Tuesday, November 08, 2005

W.F. Zimmerman

W.F. Zimmerman seems to be a man of remarkable energy. He appears to be a writer, publisher, and blogger. Well, so am I, come to think of it, so perhaps that's not so astounding after all; but he does produce a huge amount of stuff.

You might try, to begin with, his blog What's New for Book-Lovers. This has a lot of good stuff in it. I discovered, for instance, that 93% of all ISBNs sell less than 1,000 units. (Not sure if that's worldwide or just the US, but anyway it makes you think a bit.) The source article for that statement -- Zimmerman describes it as 'the smartest company in publishing' (O'Reilly, for the record) -- also refers to 'the broken fiction publishing model: flood the market with different products, publicise poorly, and let the market find the 5% it wants to elevate to bestseller status.' So right there you've got two statements which could involve you in serious thought for the rest of the day.

But there's more. Look in the top right-hand column of What's New for Book-Lovers and you find links to other blogs and books wot Zimmerman has wrote. These include a blog on military history and international politics, another blog about Ann Arbor from the point of view of a lifelong resident, and another one with links to articles about science for science lovers.

He appears to have, if I've got this right, sixteen current blogs.

Frankly I got tired just pressing the buttons to look at them, never mind writing all that stuff. And I haven't even mentioned the books that he's written.

I think I might just go and lie down for a bit.

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