So, the day is here: June 3, official release date of Buying In. Go to your bookstore and demand a copy! Write a flattering review on Amazon! Tell all your friends! Give a copy to a much-photographed celebrity! Etc.
Anyway, I’m up early to do a few radio interviews (Brian Lehrer today* for those of you in NYC), and was extremely pleased to be greeted by this review of the book in Salon, by Laura Miller, a writer I’ve long admired: “Buying In is an often startling tour of this new cultural terrain….” Whether you agree with her take or not, the review will definitely give you a sense of whether this book is for you.
If you prefer a shorter take, though, Seth Godin is concise and decisive: “great!”
Meanwhile, the next Austin Craft Mafia Q&A will be up in a couple of hours.
*UPDATE: If you want to hear the above-mentioned Brian Lehrer Show segment, it’s archived here; that link also has the various posted comments of listeners. After my segment I hung around for a chat about Sex & The City with Slate‘s ever-impressive Dana Stevens. Here is that segment, again with comments.
jen and burt, originally uploaded by Naughty Secretary Club.
Here, as promised moments ago, the first of a three-part series of Q&As with Austin Craft Mafia members who pop up in Chapter 13 of Buying In. Jennifer Perkins makes and sells jewelry through her Naughty Secretary Club, and like the rest of the ACM is one of the crafty world’s more impressive success stories.
In addition to the Austin Craft Mafia’s unique small-business support-system model, she talks here about her TV hosting experiences (and whether she would do that again), about the Etsy impact on the DIY scene and crafty businesspeople, about how much she loves Twitter (among other social-networking tools), and about the future — which for her includes a book she has coming out later this summer, The Naughty Secretary Club: The Working Girl’s Guide To Handmade Jewelry. Here goes:
Q: Let’s start with the Craft Mafia(s). One of the things that really interested me about the ACM is I’d never quite seen an arrangement like this — you’re all independent, and your affiliation seems, to an outsider at least, to amount to sort of quasi-formalized mutual support. How do you see it at this point, and how do you think a setup like this helps the new Craft Mafias that seem to keep forming?
A support group is exactly what the Austin Craft Mafia is. We have an understanding that if we do an interview we are sure to mention the Austin Craft Mafia. If any of us take out advertisements we mention the Austin Craft Mafia. I have the Austin Craft Mafia printed on all my products packaging and more! It is a very reciprocal relationship where it behooves everyone involved and their businesses to be a part of the Austin Craft Mafia.
In the early days Jenny Hart, Tina Sparkles and I could not afford to place ads in magazines like Venus and Bust alone, so we split the ads three ways. When we started branching out and taking out individual ads, we decided to mention that we were the Austin Craft Mafia. That way the members of the Austin Craft Mafia still benefited from our individual ads in some way. If Jenny was taking an ad out in Ready Made and I wasn’t, as long as the ad said “Austin Craft Mafia” it helped my business in a roundabout way. If Vickie Howell sends out an order it has a Naughty Secretary Club postcard inside the envelope as well; when I ship out an order it has a Sublime Stitching postcard inside. We are like a small-business support system.
We don’t regulate to a great degree what the other Craft Mafias do with their groups. We have a few guidelines, but how they run their show is up to them. We are very open about our structure and how it works and some groups have started a similar thing and others have taken it in different directions. Some craft mafias are interested in using their group to help their businesses along and other mafias use the group as a form of crafty camaraderie. The Austin Craft Mafia only meets as a group once every several months (though we see each other socially constantly) we use a Yahoo group as our main form of communication to make life decisions. Some other mafias get together and craft together weekly and monthly. Either way it is supportive.
Q: You’re among the ACM members who have dabbled with television, on the DIY Network (where oddly they don’t seem to identify you as Austin Craft Mafia members — odd given the recognition that the name has in the indie craft movement). Is that something you see being part of your future, either in a bigger way, or a different way? And what did it mean for your career/business? Read more
Beginning today: Three Q&As in three days with three founders of the Austin Craft Mafia.
This is partly a tie-in to Buying In: The book is officially published tomorrow, and the Austin Craft Mafia is an important part of one of the closing chapters. While Buying In is not really about the DIY/craft movement (see this Time Magazine review for a good snapshot of the book in general), the final section offers some forward-looking explorations of where our relationship with branded and material culture is going — and where we might make it go. The craft scene plays into that in one chapter, and in the course of that chapter I tell a bit of the story of the ACM.
I thought it would be kind of cool, then, to give a kind of instant update of three figures whose stories are partly told in the book: After all, a book is a static object, and things can change between when it’s written and when it’s read. But here I have the more real-time Murketing.com at my disposal, and happily for me ACM co-founders Jennifer Perkins, Tina Sparkles, and Jenny Hart were all willing to take time from extremely busy schedules to play along with this stunt.
I should mention here that the Austin Craft Mafia has nine formal members altogether. The ones I don’t know, but who each have great stories of their own (it’s hard to deal with nine people in one chapter), are: Susann Keohane of All Dressed up and Shy; Vickie Howell (more here); Hope Perkins of Hot Pink Pistol; Karly Hand of Identity Crisis Clothing; Jenifer Nakatsu Arntson of JNA Designs/Arntson Designs; and Jesse Kelly-Landes.
Learn more about the Austin Craft Mafia at their site (or, of course, in the book).
First up is Jennifer Perkins. That Q&A will post in a matter of moments.
Tina Sparkles is Tuesday; Jenny Hart Wednesday.
Posted Under:
Buying In (the book),
Uncategorized
This post was written by Rob Walker on June 2, 2008
Comments Off on This Week on Murketing.com: Three Q&As with Austin Craft Mafia co-founders
This Thursday evening, June 5, I’ll be stopping by The Fountain Bookstore, in Richmond, VA, to sign copies of Buying In.
While this is an informal enough occurrence that I’m not even sure I can call it an “event,” I am informed by a spy in Richmond that they’ve got a picture of me on the door of the bookstore advertising the fact that I’ll be there. So I may as well tell you.
If you’re in Richmond, please stop by and say hello.
If you know anybody in Richmond, please tell them to stop by and say hello.
Details:
Thursday June 5 // 6 p.m.
Fountain Bookstore, Inc.
Historic Shockoe Slip
1312 E. Cary St.
Richmond, VA 23219
I’ve never been to Printers Row, but it appears to be a big event.
This time around — even I’ll be there! So if you’re in Chicago, come by. I may have some more on details & incentive on this front soon. Here is what I presently know:
Mark Bauerlein and Rob Walker
In conversation with Chicago Tribune columnist Eric Zorn
University Center /Lake Room: 525 S. State Street
Presented by McCormick Tribune Freedom Museum
Saturday, June 7th- 11 a.m.
Here is Mark Bauerlein’s site. Here is Eric Zorn’s blog. Here is the site of the book fair.
And now: You now know everything that I know. More later … perhaps.
As I assume most of you know, since I can’t shut up about it, Buying In comes out June 3. On Friday the 13th of June, I’ll be in New York doing an event to promote that book.
It’s at the Art Directors Club, 106 W 29th St. I will speak and read briefly, be interviewed by Fast Company‘s Danielle Sacks, take questions, then mingle and sign books or whatever.
Barking Irons, who are in the book, will be on hand doing a live screen printing session and will sell you a T-shirt made on the spot. I’ll also be giving away some letterpress posters featuring the above design, created by F-2 Design. Also we’re working a special guest DJ set. Not only that: “Drinks and canapes will be served.” Everyone will have a wonderful time.
I hope you’ll come. Additional details (and RSVP) is here
This event would not be possible without PSFK, to who whom I say: Thank you.
Also thank you to sponsor Fast Company. That’s another thing: You can pick up the June issue of Fast Company — which just so happens to include an excerpt from Buying In — while you’re there .
Other news: Q&A with Eyecube here. Thoughtful writeups in Weatherpattern and Core77 and Lifefilter. Kind mention in Slate. Many pictures of people at Likemind events pretending to enjoy the book here. Other recent Buying In stuff here.
Do you live in one of the cities marked on the map above?
Are you a fan of PSFK and/or Noah Brier? Or, far less likely, of my work?
You might consider attending this Friday’s Likemind meeting. Likemind is a recurring coffee get together of “people like you” in a large number of cities. Details about where and when to show up in all these various cities is here. And the thing is:
Likemind coffee morning takes place this Friday [May 16] around the world. As a special treat for those of you in North America, Rob Walker & Random House were kind enough to supply early copies of Rob’s new book “Buying In: The Secret Dialogue Between What We Buy & Who We Are” (until the books run out). Coffee in the US and Canada is also paid for by Random House (until the money runs out).
A little more here and here.
I’m certainly interested in and excited by the general idea of all these people getting and maybe starting conversations about the book — and before the pub date, no less. Lots of cities there, so I hope some of you can and will take advantage.
Is this post shameless self-promotion? Of course it is. Guess what? I think it’s a good book, and I think everybody should read it.
Scandalous!
New: Links to reviews of, references to, and riffs off Buying In here.
— > Reminder: First four chapters & discount advance ordering offer at ReadBuyingIn.com.
A friend of Murketing, and a fan of the Kindle, has asked me if there will be a version of Buying In for that device. The answer is I have no idea, but I’m guessing that if there were plans for that my publisher would have to told me.
And before I ask my publisher about this, I want to gauge whether anybody else has any interest in the format. I don’t have a Kindle, although I understand the appeal in an abstract way (I think).
So I ask you: Anybody interested in this format? Please reply in the comments, not to me directly. If there’s much response, I’ll bring it to the publisher’s attention.
If there isn’t, then I won’t.
Thanks as always.
Via Commercial Alert, here’s a Chicago Tribune story about college “brand reps,” such as 20-year-old Northwestern student Alex Covington, who reps for Macy’s. Specifically she:
plans Macy’s events on campus, from a sorority slumber party to a casting call for a Web documentary. She hands out fliers, sends out mass e-mails and text messages, and angles for articles in the student newspaper.
And whenever she gets a compliment on her tailored white blouse or her California-casual sundress, she makes sure to credit the company that provided them free of charge.
“I got it from [Macy’s’] American Rag” collection, she says.
“You should check it out.”
In exchange she gets $450 “stipend,” and $400 gift card. She apparently says “she reveals her ties to Macy’s about 85 percent to 90 percent of the time,” when pitching fellow students. The piece says her employer is RepNation, a division of Mr. Youth that claims to have 5,000 college reps working for various corporate brand clients.
This style of murketing — breaking the fourth wall between commercial persuasion and day-to-day life — is discussed in some detail in Buying In.
Continuum Inc., in Boston, is throwing a book-release party for me there for Buying In. It’s Thursday night, June 26. It’s planned as a casual kind of thing: I’ll probably say a few words, maybe take questions if that seems appropriate, and then, you know, mingle, sign some books, that sort of thing.
It’s an invite-only affair, but if you are in Boston and interested, there’s a good chance I sneak you in. I would be pretty excited to meet an actual Murketing reader or two.
If you’re interested, email me at murketing@robwalker.net, with “Boston” in the subject heading.
There are space limitations, and this offer will expire, etc. etc. Bottom line is they’ll need my suggestions pretty soon. If we’ve never spoken or interacted, it might be helpful if you gave me some basic info to give my hosts about, I don’t know, whether you’re in the media, or marketing, or design business, or academia, or a student, or that you’re just incredibly cool. Name, title, company, and email address is what I’ve been asked to provide.
Hope to meet you…
A very nice mention on Brand New reminds me that it’s been probably, oh, a week or more since I posted about Buying In, and the early reactions to it. So: Please check out Gareth Kay’s take here.
I see the book has also come up on Brian Oberkirch’s Like It Matters, and on the site of The Hundreds (a brand that’s actually in the book). So: Thanks, all.
Also: Someone has tagged it, or whatever the term is, on This Next. So if you’re a This Next-er, you can chime in.
Finally: I mentioned earlier that because I’d noticed the book’s Goodreads listing attract a few “to read” notations, I was going to explore that site. I did, and I ended up joining. Now I’m a Goodreads Author! I like it.
I’ve also heard a little about another site, which I guess is sort of a social network for writers, called Red Room, which I don’t totally get, as well as a newer site called BookRabbit, which I have not explored. If used either, or you’re aware of a particularly good site/service for learning about books online, etc., I’d be curious to hear of it.
Cos I think that this whole Web thing might really take off.
Murketing, a driving theme of Buying In, is derived from the words murky and marketing. The term refers to the blurring of the line that used to separate commercial persuasion and everyday life. That plays out in a number of ways (thus it takes a book to really spell it out) but here are a couple of recent examples that have crossed my desk that suggest at least one aspect of what I mean by “murketing.”
1. Friend of Murketing.com loud paper recently dropped me a note with the picture at right, which she snapped near Port Authority. At first, she suggests, she thought maybe this was an art project, playing with the form of the missing-person/lost pet flier.
Ah, but no. It says: “Last seen while waiting for Claritin to start working.” And if you note the number on the pull-off tags along the bottom: the 800 number ends in ZYRTEC. That, of course, turns out to be a rival allergy-fighting drug.
So that’s one example.
2. This morning, other friend of Murketing.com (and I think friend of loudpaper, if I remember right) Braulio sent along this LiveScience item about a company called Flogos. The Flogos site is pretty blunt. It’s two “inventors” who “wondered what would happen if we made clouds into shapes,” and then apparently made the leap to: “What if we can make logos?” Well, then you might just get paid, that’s what!
These clouds are actually a mixture of soap-based foams and lighter-than-air gases such as helium, something like what you’d get if you married helium balloons with the solutions that kids use to blow bubbles from plastic wands.
The company uses re-purposed artificial snow machines to generate the floating ads and messages, dubbed Flogos. The machines can pop one Flogo out every 15 seconds, flooding the air with foamy peace signs or whatever shape a client desires. Renting the machine for a day starts out at a cost of about $2,500.
So that’s an other example. If you’re curious what the real after-effects of the consumer-“empowering” DVR revolution will be, well, my guess is it’s a whole lot more stuff like this.
A whole lot more murketing.
[Thanks loud paper & Braulio — I hope it wasn’t presumptuous to call you “friends” of Murketing.com!]
Posted Under:
Buying In (the book),
Murketing
This post was written by Rob Walker on April 17, 2008
Comments Off on What’s murketing? One answer in two parts
More early mentions of/reactions to Buying In:
Publisher’s Weekly just gave the book a “starred review,” which was pretty exciting. “Marked by meticulous research and careful conclusions, this superbly readable book confirms New York Times journalist Walker as an expert on consumerism. … [A] thoughtful and unhurried investigation into consumerism that pushes the analysis to the maximum and builds a thesis that refutes the myth of the brand-proof consumer.” The whole thing here, though you have to scroll down quite a bit. And maybe “superbly readable” is really all you need to know.
Other mentions: Gelatobaby, Web home of my estranged identical cousin, widely beloved design writer Alissa Walker. Street culture news emporium Slam X Hype. Business blogger ChasNote. Flickr star Lorenzo. And Bookdwarf, which maybe shouldn’t count because this same writeup as the one on Secretly Ironic that I mentioned earlier. But I’m not going to pass up the chance to say “Bookdwarf,” am I? Finally, I particularly admire Canuckflack’s sentiment: “Should you buy it? Yes.”
In a development that I am personally very pleased about, the first online reactions to Buying In have started to appear. The book doesn’t go on sale until June 3, but some galleys are floating around out there; to me it’s a good sign that at least some people are making it to the end! And writing up their thoughts to boot.
Kinetic Loop has a writeup here.
Secretly Ironic has a review that looks at Buying In and (my old pal from The Nation days) Carl Wilson‘s Let’s Talk About Love: A Journey to The End of Taste, right here.
Finally, I see the book has popped up on Goodreads, which I’m not presently familiar with but will be exploring over the weekend. It looks like someone has tagged it as something he is reading and two others have put it on their “to read” list.
Try as I might to spend all my time vanity-Googling and whatnot, I can’t always do that, so if you write up something about the book (good or bad) that you want me to know about, well, let me know.
Welcome Marketplace listeners!
That’s right, I had a commentary run on the widely broadcast public radio show Marketplace tonight. I’m pretty pleased about that (even though I haven’t actually listened to it yet; I only know it ran tonight because I just got email from a detractor about it), because I’m a longtime listener to the show.
Anyway, if you look at blogs often, and I’m sure you do, you’ve probably had occasion to encounter a “Welcome!” post, like this one. This occurs when a blog is, say, mentioned in The Times, or on some other superblog (BoingBoing), or the blog’s author has been on television. So the post will say something like: “Welcome New York Times readers!” and the premise is that there are a flood of newcomers showing up as a result of the outside attention, and they need to be greeted in some way.
This isn’t something I’d thought about a whole lot, since this particular site tends not to have to deal with a lot of attention from media outlets or superbloggers. But now that Murketing is — or might be — getting some outside attention, it’s made me wonder: What are those “Welcome!” posts really about? Do these new readers need a welcome? Is a welcome likely to rope them in as regulars?
Possibly. But I think the real function of the “Welcome!” post is status signaling, in the economics sense. That is, it’s meant to signal the importance of the blog by making public mention of the attention it has received from some authority or other.
Again I haven’t listened to the show yet, so the truth is I don’t even know if they mentioned this site. But I know what I said, and it was about the death of conspicuous consumption and the rise of “the invisible badge,” concepts more thoroughly explored in Buying In.
But still: Welcome new readers (if there are any), I think with this post you now have a very good sense of I how I look at the world.
And as for you regulars: Now you know that — or maybe I’ve just tricked you into believing — others are interested, too!
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