The sweat-laborer of the publishing industry

Who makes a book’s index?

I had no idea. I just hoped and prayed that it wouldn’t fall on my shoulders. I am anything but organized and deciding what should or should not be listed in the index sounded like an impossible task. Have you ever really look at an index?

I posed the question to my editor:

KT: Do I have to do the Index?

Editor: No, the Indexers will do that.

KT: There are Indexers?

Editor: Yep, they are pretty much the garment workers of the publishing industry.

Who knew? There is even an American Society of Indexers. They have conferences. Boy, those must be a hoot….

Honoring me or a coincidence?

Today, is the Chinese New Year, but since today was yesterday in China that means 1.3 billion Chinese were bringing in the New Year on my birthday. So, I ask, does the New Year just happen to fall on my birthday or is the world’s most populous nation honoring my recent visit?…

It’s my birthday…how about a gift?

I’m beginning to learn that there is more work to writing a book than the actual writing. There’s the propositioning of other authors for blurbs to be included on the book, there’s the marketing considerations, and there’s the cover.

My publisher will primarily be taking care of the cover, but they asked me if I had any ideas, which was nice of them. I sent them a few pics of the workers and their homes and then they told me that we can’t use people on the cover. Then I directed them to the ultimate WAIW? slideshow to see if anything struck their fancy. So, I wasn’t much help. Here I’ve been thinking about all of the words that go in the book and…

7-year old naps with 16-foot python in Cambodia

This is unbelievable. Someone needs to send in the Supernanny….

A thousand words…Garment Factory Owner

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Homemade clothes

I was at Hobby Lobby today and while Annie was shopping I looked around. I stumbled into the “make your own clothes” section and started looking at fabric. It was all made overseas, from Japan, China, Pakistan, all over the place. Even if you tried to remove yourself from the garment industry by making your own clothes, the stuff you use to make your clothes will be made by people much less fortunate….

Notes to aspiring writers

Notes to Aspiring Writers

I had a fella email me today that is trying to break into writing, specifically travel writing.  I decided to paste my response here.  I’ll continue to update this and use it to direct future “how the hell do I get published” queries.

I think that every writer has their own path to getting published.  No book or website or email can tell you what exactly will work for you; in fact, they often distract us from what’s most important – actually writing.

My path went something like this…

At first, I traveled for traveling’s sake. To experience the freedom of the open road and all that jazz. I was a bum. It was pure. It was beautiful. And then, the writing bug bit me and now travel plays…

The narrative journalism oath

1/29/08
Karl Schoenberger author of Levi’s Children: coming to terms with human rights in the global marketplace on narrative journalism:

“When the human rights narrative abandons the pretext of objectivity and crosses over into the realm of pure entertainment, it can become as preposterous as it is insidious.

The problem begins with the occasional purple-prose narrative journalism that reveals shocking tales of egregious human rights violations but neglects to follow up on the factual chain of events or to place the sordid tale into a broader context. The consumer of a newspaper article or a TV newsmagazine expose feels absolved of personal responsibility after experiencing a delicious emotional revulsion to the outrage, without being asked to think about how to prevent it from happening again. For an ephemeral moment,…

Pray to Jesus, Obama ain't one of 'em Muslims

Barak Obama isn’t Muslim.

You can ask him. He’ll tell you.

Neither am I. But I’ve spent a lot of time around Muslims whose moral fabric, ethics, and patriotism were as good, if not better than most Americans.

The emails circulating around the country saying that Obama is a Muslim are a blight on our political process and an insult to the American people.

It’s disturbing that accusations of belonging to a certain religion have any positive or negative value whatsoever in politics. Whatever happened to religious freedom or all that equality mumbo jumbo in the constitution?

Obama vehemently denies the accusations, stating that he has attended the same Christian church for over twenty years and that he prays to Jesus. He does it eloquently and, unfortunately, he has had…

A thousand words…a game, a smoke, and some groceries

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