The Real Editorial Opinions!

 By Andrea Chambers and Phil Scillaci Kropoth

Chris Jackson and panel of editors share a good story

“Hope” and “love” were two words tossed around freely during  a panel discussion of book editors at NYU’s Summer Publishing Institute. Sure, there was mention of “P & L’s” and other earthbound concepts like earning out inflated advances.  Yet as moderator Christopher Jackson, Executive Editor of Spiegel & Grau, deftly guided the conversation, the prevailing theme was the importance of passion. The panelists spoke repeatedly of falling in love with a manuscript or a proposal and persuading a tough-minded acquisitions board to publish it.  “You just have to believe and be willing to go out on a limb,” said William Morrow’s Executive Editor Laurie Chittenden, who calls book auctions a “legal form of gambling.” (She admitted that she is also a poker player.)

What’s a Book?

HarperCollins CEO Brian Murray

By Andrea Chambers

As NYU’s  Summer Publishing Institute shifted from magazines to books this week, the conversation migrated from mutterings about the death of print to questions about what, really, is a that  rich content that once resided between covers. In his keynote address, Brian Murray, President and  CEO of Harper Collins, pointed out that there  are more than one million dedicated e-readers out there and that the “rate of change is picking up”. We will all soon be a click away from buying books, Murray predicted, and noted that the point of purchase will be in our pockets through mobile devices and other technology waiting to be developed. “It’s the publishers’ job to manage this transition,” he cautioned. “We don’t want Microsoft or Google to do it for us. We need to find new partners and better ways of reach the online consumer. After all, publishers have deep pockets. We are used to investing in warehouses and other forms of business. Now we need to invest in new technology.”

Pub Party Time!

Everyone loves a good publishing party, and NYU’s Summer Publishing Institute students escaped the classroom to meet up with alumni and guest speakers. The crab cakes were pretty good and the networking opportunities even better….

Photos by Phil Scillaci Kropoth

Inside “The Knot”

By Phil Scillaci Kropoth

Dolgin (left) and Roney talk weddings

During their recent high-energy visit to SPI, Founder Carly Roney and Executive Editor Rebecca Dolgin of The Knot inspired students with  advice for compiling content and encouraging interactive communities–and how this  molded a loyal following of  “Knotties.”  It was helpful information for young, aspiring publishers looking to create a marketable brand. 

Chris Anderson is Wired for success

Chris Anderson and SPI fans

By Andrea Chambers

His crisp Condé Nast business card says Editor-in-Chief. Yet, says Chris Anderson, if one of his five children follows in his footsteps someday, his or her business card will likely read “Community Manager.”  “Things are changing,” says the editor of one of the smartest, most irreverent and internet and tech-savvy magazines ever created. Wired coined phrases such as “crowd sourcing”   and “new atheism.” Anderson himself invented the term  “Long Tail and also wrote a bestselling book about the value of selling large numbers of unique or niche items in relatively small quantities. Now, paradigm-shifter Anderson is back with his new book “Free: The Future of a Radical Price,” out July 7th from Hyperion.  Summer Publishing Institute students were lucky enough to snag advance copies….free!

People Person Larry Hackett

Larry Hackett regales SPI students

 

By Phil Schillaci Kropoth

  If anyone is on top of celebrity buzz, that would be People  magazine’s Managing Editor Larry Hackett, who spoke last week at NYU’s Summer Publishing Institute. While Hackett spends much of his day immersed in figuring out who’s hot and who’s not, he’s also very much a businessman spinning red-carpet celebs into ROI. For People, the cover is the one chance the mag  gets to draw in non-subscription readers —and finding the perfect image is the equivalent of a secret  celeb sauce. “We have to sell approximately 1.5 million copies of the magazine on the newsstands every week in order to generate a profit,” Hackett said.  “Our cover is a poster.”

Busting Out:BusinessWeek and Bust Mag Shake up Media Mold

 

By  Andrea Chambers

John Byrne is proud of his product

Serendipitous scheduling put two unlikely visionaries back-to-back at SPI: John Byrne, silver-haired media guru and EIC of BusinessWeek.com, and Debbie Stoller, the blond and self-avowed feminist founder and EIC of Bust, a 16-year-old iconoclastic, eclectic and slightly erotic Indie mag.  

The “Biz and Bust” duo proves that opposites can sometimes come to the same viewpoint from wildly divergent positions…kind of like the Web. Their message: reject the past, question the present and rethink the future.

Ode to Photos

 By Phil Schillaci Kropoth

W Photo Editor Nadia Vellam is passionate about photos

With all the talk about the power of the Internet over print, it was great to hear W Photo Editor Nadia Vellam tell SPI students: “There’s something about holding photographs that changes the physicality of art. Print is essential to the quality of the photograph.”

Vellam clearly loves her job, from caressing photos to making them happen. When Brad Pitt wanted out-of-production film for an intimate shoot of Angelina Jolie, Vellam knew just where to turn: Ebay. She found a man in Israel who had a stash of the expiring emulsion coated rolls.  With a few friendly phone calls, she was able to convince  a contact in Israel to take off of work – with handsome compensation, of course – get on a plane and fly to France, where Pitt took loving snaps of  Angie and the kids at home. You can check out the final project online here.

SPI Media Moments

Rodale's Mary Ann Bekkedahl speaks about the role of a publisher

By Andrea Chambers

“You guys are killing us. You’re the generation that won’t pay for anything!” griped Mary Ann Bekkedahl, EVP and Group Publisher for Rodale, www.rodale.com.

The 100 students staring her down did not look chagrined, perturbed or even ruffled. By now, week two in the Summer Publishing Institute, these recent college grads are getting used to being defined (and gently maligned) as game changers who are shifting the face of media. “You are ‘screenagers.’ You are born into the digital industry,” said Robert (“Bo”) Sacks, media commentator and creator of a widely read eponymous newsletter www.bosacks.com.  Once again, the students sat serenely, secure in their newfound sphere of influence. They registered more concern about Sack’s comment that half the information they learned in college was obsolete by the time they graduated.

Gotta Luv Life and New York….dot com.

By Phil Schillaci Kropoth

Bill Shapiro of Life.com shows off his site's dazzling photos.

Somewhere between the “oo-ing” and “ah-ing” induced by slideshows of adorable animals on  Life.com  www.Life.com,  Time Inc. Development Editor Bill Shapiro made his main point: “This is a site where you can get a ton of information in two minutes.” Quick translation: the  recently launched site  caters to short attention spans through a long lens and gives the beloved and now defunct Life magazine a new, well, life.

While Shapiro showed off the website’s “modern-classic” layout, we in the audience were practically drooling waiting for him to click on the page’s sleek silver tabs.  Shapiro excitedly advanced to the next never-before-seen archival photograph of the then-almost-famous Marilyn Monroe posing in Los Angeles’ Griffith Park.  We did a little browsing on our own and found everything from throwback Oscar images of Diane Keaton’s 1978 award for “Annie Hall” to images of 1940s beach life in the USA.

By successfully  partnering with Getty Images and Google and drawing upon a deep archive of its own photographs dating back decades, Life.com  offers news, celebrity, sports, and wildlife coverage through high-end professional photography.