The Future of Book Publishing for Freelancers

Today I had the honor of speaking to the Indianapolis Freelancers Group on the future of publishing. My co-presenter was Mary Bednarek, Executive Acquisitions Director, Dummies Tech, for Wiley.

Mary and I have both been knocking around the local publishing scene for more than 20 years, but we managed to never meet one another before today. No matter. Our approach to the subject was in sync (“Great minds…,” she told me later). She expanded on and reinforced my points below and added the perspective of a much larger publisher.

As promised, here is the outline I developed beforehand:

1. The current situation is difficult for some freelancers.

• Economic contraction has caused some publishers to reduce their title counts—trying to publish smarter, not harder.
• Everyone is still recovering from the massive publishing layoffs in December 2009.
• Publishers are keeping more work in-house and asking for more productivity from employees—especially in the third and fourth quarters of the year.
• Nonfiction book sales are declining overall because people can get “good enough” information online for free.
• People who have had a steady gig with one publisher are suddenly finding themselves without work.
• Employment for editors, writers, and authors is expected to rise by 8% by 2018; however, competition for these jobs is expected to be fierce (see the U.S. Department of Labor’s Occupational Outlook Handbook).

2. How will the shift to e-books affect freelancers?

• 40 million people will have e-readers in 2011.
• Penguin’s e-book revenues were up 182% in 2010.
• Borders bankruptcy means fewer opportunities for people to find and buy printed books.
• Content still needs to be edited and indexed.
• More proofreading may take place in PDFs.
• Book design for text-heavy books will be simplified and more utilitarian for easy conversion to e-books. It will pay to be familiar with XML, Mobi, and how to convert PDFs to other e-book formats.
• More advanced apps and readers (iPad, Blio) will require richer content, with animation, embedded videos, audio, and so on.
• Everybody thinks they need an app, but nobody seems to be able to recommend a good iPhone app developer!

3. Networking is still the key to finding freelance work.

• Publishers are reluctant to hire someone they have never worked with before. It takes time to evaluate and train new freelancers. Most have their tried-and-true favorites and don’t need more help beyond them. It’s really a buyer’s market in Indy!
• Look to people you worked with when you were in house.
• Find people for whom you formerly worked who have moved to other publishers. (The “Macmillan Diaspora” has produced an amazing array of connections all over the country. Find them on LinkedIn and Facebook.)

4. Look to nontraditional markets.

• Custom publishing divisions (Pearson, Wiley).
• Self-publishing companies (Author Solutions).
• Book packagers.
• Company websites and blogs.
• Content farms (Demand Media, Associated Content, HubPages, Answers.com, About.com).
• Individuals (self-published books, doctoral theses, resumes, other small projects).

5. Follow the experts online to see where they think it’s all headed.

• Joe Wikert: Publishing 2020 blog
• Jane Friedman: There Are No Rules blog and her personal blog
• Kassia Krozser: Booksquare
• GalleyCat

Mary urged freelancers to go out and get their hands on the various e-readers and familiarize themselves with how text looks in them. She also provided this great list of resources for editors:

• http://www.digitalbookworld.com/
• http://www.writerswrite.com/epublishing/resources.htm
• http://www.elance.com/
• http://www.ebookcrossroads.com/
• http://www.electriceditors.net/
• http://www.fundsforwriters.com/
• http://www.nanowrimo.org/
• http://www.guru.com/
• http://www.goodexperience.com/
• http://radar.oreilly.com/publishing (for Tools of Change website)

Obviously, nobody can tell you exactly how this tumultuous time in publishing is going to pan out. My former next-door neighboor Andy Harris, a Wiley author, suggests that things in publishing might seem like they are out of order, but it's really just the beginning of a new order. It's exciting (and a little scary) to think where it all might lead.

How Brad Stevens Got His Dream Job

It's going to be hard to think about much besides basketball in Indianapolis this week. We already knew we'd be immersed in the Final Four hullaballoo by virtue of the fact that March Madness, as it often does, ends here. But little did we suspect we'd be cheering for the home team--the Butler Bulldogs--as well.

It's an irresistible story: A small school (4,500 students) led by a young coach (33-year-old Brad Stevens) defies the odds and makes it to the NCAA Final Four—just miles from their own campus. The national media has already begun to tire of its own parallels to the movie Hoosiers (part of which, of course, was filmed in Butler's home arena). But perhaps the most fascinating element is the coach himself.

Brad Stevens played high school basketball in Zionsville, where he is still the all-time leading scorer. (My brother-in-law Andrew Hand played on the high school team with him, but I haven't yet managed to parlay that into an introduction.) Brad went on to play basketball in college at DePauw while majoring in business. Upon graduation, he joined Eli Lilly in a marketing capacity. But his heart was still on the basketball court, and he volunteered as a high school coach and also in administrative roles with the Butler team.

Within seven years, he had been hired by Butler and moved up the ranks to head coach. And now, just a few years later, he's led the team to its first-ever Final Four.

I can't help but think of the book I edited, Your Dream Job Game Plan, in which sports agent Molly Fletcher puts forth the five tools you need to get your own dream job:

• Passionate style
  
• Fearlessness
  
• A game plan
  
• Flawless execution
  
• Managing choices
  

I haven't met Brad, but it's obvious that he used all five of these tools to reach—and excel in—his dream job. Imagine how scary it must have been to give up a secure and lucrative business career for a shot at coaching. He had a passion for basketball, he managed his career choices, he had a plan, and he executed his plan flawlessly. And now all of Indiana is cheering him on as his team faces Michigan State (ironically, Molly's alma mater) in the first game of the Final Four.

Reached for comment this afternoon, Molly had this to say:

Brad Stevens is a “5-tool-plus-some coach." Getting to the final four--as Brad Stevens has done--requires passion, game plans, fearlessness, execution (married with a little luck sometimes). Brad gets it. He is a heck of a x and o coach--but an equally good motivator--and has gelled his guys together to find himself home in Indianapolis living out a dream. But, as a former Spartan, I must add, so has Izzo. Go Green!

Brad and his team are already winners in our eyes, regardless of what happens on Saturday.

Integrating Twitter into Your Blog

I'm probably the last person to figure this out. But it's still so cool that I have to share it.

For the past year or so, I have been so enthralled with Twitter that I have neglected this blog. I found it easier to tweet helpful bits of advice there than to write up a few paragraphs about it here. But I know there are people who read the blog but don't follow me on Twitter, so I worry that they are missing out on a lot.

I was poking around on Twitter yesterday trying to verify some stats for an upcoming book. Then I noticed a link at the bottom of the home page that says Goodies. And well, far be it from me to pass up goodies of any sort. The Twitter goodies are buttons and widgets you can put on your site. I clicked on Widgets and found a button that specified that I wanted it on my website (I can't seem to find it today, though!). I was able to pick a widget and customize the colors. Then there was a Blogger button that put it right into my blog. I went into my customization settings and moved it below the AdSense ad (because heaven knows I make a killing off of that! ).

So now, voila! Blog readers can see my most recent tweets. One thing I learned, though, is that things I retweet with the Retweet button do not show up in my widget. So I'm back to doing manual RTs for a while. It takes more time but it also facilitates networking because people can see that I am retweeting them.

And I am deliriously happy with myself!

Twitter Job Search Guide Publicity Wins!

If you're following me on Twitter (and you should be!), you're probably sick to death of my tweets about The Twitter Job Search Guide. But I swear it's not calculated and shameless self-promotion. I truly adore this book and am so very excited that it's now available in stores.

The book is packed with novel and vital tips for maximizing Twitter for your career purposes. Pick it up, turn to any page, and I guarantee that you will learn something.

A week or so ago, the authors did an interview for the Associated Press that has received wide distribution and iterations of it are turning up all over (for example, here on the ABC News site). That has helped push the Amazon rank to a respectable spot for a new book and is spawning new exposure every day.

The authors are spearheading an energetic and innovative PR campaign, beginning with a book launch party in New York on Monday. We've never really tried that for any of our other books, mainly because the subject of careers is not usually thought of as glam. But throw in the hottest social networking trend and suddenly, things get interesting.

But here's where it takes a turn for the surreal. Original gossip girl Liz Smith just happens to live in an apartment above the restaurant where the launch party is taking place. And today, she gave it a very nice preview in her online column. This is where I got a little woozy. Finally, finally, we've got a book going viral. I am so excited to see what happens next!

Good Connections and New Experiences at the Wisconsin Careers Conference

Last week I was fortunate to have the opportunity to travel north for the University of Wisconsin's Careers Conference in Madison. Now that I think about it, after nearly 11 years at JIST, it was my first conference aimed at the people who serve institutional job search customers--such as students and workforce development clients.

My main purpose in going was to watch several of our authors in action: Dr. Laurence Shatkin, Dr. John Liptak, and Dr. Richard Deems, in particular. Dick Gaither and Dr. Bob Orndorff presented pre-conference workshops; and sadly, I didn't get to see much of them. But it was great to see three of our authors doing well-received presentations. I also enjoyed the two keynotes and several other featured speakers.

For the first time ever, I decided to live-tweet this conference (since I finally have a laptop with a battery that lasts all day and working wifi). What an interesting exercise that was! It was hard work keeping on top of the most relevant and interesting points from each speaker, packaging them into tweets, and trying not to make any errors of fact or grammar. I think I'd give myself a solid "B" for my efforts. I realized that it takes a lot of skill to do it well. And I wondered whether there might be a market for freelance tweeters to go around publicizing conferences. I think I would enjoy doing that. You can get a feel for what I learned by taking a look at my Twitter stream from last week.

A side benefit from the firehose of tweets I was sending out was that it raised my Twitter profile. A dozen or more people retweeted my tweets, asked questions, and made jokes while I was in the midst of reporting the conference. It made it an interactive exeprience for me, and it informed a lot of others who couldn't be there. I think I even got a few more followers as a result.

Unlike the other conferences I've been to, people were not as open to networking and didn't necessarily know who I was. That was kind of nice. Sometimes letting a bunch of professionals know that an acquisitions editor is in the house is like throwing chum on the waters. But I did make one new friend: Leslie Bell, associate director of the career center at Hamilton College in upstate New York. Coincidentally, Leslie is starting a blog for her career center; so I was able to offer some tips. She said I inspired her; and if that were the only good thing to come of my trip, it would totally be worth it.

I also connected with at least one potential author and talked about book ideas with an existing author. And you know what else was fun? The six-hour drive to Madison with my co-worker Bob Grilliot. He was there to connect with customers at our booth, so he had to rent an SUV to haul the books. It just so happened that the SUV was equipped with heated seats and satellite radio. So we cruised in comfort while reveling in New Wave tunes, deliriously oblivious to the certain death that would await us should we break down or slide off the road in the frozen tundra of Minonk, Illinois. For me, an enduring image of the trip will be watching the wind turbines turn to the rhythm of the Smiths's "How Soon Is Now?" Pure poetry.

Indiana Historical Society Holiday Author Fair: A Whole Lotta Awesome!

A while back I mentioned my intention to drop into the Indiana Historical Society's Holiday Author Fair, in which 80+ local authors were on hand to autograph copies of their works. Could an event be more tailor-made for me, who lives in the past and subsists on books? The event was Saturday and it lived up to all my expectations.


Immediately upon arrival I was asked whether I would like to join the society. As a matter of fact, I did want to. I want to support history in Indiana; but I also want to learn more about the historical society's press, which seems like a dream employer to me.


The next stroke of good luck was running into my longtime friend Gayle (yes, just like Oprah, I have a friend named Gayle), whom I hadn't seen in some time. We did our catching up as we weaved among the many authors, asking about their inspirations and their publishing experience.



It was an interesting mix of the self-published and those with the backing of major publishers. Our first mandatory stop, of course, was to meet Terry Border, author of the quirky Bent Objects. We'd already corresponded via Twitter, so he knew I was coming. We enjoyed hearing about his creative process later during his presentation. He's a former commercial photographer and baker who went from the mundane to doing what he really loves: Making funny scenes with everyday objects and taking photos of them. I predict big things for him.



We also visited with Larry Sweazy, the Noblesville author of The Rattlesnake Season with Penguin. He's got a four-book deal, so he's working on the next installment. (He then chided me for not keeping this blog updated lately. Duly noted.) Next to him was another fellow Macmillan/Pearson alum, Chris Katsaropoulos, who told me he is serializing his entire novel, Fragile, over Twitter to promote it. Wow.

We enjoyed chatting with Scott Sanders about his Arcadia-published book devoted to the history of Burger Chef. Cool! I also had a nice discussion with Andrew Stoner about his book, Notorious 92, chronicling the most heinous murders in each of Indiana's 92 counties.

It was also great to finally meet Julie Young in person after having some online interactions with her last year. She's the author of an Arcadia book Historic Irvington, and A Belief in Providence, about Mother Guerin, Indiana's only saint. Turns out, Julie is writing a video script for my company and invited me to be her Facebook friend.

Last but not least, I had a private audience with Philip Gulley, author of I Love You, Miss Huddleston (and quite a collection of other highly successful books with Harper). I'm sure he wondered at some of my questions, but I was sizing up his book's appropriateness as a gift. He convinced me. I bought it.

Looking back, I enjoyed that the event wasn't overrun with people. But now I hope they had enough book buyers to make it worth their while. I know I came away some $200 lighter in the pocket.

Ch-ch-ch-changes

So, Facebook made some changes to its interface. Now instead of seeing everyone's updates in the same place in real time, there's the News Feed with just the highlights (determined how?), or the Live Feed, which (presumably) has everything. And you've never heard such an outcry. People are whining and joining groups to protest.

I, too, was befuddled. But then I remembered that yes, change is hard, but I can quickly adapt. So I decided not to protest, and rather to just go with it. And it suddenly dawned on me that I can hide all of those Farmtown, Mafia Wars, Yo-Ville, and whatever else notifications without hiding the people themselves. So my experience just got better.

And then suddenly today, Twitter adds the "lists" feature. People can now make lists of related tweeters and follow them all on one screen, filtering out the tweets that come from other categories. This is probably a cool idea. Instead of switching gears all the time while looking at a mixed bag of tweets from, say, career experts, local thought leaders, publishing people, and Pee-Wee Herman, I can sort them out using the lists feature. It's also a way to discover more tweeters that I might like to follow.

Happily, I've been added to four lists myself already:

• @bibliojunkie/library-librarians
• @SusanWhitcomb/career-jobsearch-wisdom
• @kristina64/indiana
• @CFOcoach/colleagues

I have become a follower of these four lists. And maybe when I get back from vacation, I'll take some time and make a few lists of my own.

So see...change is not always bad!

Calling All Twitter Fans

I've been keeping this under my hat, but now that the book has been launched to the trade buyers, I can officially annouce one of the exciting additions to our spring list: The Twitter Job Search Guide. You'd be amazed at how you can make connections and establish your career brand on Twitter. I'm excited and proud that three of the foremost career experts and social media evangelists will be sharing their wisdom in this new book in March.

Meanwhile, they are looking for people just like you to contribute helpful tweets to the book. See their call for contributors. And while you're on Twitter, go ahead and follow all three of these expert authors:

• Susan Britton Whitcomb
• Chandlee Bryan
• Deb Dib

Story of Hope: Marian Uses Online Social Media to Land an Awesome Job

I met Marian Schembari through Twitter last week. She discovered my blog and was excited to find someone else who has been writing about getting a job in publishing. So she followed me on Twitter, I followed her back, and we ended up chatting over e-mail. I checked out her blog and was mightily impressed: Here was someone who had used online networking sites in an innovative way to break into the publishing industry—at a time when, let's face it, jobs are hard to come by.

So I asked her to tell her story here. Check it out and get inspired!

I really wanted to get into publishing. Like, a lot. Never mind that the industry is slowly dying, the economy sucks, I had zero experience and the pay is (and always will be) crap. No, I'm a book lover, and in my naïve - but enthusiastic - mindset, I thought that was all I needed.

So I spent the three months after my May graduation carefully editing my resume, crafting the perfect cover letter, and applying for every single job at every single publisher in New York. I stalked mediabistro and bookjobs, made a ton of contacts and... well, that was pretty much it. I had one interview in 3 months.

I got bored of that real fast. Even though I was working all day every day, I just felt like I was waiting... So I took out a ton of books (of course) from the local library on finding a job, marketing yourself and personal branding. I designed a website with my resume, references and writing samples. Then, with Facebook's enormously helpful targeting options, I was able to post an ad on the profiles of people at places like HarperCollins, Random House, Penguin, Rodale, Macmillan, etc.

And I got responses! At least one person from every publisher I focused on emailed to say they passed on my resume, wanted to meet, or even just to say they liked my idea. The encouragement was fantastic, and within a week I had four interviews and a freelance gig.

Of course, advertising yourself to get a job is a little weird, I have to admit. It's one of those stories you hear about people wearing their resume on a t-shirt or taking cookies to an interview. No one wants to be that person.

Except I was that person. And an article written about my search on the HarperStudio blog resulted in a lot of lovely and encouraging comments (many of which said they weren't hiring. Figures). Only two people were cynical, not much liking my use of wording, but the ad generated much more positive feedback than negative, so I'm over it.

After the novelty of the ads wore off, though, I knew I needed something different to get people's attention. So I started a blog, chronicling my search and talking a little about publishing and where it's headed. Then I (reluctantly) signed up for Twitter, which 1 week later landed me a sweet interview at Penguin.

One month later and I'm employed. Long story short, a woman at Rodale saw my ad, emailed me and thought I should consider book publicity. She passed my resume on to an old employer who ran a book PR firm. One thing led to another and I'm now in my third week as associate publicist.

I couldn't be happier now that I'm officially "in" publishing. I also know I'm enormously lucky. The thing is, I don't actually know one person who's gotten a job the old-fashioned way. Sorry HR, but it's true. Plus, it makes for an interesting story. My campaign made me consider a career I had never considered and now I'm loving it. All in all a pretty successful endeavor.

Be Nice to Everyone, Because You Just Never Know

Last Saturday I went to my salon to get a long-overdue haircut. I've gone to my hairdresser, Kevin, for over a decade. He does a good job; however, the reason I keep coming back is that I like him. He's smart, he's funny, he's edgy. He's also got two little girls, one of them my daughter's age, and we share stories of their precocious escapades.

During the conversation he asked whether I could recommend any good DVDs to rent ("Uh, 'Monsters vs. Aliens'?" I offered). Later he mentioned that his wife, also a stylist, had just returned from New York. She was styling hair for a photo shoot related to Fashion Week.

"Funny thing happened," he said, almost casually. Jen had spent the shoot getting chummy with an older woman whom she didn't recognize. They hit it off quite well, so at the end of the shoot she asked the woman, "So, what do you do?" "I'm the editor of Vogue," she returned.

At this point in the story I nearly jumped out of the chair. "Anna Wintour?" I exclaimed.

"Yeah, I guess that's who she was," Kevin said, somewhat surprised that I knew anything about the fashion world.

"Holy cow, do you know who she is?" I yelled. "She's the one they wrote 'The Devil Wears Prada' about." (Suddenly I did have a video-rental suggestion for him after all.)

"Well, she did have a herd following her around," he said.

Anna was fresh in my mind because I have been reading about "The September Issue," which is a documentary about her and a day in the life of Vogue. Various reports have said she's been showing a nicer side lately, possibly related to the movie release. But I never thought she'd spend a moment being nice to a hairdresser from Fishers, Indiana.

My point? I guess I already said it in the title of this post. You just never know who you might run into in the course of doing your job or looking for work. Being consistently nice might help additional opportunities come your way.

Looking for Me? Try Twitter

Oh, I have been quite remiss in my blogging as of late. It's not that I've written everything that I know (although that's a distinct possibility). It's just that my attention span is shorter these days. If you still want to catch some great career and publishing tidbits, follow me on Twitter: @loricateshand.

I am constantly amazed at all the great links and information that people pass along there. I don't retweet everything I see--just the things that pass my "gee-whiz" test. Occasionally I even write some original stuff. I must say, having to keep things to 140 characters is a real test of my editing abilities. But it's fun.

So, come follow me on Twitter. If your avatar is G-rated and you don't look like a spammer, I will probably follow you back.

O'Reilly's Data Gurus Report on Online Job Market

I have it on good authority that the people at O'Reilly Media are a bunch of stone cold geniuses. So it was a thrill to see Ben Lorica analyzing trends in online job postings in this blog post.

Click through and just take a gander at that first chart. The number of jobs posted online ticked up a bit in July. But look how this entire year is lagging below the preceding three. It's dramatic.

His entire post is full of other good insights, especially the last chart, which shows the percent decline in job postings by state. Places like Oklahoma and Virginia look best, whereas Wyoming, Wisconsin, Minnesota, and DC show postings declining by as much as 58%.

What Ben and the rest of us know, of course, is that not all job openings get posted online--or posted at all, for that matter. You'll fare much better if you can use your network to root out the jobs that haven't been posted yet. But his statistics are an interesting snapshot of one aspect of the current job market. Thanks for sharing, Ben!

Hey, Unemployed Journalists: Join the Dark Side

Last week's Gannett newspaper layoffs were upsetting in many ways. It was tangible evidence of an evaporating career field, not to mention a blow to the quality and depth of the local news in nearly 100 U.S. cities. I began to wonder what will happen to all the journalists, left free-falling without an abundance of desirable career options. (And always in the back of my mind is the idea that book publishing is not far behind on the continuum.)

But along comes David Meerman Scott, writing for EconentMag.com, with an idea of how to use your journalism skills at private corporations, nonprofits, educational institutions, and government agencies (see the article here). Although media relations has always been a good tangential option, that's not what he's talking about. He's talking about using your storytelling skills to create internal and web content that educates and informs various audiences. And he says your skills are badly needed now.

Scott admits that many journalists will see working for a corporation as selling out, but argues that it doesn't have to be like that if you adjust your thinking and align things correctly.

He doesn't go into great detail about how to get these types of jobs, however. But for now, maybe it's enough just to open the door a crack and get people thinking in that direction. Work your extensive networks and try to set up meetings with people in charge of corporate communications and web content at companies you admire in your area. Be open to the idea of working as a contractor for more than one company. Open your mind and explore your options.

Meanwhile, if you're feeling cynical about journalism, enjoy this modest proposal, from Richard Sine in the Huffington Post, who says we need to close the journalism schools and stop cranking out more gullible media hopefuls into a dying industry.

Wiley Is All a-Twitter

Just this morning I had a reader asking me about Wiley's journals division (about which I know nothing). And then I log into Twitter and see a tweet from Ellen Gerstein (@elleinthecity) pointing me to this list of Wiley's official tweeters on Julia Lampam's blog.

This is a good way for Wiley's various divisions to promote their books and their brands. But it's also a good way for you to get the inside scoop about who they are and what they do. I urge you to follow as many of them as interest you.

JIST Is on Facebook

I'm happy to report that JIST Publishing is now on Facebook. Our awesome publicist, Selena Dehne, has set up a page for us and is updating it with all sorts of useful information on careers, our authors, and our books. Look us up and become a fan!

20 Facebook Apps for Your Job Search

Oh no! Someone's trying to turn the Facebook party into a work party! Amid all the fun and games, it seems there is real professional networking value to be found on Facebook. AskBINC, a recruiter/technology blog, becomes the official wet blanket with this post: 20 Facebook Applications to Assist in Your Job Search.

A quick skim reveals that all the major job boards and aggregators will let you put a jobs feed on your page--helpful, I guess, if you use Facebook like a home page. I'll have to study all of these further; for now, the idea of adding a link to my LinkedIn profile, which I've worked much harder on, sounds like the biggest winner of the bunch.

Lest you pooh-pooh the idea of the professional value of networking on Facebook, I have to brag that yesterday I was able to connect a friend in need of legal services with a relative who is a lawyer--all because of Facebook. There is wheat among the chaff!

Thanks to @lindseypollak for her timely tweet on the subject just minutes ago!

LinkedIn Usage Up 22 Percent

Just read this nice article from NJ.com. The increase in people looking for work has resulted in a lot more time spent on business networking sites like LinkedIn, which had 33 million users at the end of last year. LinkedIn has also seen a 65 percent increase in the number of recommendations posted by users on behalf of other users. My guess is that two things are happening there:

• People looking for work (or fearing that they will have to soon) are soliciting recommendations from coworkers.
• Coworkers are posting recommendations for their fallen comrades in hopes of helping them land on their feet.

The article makes a funny distinction between Facebook and LinkedIn: The former is like a party; the latter is like an office party. Big difference! Personally, I've been so enthralled with the randomness of Facebook that I am in danger of ignoring LinkedIn. But, I know that's going to even out when the newness wears off.

Kudos to JibberJobber blogger Jason Alba for getting a plug for his book in this article. As I told him when I met him at a conference this past year, he's ubiquitous!

Social Media Update: Taking the Twitter Plunge

Less than two weeks after being assimilated into the hive-mind that is Facebook, I took another big step and signed up for Twitter. My resistance was futile. I was afraid I was missing something.

When I signed up, I let it search my e-mail address book for my Twittering friends. I chose to follow more than 40 of them to start. A few of them reciprocated. My idea is to just read and learn from others for a while. I've tweeted a few things, but am not sure where I want to go with it. So don't expect too many pearls of wisdom just yet.

I'm having a lot more fun with Facebook. After the first rush of connecting with everyone in my address book, things have slowed down a little. But still, every day I run across (or am run across by) someone dear from my past whom I didn't expect to hear from again in my lifetime. I love getting back up to speed with everyone through their status reports and posted photos. Believe it or not, I'm even feeling closer to my sister and my husband now that I see what they're posting! What a darn hilarious bunch those Facebookers are!

A professional contact did me a favor and advised me to classify my friends into folders, so that I'm not sending inanity to the career professionals who've connected with me. So I guess that's how you manage to keep your business and your fun separated. Still, I won't be posting anything too incriminating, anyway.

Awright, Awright: I've Joined Facebook

I got another invitation to join Facebook this morning and before I realized what I was doing, I had joined. It was kind of like the first time I voted for Bill Clinton: Some force outside myself seemed to make me do it, even though I had reservations in the back of my mind. In retrospect, I think the good of Bill outweighed the bad. And that's what I hope will happen with Facebook as well.

Already I've connected with several of my authors and got a vital piece of PR info from one of them, who might not have thought to send it along had she not gotten an invite from me this morning. Plus, I figured out how to block my stalker, so it's all good so far.

If we haven't already connected, send me an invite!

And if you're wondering about my profile photo: It's my little girl's recent abdominal x-ray. It seemed just bizarre enough to keep everyone guessing. I'll replace it with something less kooky soon.

Ellen Gerstein on Social Networking at Work

Hurray for Ellen, a marketing manager at Wiley, for her stance on allowing employees to access social networking sites at work. She says it's beneficial for the company and helps broaden people's knowledge of what their customers are thinking and doing. She cites a fellow Wiley manager in the UK, who encourages her employees to spend an hour a day surfing the Web, picking up new ideas and connecting with customers in new ways.

There are plenty of Luddites out there who think that time on the Internet is wasted time. I will allow that it's easy to get off track, and those who blog and tweet about personal things while on the clock should probably not. But how are we going to understand our customers if we don't meet them where they are: online?

Here are just a few ways that using the Internet at work makes me a better editor/product manager:

• Fact-checking: If an author uses a dubious-looking spelling of a brand name, I can go right to the source and verify it.
• Continuing education: I have learned more about publishing technology and business from publishing blogs than I have ever learned at my own company. How amazing is it that people are willing to give free advice on what works for them and what doesn't?
• Author search and credential-checking: When I'm proactively trolling for new authors, I can use blogs and LinkedIn to get leads. And if I'm reviewing a proposal, I can evaluate an author's profile by googling them.
• Polling: If I have a particularly thorny question, I can poll my network and get advice and opinions.

What ways do you use the Internet and social networking to improve your job performance?