By now we all know that 2009 is the two hundredth anniversary of the birth of both Abraham Lincoln and Charles Darwin (both born on February 12). Book publishers have taken full advantage of this by issuing dozens of new books on these gentlemen. But no book is being published about a man whose two hundredth birthday we will celebrate on May 1, who has also had a profound effect on society. His name is Benjamin T. Babbitt. What did he do?
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Month: March 2009
Labor Wants to Be Free
I’ve heard it said with the visionary breathlessness of a true believer: “Information wants to be free.”
My response? “Labor wants to be free.” If free information is a good idea, free labor is even better. So maybe you’d like to work for nothing?
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How Publishing Shapes Us
“Publishing by its very nature changes your value system.”
I was struck when my publishing friend Roy Carlisle suggested this might be the case. It set me thinking. Instinctively I felt he must be right. At the same time, I felt like such a proverbial fish immersed in the waters of publishing culture that I hadn’t the faintest notion what those changes might be.
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Abercrombie & Fitch, Attorneys at Law
Of all the shticks on NBC’s The Office, one of my favorites is the rivalry between Dwight and Jim. The pranks Jim plays on Dwight are priceless–and perhaps a bit too reminiscent of actual jokes played by some of my colleagues on other colleagues (never by me, of course).
Linda Doll and I included one of my favorite stories in our anecdotal history of InterVarsity Press, Heart. Soul. Mind. Strength. It highlights the friendly rivalry between the staff of Campus Life magazine (some thirty-plus years ago when it was run by Youth for Christ) and the staff of InterVarsity’s HIS magazine.
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The Familiar and the Unfamiliar
Do you have a favorite book title? One that is memorable and interesting, all the while telling you just what the book is about?
Here’s another perspective on what makes an ideal nonfiction book title. Previously I wrote that the ideal title employed two elements: content and creativity. You can also think of them as the familiar and the unfamiliar.
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The Ideal Book Title
What’s the ideal nonfiction book title? In my mind it has two elements.
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