Flashes of Panic

Or perhaps I’m just idealistic about my workplaces until I’ve been there long enough to get really sour.

Going from magazines to textbooks included a certain change in tolerance. In magazines, no matter what happened, there was another one next month. One accepted the idea that the bulk of your work (in print) would be recycled fairly quickly. In textbooks, even the fastest-revising title will be on sale for at least two years, and on bookshelves much longer. The printer’s schedule is just as tight, but the imperative to get it right this time, because it will be a colossal pain to correct it later, is much greater.

Also, going from consumer-oriented publications to a relatively narrow segment of the already constrained academic market changes the attitude of both readers and authors. The readers have higher expectations of us, for certain. The authors… well, this morning FedEx delivered a cheesecake and a large collection of bagels from two authors whose volume recently emerged from the printers. That never happens in magazine publishing.

On a side note regarding my former employers, yesterday someone found this site with the search query “runnersworld safari os x.” I guess that makes three of us, at least?

Now playing: Someone Special from Hindsight (Disc 2) by The Church