Julie Gerstein

Here is a link to "Art and Life," my latest post on Cultural Capital-Art, Politics, and Everything Else https://lnkd.in/eDjWYngG

3

Such important tips!

2

"it’s important to remember that there are no rules, and we can choose who we are and what we do every single day. Something I’ve noticed since starting my new job as a writer is just how diverse the label “writer” is. When most folks think of writers, they think of journalists who cover different industries and break the news on stories. But even within the narrow scope of “journalists,” there is so much variety. Some journalists cover finance, and within that, markets, and within that, venture capital and public equities and commodities. Other journalists cover sports, business, politics, and pop culture. Some writers, like me, apply a layer of commentary to the news. More often than not, I’m not telling readers what happened as much as I am why it matters. Some writers are pure essayists. Some are fiction novelists, others write biographies and histories. Some writers are equity researchers and hedge fund analysts, while others are copywriters, crisis comms strategists, and marketing executives. The scope of “writing,” as a profession, is infinite, because writing isn’t a profession. It’s a skill. And fine-tuned skills are valuable in a variety of “jobs.” Replace “writer” with teacher. Investor. Coach. If you only think about your career in terms of the job you do and other jobs that immediately progress from your current role then, yes, there are “rules” on what you may be able to pursue. But if you think about your career from the perspective of which skills you have developed and where else they might be applicable, you’ll realize that opportunities are near-infinite. Journalists can become investors. Corporate executives can become authors. Even in the case of the most rigid disciplines such as law and medicine, nothing is stopping you from going back to school right now, if you want to change course. You can reinvent yourself tomorrow if you’d like. The only “rules,” if any, are those that exist in your head. They’re self-imposed." No Rules: https://lnkd.in/d74EmhwW

67

4 Comments

When I launched my first website back in 2001 – RealCorporateLawyer – there wasn’t a lot of content and anytime that I added content, I placed a shiny yellow “New!” icon next to that section on the home page. This concept works well for sites that don’t have voluminous levels of content and for which the same visitors come back for more often. That’s why this concept works so well for IR websites. IR websites don’t have a whole lot of content. There’s just enough that an indicator for when something new is added would often be warranted. But not so much that a “New” icon IR website would look out of place. That’s why I was so excited to come across (actually it was one of Labrador’s team members that spotted this as part of their “Transparency Awards” evaluation duties) the latest version of Coca-Cola’s IR website. The toolbar at the top indicates that there’s a new “Overview” section as that link is displayed in a different color (ie. red) than the pre-existing links (ie. black) and there’s a “New” icon sitting on the right of the term. Nifty! By the way, it’s noteworthy that this addition by the Coca-Cola Company does meet one of our transparency criteria for IR website accessibility. #6 of our IR Website Transparency criteria states: “There is a Company Overview or About section clearly identified and accessible from the IR homepage.” #IROs #investorrelations #corpgov https://lnkd.in/eUBnPYig

12

1 Comment

Here is a link to "Images of Order," my latest post on Cultural Capital-Art, Politics, and Everything Else https://lnkd.in/er252s5J

9

1 Comment

Baltimore-area readers: SAVE THE DATE! July 6, 2024, from 6:30-8 pm, at Snug Books in Baltimore, author John Maly will read from his debut novel, JURIS EX MACHINA. Audience discussion about the implications of AI will follow. Register today for free tickets at www.snugbooks.com Here's a teaser: With a click, the bread fell into the toaster. One circuit fired the heating coils. Others monitored bread temperature and color. Yet another circuit was quite unlike all the rest- as exotic as it was sinister; when it activated, 368 people would die. In the 22nd century, the justice system is airtight in the domed city of Arcadia. Human error has been removed. Yet somehow, a well-intentioned young kleptomaniac named Rainville falls through the cracks and is wrongfully convicted of mass murder. He is exiled to Wychwood Prison, a crumbling necropolis beyond the dome where the dead outnumber the living, where the inmates are also the guards. News of the crime follows him, and he becomes a marked man. Rainville's only hope for survival is becoming the first inmate in history to escape Wychwood. Can he do it? The fate of Arcadia depends on it. Can't make the event? You can grab your copy today at https://lnkd.in/ewRP8SP4, which also benefits Snug Books, an independent, woman-owned bookstore. #whattoread #ai #artificialintelligence #scifinovel #cyberpunk

6

Linked below is a very sobering article about how the publishing industry works. The author read all the transcripts from the antitrust case stemming from Penguin Random House trying to buy Simon & Shuster (it was blocked). From the testimony, the author draws out some statistics: 📖 The industry is "hit driven," meaning almost all books fail, and business is kept alive by the tiny percentage that succeed 📖 96% of books sell less than 1,000 copies; 50% of books sell less than a dozen copies 📖 The big hits are consistently celebrity books and "franchise authors"; these are the people who get advances you can live on (Something else I learned from a friend: lots of "traditional" publishing houses will only publish your book if you guarantee a minimum purchase. Consequently, this friend had pallets of her book in her garage. Also, if you want your book on the front table at an airport bookstore, that'll be $7,500 per week, thanks.) I've published four books about CMS(-ish). O'Reilly published the first, I self-published the next two through Amazon, and the fourth was published through some other means (I just co-wrote it; I didn't do much with production). Technical book have nose-dived. I can tell you from my experience with O'Reilly that they're way, way more interested in online access and video tutorials these days. The publisher A Book Apart just recently went under. And the other day, I realized that the computer book section at Barnes and Noble was only about three-feet of shelf space, way in the corner. I'm left wondering if books are the right medium for transmitting larger bodies of information in this age. Don't get me wrong, I love books --- I have a home library of some 1,300 titles. But if you really want to get information across to an audience, is a serial, chapter-by-chapter book the right way to do it anymore? (Note that I differentiate this from reading for pleasure. There's still value in a serialized narrative, but that's very different from learning or reading for information.) There have been amazing advances in the ePub standard. I read an entire book (ha!) on ePub3, and the format is less of a book, and more of a container for an interactive experience. You could create something in the ePub format that only vaguely resembled a "book" in the traditional sense. I have another friend who wrote something amazing in Notion (or Roam?), the note-taking app. It became a source to generate a website that had inter-connected chapters that we're only loosely organized into a series. I have a couple more books in me, I think. Mark Demeny and I are playing around with a second edition of "Web Content Management: Systems, Features, and Best Practices" (the O'Reilly book) and there are a couple other topics bouncing around in my head. But, increasingly, I think a "book" might just become just one more transmission format for a domain of information that needs to be absorbed, and probably not even the most effective one.

30

12 Comments

Being a writer makes me a better project manager. How so? Writing a great essay, article, story, or post requires iteration (and agility--pun intended!). Let's say you're writing a story. First, the writer comes up with a plan for the piece. I know that some writers say that they don't plan what they write, and I believe them. What I mean is that having an initial image or spark or quote can also be loosely defined as a plan, a starting point that a writer can jump off of. Second, the writer designs the story. If they're under a deadline, they'll write the first draft fast (and will produce, ahem, the *crappy* first draft--writers will understand this joke), and even if there's no tight deadline, an efficient writer will write the first draft fast anyway so that they can show it to reviewers sooner. Third, the writer shares the story and notes the feedback from reviewers. I've learned throughout my years of writing that it's better to share an early draft rather than a later one so that I don't get too wedded to my ideas and am more open to feedback from other people. Fourth, the writer implements the feedback into a second (or third) draft and tests the new draft with reviewers (ideally, the reviewer pool will include a mix of previous reviewers and different ones, too). Fifth, the writer iterates again and incorporates relevant feedback into still another draft and sends the story out for review one more time. At this point the story will either be done or will need several more rounds of iteration to get it right. With constant iteration, a writer will continue to improve, just like a project will continue to improve with the same principles. How about you--what other modes of work or play have improved your project management skills?

6

Have it your way. And your way, and your way, and… Truth in advertising: 20 ingredients = a million possible combos   Eugenia Cheng, who writes the weekly “Everyday Math” column in The Wall Street Journal, says she recently saw a sign advertising a new restaurant and “a million burger and topping combinations.” Was this possible?   To the chalkboard.   “For each topping you have a choice of saying ‘yes’ or ‘no,’“ Cheng begins. "So there are two options for the first topping, two for the second, two for the third and so on. To find the total number of possible combinations we multiply all those twos together.”   A logarithm – the “reverse” process of exponentials – finds that a million possible combinations requires a mere 20 toppings. The restaurant’s menu revealed 21 possible toppings.   (“Combinatorics,” Cheng offers, is the mathematical field concerned with the counting of things. Too many things to count, and mathematicians will use logic.)   Cheng says that accounting for different types of burger patty, cheese, spice blend and bun would actually yield 21 billion burger combinations.   She reckons that while it might be strange that an ad would understate the number of possible burger combinations, “perhaps 21 billion sounded too implausible to anyone without a working understanding of combinatorics.”   Eugenia Cheng

2

This thread is for my publishing professional friends! (Freelance editors, illustrators, ghostwriters, marketers, print and web designers, and translators.) Reedsy is asking (and paying, full disclosure!) its professionals to post about what it’s like to work on the platform. But I don’t have to be paid to talk about Reedsy—you’ve seen it here before! For those who don’t know, Reedsy is a highly vetted version of Fiver/Upwork specifically for publishing professionals. Joining Reedsy many years ago is what allowed me to focus solely on editing creative projects, which has made my work so fulfilling and fun. Reedsy is amazing at marketing and drives a high volume of editing requests to my inbox—so much so that I frequently have to close to new requests because I’m booked months ahead of time. I also love how Reedsy collects reviews from my clients and shows them all on my profile. I’m normally pretty shy about asking for this myself, so it’s nice that it’s automatic. There are of course some cons to working on Reedsy. Because clients can request quotes from several editors at a time, I don’t “win” every job and it takes a good amount of time to reply to each request (and I don’t get paid for that time). Such is the life of a freelancer. I’m happy to share about the system I’ve made to streamline this process (involving easily customizable response templates!). And Reedsy takes a percentage from both the service provider and client. They clearly invest a lot of this back into marketing and this has absolutely paid off for my career. If you are interested in signing up, here’s my referral link: https://lnkd.in/eenQs-yM. It does sometimes take time to get Reedsy to accept your profile—I am happy to look over a draft of it for you and give you feedback. I went back and forth with the Reedsy team quite a bit and had to wait for some of the projects I had worked on to have preorder links before I was accepted onto their site. This makes it hard to get on the platform, which is good for people looking to hire freelancers, because they know they have been vetted! Happy to answer any questions about working with Reedsy; let me know!

13

1 Comment

So you know that "Ta-dum!" sound you hear just before you stream a Netflix movie? How about the "Dun-Dun!" noise that separates segments of Law & Order? They're called sonic logos, and they're an increasingly important piece of contemporary branding. Ever wonder how they make those things—and why? As visual overload from our screens tires our eyes, companies have reached for our ears to make sure we know what we're watching—and, of course, buying. I tracked down some of the experts in this rarified field and ferreted out the surprising stories behind five famous sonic logos. Check out my Adweek piece here. https://lnkd.in/edZUqDRk

31

2 Comments

Nail your next interview with SIC!

1

It seems I have achieved peak book nerd status. Merriam-Webster is using a line I wrote as a sample sentence for the usage of “front matter” (alongside Katy Waldman and The New York Review of Books—good company). 😆 If you are a publisher, editor, or author who would like me to write front matter for one of your books, my DMs are open. #books #dictionary #publishing

1

Here is a link to my latest post on Cultural Capital-Art, Politics, and Everything Else https://lnkd.in/eyxu7HJm

6

1 Comment

I've been thinking about this The Wall Street Journal piece from Rachel Feintzeig since I read it last week... We can all become a little addicted to checking off our to-do lists, answering Slacks as quickly as they come in, or cracking open another Google doc to launch a new project. Especially for a Type A person like me! I can't tell you how I light up inside when I hear the little "bing" noise of crossing off a task on my checklist. But the author Cal Newport argues that these activities are not truly helping us grow and create an impact at work. Prioritization is key, otherwise the admin of juggling 20 things at once gets in the way of getting things done. Feintzeig also points out that these 'endless tasks' are actually sometimes easier than taking big swings at large ventures: "Tackling a major project or goal is often harder, and comes without a guarantee that you’re going to nail it." It's certainly easier said than done -- particularly as a manager, which comes with a lot of dot connecting and keeping things on the rails. But it's definitely something that will stick in my mind going forward. What do you think? Do you practice "slow productivity" in your work life? #worklifebalance #productivity

6

2 Comments

This is an excerpt from E. Prybylski's insightful post. If you are considering an editor but wondering about the cost, I recommend reading it. Editing is an investment that can help your book transcend into something truly special that speaks to readers. "I want to remind people that, above all, when you’re working with an editor, you are working with a human being. Most of us are deeply passionate about writing and editing and about our professions. Most of us are not wealthy at all (many are barely middle class, if that). Many editors come from backgrounds like disability or neurodivergence. We have studied our profession out of that deep passion I mentioned before, and we truly love what we do... Editors are your cheerleaders, your companions, your friends, and your mentors. And we need to eat, too." - E. Prybylski If cost is a factor you are balancing, consider focusing on one round of editing (developmental, line, copyediting) or an editor who offers a combination service to help you be cost-effective. Note that editing is a time-intensive process, and editors will acknowledge that combination service won't be as effective as both a developmental edit and copyediting pass, but sometimes it is what your budget, your book, and your readers need. Not sure what is right for your book? Ask an editor! Posts like these exist because we genuinely care and want to help you succeed, even if that means we are not the right fit editor for you. We can advise you on what type of editing your book needs to succeed and what might be optional. Feel free to reach out for a sample edit and an opinion! I (and we) are here to help.

2

1 Comment

You're probably already taking in a lot of information on how to cover this year's elections. These guides are aimed at helping you talk through that information with your news organization, and strategize or decide on how you'll navigate different scenarios long before they arise and leave you thinking, "I wish we'd talked about how we'd actually handle this." Our first two guides help you consider your coverage of misinformation and polling, and we've got more in the works! Let us know if there are other topics you'd like to see addressed.

3