Thanks to everyone who listened yesterday to our live call-in show on BlogTalkRadio.com. I promised you more before we got cutoff, and I will deliver shortly. Alexa and I recorded an additional 37 minutes of content immediately afterward, which I will post as soon as I overcome some small technical issues. (Hopefully today – Thursday, November 6th. Just subscribe to my feed if you don’t want to miss it.)

Thanks again to Alexa Clark of MiniBookExpo.com, and to Renee Shupe for producing the show for us. This worked so well that all three of us agreed that we’d like to do more. Much more! Stay tuned to the player here on this blog for a complete playlist of all past and future broadcasts.

While browsing in Borders this evening here in Las Vegas, I took a few moments to notice what other customers were passing up, picking up, and buying up.

Fresh off the press is the latest from journalist Bill O’Reilly. Now, I don’t know if other people were picking up this hardback because of the author, because of a nicely designed cover, or because of the subliminal messages associated with the colour red on the cover, but I sure know why I picked it up: it was the only book on the rack with the price on the front.

While all the other books have their prices displayed on a tiny-print label on the back of the book (which I need my glasses to read, and I know I’m not the only one…), O’Reilly’s latest proudly displays the price of a lousy $14.95 – roughly half of many other books on the shelf.

Why is O’Reilly (or his publisher) doing this? Because of the first two laws of modern marketing, and for that matter, modern writing. The first is, “Know Thy Market”, and the second is “Be Transparent”.

Who is buying this book? Conservative parents, teachers, and anyone who cares about kids. That’s about half of America. The underlying message of a smaller price tag is that the book is not complicated, nor does it take long to read, nor to implement any of whatever recommended strategies that it may contain. It’s for people who care about kids, with no time or money. Gee, do any of us know somebody that doesn’t fall into that bracket?

Transparency is important here, too. O’Reilly is already an author with a proven track record, whether you agree with his editorial position or not. But break it down: the book is thin – only about 150-ish pages. The layout is freakin’ brilliant: clear pages, large-ish typeface, cleverly stylish larger-than-required page numbers, and a clear heirarchy that is demonstrated by well-written headlines positioned in a layout that allows the content to be easily absorbed by any reader. You quickly realize that the price is just the cherry on the cake, the closing proposition. The message all of this sends is that O’Reilly is just a guy with a few opinions, and here they are laid out in black and white, and I’m not hiding behind a huge price tag or a thick book, and aren’t I a nice wholesome American, etc. Let’s face it: we eat this stuff up with a spoon and spread it on toast.

Right next to this book is one that almost made me swallow my gum: “Sarah: How a Hockey Mom Turned the Political Establishment Upside Down”. Poor Ms. Palin, who already has credibility problems up the yin-yang, has her pathetic little biography, printed on crappy pulp and bound in a thin wobbly paperback cover, right next to Mr. O’Reilly. And for virtually the same price! When I read the title and saw the piteous photo of her on the cover, I felt bad enough, but that limp little volume with the awful title almost reduced me to tears. I gently put it back on the shelf, and tidied the rest of the sagging pile of them.

No matter what my feelings about either of these subjects (and by the way, I’m no fan of either O’Reilly or Palin – I’d rather elect Tina Fey) I must objectively admire O’Reilly for his clever strategic thinking.

Let’s do the math…

recession = fear / brings out our protective instincts : find validation in well-packaged opinions that make us feel better about our fear. Mr. O’Reilly definitely knows his factors.

For a number of years, I’ve had a long internal debate about what makes a good working schedule for a writer, and a book I’m currently reading has an interesting comment on the topic. Robert’s Rules of Writing, by the witty Robert Masello, is making quite an impression on me, and not just about writing schedules. Masello is the author of a number of books, three of which (including this one) are about writing itself. He’s a hardworking professional author, and he knows what it takes to actually make a living in this crazy racket.

For fiction authors, writing schedules are a very big deal, because when you write about something that comes out of your own brain, you tend to spend far to much time alone with just you and your brain. Sitting in dark rooms sipping coffee until 4 am is not a healthy lifestyle, at least, not for extended periods. (By the way, Masello agrees with me on that.)

I’ve heard a variety of testaments from writers about their routines. Some write strictly from time X to time Y, then walk the dog, go to the library, the park, the coffee joint, etc., and then return to their desks, write another Z number of words, etc. Personally, this level of rigidity has never worked for me. I often rely on random inspiration for creative writing, and my non-fiction work also relies on inspiration, although it’s often much less random. I just can’t sit down at 8am each morning and produce good stuff.

Masello’s comment about routines is typical of the rest of the book: he’s clear, concise, and delightfully opinionated. He states, “The hard part of writing isn’t scribbling words on a page. The hard part is scribbling words that mean something, that make sense, that build a narrative or lay out an argument, that construct a scene or articulate a position. It’s not about how many pages you can cover with ink in a day. In some cases, a good day’s work might be a couple of paragraphs. But if those two paragraphs are right, then they’re a lot more valuable than ten or twenty pages of idle burbling.”

He closes that page the way he closes each chapter or “rule”, with a clear statement in bold type, as per, “Writing takes deliberation and thought, craft and commitment.” Sounds like Masello’s no more in favour of writing schedules than I am.