Jane Genova: Speechwriter - Ghostwriter

Books Sold Online: Testimonials don't help

Hustling colleagues, family, and friends to pen a testimonial about your book for Amazon.com isn't panning out as an effective tactic for sales.  It takes plenty more than that static measure in this era of folks orbiting on the web and mobile at such high speed.

So, how to keep interest alive in your book?  Have it out there as a conversation piece.  And not only digitally.  Give that talk at the Chamber of Commerce and issue periodic press releases.  Teach a course at the community college.  Word of mouth will surge.

 

"Criminal Minds" - Legacy of J. Edgar Hoover

At some point in his long tenure at the FBI, J. Edgar Hoover created the legacy of the crime-stopper as hero.   Without that, we wouldn't have "Criminal Minds" and its elite FBI team of Hotchner, Rossi, Morgan, and Garcia.

Hoover was gifted in impression management.  He even realized that he should have a presence in comic books.  That, of course, was the world of superheroes.  Because of the Clint Eastwood film "J Edgar," this flawed man is certainly taking it on the chin.  However, he really only had more power than most other myopic human beings just like him usually get.  Otherwise we might have been as cruel and spiteful as he had been.

Today, Hotchner et al. must be out shopping for the holidays.  On "Criminal Minds," it's a repeat.  That's disappointing for us who are following the changes in complex characters like Rossi who had just lost his former wife to a suicide.  Like the hit "The Good Wife," this show is about relationships, both the ones the characters have with themselves and with each other.

 

OMAHA WORLD-HERALD: Is Buffett bullish on newspapers or just having fun

Warren Buffett just bought his hometown newspaper the OMAHA WORLD-HERALD, reports Keach Hagey in POLITICO. 

So, the question we all have is: is Buffett bullish on the newspaper industry or just having some fun?  Two years ago, notes Hagey, he was a bear on the industry, claiming it had lost touch with readers. Buffett told the media that the WORLD-HERALD delivers solid profits.

November Jobs Report: Surge, layoffs down

This is the kind of news which could keep President Obama in the White House.  According to ADP Inc. estimates, during November private-sector employers added 206,000 jobs, reports Tucker Echols in WASHINGTON BUSINESS JOURNAL.  In October, 130,000 jobs were created. 

In addition, according to outplacement firm Challenger Gray & Christmas, planned layoffs during November dropped 13% from this time last year.

Vendors like myself can feel the easing of economic tension in our businesses.  Clients are paying on time.  And there seems to be fewer cons out there pulling all sorts of shameful acts.   At the top of the list had been amazing schemes to pick our brains without paying.

Facebook v FTC: The Apology standard public-relations fare

The apology was framed as Generation Y informal: "We've made a bunch of mistakes."  But still Facebook head Mark Zuckerberg trotted out the standard public relations fare of The Apology. 

The Federal Trade Commission had reprimanded Faceboook, reports Kashmir Hill at FORBES, for privacy violations.  Its "sentence" is two decades of biennial privacy audits.  Facebook will also need to get the okay from users before sharing their info.

Since The Apology is so embedded in communications, it no longer resonates.  A brilliant PR leader could come up with a replacement.  Like?  Ditch the oral theatrics and do something, such as laboring pro bono 10 hours a week for a year driving the elderly to where they need to go. 

 

Brand New York: Hotel rooms up 24% in 5 years

Brand New York is growing its equity, at least right now.  And anyone who needs to make a buck should find something to do helping to bring in the New York in Times Square.  That's where the tourists will be flocking.

NEW YORK Magazine reports that in the past 5 years, hotel rooms have increased 24%, to 90,000.

Ann Coulter: One-trick pony trick no longer marketable

The Ann Coulter performance art was a long-legged slim blonde act, plackaged in outrageous soundbites.  That delighted audiences until a full-figured brown-haired mouthy conservative mother of many hit the scene.  The latter also is selling fewer tickets.  Crowds, as Shakespeare noted, are fickle.

Now, the latter is gone and Coulter is trying again to become an attraction.  Unfortunately, she is a one-trick pony and that kind of verbal slapstick is no longer in vogue during dark economic times.  Folks are just trying to hang on and calling politicos names like "douche bag" isn't resonating.

Coulter, like Palin, might be able to acquire new acts.  Or they might not.  Meanwhile they should have saved the money they earned so easily.

Herman Cain: Tragic Flaw

A good head for business and a gift for plain-speaking, Herman Cain was golden.  Except for the tragic flaw of developing "special relationships."  No one with any ambitions, especially political ones, creates ambiguous friendships, at least not in this era of got-you media and negative politics.

Cain's tragic flaw has been a lack of judgment.  That has doomed him.  There's no turning this around, at least according to the GOP powers-that-be.  He will become a footnote in the history of a poorly orchestrated GOP presidential campaign.  

Herman Cain & Ginger White: Where's evidence of romance?

In America the litigious, we think like lawyers.  Our inner lawyer is waiting for concrete evidence that Herman Cain and Ginger White has a romance.

All we know right now is that they had some kind of relationship.  It might have platonic. It might have been more than that.  But where it stands is she says, he says. 

Was Cain, who had political ambitions, unwise to develop such as close friendship with a female? Probably.

Barney Frank: Another superhero gone

Barney Frank was a superhero.  That was both as a government representative who was candid but not reckless and as a man who wrestled his demons to the ground and won.  Now he is gone.

We are all lessened by Frank's announcement that he won't be serving us any more as a U.S. representative.