On April 30, 2006, FDL held its first Book Salon, appropriately for Markos Moulitsas and Jerome Armstrong’s Crashing the Gate. I wanted to see if we could use the internet, and a large online audience, to counter the influence of conservative book clubs and publishers like Regnery that could buy Ann Coulter or Bill O’Reilly a place on the New York Times best seller list.
The concept was simple: once a week we would invite authors on to FDL to talk about their book, throw up a link to a place where people could buy it, and let readers ask questions of them. Initially we explored one book over the course of two weeks in the hope that they would develop as a sort of weekend reading group, but the vast number of commenters hadn’t read the books but wanted to interact with authors anyway. The demand for slots on the salon became so great that we had to go to one book each week, and then we had to go to two days each week, and sometimes three or four, in order to fit everyone in.
To say that it has been a success would be an understatement. We took several books, including Keith Olbermann’s and Glenn Greenwald’s, to #1 on the Amazon Best Seller list. Even authors like Naomi Klein would say their books experienced a big jump in online sales when they were on the salon. Paul Krugmann has been on three times, as has John Dean, who made some news reminiscing about the Nixon White House in the comments about things he hadn’t revealed before. Arianna Huffington was I think the third or fourth guest on the Salon, who dictated her responses to her assistant from a plane. From Bob Woodward to Matt Taibbi to John Kerry and Bill McKibben, the FDL Book Salon is one of the first stops on the release schedule of big political books.
But it’s not just the big authors. We’ve also promoted homegrown blogospheric talents like Yves Smith, David Neiwert, David Swanson, Gregg Mitchell, Ryan Grim and Ari Berman. The work load putting it all together got so big we hired the indispensable Bev Wright, who has introduced more authors to the online world than you can name. Think you can email them a login and they’ll just start typing? Think again. Especially in the early years, just getting their computers turned on and explaining what a browser was could be Bev’s biggest challenge.
Last year, we decided to spin the Book Salon off into its own C3 nonprofit, the Firedoglake Writer’s Foundation. In addition to being the home of the Book Salon, however, the Foundation allowed us to begin giving fellowships to bloggers to write about subjects that aren’t always headline news, but are critical nonetheless. We gave fellowships to bloggers like Jill Richardson for her work at La Vida Locavore writing about food policy. Dave Dayen’s work on the foreclosure crisis was likewise supported by a Foundation grant. The Foundation offers support to bloggers regardless of where they publish, based on the value of their contribution to the subject they are covering.
Tomorrow is the last day of 2010, and it’s the biggest giving day of the year to nonprofits as people make their last tax-deductible contributions of the calendar year. We hope you’ll consider donating to the FDL Writer’s Foundation. Here’s what your donation will go toward:
- Supporting the weekly Book Salons. They will continue to expose talented, innovative thinkers to a broad online audience and promotes book sales that allows them to sustain themselves and continue their work.
- Fellowships for bloggers who do important ongoing work on critical subjects. Specifically in the next year one of the things we want to offer is fellowships to people whose unemployment benefits have run out, to write about what is happening to them and help destigmatize the experience of being unemployed.
- Developing a program to send authors to local communities. We want to connect authors with people and book stores in cities across the country who have demonstrated interest in hosting events where they can travel and speak on their book tours. Sadly these tours have been truncated to two or three cities in recent years in the wake of publishing budget cutbacks.
The Writer’s Foundation operates on very low overhead — only 12% went to administrative costs in 2010 (Bev’s salary and a small amount of programming). The remaining 88% all went to program costs.
I want to thank everyone for having helped in whatever way to make the Book Salons such a success over the past four and a half years, be it as an author or a host or a commenter. We hope that you keep coming back to join us over the next year as we continue to grow, and that you keep us in your thoughts as you make your donation choices in the final days of 2010.
For donations of contribute $100 or more, we’re delighted to offer copies of books by authors who had some of the most successful book salons of 2010: you can choose from the works of Matt Taibbi, Arianna Huffington, Ryan Grim, Bill McKibben or Yves Smith as our gift to you.
Please support FDL with a tax-deductible contribution to the FireDogLake Writers Foundation – even $25 will go a long way.
Still, the big financial news, for me anyway, is still old news: massive bank insolvency, nicely recalled to mind in two posts by Ed Harrison. First, this, from a week or two ago, where Mervyn King’s blunt analysis of March 2008 finally surfaces, courtesy of Wikileaks:
Systemic Insolvency Is Now The Problem
2. (C/NF) King said that liquidity is necessary but not sufficient in the current market crisis because the global banking system is undercapitalized due to being over leveraged. He said it is hard to look at the big four UK banks (Royal Bank of Scotland, Barclays, HSBC, and Lloyds TSB) and not think they need more capital. A coordinated effort among central banks and finance ministers may be needed to develop a plan to recapitalize the banking system.
Unblocking Illiquid Mortgage-Backed Securities
3. (C/NF) King said it is also imperative to find a way for banks to sell off unwanted illiquid securities, including mortgage backed securities, without resorting to sales at distressed valuations. He said sales at distressed values only serve to lower the floor to which banks must mark down their assets (mark to market), thereby forcing unwarranted additional write downs.
And secondly, see this, from 2009, where $16.3Trillion of toxic European bank assets (44% of total bank assets!) very surprisingly disappear from a news item, by the mechanism of a quick but incomplete edit, post-publication, and are never heard from again. If only balance sheets were as easy to sort out as news stories and mark-to-market accounting.
There’s a chance that 2011 will be the year when the needed loss recognition starts happening in earnest, though not necessarily in a controlled manner, unfortunately; hence my list of hot spots.
Lastly, here’s Chris Whalen on the warpath in the US.
*Update* Looking at the Wikileaks thread, you are all on a streak. If you think I have missed something, mention it in the comments!
surface encounters complaints surface encounters complaints surface encounters surface encounters review surface encounters rock tops surface encounters surface encounters review surface encounters surface encounters review surface encounters surface encounters review surface encounters rock tops surface encounters surface encounters rock tops surface encounters complaints surface encounters rock tops surface encounters surface encounters review surface encounters rock tops surface encounters rock tops
<b>News</b> - Queen Elizabeth Welcomes First Great-Grandchild! - Moms <b>...</b>
Peter Phillips' wife Autumn gave birth to a baby girl Wednesday.
No, Snooki Will Not Be Dropping in a Ball in Times Square on New <b>...</b>
New York City to Snooki: fuhgeddaboudit. MTV wanted.
Small Business <b>News</b>: Small Biz Tech Primer
Technology is vastly changing the scope and reach of small business not only in the world of marketing but in all aspects of operating your venture. From tech.
surface encounters complaints surface encounters complaints surface encounters complaints surface encounters rock tops surface encounters rock tops surface encounters review surface encounters surface encounters review surface encounters surface encounters rock tops surface encounters complaints surface encounters complaints surface encounters review surface encounters surface encounters review surface encounters rock tops surface encounters
No comments:
Post a Comment