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Jeffrey Yamaguchi has been hired as the director of digital marketing at ABRAMS, the first person to hold that new title.

Previously, Yamaguchi served as director of digital marketing for the Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group at Random House. He guided many digital projects, including Julia Child‘s Mastering the Art of French Cooking app. Here’s more about the new post, from the release:

he will oversee the company’s web and social media program; spearhead creative online campaigns for major titles and authors; and execute all digital initiatives in conjunction with ABRAMS’ existing marketing efforts. He will work with both the adult and children’s publicity and marketing departments, and with ABRAMS’ digital assets and publishing technology department.

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New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

"[Why not] make the elevator a moving improvisational performance space, turning your elevator ride together into more of a theater-of-the-absurd type of situation. It may go something like this: 'Man, have you ever installed a door on the ceiling? Whew, tough work.' 'No, I never have ... just cabinet doors in dirt.'"

That's Jeffrey Yamaguchi, editor of the action-packed blog 52 Projects, inventing a new art form in his anti-business handbook, Working For The Man.

Today, I caught myself having the same kind of meaningless elevator patter on my way to the dayjob. This weekend, I'm going back to the writing table, just like you. Yamaguchi has some good advice for all of us.

This week he's our special guest on my deceptively simple feature, Five Easy Questions. In the spirit of Jack Nicholson's mad piano player, I run a weekly set of quality interviews with writing pioneers—delivering some practical, unexpected advice about web writing.

Jason Boog:
Your book has plenty of wacky advice for keeping sane in an office, but I know you must have had some real-life struggles while writing this book. How did you balance your 9 to 5 job with this project? Any serious advice for how writers can write on the side without letting their day-jobs interfere?

Jeffrey Yamaguchi:
I used my own advice, and also failed at using my own advice. It’s a battle, you know, to balance the day job with the writing efforts. Continue reading...

"This is about taking the crazy cat person's enthusiastic aesthetic...you should do something very cool and totally overwhelming with your cube space. Make it the biggest something--whatever it s that you're into: stars, Bollywood, Charles Bukowski, UFOs, Sophia Loren, Dr. Seuss, surfing, Andy Warhol, knitting, Nikola Tesla, fancy hats, expensive boots, clowns."

That's Jeffrey Yamaguchi describing the most obsessive, anti-social ways to decorate your cubicle in his new book, Working For The Man. This week he released a series of office-related videos for the handbook, including this cringe-inducing feature :

Yamaguchi's book teaches creative types around the corporate world how escape the mind-numbing monotony of a dayjob. This week he's our special guest on my deceptively simple feature, Five Easy Questions.

In the spirit of Jack Nicholson's mad piano player, I run a weekly set of quality interviews with writing pioneers—delivering some practical, unexpected advice about web writing.

Jason Boog:
I'm sure this kind of book requires a special kind of revision. I'm sure your first draft had a much lower joke and comic ratio than the final product How did you revise your first draft into the hilarious final product? How did you add the layers of jokes and cartoons on top of your original draft?

Jeffrey Yamaguchi:
The humor, I don’t know – there were not painstaking revisions to the jokes. I think maybe because this book was written in pieces over many years, that probably helped. Continue reading...

There are writing handbooks for almost everything--novels, short stories, memoirs, etc.; but as far as I know, nobody has ever explained how to write a humorous book.

Reading Jeffrey Yamaguchi's mocking look at corporate working environments, Working For The Man, I saw the rare opportunity to find out how to write a humorous book. 

Yamaguchi runs the happy-go-lucky blog, 52 Projects, highlighting crafty projects on the web, including the community memory archive at StoryCorps, his own writer-centric Influences Project, and the creative writing MFA Handbook.

Today, he's our special guest on my deceptively simple feature, Five Easy Questions--teaching us how to outline a long-form humor book without going crazy.

In the spirit of Jack Nicholson's mad piano player, I run a weekly set of quality interviews with writing pioneers—delivering some practical, unexpected advice about web writing.

Jason Boog:
How in the heck did you outline this book? It's a handbook, there's no plot, no solid characters (except your writing personality). Any advice for a writer looking to outline and write this kind of humorous handbook? Who are the writers we can read for inspiration in this genre of Humorous Handbooks?

Jeffrey Yamaguchi:
Outlining on paper was not too hard, but once all the material was written, actually organizing the material in this book was very difficult. Continue reading...

"[The holidays] are not the time to take your sick days. This is actually a really good time to be going to the office. The reality is, you've gots lots of personal stuff to take care of, and the best time to get that stuff done is while you're getting paid for it."

That's a little corporate holiday cheer from Jeffrey Yamaguchi, author of the new anti-business handbook, Working For The Man--showing creative types how to beat the mind-numbing monotony of a dayjob. Besides the book, Yamaguchi runs the friendly artsy-craftsy site, 52 Projects.

Welcome to my deceptively simple feature, Five Easy Questions. In the spirit of Jack Nicholson's mad piano player, I run a weekly set of quality interviews with writing pioneers—delivering some practical, unexpected advice about web writing.

Jason Boog:
This whole book depends on your highly-tuned sarcastic, wild, and imaginative persona in this book. How did you develop this persona? How did you learn how to write in a voice that is dramatically different from your blogging and personal voice? Any advice for someone looking to inject some humor and attitude into their own writing?

Jeffrey Yamaguchi:

I honestly think it comes from the very dark places about how I feel about the workplace. Continue reading...

"You are reading the exact same [business books] that thousands of other worker hacks have got on their nightstands. If these books give you any new ideas or new ways of thinking--they will not be original. You read the book like sheep, and now you simply share the wisdom of the herd. What books should you read? Yes, the name of your book group is the Charles Bukowski Book Group, and yes, you should definitely inaugurate the first meeting with a discussion of Post Office."

That's Jeffrey Yamaguchi (editor of the action-packed blog 52 Projects) bashing the endless supply of business handbooks that clog bookstores like a traffic jam.

Yamaguchi's new book, Working For The Man is a hilarious anti-business handbook, teaching creative types around the corporate world how escape the mind-numbing monotony of a dayjob. This week he's our special guest on my deceptively simple feature, Five Easy Questions.

In the spirit of Jack Nicholson's mad piano player, I run a weekly set of quality interviews with writing pioneers—delivering some practical, unexpected advice about web writing.

Jason Boog:
This is a whole genre that I know very little about. For lack of an official term, I will now call them Humorous Handbooks. I see them everywhere at the bookstore, on my friends' bookshelves, and on bestseller lists, but I have no idea how to develop this sort of  project. Once you conceived this idea, how did you make it a reality?  How did you write your pitch and find editors interested in this kind of writing?

Jeffrey Yamaguchi:
The nice thing about handbooks is that once you have your concept, you can build the book block by block. You outline the chapters and knock them off one by one. Continue reading...

Did your dayjob hurt your writing?

I've asked lots of writers that question, most recently in this video interview with National Book Award winner Sherman Alexie and NBA finalist Joshua Ferris.

Sometimes, you just need to leave that dayjob. Jeffrey Yamaguchi has an interview with writer Lilit Marcus about her work on Save the Assistants--a web project that saved her writing career. Check it out:

"In the year since Save the Assistants launched, I've been able to actually make my living as a writer. But no matter what happens, I can never forget what it was like to have a boring, soulless, depressing job. I will never be able to totally let go of the feeling of emptiness I had when I worked there."

Elsewhere in the virtual literary world, Tao Lin takes his signature brand of writer porn to the pages of The Stranger, writing about "the levels of greatness a fiction writer can achieve in america."  

Finally, the madcap political reporter, Matt Taibbi, has a few choice words for fledgling writers. Read it and weep:

"What journalism really needs is more people who are reporting who actually know something. Instead of having a bunch of liberal arts grads who’ve read Siddhartha 50 times writing about health care, it would be really nice if some of the people who are writing about health care were doctors." (Thanks, Romenesko)

How many journalism jobs are there, really? 

Over at the PBS blog, MediaShift, journalist Mark Glaser has some encouraging news for fledgling writers. He claims that there are plenty of journalism jobs to be had, we are just looking in the wrong places. 

Dig it (especially his booming comments section): 

"[W]hile Tribune Co. has been in the news for all its devastating cuts to the L.A.Times staff, there’s still a selection of 85 interactive job openings at the parent company, including a handful at the Times. Similarly, the MTV cable networks have had far-reaching cuts and reorganizations, yet there are dozens of digital job openings listed online." 

The Urban Muse has a fascinating discussion about kinds of writers. Some of us are suited for long, long pieces, others for short. The essay explores what happens when a sprinter tries to go long.

Jeffrey Yamaguchi brings us news of The Haiku Inferno Book, the spoken-word adventures of a poetry crew. This exciting work comes with a warning wrapper and everything. Go read the post.... 

Some people believe books should be read with rubber gloves and surgical tongs. I don't--my books have scribbled notes, busted spines and creased corners.

We are writers. We need to devour books when we read them. You can write your own book, but you are constantly in conversation with the other books you read. How can you have a conversation with somebody if you don't ever get close to them? Give your books a hug.

If you need some inspiration, check out the Book Inscriptions Project--an online archive of all the personalized dedications and messages that people left behind in books. "Send a copy of the cover and the inscription and any details about how, when and where you found it. See this or this or this for examples," they write.

Seeing how other people love books (and share them with loved ones) is the first step in building a better relationship with the books you read. Check out this slightly nerdy, tender inscription if you don't believe me. I love it when stories and love get all tangled up...

“'Lindy,

Nothing like this
ever ends. The ring,
like Gandalf, never ends.

I love you
Robert'

-- A 1966 copy of The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers by J.R.R. Tolkien."

(Thanks to 52 Projects and Bookgirl for the link.) 

I spent five years of my post-high school life hunched in coffee shops with other writers scribbling stories in battered notebooks. Now, years later, there is a place for folks like me.

Run, don't walk, over to Keri Smith's homemade journal creation project,  Wreck This Journal--a space for writers to play with their notebooks and find some community-minded folks as well. (Thanks, Jeffrey Yamaguchi)

Want to build a video to promote your book? Novelist Brenda Coulter is offering some down and dirty hints for building movies that will help you find readers for your book. Read "How To Build a Book Trailer" to get started. Heed her warning: "As I have explained to everyone who has asked, this is something that anyone can do, although not everyone will want to do it when they find out how much time and effort is involved." (Thanks, Galleycat)

If you have any time left over after wrecking your notebook and shooting a booktrailer, be sure to write a 500-word memoir--you could win $1,000 for your troubles. SMITH Magazine has the scoop: "For a chance to appear in Opium Magazine and win $1,000, you can enter its 500-word memoir contest. (Opium’s the co-obsession of SMITH’s wonderful World Tour Compatibility Test scribe Elizabeth Koch)."

Publishing Spotted collects the best of what's around on writing blogs on any given day. Feel free to send tips and suggestions to your fearless editor: jason [at] thepublishingspot.com.

What should you do when an interview doesn't work out?

Ed Champion wrote an essay about his brief, unsuccessful audio interview with Marisha Pessl, and scores of readers wrote in with thoughts about the art of literary conversation. The whole debate is required reading for fledgling journalists and reviewers looking to polish their craft. Enter the fray here.

Steve Bryant reports that YouTube will pay its most popular video producers a share of ad revenues. They aren't the first web video company to experiment with this model, but Steve thinks they are the smartest company to attempt such a project.  

Deadlines help keep my writing on track, from this blog to my novel. Jeffrey Yamaguchi just linked to a photographer who set an impressive deadline for himself: "[Bill] Wadman has challenged himself to take a portrait a day for 365 days -- not a self-portrait, but a portrait of someone else. And these are absolutely stunning photographs." Check out the full post here.

Publishing Spotted collects the best of what's around on writing blogs on any given day. Feel free to send tips and suggestions to your fearless editor: jason [at] thepublishingspot.com.

After this post, you will never have to read The Publishing Spot again.

Duotrope is a search engine for writers, indexing the submission guidelines, pay scale, awards, length, media type, and genre of 1,600 different writing markets.

Sixteen hundred different places to publish! You can do all your searching by yourself, and if you subscribe, they'll even keep track of your submissions for you.

Please don't stop reading The Publishing Spot, however. I would miss your visits every day...

Check it out:

"For short fiction, poetry, and novels/collections. Use this page to search for markets that may make a fine home for the piece you just polished. Use the menus at the top and right to explore the rest of the free services we offer writers and editors, including a free online submissions tracker for registered users ... We update about once a day, and we check all the listings at least once a week to ensure the most up-to-date database possible."

Thanks to Jeffrey Yamaguchi and After the MFA for the link...