Open letter to Barack Obama

I am a supporter. I'm going to vote for you. I've given, and will give, both money and time. I live in San Francisco and realize this is not one of your battleground states, but I feel so strongly about what we need to change that I need to tell you and I want, badly, more from you, too.

We are falling apart from the inside. These past months with the Mississippi flooding and the bridge in Minneapolis failing – was such a clear metaphor to me. Our infrastructure, and really, the way we manage our society, is falling apart. Lots of reasons why, but we are. And I think this is true of health care (was a misnomer, it should be called a disease care system,) of politics, of our belief in science, in energy, in absolutely every aspect of my American life. The middle class I was raised in is gone. It sickens me.

And on top of that we are not good world citizens. We are not good citizens when it comes to flexing our power, or to building strong alliances, or leading by example. We are morally bankrupt as well as fiscally.

So, it's obvious, you are my candidate and I will vote for you. So, why am I writing? Because you aren't going far enough, you aren't telling us what we need to know, you aren't wrapping this all up in one package.

I want "The New Frontier" or "The New Deal" – ok, ok, I used to be in advertising. You can come up with some name -- You've got some god message experts there. I need something to wrap this all up in – because it is everything. You tell me about taxes on the one hand, and Iraq on the other, but like global warming (or the green movement, or sustainability – it's about everything – it's about the whole shebang, the whole ecosystem). Our ecosystem is broken and all pieces need to be fixed.

I want you to change the foundations of how we work as a country – we are talking about going back to of the people, by the people, for the people – about doing no harm to us first – whether you are government or business or corporations or utilities or lobbyists. The power structure doesn't work for me as an individual, a citizen, on any level.

If you took global warming or sustainability or energy independence you could wrap everything up in it – wrap the middle class around it all. Instead of saying you will cut taxes (well yes, for under $250k but no for richer or for companies – all of a sudden it's too complicated) why not come right out and say you are going to revamp the tax code to remedy the critical inequalities.

You also need to ask more of us. A lot of the applause and cheering is a sign that we want to work, work with you, work to make things better, but no one is actually asking us to anything – like they did with Kennedy and the Peace Corps and Head Start. You know where I'm going here.

We want a BIG Program, a big vision, and a sense of how it will all work together to rebuild American from the inside out – in line with our ideals, in line with the realities of the world, in line with what we can actually do. For many of us who lived through the 60s, you are close to offering us a way to make real what has been tarnished over the past 40 years – and to make it real. If we can get to the moon in 10 years, we can build some foundations for a sustainable America and a sustainable planet.

We could have a 10 year plan for energy and sustainability that could get us excited – and acceptance of higher energy costs (our costs remain low compared to Europe), to move us away from a car economy to a multi-mode one. And for a Californian to suggest giving up her car is fairly extreme.

Create an encompassing vision, name it, tell us the realities, and ask us to help.

Thanks for listening.

Think About Content

Another of my letters for the BAIPA News (August 2008)

Many think we in the book world are an endangered species. That in
the brave new world there will be no books. It reminds me of radio in
the 50s when television hit the country. It was going to be the end
of radio. Oh my gosh, with pictures on TV who would want to just
listen to a radio. And radio did suffer. Their audience declined, the
industry moaned and groaned. And today with satellite radio and the
Internet and podcasts and rss feeds, radio (audio programs) is
thriving. That's what happening to publishing.

Books aren't going away. Bookstores won't disappear completely, but
there will be a transformation. We don't really know what the future
will look like, but we do have inklings.

We need to think of ourselves in larger ways – like oil companies
need to think of themselves as energy companies, we need to think of
ourselves as content delivery companies. Yes it's still publishing,
but books, printed books, are only one way to deliver the goods. Many
of us in BAIPA are already doing this, and that's great. Keep going.
Whether it's fiction or non-fiction, what we want are readers and
people who buy our content. Do we really care if they buy a printed
book, an ebook, or an audio book? I don't.

For many of us, the printed book will remain the ideal – it's a great
delivery medium and I love the feel of a book in my hand. I love
reading books. There is something intimate, physical, and personal
about the whole process. I love having walls of books as my main
decorating style.

Talking about content doesn't sound as romantic as when we talk about
printed books, but it's real and it can make you money. Figure out
how your audience, your readers, wants to get your content and then
provide it – in some cases it may not even be printed books. Just
like some audio media is not radio in the traditional sense.

Some of us may have one book or one idea – so take the opportunity to
deliver this idea, this content in as many ways as makes sense to
you. Check out Lee Foster's web site http://www.fostertravel.com/ to
see how one member is managing his content.

A Hippocratic Oath for Government

I admit that I am naïve and an optimist, but lately even my own
political party isn't doing things right as far as I'm concerned -
not right for me, not right for regular people, not right for the
citizens of this formerly great nation.

I am hopeful we can change things, and yet I'm ashamed of our actions
as a nation - towards others in the world as well as toward
ourselves. Need I mention Katrina and New Orleans. Need I mention
bailing out Bear Sterns and Fannie Mae and Freddy Mac with alacrity
and enthusiasm without any requirement that they change their ways or
become more transparent? With little being done for those who are
losing their homes and their jobs? Need I mention how we treat those
we think are beneath us?

It's time to remind our elected officials and our government
bureaucrats who they work for. They do not work for Corporate
America, although it might be hard to tell from their actions; even
though most of the Federal Reserve policies over the past years has
benefited business and not the American people. Even though we have
subsidized ethanol, which is not a carbon neutral process, which does
not deliver on the promises it made, and which ultimately has raised
the price of corn across the world and have no plans in place to help
- either here at home or abroad.

It's time to re-establish who our government works for. Theoretically
they work for me, and you, and the people, but you wouldn't know it
by how most of them are acting. The Vice President, when confronted
with the fact that the vast majority of the American people disagree
with his policies, said "So?"

The Democratic Party has had control of Congress for two years and
has yet to respond to what the people want. They won't stop the war
in Iraq; aren't helping in any significant ways the faltering
economy; aren't even talking about global warming; haven't closed the
Enron loophole nor rebalanced the tax system to be fair across the
board; aren't challenging Karl Rove or the President for the damage
they have done and keep doing to our system of checks and balances
and the constitution. Nancy Pelosi has taken impeachment off the
table. And the communications giants are gong to get away with
illegal wiretapping. Congress is not leading by example or moral
authority.

There is so much wrong with our system today. We are falling apart
from the inside. Our levees are breaking (and maybe they should;
maybe we should not be building towns and cities in flood plains).
Our bridges are falling down. Our health care system lets people die
every day. Our nation has developed a huge debt and our people have
been lured into debt up to their eyeballs. Our future financial well-
being is in the hands of foreign governments. Our leaders won't join
the world on global issues like climate change and we won't joint the
International Criminal Court.

It's time we remembered our great dream. It's time we go back to
basics. It's time we do no harm - to ourselves. This is a grand
experiment in democracy and we are losing it. It's time to adopt a
Hippocratic oath - at every session of Congress it ought to be
repeated; at every State of the Union (or State of the State, or
City, or department) - First, do no harm to our people, our citizens,
and our residents. Oh, and maybe we could get Corporate America to
adopt this as well.

Finding the Right Energy

Another letter for the BAIPA News (July 2008)

Being an author and a publisher can pull at us in different ways – and being small, independent publishers means that there are dozens of tasks we need to complete on a regular basis. Some days I get up gung-ho and step right into the external tasks on my plate – calling people, making connections, negotiating, asking for help. And some days I turn off my phone and write or read. I used to fight this. I used to push myself to make those calls or I’d get angry with myself if I couldn’t sit down and read a manuscript or write.

These days I try to be gentler with myself. I not only recognize that my energy is different at different times, on different days, but that the energy needed to write is very different from the energy needed to negotiate a contract.

I’m looking at this as externally focused activities and internally focused activities. The internally focused activities are quieter for me; they are tasks that are more intimate, more about me and the task and don’t involve others, at least while I am doing them. The external activities often involve others, whether I am talking to a client, a bookstore owner, networking, or attending a conference.

It is hard for me to combine internal and external activities in the same block of time. Some days I can get up and write – and then move into outward facing activities. Others can get up and face outward – and toward the end of the day go inward and write or design. But, I usually like to break these down into larger blocks.

An agent I met at a writing conference said he scheduled Thursdays at home and that was the day he read manuscripts. It was, for him, an “a ha” moment. He recognized that he could not read the manuscripts fairly when he was at his office where the phones were ringing and people could interrupt him. Sometimes we need thoughtful quiet time and sometimes we thrive in high energy environments, multi-tasking, and interruptions.

Watch your own energy patterns and use them to your advantage. We are all different with our needs for solitude and being out among others. Find out what works for you and then let yourself use your own rhythms to your best advantage.

Taking Baby Steps

Another of my letters for the BAIPA News (June 2008)

In my email yesterday, I got the Writers Digest newsletter and the subject line read "Push Past Writer's Block" - it made me think about how we begin to move, how we begin after a fallow time, how we are able to act when it all seems so hard.

Taking these steps, these positive steps - I call them baby steps -- is important. And it's equally important to acknowledge taking these steps, whatever they are, to move you onward.

I must confess I don't respond well to the word "Push" because it speaks to me of effort, Herculean effort, and it feels so very difficult - like pushing rocks uphill. When this happens, we may need to sit back and breath before moving again. Writer's block resembles any creative block, and for me, any block that gets in the way of the things I want to do, or need to do - whether that is writing something on a blank page, calling that book store to find out about how they treat local authors, or asking a friend to look at my book....

I get curious about sayings - and I start to wonder - what is a "Baby Step" anyway? How big is it? What does it mean when an adult takes a baby step? I realized that often when we talk about taking baby steps it can be heard as derogatory - as a negative comment on someone's inability to do something that appears to be easy - pick up that phone, write a few words on a page, ask for support. But if you really think about what a baby step is - to the baby it's a very big deal. That first step, or that small step - when looked at from the perspective of a baby - and the size of a baby - that little, almost insignificant step - is huge.

Today, I love taking baby steps. And I speak with friends about taking one step at a time. Putting one foot in front of the other. And what's so interesting to me is that after taking that first difficult step, the others don't seem quite so hard. And sometimes we can get into a rhythm and a speed that makes our doubts and our slow starts seem like distant memories.

At one of our meetings someone talked about this whole business of independent publishing as being a marathon. And what is a marathon but a whole series of individual steps. Give yourself credit when you take a step. Give yourself special credit when you take a baby step. You deserve it. Whether it seems hard or easy, acknowledge these little, terribly significant steps.

To read the Writer's Digest article on Writer's Block

To get the Writer's Digest newsletter

The Ferry Building, San Francisco

I love adaptive re-use. I love using old buildings for new purposes. I love renovations that honor the old: old craftsmanship, old materials, and old styles. But I also love the new. I often say I want to stay in the Palace Hotel and have my wifi too.

I don’t know exactly how to label what was done to the Ferry Building. I know it was renovated or rehabbed or something. Upgraded, made seismically safer. But what I do know is I love it. I love the marketplace that has been designed into it and has sprung into life. There are so many reasons to go there now and there are so many ways I’m made to feel welcome, invited.

Just a few years ago, the only reasons to go the Ferry Building were to catch ferries, go the World Trade Club or to offices there. I’d go and look around and be disappointed. I loved being at the Ferry Building, I loved going to the World Trade Club. I loved walking along the promenade beside the Bay. I wanted more excuses to be there and more reasons to feel welcomed.

Now, there are restaurants that face the Bay, restaurants that face the Embarcadero, farmers markets along the front, and farmers markets in the back by the ferries. There is a bookstore, a coffee shop, a cookware store and so many food stores: from one that sells only mushrooms to seafood shops and butchers and organic grocery. Not to mention wine. A place to buy wine, drink wine, sample wine.

I love the hustle and bustle. I love the high end and the low end. I love that I can grab something to eat and then sit by the Bay and let the seagulls chatter at me. I can watch the fairy lights glow on the Bay Bridge and I can watch commuters come and go. It’s a great people-watching place.

Because all sides of the building are used, there are no back alleys, no long line of back doors. The back doors are right among the front doors. Garbage is taken out close to where we sit and eat great seafood. Workers are working. Tourists are gawking. Locals are feeling right at home.

It’s as though some magic wand was waved over the building and the glory of the past has mixed seamlessly with the new and the now. This beautiful grand dame of a building houses organic farmers markets and a sophisticated Vietnamese restaurant. The F-train stops right across the Embarcadero in this generous and lovely plaza. There is this sense of wholeness, charm, stability, solidity, beauty, and sustainability all in one place. It’s a place I like to go. I take friends; I go by myself. It is a destination and a pass-through place. It refreshes and nourishes me.

Hopefully it is a step in the direction of using our Bay more. We need more ferries, more water taxis, more pleasure rides. Why can’t our waterway be more like those in European cities? With commuter ferries and high speed hydrofoils. With local fishermen’s boats and pleasure craft. Why do we let only few out onto the water? With so much automobile traffic, we need to look to the water and public transportation to help us out. And what a glory that could be.

The Ferry Building works. I like being there. It’s a true gem in our urban environment. What more could I ask?

Beyond the money. Living in the book world.

I have been writing articles for the BAIPA News -- and thought I'd post some of them here. I hope they are helpful to you. (May 2008)

I have been working on projects recently where I'm dealing with the business realities of publishing - how to make enough money to pay for all the things needed to build the books and generate the sales. At times it seems difficult, if not impossible, to make it all work, especially because I personally don't like selling and don't want to be doing the things it often takes to sell a lot of books. I like writing books. I like designing books. I like managing book projects. I like helping others with their books. That's where my heart lies.

All these business considerations are important and to make it all work it takes the use of logic and reasoning, the gathering and assessment of information, and the making of hard decisions.

When I do this I often lose sight of why I am doing this - what lies beneath all my efforts. And when I get involved in the business of publishing I sometimes forget why I write and more importantly, I sometimes don't make the time to write. I realize I need to protect my creative space - the space to dream, the space to write, the space to just think about books and reading and push away, for a time, the money issues, the "realities" of the business, and to simply appreciate the other benefits I get from just being in the book world.

My point is to suggest you take some time, on a regular basis, to remember - even wallow in - those reasons you are doing this. For some of you, that might very well be the money end of things - to build a big, profitable business or to sell books. For others, the reasons might have very little to do with money or profit - rather, it might have to do with ideas, with the importance of being heard, with designing a beautiful book. Take some time to celebrate that you are doing something you want to do, something you love, something that gives you pleasure and satisfaction - beyond the money.

My reasons for being in the book world all come from my love of books. When I take the time to remember this, when I take the time to write, when I take the time to lose myself in the designing of books, I realize I am where I most want to be. And it's all worth it.