The Wretched Scribbler

Hannah AA's blog

Passing Judgment

Posted Tue, 11/02/2010 - 8:08am by Hannah AA

They say not to judge a book by its cover, but everyone knows that we do it all the time.

It's hard to avoid, as long as the book is an object to hold in your hands. There is something repellant about an oversized paperback with a cheezy image and a bad title font. And there is something comforting about the feel of a faded cloth binding against your fingertips.

Every time I see the boxy covers of a Norton Critical Edition I flash back to freshman-level literature courses in victorian fiction. Anna recently confessed to purchasing a book exclusively because the cover reminded her of the cover of her copy of Auntie Mame

In this case, Anna says, the book lived up to its cover. The humorous social commentary inside the book (like that inside Auntie Mame) is just what the cover promised.

This is why with our books, cover art can become war. Many authors, exhausted and proud of their literary achievement, burnt out on copy edits and typesetting, throw their hands in the air when the cover question comes their way. Not us.

Even as pub dates approach and new projects build up, we stubbornly resist anything that evokes the 1980's. We are staunchly opposed to images that are reminiscent of romance novels, of clip art, or of Twister. (Unless it's on the cover of Gary Shteyngart's dystopian fiction, of course).

Speaking of Shteyngart, we are enamored with the book trailer he posted online to generate energy for his book. We like the idea of book trailers in general, which, like movie previews, offer a glance into the experience to come.

Everyone knows that in hollywood, a movie is never better than its trailer. (Just like they say that a book is never better than its proposal - but that's another story). I wonder: as the book-as-object becomes obsolete, will book trailers replace covers as the go-to indicator for snap-judgements and spontaneous purchases?

And what will that mean (or will it mean anything) for the words inside?

Fun with Formatting

Posted Mon, 10/18/2010 - 11:44am by Hannah AA

Here at IPI, we are a bit obsessive about our formatting. Every writer, researcher, free-lancer, and assistant gets a document template and formatting guidelines as soon as they come on board. (This, along with instructions on coffee-machine usage, actually makes up the entirety of our staff training).

Garamond is our font of preference. Wikipedia tells me that Garamond is a group of typefaces named after the 16th-century French punch-cutter Claude Garamond. They are distinguished by the small bowl of the a and the small eye of the e.

 

It turns out that there are dozens of Garamonds. The Garamond revival began in the early 20th century when several printers designed fonts based on a type specimen stored at the National Printing Office in France. Turns out, that font was actually designed by printer Jean Jannon, working a century after Garamond! But the name stuck, and inspired other printers to return to the original, leading to a true diversity of Garamond fonts.

The font we use is Garamond MT, which was developed in 1924 at Stempel AG in Germany and was inspired by the true Claude Garamond. Why do we love Garamond? Some people say it’s the graceful curves, the balanced strokes, and the lightly rounded serifs. One blogger made it a point to compare Garamond Premier Pro (“graceful and elegant”) with Times New Roman (“clumsy and amateurish”). “Let us change the default font in Microsoft Word this very minute,” he declared. In our office, it’s already been done.

Another artist has gone so far as to put typography in motion by creating a video called “Garamond?” “Typography as apocalypse,” one commenter remarked. “I like it, but it scares me.”

We're Back!

Posted Tue, 10/05/2010 - 2:12pm by Hannah AA

It's been a month since our last post, but there has been a lot to keep us away from our desks — and our blog. In the past few months we have travelled, collectively, well over 20,000 miles, including voyages to Minnesota, to New York, and to Peru (but more on that later).

All of which is to say that we have lots to write about — lots of new book projects, proposals, interviews, research, and contracts, that is. And we even have a few stories to share on this blog.

But, as we writerly types know all too well, the longer you go without writing, the harder it is to get back in stride. The mountain of stories begins to seem insurmountable. And the blank page — the bane of all writers' existence — begins to glare whitely on the screen. Where to begin?

It’s like the hike I took this weekend. The trail was full of insurmountable spots, steep and slippery rocks, logs stretched precariously over violent rapids. It’s no wonder people like to use nature as a metaphor for the writing experience: with determination and persistence, the insurmountable can be overcome. And the view from the top is spectacular.

Okay, the view was spectacular. But that’s not actually where I’m going with this blog post. Instead, I wanted to write about how last week, Anna and I looked up from our desks to find a police officer in full-uniform standing in the doorway.

“Hello ladies,” he said. “Everything alright in here?”

We looked at each other and then we answered, as Louisa did before us, “Urfff.”

Six months ago, it was Louisa who typed a wrong digit on the fax machine and dialled 911 instead of India. This time, our intended destination was Russia. Like irregular blog posts, accidental phone calls to the local emergency services seem to be a by-product of a global economy and our expanding business.

It may be a slippery slope. But we are relieved to discover that it makes for some good stories. Enough to fill this blog for months to come.

 

*photo credit to Ben Kimball

Ligature Love

Posted Mon, 08/30/2010 - 12:44pm by Hannah AA

You may have noticed that IPI has recently made some changes: a new company name, a new company website, a new-and-improved company blog. We are proud of many of these changes and we like to show them off. “Look at our new website!” we say to our family, friends, neighbors, clients, and anyone else whose attention we can get.

“What’s with the squiggly thing between the a and the t on your company logo?” they invariably reply.

I thought I would take this opportunity to answer the question once and for all. That squiggly thing is known as a ligature. From the Latin ligare (to bind), the word ligature refers, in general, to anything used in tying or binding. In surgery, a ligature is used to strangulate a tumor. In orthodontics, ligatures are the rubber bands that bind your teeth together. And in printing, a ligature is when two or more graphemes are combined to form a single glyph. That is — a ligature is the binding between two or more letters.

Did you know that the ampersand (&) is a modified ligature? It originated as the letters et, which is Latin for and.

Ligatures originated as time saving devices. Medieval scribes used ligatures while copying Latin texts — they even went so far as to combine the bowls of letters with right-facing bowls (b,o,p) and those with left-facing bowls (d,o,g). (Have you ever before thought of letters in terms of the direction of their bowl?) In typesetting, ligatures would allow a printer to combine multiple characters of a single block: think “fi” or “st,” or the still common œ.

Today, of course, typing “fi” is hardly labor intensive, and ligatures as time-saving devices are certainly out of fashion. (Maybe this is why the New York Times print edition, already an antiquated text, recently re-instituted ligatures.)

But we like the antiquated aspect of the ligature. We like that it they hark back to a time when words were printed on paper, with ink. A time when books as objects still had value. Even though we just got our first iPad last week, and even though we are constantly exploring new means of digital publication, we use a ligature because it binds us to a long history of literary expression.

And, of course, with thanks to our brilliant graphic designers, we like our ligature because we think it looks good.

IPI Lexicon

Posted Tue, 07/27/2010 - 10:43am by Hannah AA

When I was in college, we used to talk about “OEDing.” As in OED (verb): to determine the etymology, significance, and usage of a word in the Oxford English Dictionary online. As in, “I just OEDed “penultimate” and it cannot be used in that way.”

(Penultimate (adj.) means “The last but one in a series of things.” As in, from the New York Times, “The play's penultimate sequence, set in a boxcar, is a shocker.”)

At IPI, the OED is our final authority on word usage. “Can you be mired in a rut?” I ask John. “OED it.” (You can, but it’s unlikely. A rut is a “deep furrow or track,” while “to be mired” implies mud or swampy ground.) While some of our publishers prefer Merriam-Webster’s (11th edition) for its relative simplicity, we like the breadth, the examples, and the etymology offered by the OED. (Mire, from early Scandinavian, shares its roots with the Icelandic mýri and the Swedish, Dutch, and Danish myr.)

It’s true that we like the OED because it adds to our aura of intelligence. (Aura: from the Greek for “breeze.” As from the Glasgow Herald: “The genteel aura of the upper circle.”) And it allows us to avoid potentially awkward occasions of misuse or misunderstanding. We have been known to send office memos with links to the OED, warning each other of potential vocabulary pitfalls.

Sometimes, though, even the OED lets us down. The OED lists several meanings of the verb “shank,” including “to travel on foot,” “to sink (a shaft),” or “to knit stockings.” But it fails to describe the definition that brought us to the OED in the first place (“To stab someone quickly and repeatedly in the side or lower back, usually with a shiv or, occasionally, a spork.”) (A shiv, according to the OED, is a razor.)

As for the verb OED, it’s still not in the OED. But you can find it on urbandictionary.com: “verb (transitive), to consult the OED for the meaning of a word. As in: "‘What the heck does 'absquatulation'* mean?’

‘I dunno - oed it’”

*to decamp

The Comma Coma

Posted Mon, 07/19/2010 - 10:12am by Hannah AA

We always love it when Andi steps off his corporate jet to write a guest post for our blog. But I especially appreciated last week’s post about athletics because it reminded me of another favorite summer sport: copyediting.

Last week, I was part of an extensive e-mail string on the subject of the serial comma, which is the comma that goes before the final item in a list. “I like grammar, punctuation, and spelling,” I say. Or is it: “I like grammar, punctuation and spelling?” The serial comma, also known as the Harvard or Oxford comma, caused one writer (poet Robert Francis) to complain, “When I got to Harvard, no one had ever heard of the comma!”

This week we received the copyedited version of one of our manuscripts, prompting a flurry of editorial debates. Although historians say that English writing has been systematic since the middle ages, consistency remains hard to come by. Serial commas are simple compared to the use of ellipses in block quotes, the thin spaces between quotation marks, or the relative placement of punctuation around parentheses. And don’t get me started on the subject of apostrophes at the end of acronyms. (When you have more than one CEO, do you have CEOs, CEO’s, or a problem?) John likes to quote the epitaph on a successful editor’s gravestone: “Changed which to that.”

Some might say that obsessive copyediting is dehumanizing, or worse. Anna was telling me about Roald Dahl’s short story “The Great Automatic Grammatizator,” in which a man discovers the algorithm for good literature and invents a novel-making machine. The reduction of writing to rules and regulation results in the end of human creativity. It’s a tragic story.

But it’s not my story. In reviewing our copyedited manuscript, we spotted occasions where a misplaced comma or inaccurate punctuation changed the meaning of our writing, sometimes dramatically. Because words are an author’s only medium for communication, writers are dependent on the accuracy of their punctuation. And in my opinion, great writers are those who know how to create magnificent phrases out of the mundane. They do it with style.

The Publishing iPocalypse

Posted Mon, 06/28/2010 - 8:59am by Hannah AA

The prophets have spoken: a literary apocalypse is on its way. Garrison Keillor says, “Call me a pessimist, call me Ishmael, but I think that book publishing is about to slide into the sea.” Environmental writer Dave Gessner sees the future as a Terminator-like dystopia, complete with robots called Nielsen Bookscan and The Kindle and Google Books. Gessner also drew this illustration:

In the foreground, in a cave, is the wretched scribbler, looking slightly the worse for wear. The bones of other wretched scribblers are strewn in the field and buried under the last of the live oaks. One poor reader, paperback in hand, is writhing in the grip of what I imagine to be a modified iPad.

We appreciate the nostalgia that writers hold for their imagined past (Keillor is the acknowledged master of the good old days). But we see a different future for the world’s scribblers, wretched and otherwise. Because we believe, first, that the “apocalypse” is already upon us. And, second, that it’s opening up a brave new world of opportunity for writers and artists of all breeds.

Let the collaborations begin.

So far we’ve written about collaboration primarily in terms of the writing process. But what we see in the digital future is a world where the interface between the written word and other media, like pictures, like sound, and like video, disappears. When that happens, books will by necessity become the collaborative product of a team of cinematographers and app developers, animators and writers.

The result? A new breed of books that is a little bit more like A Prairie Home Companion, which combines prose, poetry, and music, and is currently streamed online. Or like Dave Gessner’s blog, which incorporates multiple authors, audience participation, and smoothly integrated illustrations.

We’ll keep you posted as we begin developing some of our own media enriched digital book projects. Meanwhile, for our next blog cycle, we will be writing about the places where we see writers using new media to their collaborative advantage. We think it’s time to move beyond the doomsday vision of a literary wasteland. Remember, the first brave new world wasn’t a dystopia at all. It was Shakespeare’s Miranda, looking beyond her isolated island for the first time. “How beauteous mankind is!” she cries. “O brave new world, that has such people in’t!”

IPI Ethnography

Posted Mon, 06/21/2010 - 8:37am by Hannah AA

Last week, we held a Bright Ideas meeting with our clients at CFAR, a consulting firm steeped in the traditions of psychology and anthropology. All this talk of Franz Boaz and Margaret Mead has awakened my own latent interests in ethnographic research. And so, I offer the following selections from my IPI field book:

  • December, 2009: Janine, Barbara, and John pore over an early draft of The Emotional Calendar, our recently completed book with Dr. John Sharp, with a pair of scissors. Janine is deftly cutting the document into sections while Barbara and John push them around the table, rearranging the book structure.
  • February, 2010: Seven enthusiastic professionals sit around the remnants of maple scones and cranberry walnut muffins, discussing the weaknesses and merits of a new book idea (now The Idea Entrepreneurs). John stands in a corner, wildly taking notes on an endless stream of flip charts.
  • May, 2010: Anna and I (in an ethnographer-turned-participant twist) sit in front of a computer screen, hotly debating word choice for a book proposal. I prepared the first draft: at the moment, Anna has keyboard control, but on occasion we both dive for the mouse simultaneously.

I offer you a case study in collaborative writing. Last week, Janine wrote about the history of collaborative writing. But at IPI we don’t just espouse collaboration: we live it. In fact, collaboration is a cornerstone of the way we operate as a business.

Not that it’s always easy. The first time I gave a position paper to Janine and received, one week later, what looked like the first chapter to an entirely different book, I was crushed. Like everyone who has ever dreamed of being a writer, there’s a little wretched scribbler in me. But then I read the new edition and I realized that, while my content remained intact, Janine’s revisions had brought the text in line with the voice of the book. And furthermore, while my love for science tends towards the technical, Janine had applied to the work her particular sense of humor. Perhaps for the first time, my writing was funny.

And in my opinion, that’s what makes collaboration great. When I write collaboratively, I can bring out my strengths, and bolster them with the strengths of other people. It’s a win-win situation.

We wouldn’t do it any other way.

Meet the Wretched Scribbler

Posted Mon, 05/24/2010 - 10:44am by Hannah AA

This month, we will be writing a series of blog posts on a subject that is close to our hearts. The subject of the series is authorship. To start us off, I would like to introduce you to our alter-ego: The Wretched Scribbler.

Who is the wretched scribbler? The wretched scribbler lives alone in the garret of a colonial home in Concord, Massachusetts. He is permanently perched at a desk that looks out over rolling hills and the Merrimack River, perhaps the gleam of Walden Pond. The wretched scribbler rubs his furrowed brow with ink-stained hands, tortured by his thoughts as he struggles to express himself on an eternally jammed Remington typewriter.

Often, when potential clients approach us, they come looking for a wretched scribbler. This is the character they think will help them transform their great ideas into the Next Great American Business Book.

Sorry to disappoint!

As it happens, we think the wretched scribbler is an urban legend. Authors have been working with co-authors, editors, and publishers for centuries. As bestseller James Patterson, who outlines his plots before passing them off to a team of co-writers, says, “almost all TV shows… are done by teams of writers. It’s not as unusual as people think it is.”

Just look at business writing. Jim Collins, as everyone knows, works with a team. Chip and Dan Heath write collaboratively. John Kotter published a book with Dan Cohen. Tom Peters wrote one with Robert Waterman. And even those authors who appear alone on their book covers explode with names when you turn to their acknowledgement page.

What surprises us is that, in the face of this mountain of evidence, people still imagine that authorship is a tortured and lonely business. And although collaboration is a known source of creative inspiration, writers are still expected to go it alone.

We are determined to change all that. At IPI, we are staunch believers in collaborative writing. And this month on our blog, we’re going to tell you why.

IPI Goes Fair Trade

Posted Mon, 04/26/2010 - 11:18am by Hannah AA

Here is a sample afternoon at Idea Platforms Inc.: the five of us sit around the conference table, notebooks out, while Anna animatedly dissects the qualities and weaknesses of her shakshuka-with-polenta brunch. Or John, eyes pointed upwards, tries to convey the experience of the heavenly gnocchi at one of Boston’s hottest Italian restaurants. (Then, of course, the conversation turns back to our books).

It’s true, we’re foodies. And as foodies who are also writers, we know that it is our responsibility to make ethical choices about the things we eat. While doing research for our HOT new book (still in the top-secret stage!) we met and spoke with Bryant Terry, chef and author of Vegan Soul Kitchen, who believes that food is justice. We love the work he does towards food empowerment: and his recipe for black-eyed pea fritters.

When we were working on Globality, we learned about the role of food in the newly expanding global market. We learned how new global businesses increase our access to some of our favorite exotic foods, from bananas to Palaw (basmati rice with saffron and dates). We also learned about how these foods can come at the expense of the countries they grow in, which do not always have environmental standards or labor regulations.

That’s why at IPI we have decided to switch exclusively to Fair Trade coffee in our office. Fair Trade coffee is certified by a third-party organization which monitors for several standards of ethical farm practices, including giving fair wages to farm workers, and farming in a more sustainable way. Here’s more information about TransFair USA, the primary North America fair trade certifier.

We know that buying fair trade coffee is a small step. But we already recycle our cardboard and use compact fluorescent light bulbs. We are proud to add fair trade coffee to the list of things we do to show our support for a global marketplace which upholds ethical and environmental standards while still providing access to some of the things — and especially to the foods — that we love.