Joe Wikert's Publishing 2020 Blog

Heaven and Hell, by Don Felder

I always figured Don Henley and Glenn Frey were egomaniacs...Don Felder's tell-all book called Heaven and Hell not only confirmed my assumption but provided loads of details to back it up.  Wow.  I know the money was great and all but I still can't understand how Felder survived all those years with these guys.

When I first opened this book I assumed I would skip whatever pre-Eagles coverage Felder offered and jump right in to the Hotel California era.  I also thought I'd cut it short and not bother reading much beyond the band's first breakup.  Much to my surprise, I started reading about Felder's childhood on page one and was immediately hooked.  The guy has led a fascinating life and it's remarkable how many other well-known musicians he's stumbled across over the years.  Growing up in Gainesville gave him access to bands like The Allman Brothers and he was even Tom Petty's first guitar teacher.

While the early years of Felder's life were more interesting than I originally figured, the book really shines when he hooks up with The Eagles after they've had a taste of success in 1974.  Hotel California is one of my favorite albums and probably the only one I care much about from The Eagles.  The story of how that album was made, and how that song was written, is riveting.  Felder takes you behind the scenes of tours, studio sessions and traveling with the band.  You get the impression you're right there in the same room with these guys.  The book is exceptionally well-written.

I finished reading it last night and I'm still marvelling at how Henley, Frey and the band's manager (Irving Azoff) railroaded Felder into a much smaller cut of the proceeds towards the end.  And yes, I realize Henley and Frey were the two "faces" of the band and they had much more successful solo careers than Felder, but still...I'll bet Paul and John never hosed George and Ringo like that.  When you see these mega-bands from the '70's reuniting for "one final farewell tour" and ticket prices are well north of $100 it's hard to look at it as anything other than greed.  Heaven and Hell will reinforce that notion, particularly when it comes to Don Henley, Glenn Frey and Irving Azoff.  No matter how much you liked (or even disliked) The Eagles, Heaven and Hell is a very worthwhile read and sheds much light on the '70's music scene.

Random Thoughts

Lots of little things bouncing around in my head today...

First up, my employer, John Wiley & Sons, Inc., just reported outstanding results for the fiscal year we completed on 4/30.  Congrats to the entire Wiley team!

Next up, Don Felder's Heaven and Hell.  Who's he?  The guy from The Eagles who wasn't Don Henley, Glen Frey, Joe Walsh, Randy Meisner or Timothy B. Schmit.  Seriously, every time I watched their Hell Freezes Over DVD I kept asking myself...who is that guy?!  Well, it turns out he's an incredible author with a fascinating story to tell.  Wiley recently published Felder's Heaven and Hell and a copy hit my desk last week.  Bear in mind I was a bit of an Eagles fan, but not a huge one.  I totally love the Hotel California album but that's about it for me.  When I started reading this I thought I'd be bored by the story of Felder's youth and all the pre-Eagles coverage.  Wow, was I wrong.  His story is fascinating from page one and the writing is exceptional.  I'm not quite halfway through it and can't wait to read more.  I'll have a full review shortly but if the rest is half as good as what I've already read this one will quickly become one of my all-time favorites.

Another interesting new book showed up on my front porch yesterday as well.  It's called The PITA Principle: How to Work with and Avoid Becoming a Pain in the Ass and I first heard of it via Lori Cates and her Publishing Careers blog.  She sent me a galley of the book and I can't wait to dig into it.  (Current Wiley colleagues and former colleagues from elsewhere...please hold all your jokes about how much of a PITA I can be from time to time...remember, I'm moderating all comments here.)

Speaking of PITA's, how about that wacky HSE School Board?  They're at it again.  First they blow money right and left on severance packages and now the local paper had to save them from making the incredibly embarassing mistake of offering the superintendent job to a candidate whose previous employer paid a settlement on a sexual harassment lawsuit that he was facing.  Given all the recent gaffes I figured this would be a tough slot to fill.  The new superintendent will either have baggage, like this one did, or they haven't studied the history close enough to know they should run from the opportunity.  And who's the recruiter the Board has working on this?!  Jeez, are they unable to do simple background checks?  Oh, HSE School Board, is their any type of embarssment you're unwilling to bring upon yourselves?

Somewhere, Chris Anderson is Smiling

Kevin Maney wrote an article called Free for All which has plenty of relevance to the book publishing world and appears in the June issue of Portfolio magazine.  Maney talks about how the music industry needs to stop fooling itself and start giving songs away for free.  Sponsorships, concerts and sales of other related items will drive revenues, so drop the song price to zero and dramatically broaden your audience.

The thinking is consistent with what Chris Anderson spoke of in his Wired article earlier this year.  And while I think it's an extremely viable option, it's not the only one...and it may not even turn out to be the most popular one in the long run.  My gut tells me we should all be experimenting with free content models to see what we can learn and what our audience prefers, but it should only be one approach out of many that any good book publisher should explore.

Speaking of which, our group here at Wiley realizes we need to experiment with non-traditional content delivery models.  We've been hard at work on a number of e-content initiatives over the past couple of years and several of them are now out of beta and available for general use.  I've added this page to my blog where you can see the complete list.  I'll add to that page as we launch new products, so stay tuned for even more new ventures on this front.

The White Book, by Ken Mansfield

Just when you thought you had read and seen everything about The Beatles...  Author Ken Mansfield provides one of the more entertaining and fascinating books about the Fab Four in years.  The White Book isn't just another Beatles book because Mansfield isn't just another music critic with a new angle; he's the guy who used to run the U.S. arm of Apple Records, the label started by The Beatles.

The White Book is loaded with stories and photos that I've never seen before, and believe me when I tell you I've gone through my share of Beatles books.  In addition to the many unique photos of the band, there are also pictures of memorabilia and letters.  It was interesting to read not just the facts about each event/document but Mansfield's behind-the-scenes explanations, the real insider's perspective.

Mansfield's music experience isn't limited to The Beatles and neither is the coverage in this book.  He dedicates the latter part of the book to his work with other big names such as James Taylor, Waylon Jennings, David Cassidy and several others.  The White Book is a wonderful book and one that every Beatle fan needs for their collection.

All You Can Eat iTunes: What Could It Mean for Books?

There's renewed speculation that Apple could be working on an unlimited music subscription model similar to the Rhapsody model.  The deal appears to hinge on Apple sharing part of the hardware sales revenue with the record labels.

As I mentioned in this post late last year, an unlimited content model for books could be a very interesting option for the Kindle.  Amazon probably wouldn't be too keen on sharing their hardware revenue with publishers but if it makes sense in the music world...

As long as Amazon is unable to keep up with Kindle backorders they probably have no incentive to consider a service like this.  But once manufacturing catches up with demand this could be the spark that really ignites the e-book market.  And keep in mind it would just be another option for customers to consider.  Kindle owners would be free to buy one book at a time as they always have, just like Apple would still offer single track sales even if they eventually add an all-you-can-eat option to iTunes.

Why I'm Probably Dropping XM Radio in 2008 (Hint: Zune Rocks!)

I owe Microsoft a huge apology.  I poked fun at them 18 months ago when they announced their Zune product.  To be fair, the first generation of the Zune was kind of laughable and it didn't take off.  That was then and this is now...

My son asked for an 80-gig Zune for Christmas and we wound up getting him one.  I couldn't understand why he was so interested in the Zune, but once he opened it and got it up and running I finally understood.  What a cool product.  The features are admittedly similar to what you'd find on an iPod, but with one significant difference: Correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm pretty sure you can't get an all-you-can-download subscription model on iTunes.  That's the key feature that's likely to win me over.

I mentioned my interest in unlimited content in this post last month.  I'm bringing it up again because I've now had my XM Radio device for a couple of years and I find myself using it less and less.  Why?  The channels are starting to sound like the same old thing, just like terrestrial radio.  XM is still light years better than the old AM/FM combo, but it's not the perfect solution for my musical interests.  I find myself wanting to press fast-forward far too frequently when listening to an XM station.  It's live radio though so that's not possible, of course.  For roughly the same monthly fee I pay XM today I could load up an 80-gig monster Zune and fast-forward to my heart's content.

Unfortunately, I won't be upgrading to a Zune anytime soon.  I simply don't have enough in my piggy bank to come close to the $250 price tag, I'm afraid.  Besides, I'm still getting a lot of mileage out of my "El Cheapo" MP3 player.  My hope is to scrape together enough nickels and dimes to get an 80-gig Zune later this year.  When I do, I'll see what I can get for my XM Inno on eBay.

In the mean time, Microsoft, I'm sorry.  You really surprised me with this very cool product.

David Byrne Summarizes Music Industry

David Byrne (of Talking Heads fame) wrote an excellent Wired article summarizing the current state of the music industry.  He compares and contrasts six different distribution models and highlights the level of artist control in each.  For anyone who thinks iTunes is the artists salvation, be sure to check out the illustrations Byrne provides; they indicate that the inefficient CD distribution model is generally more lucrative for the artists, even with a higher artist royalty rate for iTunes sales.

As you read this article, think about the book publishing world, print vs. e-content, online vs. brick-and-mortar distribution, etc.  There are a number of differences, for sure, but there are quite a few parallels as well.

Who Needs a Pricey iPod? Not Me!

I'm a big fan of the Creative Labs family of MP3 players.  My 40-gig Creative player is now 3 or 4 years old and works as well as the day I bought it.  My son has one too and my daughters both have Flash RAM models that they absolutely love.

I found myself in the local Apple store recently and was enamored with the iPod touch product.  Very cool, but I couldn't see myself taking that $300+ device out with me while I mow the lawn, for example.  (On a related note, I asked a co-worker this week if he is an Apple fan.  He said he must be, because his family owns 4 iPods, but then he also noted that 3 of the 4 are broken...)

I've been thinking about getting a smaller player that fits in my shirt pocket but I hate it that all the Flash-based ones have such limited capacity.  I keep wishing someone would include an SD card slot to address this issue.  Yeah, I know...the manufacturers want us to feel the need to upgrade from 2 gigs to 4, 4 gigs to 8, etc.

My wish came true this week.  Fry's is selling a 1-gig player with an SD slot from GPX for $19.99.  Yes, that's right.  $19.99.  This thing is as ugly as the iPod is beautiful, but I don't care.  I'm not going to sit around staring at it all day.  I just want it to produce great sound.  And boy, does it ever!

I loaded it up last night and then stopped back by Fry's this morning to pick up the first of 2 or 3 2-gig SD cards (on sale for $14.99).  I plan to load them up with different genres of music so I can just pop one in to fit my mood, press "random" and enjoy my wonderfully inexpensive solution.

If I buy 2 more cards I will have invested $65 plus tax and probably won't need to buy another device for another 3 or 4 years, depending on how long this one lasts.  Heck, even if it only lasts a year, for $20, how could I possibly complain?!

62% Paid Nothing for Radiohead Album

An experiment like the Radiohead project is bound to have pros and cons.  This report indicates that 62% of those who downloaded the album in a 4-week period last month didn't pay anything for it.  The price they chose was zero.  That was certainly a viable option, although it's disappointing to see that the majority chose it.

Does that make this experiment a failure?  Far from it.  There are a lot of numbers swirling around out there and even if you could pinpoint the total revenue to date, don't you need to wait and add in the sales from the physical CD product to get the full picture?  The band certainly came out ahead for every copy that was bought at a price higher than their per-unit royalty amount.  And who knows how many people will come back and buy the physical CD/box product after downloading the music alone

Based on what I've seen so far I think this was a worthwhile venture for the band and I'll bet they agree.  But, it's important to factor in the CD sales before making any sort of judgment.  More importantly, what about all those people who never listened to Radiohead before, downloaded the album for free and are now fans, ready to buy future products, attend concerts, etc.?  We'll never know the impact of this segment.

Booksquare on Radiohead and Stephen King

Kassia Krozser writes the Booksquare blog, one of the most insightful and entertaining publishing blogs on the planet.  In a post from earlier this week she talks about the successful recent Radiohead experiment and compares it to the not so successful Stephen King experiment with The Plant several years ago.

Kassia stresses the importance of using a model like this to build a mailing list and selling other products and services.  I couldn't agree more, but, I also feel something is missing here.  All these authors out there, struggling on their own to build enough traffic, repeat visitors and visibility seems like a formula for frustration if not failure.

I'm wondering if a better model isn't one where authors work together to create a single site where all of them can reach out together.  HarperCollins is doing this with their AuthorAssistant program, but even that might be too narrowly focused; if you're not an HC author where can you turn, for example?

So here's an idea for some enterprising person: Create a site where all authors can come and create their online presence, build their mailing lists, offer their additional content, etc.  Offer useful templates and examples newbies can use to help them build their site as quickly as possible.  There's strength in numbers with this and a federation of author sites is likely to be much more successful than everyone trying to do it on their own.  Plus, if designed properly, this site could help introduce visitors to new authors/books that they otherwise might never have come across.  Think of the sizable mailing list this could generate...