It’s not that I confuse one for the other. It’s that when calling up the mental image of Batali, my brain likes to skip on over to Warren too and vice versa. (Synapses misfiring?) Perhaps a neuroscientist can explain all this to me.

Another possibility is that these men share traits in common besides endomorphic body types, and on some intuitive level I know this but can’t articulate it. In any event, here’s evidence that I’m not completely insane.

PS. I almost titled this post “Girth of a Salesman.” But I thought better of it. But not better enough not to include this note.

Practically every example of that genre, no matter how shrewd or rich its survey of the question at hand, finishes with an obligatory prescription that is utopian, banal, unhelpful or out of tune with the rest of the book. When it comes to social criticism, no one, it seems, has an exit strategy….

The weakness of last chapters is in large part a function of the sheer difficulty of devising answers to complex social problems that are sound, practicable and not blindingly obvious. Besides, those who give the most subtle diagnoses may not have the problem-solving disposition needed to come up with concrete, practical recommendations.

But if the rousing what-to-do chapter is usually so disappointing, why do so many books include them? One reason is that editors expect them. [emphasis mine] The journalist Michelle Goldberg conceived her first book, “Kingdom Coming: The Rise of Christian Nationalism” (2006), as a work of reportage on a subculture of growing political influence. She hardly felt qualified to lay out an agenda for curbing the power of the religious right, but “one of my editors insisted I do it,” she recalled in a recent interview. Inevitably, reviewers called her on it, with one mocking her proposal that liberals seeking to maintain church-state separation should “win their neighbors over, not just beat them in court.”

I’d lay part of the blame on publishers, too. When I worked at Basic Books, the push for prescriptive last chapters had gotten so out of hand that during title meetings we’d joke about adding WITH SURPRISING SOLUTIONS FOR YOU AND YOUR FAMILY! to the end of every subtitle, and calling it a day. Lunch was getting cold. Plus, consumers wanted answers! The average American wouldn’t buy books that didn’t offer solutions! That was the perpetual, exhausting, overwhelming drumbeat. And editors and marketers repeatedly caved to this pressure, though not without self-awareness and some, I think it’s safe to say, regret.

And I suppose now’s a fine time to dust off some cuteness by Michael Kinsley:

[Click to enlarge. Even still you may have to zoom in.]

But people read words, not boxes. It strikes me as weird, if not totally ass-backwards, to create boxes first, and promise yourself you’ll ponder the words to fill them later. 

Because say you create three boxes, but once you start crafting your message, it’s obvious that everything you have to say can fit in one? Say you’ve four boxes, plus the technology to push updates onto Twitter and Facebook, but haven’t figured out who at the organization will be Tweeting, how often, and in what voice, and you’ve really, now that you think about it, only two “types” of “content,” leaving you unsure of what to do with those two extra boxes?

Starting with wireframes before a GREAT deal of thought is given to text also creates busywork down the line. If your home page has six boxes, and you’d like to keep your page looking fresh so as to reward repeat visitors with new and dazzling information, you now have six content that require regular updating.

One solution (and I really need to think more about this) is to encourage more organizations companies to start , at least, envisioning the traditional blog model that sites like the Atlantic use well: one central column that provides many chewy things to read, can be updated often, and then a top banner and sidebar populated with custom categories that link to pages and older (but still relevant) content.

Some of them are expressing real significant concern [that] you can only retrain people so much. People aren’t ready to be retrained, or don’t even have the baseline skills needed to go from being a publicity manager for titles to being someone who follows Twitter and promotes activity on a Facebook page. Those are very different skill sets.

Because the baseline skills needed to follow someone on Twitter are, um…. But basically I think McQuivey’s saying that CEOs are cracking their knuckles in anticipation of laying-off well-compensated senior staff members who are discovering that their ability to get a Today Show producer on the phone doesn’t command as much respect or dollars as it once did.

About that prospect, I feel total ambivalence. But the notion that individuals with ample experience and demonstrated dedication cannot be or aren’t “ready” to be retrained is grotesque. It’s simply a prissy / Victorian way of saying that bosses would prefer to replace these publicity managers with younger staffers paid one-fourth of their predecessor’s salary. Yay, progress!

At 7:15 a.m. I was not awake enough for that sentence. The existence of the “Fat Controller” was also news to me.

Earlier:

As long as I’m keeping a running list, cont. II

As long as I’m keeping a running list, cont.

As long as I’m keeping a running list of “how to be useful” mentions…

Sting contemplates his new Christmas album

When you’re a scrappy upstart working alone and your education in an industry (in this case, publishing) is incremental and goal-driven, not process-driven, are you better equipped to innovate? Most professional training is on-the-job and formulated along the “this is how we do X” model. This is how we write a press release, this is how we craft jacket copy, and so on.

But if you — knowing little or nothing about industry procedure, and having no institutional inertia at your back — had to drum up attention for an author or book, would you even decide to write a press release?

Or would you adopt other means?

Yes, I drew these. No, I do not remember the inspiration, if that word even applies here. Heh.