To write a blog, you need to have an interesting personality or provocative opinions. I have neither.
But as I wrote Heart. Soul. Mind. Strength. (IVP, 2006), the history of InterVarsity Press over its first 60 years, I began to realize, I do have opinions, opinions about publishing. They may not be interesting, but they are strong.
My coworkers know this already. What has been something of a secret to me has long been an open book to them. They have had to endure my opinions over the last 30 years at IVP. Actually, only one other employee at IVP has survived my opinions over the last three decades and still works here. (And she is definitely worse for the wear.)
As editorial director at IVP for more than 20 years, I’ve had plenty of opportunity to inflict my opinions on everyone else in the office. They think it is time I give them a break and inflict my opinions upon a wider world. That’s what I intend to do with this blog.
While most of my energies have been poured into the editorial department over the years, I’ve also had plenty of time to see what does and doesn’t work in marketing, sales, business, finance, production, fulfillment, and leadership generally—at IVP and in the industry broadly. So in this blog you’ll see a full range of comments on how I think publishing should and shouldn’t be done. And I intend to have fun doing it.
At least, that’s my opinion.
7 responses to “Inflicting My Opinions”
Well, count me in, Andy! I expect this will be a fascinating series, and I thank you for giving us the pleasure of anticipating your unfolding commentary as you go.
I imagine that we might have to be content to follow your train of thought as you post, but what if we had a question or comment about publishing? Do you anticipate offering a “drop box” for questions you might take up in your posts?
(And oh my, here’s my first request: could we please get the comments freed from this un-resizable popup window? [Un-resizable in Firefox 2.0.0.3, at least….])
Suggestion: You might want to put a feed link on the sidebar. There seems to be one, but there’s no link to it on the page.
I add an amen to Josh and John. Get rid of the popup comments box, and fix your RSS feed. It isn’t working, at least for Google Reader.
I’m looking forward to this blog, but if I can’t feed I don’t read!
Andy,
I am looking forward to hearing your thoughts on publishing as I am living on the mission field and just starting to enter the world of Christian publishing in the Russian language.
It is a wild publishing world here so any insight is warmly welcomed!
Jake
I’m also happy to be able to hear your opinions (so far, I’ve been reading Michael Hyatt’s “From Where I Sit” for inside info… yeah, “enemy territory”)
I DISAGREE! I’ve always thought your personality “interesting.” (Couldn’t help myself. ;>\)
You always make me think, but I like you anywa.
I agree about the feed. Gotta do it! Call tech support, NOW!