Dan Balow

Long Live Napoleon Solo

By Dan Balowon September 16, 2014

The middle of September 1964 was one of the most historic periods in world history. Rarely has humanity seen the kind of cultural shift that occurred fifty years ago this month. Subsequent generations will never be the same. In one week, families, friends, fiends, fish and fun boat-rides changed forever, because fifty years ago this month, the following television programs premiered on U.S. television:

The Munsters

The Addams Family

Bewitched

Gilligans Island

The Man from U.N.C.L.E.

Flipper

Gomer Pyle, USMC

Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea

Pause for a moment and reflect on how truly blessed the world was to have such amazing and important cultural gifts.

(Cue the musical theme from Jeopardy, which also premiered earlier in 1964.)

OK…that’s enough reflection. After all, you don’t want to over-think the significance of this, and get a headache.

Today, let’s come up with ideas of what it takes to create something that lasts fifty years or more. Using the examples of the TV programs listed above, make some observations on the following question:

How do you create something today so that a random blogger will be writing about it fifty years from now?

Today is your turn. Whether you saw some of these TV programs in their original black and white broadcast glory fifty years ago or last week in reruns or Roku, let’s see if you have any ideas what made them stick around for half a century!

By the way, I know why the Minnow crashed, stranding the passengers and crew…they had so much stuff packed into that little boat, there was no way it could remain stable in a storm!

Justin Beiber and Leisure Suits

By Dan Balowon September 9, 2014

Recognizing the difference between a cultural “trend” and a “phenomenon” is an important skill of anyone working in book publishing, both employees of publishers and authors. Why? Because book publishing in virtually every form does a very poor job responding to a phenomenon, which is generally short-lived. Often a phenomenon has come and gone before a book can be written and published on the …

Category: Book Business, Branding, Creativity, Marketing, The Publishing Life, TrendsTag: Book Business, The Publishing Life

Is it Possible to Read Too Much?

By Dan Balowon September 2, 2014

Amidst all the public voices and rhetoric swirling around these days is a healthy focus on the need to make reading more a part of every life. From celebrities sponsoring reading campaigns to Amazon providing pre-loaded Kindles to schools in Africa through their Worldreader program, it is a good thing for sure. Illiteracy is not good for any society. However, I asked a question in the title of …

Category: Book Business, Book Review, Reading, TrendsTag: Reading

Mao and the Four Pests

By Dan Balowon August 26, 2014

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In the late 1950’s , Chairman Mao Zedong of China implemented the first stages of his Great Leap Forward, an effort to move China away from a predominantly agrarian society to a modern industrial and political power. One of the first parts of the GLF was the Four Pests Campaign. The Chinese government identified four scourges on their society and set out to eradicate them. They were: rats, flies, …

Category: Book Business, Career, The Publishing LifeTag: Career, The Publishing Life

Publishers are From Mercury, Authors are From Pluto

By Dan Balowon August 19, 2014

Next time someone tells you that Christianity is not as valid as science, just remind them that not many years ago, Pluto was assumed to be a planet, but in 2006 was determined not to be one, but instead was a “dwarf planet”, of which there a several dozen in our solar system alone. If you took a test in grade school and answered, “How many planets are there in our solar system” with the number …

Category: Book Business, Career, Communication, The Publishing LifeTag: Authors, Book Business, publishers, The Publishing Life

8 Things Authors Should No Longer Ask Their Publisher

By Dan Balowon August 12, 2014

Publishing is changing faster than ever before. Book publishers have been wrenching to find new business models that make them more flexible, efficient and adaptable to the realities of the digital publishing age. Within this fast-change world, another group who has felt the pain of shifting tectonic plates are authors who have been around publishing for ten or more years. Some issues that used …

Category: Book Business, CareerTag: Book Business, Career, publishing

Etch-A-Sketch Living

By Dan Balowon August 5, 2014

Like everyone else in the world, I had an Etch-A-Sketch when I was young. When my wife and I had kids, we bought one for them as well. (You really only need one in the house) I have great admiration for anyone who could draw anything resembling anything identifiable on it, since the only thing I could draw were stairs. The best part of an Etch-A-Sketch was also its worst. If you messed up on a …

Category: Book Business, The Publishing Life, TheologyTag: Faith, The Publishing Life

The World Rages

By Dan Balowon July 29, 2014

One hundred years ago this week, the Great War began. It was the war that was supposed to end all wars. The world decided it was about time to get all their anger out at once and then go back to living in peace. Following the assassination of Archduke Ferdinand of Austria on June 28, 1914, Austria-Hungary and Serbia decided they had had enough of civility and started fighting. A world war …

Category: The Writing LifeTag: Faith, The Writing Life, Theology

Acquisitions Director: God

By Dan Balowon July 22, 2014

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This subject has been covered before by smarter people at our agency, but I am hoping that Steve Laube considers imitation truly the greatest form of flattery! Every aspiring or experienced Christian author is alerted to avoid mentioning that “God told me to write this book” when speaking to an agent or publisher. Why is that? Reason #1: Working within the Christian publishing world there should …

Category: Get PublishedTag: Get Published, Pitching, Theology

Publishing in the Rear View Mirror

By Dan Balowon July 15, 2014

Every author, either self or traditionally published would like to write a book that sells today, but also tomorrow, next week and next year. Book publishing in all of it’s forms is the art of trying to predict what readers will want to buy in the future. I use the term “art” to describe publishing because no one who has been involved in book publishing for more than two weeks thinks it is 100% …

Category: Book BusinessTag: Book Business, Publishing History, The Publishing Life