A Plaxo/LinkedIn Yak-Fest Meld

At the book launch last night, my brother reminded me of this awesome New Yorker piece entitled “Subject: Our Marketing Plan”. It’s written as an email from an intern to a book author, and simultaneously pokes fun at so many things:

• Web marketing and its endless jargon.
• Authors’ very common anxiety around promoting their books.
• Tightening belts, cost-cutting and staff turnover at publishers.
• General workplace incompetence

Here’s my favourite bit:

Do you blog? If not, get in touch with Kris and Christopher from our online department, although at this point I think only Christopher is left. I’ll be out of the office from tomorrow until Monday, but when I get back I’ll ask him if he spoke to you. We use CopyBuoy via Hoster Broaster, because it streams really easily into a Plaxo/LinkedIn yak-fest meld. When you register, click “Endless,” and under “Contacts” just list everyone you’ve ever met. It would be great if you could post at least six hundred words every day until further notice.

I should mention that, perhaps because our publisher handles mostly technical books, they ‘get’ the web, and have been very pleasant to work with on a promotional (as well as every other) front.