Jane Genova: Speechwriter - Ghostwriter

"Vassar Unzipped" - VANITY FAIR's Laura Jacobs recaptures era when we young women had secrets

For the July 2013 VANITY FAIR edition, Laura Jacobs recounts how Mary McCarthy's "The Group" shocked in 1963.  The article "Vassar Unzipped" (not yet online) explains McCarthy's genius and courage in bringing to the surface all the secrets we college girls had then.  Maybe McCarthy had the capacity to do that because, after an early start at a charmed childhood, she grew up a poor, tormented outsider.  Her well-off parents died in the Influenza epidemic and she was shifted around among relatives who didn't want her.

In 1963, when I arrived wearing hat and gloves at Seton Hill College, in western Pennsylvania, I knew that I damn well better keep my secrets under wrap.  So did all my classmates, all females since it was then an all-women's Catholic school.  The secrets were so deeply embedded and so well defended that I was among those who didn't even see what was in front of me, at least if it clashed with what was supposed to be.  I retained that until I had my meltdown in 2003. 

Only now those same classmates, thanks to Facebook, and I can talk freely about not only our own secrets then but about what we saw.  There were the lesbians who the housemother told to pull their beds apart; the chaplain who romanced students; the sadistic nuns; and the cabal of gossipers who scared anyone from doing anything.

Those days are gone.  But are college women today, who live in total transparency, having it any easier, emotionally? Or are they missing, the way we did, what was in front of them?

RV Sales Up 19%: American Dream has comeback

The freedom of the road is part of the American Dream.  Things didn't go so hot in stuffy New England with all those self-righteous Puritans?  Pack a wagon and go west.  The 21st century version of that is the RV, both for full-time and part-time travel and living.  In a roaring comeback of the American Dream, RV sales are back.  BLOOMBERG BUSINESS WEEK reports that, according to the Recreational Vehicle Industry Association, sales are up 19%.  That's after crashing between 2007 and 2009.

Damn gasoline prices.  Here in our senior citizen complex in New Haven, Connecticut, one of the most talked-about fantasies is buying the RV.  To Baby Boomers like myself it's the perfect symbol of being our own person.  If the company at the camping grounds doesn't suit us, we can pull up stakes and prospect for new kinds of friends in another location.  Those of us who have easy-to-market skills, such as handymen and cooks, have a hunch that they can make a buck to supplement Social Security wherever.  And writers like myself sense there are a ton of stories which need to be told.  My own private dream is to interview other Baby Boomers to find out how they define success now.

As we become surer of the stability of the economic recovery, more of us may decide to spend some or all of our time on the road in the RV.  With 76 million Baby Boomers, that represents plenty of potential sales.

Those THE WALL STREET JOURNAL Opinion-Editorials - Killed off by YouTube Advocacy Videos?

Will we ghostwriters be penning fewer opinion-editorials (op-eds) for brandname media like THE WALL STREET JOURNAL?  Instead we could be putting together scripts for online videos in which the speaker argues a point and a social-media expert helps those go viral on YouTube.  Sure seems like that's the direction advocacy is moving in.

Today in THE NEW YORK TIMES, Frank Bruni published the piece titled "Who Needs Reporters?" He explains how instead of giving press conferences or an exclusive to a member of the media, Michele Bachmann and Anthony Weiner said what they had to say via online video.  Of course, one channel of distribution was YouTube.  Hillary Clinton used the same public relations tactic when she endorsed same-sex marriage - late in the game.

With this direct outreach through online video, influentials would no longer be at the mercy of editors.  If they are clever about both how they frame their message and how they distribute it digitally, they become their very own THE WALL STREET JOURNAL, Inc.  That means that we ghostwriters have to beef up our scripting credentials.  Then we have to let the influentials know we know how to have their message resonate on the web and mobile.

It's a new day in executive communications.

 

Getting Out of Social Media: My big break (in ghostwriting) at age 68

It took getting out of playing in the social media sandbox to get back in the action - both the big bucks and networking with big names. 

An executive coach, a psychic, and a guiding zen teacher all had told me: Where you are is glutted.  They were talking about creating cool content for the web.  I listened.  I re-built my credentials and contacts in ghostwriting and speechwriting.  After a few months it was like old times, before I had lusted after being part of the Gawker and Huffington Post crowd. 

So, when I answered an ad for a freelance ghostwriter for a Boston entrepreneur I approached from a position of strength.  I was back.  I even demanded, when they requested I drive to Boston and interview, they pay the $32 parking fee.  They said yes.  Not trying too hard, I landed the assignment.  Regularly I go to Boston.  

At age 68, and none of the Millennial entrepreneurs in this circle I deal with seem to notice, I am part of the crowd reshaping the technology and marketing of just about everything.  Today the client called me, as I was re-writing the book from scratch to make it sound more like a wildly successful 29-year-old-something, and told me he also wanted me for other assignments. My neighbor observed, "This is your big break."  Yeah, I thought, it is. 

Lesson: Listen to wise people.  Forget being old.  Never pay for your own parking.  

OUT and THE ADVOCATE: Will they modify upbeat tone?

Alternate-sex lifestyle publications OUT and THE ADVOCATE still arrive snail mail in a plain gray wrapper.  I subscribe to follow trends in outlier media.  However, in the past several months the tone in both has been upbeat.  As it should.  Across generations we have accepted not only gay culture but also gay marriage.

However, with the recent violent hate crimes against gays in Manhattan, a usually liberal mecca, that tone might become more subdued.  NEW YORK Magazine chronicles three incidents.  The battle has not been won.

The success of gay rights, I am convinced, is a model for Baby Boomers to have our own aggressive campaign for better treatment.  We are invisible.  Also, as soon as I walked into job interviews (obviously they hadn't googled me), jaws dropped.  Actually that worked out fine since I have returned to freelancing and am making more money doing that than I would have in any full-time position.

If gays continue to suffer, so will we the aging.

Entrepreneurs: They can pay as well as Fortune 500

Entrepreneurs, the super heroes of our times, usually were shunned by us ghostwriters.  We figured they wouldn't pay as well as the Fortune 500.  That was a few years ago.

By now, some of them have become successful enough to be able to match establishment compensation.  They also have become famous enough to be in demand to produce books, bylined articles for brandname media, and keynote speeches, including for TED.  In addition, in the Fortune 500, some have set up entrepreneurial or enterprise units to get new products and services out there in the marketplace.

This has expanded the pool of possible assignments for us in executive communications.  For the first time in a very long time I have had to create a waiting list.

Y Combinator: We ghostwriters need that kind of pitch boot camp

Y Combinator, Nathaniel Rich at THE NEW YORK TIMES tells us, is a sort of camp where entrepreneurs learn the art of the pitch for funding. 

We ghostwriters need exactly that kind of training in how to sell our services in a changing marketplace.  During the past 18 months, I had to figure out on my own how to sell myself to pick up those growing number of lucrative assignments for print and e- books, articles and opinion-editorials for publication in brandname media, blog posts, white papers, and case studies.

Somewhere during the two recessions in the 21st century, a shift took place.  Instead of just looking for a ghostwriter, prospects recognized they needed a communications strategist, media-placement expert, and pragmatist savvy about repurposing the original content such as for their own media center or direct-response marketing.  When we pitch we have to focus on those requirements.  Demonstrating that we are good at ghostwriting per se is not enough. 

For me that has meant getting the hang of presenting myself as a player, not a inward-looking scribe.  On these sales calls I find out that the prospect has received 200 to 300 replies to an ad or a "casting call" put out there by a recruiter.  From the get-go, I have to speedread their real agenda, such as becoming a brandname in digital marketing, and then explain how I know how to configure the manuscript so that it becomes a platform for that.  Sometimes they might not even be aware that is their end goal. Yes, we have to discern that, quickly.

Just like entrepreneurs we have to master performance art, sending the signal to prospects that we can provide a superior return on their money.  In this case it's a fee for service, not an investment with a 7% stake in profits.

 

 

Cathie Black, Education, Bloomberg Administration: Will this be tipping point on celebrity endorsements?

Once upon a time on planet earth there was an old woman who had ruled a media company who a wealthy king wanted to oversee the education of the little ones.  Many saw that she had no experience. But not to worry the princesses could be pulled in to speak well of her to the media and the king would have his way.  The old woman was certified for the great responsibility.  That didn't go too hot.  In about five months, the king banished her.  Never again were princesses or princes rounded up to provide endorsements.

That happy ending which deep-sixes celebrity endorsements could really happen.  NEW YORK Magazine outs the Black-Bloomberg Administration campaign to have Oprah et al. champion the inexperienced Cathie Black to head up education in New York City.  Obviously, the lawyers weren't on the job.  That's because this information came out after, through the Freedom of Information Act, the email correspondence was obtained. It chronicled the emptiness of having brandnames speak well of Black.

This outing could be the overdue tipping point in these kinds of endorsements.  One would have hoped that the outing of Lance Armstrong as a fraud would have stopped those sorts of Charm Offenses.  Perhaps it's prudent, as standard operating procedure, to assume that the emperor has no clothes and to insist that be provide otherwise.

Diederik Stapel: Can brilliant public relations create new career path for academic con?

Former social-psychology researcher at Tilburg University in the Netherlands Diederik Stapel never crunched that data. 

Instead, as Yudhijit Bhattacharjee reports in THE NEW YORK TIMES MAGAZINE, he not only created a hypothesis but also the statistical evidence to support it.  After investigation, the University concluded Stapel had committed fraud in 55 of his papers.  His career in tatters, Stapel tried to publish a book to get a new start and some money.  However, that hasn't panned out as expected since society is sophisticated enough to not let him profit from his misdeeds.  For example, the book has been put on the web for free distribution in PDF form.  In addition, the reviews have been mixed, says Bhattacharjee.

So, here in the U.S. we in the communications industry, which has been hailed, often rightly so, for its brilliance in giving disgraced professionals a second chance, we wonder if Stapel can find the public relations help he needs and achieve the needed outcome: a new career path.

Since the corridors of influence and power are so cluttered with sinners, absolution seems likely.  A sustained sincere apology, followed by good works, can defrost hard hearts.  Judas, the apostle who betrayed Jesus for financial gain, has been vilified because he gave into despair and committed suicide.  The social archetype is for seeking redemption. The 12-steps of Alcoholics Anonymous are based on it.

The challenge is for Stapel to carve out a new niche for himself as Nixon handler Chuck Colson did in becoming a religious evangelist. Public relations experts have to figure that out for this disgraced academic. Promising might be for him to become an elementary school teacher in a developing nation, bringing the fundamentals of the scientific method to the next generation.  Do that a few years and then a documentary can be made.  Stapel can come as a hero to the U.S. and reform elementary education. 

Snail Mail & Marketing Mix: Why we buy

Several years ago I was unhappy with the company providing my auto and home insurance but not unhappy enough to click open email from its competitors or listen to telemarketing sales pitches. 

When snail mail came in from State Farm, though, I opened it. The letter was short, earnest about wanting to help my budget, had a photo, and explained why I had nothing to lose by calling local agent Hilda Porrata-Doria for a quote.  That was a hundred bucks a month less than I was paying.  When I went on to buy a new car, Doria also got that business, plus financing for the auto loan.

Currently, snail mail is so effective in the marketing mix, both B2C and B2B, because it is delivered through a channel that is no longer glutted.  Meanwhile the others, be they email, digital ads, cold calls, and television commercials, face a dogfight for attention.  In addition, there's more old-fashioned trust in what comes into our snail mail than through other mediums.  We know from experience the feds quickly pursue miscreants. Also, personal items like wedding invitations come in snail mail so we look forward to checking it.

Partner at Infinite public relations firm Nick Gaffney published an article in THE HARVARD BUSINESS REVIEW on the power of hand-written thank-you notes delivered via the postal service. It's a best practice his mother taught him.  She was on the money.

In this era of no loyalty, with even professional services having high client churn, businesses which take the time to create, hand write, and drop in the snail mail thank-you notes for our business will likely keep it. Doria sends one to me every so often, indicating that, as the meme goes, she appreciates my business.

Incidentally, I have reviewed all the books which are snail-mailed to me, with nice notes, and not one of those which the publicity agent tells me I can easily download and print out.  Yeah, and that will consume 250 pieces of paper and way too much pricey ink for my laser printer to create a review for which I will not be paid.  Gaffney's mom would probably say those public relations types have no manners.