ABPA Video Work

The American Book Producers Association (ABPA) has monthly brown-bag lunches and has recently started offering the video for people who want to view remotely. The password to view the full 70 minute video is available for $10 by emailing the ABPA.

I've created videos for the following Brown Bag Lunches:

November 2009 - Jan Constantine, General Counsel for the Authors Guild Discusses the Google Class Action Suit and Settlement

December 2009 - Kate Klimo of Random House and Andrea Davis Pinkney of Scholastic Discuss Packagers and Publishers Working Together on Juvenile Books

February 2010 - Will Schwalbe, Founder and CEO of Cookstr.com Discusses Web Companies and Book Publishers Working Together

I shoot these using my personal hand-held digital camera to capture both the audio and the video, so the quality is not as professional as my other work. That said, the quality of the information is fantastic and these videos are a goldmine of expert advice and insight into the changing landscape of the publishing world.

The Davids - 2010 - I won!

Read the official post and look at the photos on the Penguin Blog!

I am a winner!!! My video and audio work was nominated for the "Davids" (think the Emmys but awarded by the Penguin CEO David Shanks) in three of the four categories: Best Short Video, Best "From the Publisher's Office" Radio Episode, and Best On-Screen or On-Air Personality. And not to be cliche, but it was really an honor to have been nominated in so many categories!

I actually won for Best Short Video. Elda Rotor of Penguin Classics and I were both honored with a David Award for The 10 Essential Classics! The whole Penguin Online team pitched in as extras, production assistants—and practically the whole company showed to film the party scene. I sincerely thank everyone for the hard work they put in to this project. Here is some surprising insider news (or maybe not so surprising, if you've ever read an interview with an Emmy winner): the little golden statue is really pretty heavy!

And yeah, it's a little like The Dundees, laugh it up, but whatever! This award is for something slightly more relevant than the "whitest sneakers" or whatever award Pam won. Plus, I have another feather in my cap: the other videos that were up for this award were totally created by professional videographers (at least that's what I've been told). The 10 Essentials video was written, filmed, and edited by... me! With plenty of help from the company, my department and Penguin Classics, of course.

I'm very proud and very humbled to be in the midst of so much talent. It's actually not at all shocking to learn that publishers make good video producers. Making a video is like weaving a story, and the people of publishing are master storytellers. Publishing attracts those lovers of literature who know how to establish place and time and mood through small details, and how to compose funny dialogue, and how to build up to a powerful climax and then resolve the action to the satisfaction of the viewers or readers. The people who work in publishing are old hats at telling a good story and now that they've gotten a handle on the newfangled moving picture machines, they're going to be unstoppable! Hollywood, here we come.

The video below was taken on my mobile phone by my nice boss and I've uploaded it here. My speech is the first one after the announcer talks about the nominees and then the president announces the winner, 10 Essential Classics. My co-winner, Elda Rotor, has a much more composed speech after mine. I just pretty much shout, "YEAH Penguin!" I hope to have a better video to post eventually, but for now, this gives you the gist of the whole thing.