffes,” and the game-changing nature of print on demand, which will make being out of print “more of an oxymoron.” Encouraging writers to pitch their self-pubbed work to clout-carrying ventures, such as Amazon Encore and Kindle Direct, seems to play against the book’s buck-the-system attitude, but it does reflect the text’s inspiring tone.
Essential reading (and reference) for modern authors, regardless of experience.Pub Date: Jan. 7, 2013
ISBN: 978-0988523104
Page Count: 386
Publisher: Nononina Press
Review Posted Online: Feb. 6, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2013
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
These are not hard and fast rules, but Meyer delivers important reading for those engaged in international business.
A helpful guide to working effectively with people from other cultures.
“The sad truth is that the vast majority of managers who conduct business internationally have little understanding about how culture is impacting their work,” writes Meyer, a professor at INSEAD, an international business school. Yet they face a wider array of work styles than ever before in dealing with clients, suppliers and colleagues from around the world. When is it best to speak or stay quiet? What is the role of the leader in the room? When working with foreign business people, failing to take cultural differences into account can lead to frustration, misunderstanding or worse. Based on research and her experiences teaching cross-cultural behaviors to executive students, the author examines a handful of key areas. Among others, they include communicating (Anglo-Saxons are explicit; Asians communicate implicitly, requiring listeners to read between the lines), developing a sense of trust (Brazilians do it over long lunches), and decision-making (Germans rely on consensus, Americans on one decider). In each area, the author provides a “culture map scale” that positions behaviors in more than 20 countries along a continuum, allowing readers to anticipate the preferences of individuals from a particular country: Do they like direct or indirect negative feedback? Are they rigid or flexible regarding deadlines? Do they favor verbal or written commitments? And so on. Meyer discusses managers who have faced perplexing situations, such as knowledgeable team members who fail to speak up in meetings or Indians who offer a puzzling half-shake, half-nod of the head. Cultural differences—not personality quirks—are the motivating factors behind many behavioral styles. Depending on our cultures, we understand the world in a particular way, find certain arguments persuasive or lacking merit, and consider some ways of making decisions or measuring time natural and others quite strange.
These are not hard and fast rules, but Meyer delivers important reading for those engaged in international business.Pub Date: May 27, 2014
ISBN: 978-1-61039-250-1
Page Count: 288
Publisher: PublicAffairs
Review Posted Online: April 15, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2014
Occasionally wonky but overall a good case for how the dismal science can make the world less—well, dismal.
“Quality of life means more than just consumption”: Two MIT economists urge that a smarter, more politically aware economics be brought to bear on social issues.
It’s no secret, write Banerjee and Duflo (co-authors: Poor Economics: A Radical Rethinking of the Way To Fight Global Poverty, 2011), that “we seem to have fallen on hard times.” Immigration, trade, inequality, and taxation problems present themselves daily, and they seem to be intractable. Economics can be put to use in figuring out these big-issue questions. Data can be adduced, for example, to answer the question of whether immigration tends to suppress wages. The answer: “There is no evidence low-skilled migration to rich countries drives wage and employment down for the natives.” In fact, it opens up opportunities for those natives by freeing them to look for better work. The problem becomes thornier when it comes to the matter of free trade; as the authors observe, “left-behind people live in left-behind places,” which explains why regional poverty descended on Appalachia when so many manufacturing jobs left for China in the age of globalism, leaving behind not just left-behind people but also people ripe for exploitation by nationalist politicians. The authors add, interestingly, that the same thing occurred in parts of Germany, Spain, and Norway that fell victim to the “China shock.” In what they call a “slightly technical aside,” they build a case for addressing trade issues not with trade wars but with consumption taxes: “It makes no sense to ask agricultural workers to lose their jobs just so steelworkers can keep theirs, which is what tariffs accomplish.” Policymakers might want to consider such counsel, especially when it is coupled with the observation that free trade benefits workers in poor countries but punishes workers in rich ones.
Occasionally wonky but overall a good case for how the dismal science can make the world less—well, dismal.Pub Date: Nov. 12, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-61039-950-0
Page Count: 432
Publisher: PublicAffairs
Review Posted Online: Aug. 28, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2019
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