The Boccawood Guide to Exploring Opportunities
In Publishing or Print-Related Industries
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Mantra
You are not looking for a job. You are exploring opportunities.
Next
When leaving one opportunity for another, do not burn any bridges. Even if the previous opportunity treated you unkindly, thank them for the opportunity you did have. I was job eliminated once from a job. I went out of my way to be respectful and appreciative. That same manager who eliminated me years later helped get me an interview at the company he was at, and I ended up working there.
Don’t Close Doors
One of the best pieces of advice I received when exploring opportunities was when a friend said to me, “Don’t close doors on yourself!” I thought of myself as doing a specific job, interested in specific companies. But you have to think broadly about what you know, what you can do, and picture yourself doing things you wouldn’t have considered five or ten years ago. I was only interested in Production or Operations jobs in Publishing. A friend approached me about an opportunity in Procurement. Normally I wouldn’t have considered it. I said, “I don’t even know what Procurement is!” But I had worked with suppliers—so I translated that into being versed in “vendor management”. I had solicited printing bids—so I was then knowledgeable in “sourcing”. I kept track of paper supplies, and magazine distribution—so I could then say I directed “supply chain”. Re-imagine your current knowledge and experience and reapply it to other areas.
Broadcast
Despite what some people might say, tell everyone you know you are pursuing opportunities. The more people who know, the more they may have ideas or leads you can’t think of. Some close family members may think it’s embarrassing to advertise you are out of work, but if people don’t know, they can’t help. It’s tough to navigate this but really put the word out. But be careful not to sound desperate. Desperate people get taken advantage of.
Marketability
Make an assessment of your marketable skills and then see how you can apply them to other industries. Publishing production is a very specialized, industry-specific job. In the simplest terms, what does a production manager do? A production manager:
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Manages vendors
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Performs customer service
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Creates schedules
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Manages budgets
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Generates analysis
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Works on distribution
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Etc.
If presented correctly, these skills are applicable to any industry. Breaking free from your “existing industry mindset” opens the doors to significantly more opportunities.
Project Management Certificate
Everyone needs a good Project Manager. I’d recommend anyone go for a Project Management certificate. I hear more and more job descriptions that ask for Project Management skills.
Industry Certificates
I became a Certified Purchasing Manager (CPM) through the Institute for Supply Management. But I did that because I had a contractor opportunity in Procurement and needed the certificate before they would hire me permanently. Knowing print, I bought print and contracted printers for a bank while working there. So, I worked toward and succeeded in getting my CPM. I set myself a timeframe of a year and did it. I have since earned ISM’s updated certificate, Certified Professional in Supply Management (CPSM).
First Contact: Salespeople
The first people you should contact when looking for opportunities are salespeople. They are great resources and contacts. Have you ever worked with any printer or supplier salespeople? Salespeople know what’s going on in the business. They are constantly in touch with people all over the industry. They know how to network. They know who’s coming and going in companies. Keep in contact with them, meet them for coffee, lunch, a drink. If they are smart, they’ll want to help you get a job, because then you’re their inroads to a new company that they may be able to do business with later. And see “Act Quickly” below for a relevant anecdote.
Network
Get out there. Join Industry groups. Go to meetings. Volunteer at these groups. Call and email colleagues and ex-colleagues. Get together with them for coffee, lunch, an after-work drink. Whatever it takes. Talk to people not about jobs, but about the industry. People love talking about themselves, and they love to show how much they know about the industry. Listen to them. The point is to keep yourself in their awareness, and to show you are smart, hardworking, and that you care.
Knock on Doors; But Not Random Doors
When I was a production manager for a small printer, I learned how to use a computer-based typesetting system, which was a new thing at the time. When that job ended, I contacted our salesperson for the equipment, and he supplied a list of all the businesses in New York that had that piece of equipment. It wasn’t a very long list, so I decided to drop in on each name on that list, resume in hand. (This was before emails, if you can imagine such a thing.) The second place I visited, I walked in and explained to the admin that I was familiar with their equipment. “Wait a minute”, she said, and disappeared. A few minutes later, the owner of the company—a small design firm—came out and said, “How did you find out our typesetter left yesterday?” I explained I didn’t know that, and how I got this firm’s name. He hired me that week. (I worked there for about a year before the original typesetter came back and they gave him his job back, but it was good while it lasted. And I learned some good design skills there.)
Attitude (Smile)
A salesman colleague of mine gave me a sage piece of advice. Although it may sound corny, it is important: “Remember that smile before you dial!” Before you call someone on the phone (back then you had to “dial” a phone)—or meet them in person—smile. It changes your attitude and somehow comes through to the person on the other end of your communication. Or so I’m told. (I now apply that mantra to running: “Remember that smile before each mile!”)
Outreach
People are not going to reach out to you. People will forget about you very quickly. You have to reach out to them.
“Lack of Experience”
When it comes down to it, Advertising/Direct Mail/Publication/(fill in the blank) Production isn't much different than any other Production. Production is a set of skills to get a job done. Knowledge of each particular industry is helpful but can be learned. When you talk to people, perhaps during an interview, you may hear
"You don't have direct experience in X or Y”. And then they go and hire someone who lacks direct experience some other area you would think would be important. Having heard it enough times applied to myself, I think I've figured this out. A hiring person is looking for, in this order:
1. Someone they know and like working with; but if the hiring person does not know the person, then
2. Someone who comes with a good reputation, through sources they know; but if not this then lastly
3. Experience as documented on the person's resume. Yes, this is last.
Hiring managers say "lack of experience" as a convenient excuse not to hire someone who doesn't have one of the first two items. That's why it's important to meet a lot of people and get people familiar with you. Then you can come closer to fulfilling requirement 1 or 2 above.
Best Blogs/Vlogs
I’ve found Eli Amdur to be a good career coach. He used to write a weekly newspaper column, but he can now be found online (eliamdur.com). He is inspiring and gives many helpful tips and ideas. Many of the ideas in this document I stole from him.
Also read Bob Sacks (bosacks.com). He’s the smartest man in the industry. Sign up for his daily email and he’ll keep you informed.
And if you are into folding, Foldfactory’s Trish Witkowski has a great collection called the 60-second Super-cool Fold of the Week (youtube.com/user/foldfactory). I used to anxiously await each week for this, but they are archived on YouTube now. If you are not into folding, you will be.
Sign up for WhatTheyThink?’s (whattheythink.com) weekly email and watch Frank Romano’s vlog. Romano knows printing and printing history inside out and runs the Museum of Printing in Massachusetts. Romano’s videos are some of the best videos on YouTube. Incredibly fun and informative.
Classifieds and Job Boards
Classifieds and job boards are the least likely way to find opportunities. Still browse them, but they are long shots. Best bets will be through staying in contact with people you know or want to know. Currently I use LinkedIn and Indeed. I list some job boards below.
Business Cards
Make business cards. Either go to a print shop, or you can do a decent job on your home printer with special paper from a stationery store. Once I went down to the print shop at the South Street Seaport and had letterpress cards printed. They cost a bit more but were beautiful. When I presented them to people, I thought it showed how I cared about print.
Keep Records
Create a spreadsheet in Excel to keep track of all your contacts. Name, company, phone, email, date of contacts and notes for follow up, or facts about their personal life that you can recall and ask them about the next time you speak to them. Identify in three groups: high priority that you want to periodically come back to; lower priority of almost anybody you contact or is in the field; and third, reference sources or companies or websites you want to continually look into or learn from.
Funny point: Pre-computer, I kept records on index cards, and kept adding to them through the years. At some point, the stack of cards was too onerous to transfer to an Excel file or better yet, a database. So, I kept up those cards and still use them now for some aspects of my search.
Also, keep records of your job-search expenses. They may be tax deductible.
Broaden the Search
Don’t just look in the publishing or printing industry. Museums, colleges, libraries, press organizations (AP, Reuters), foundations (Carnegie, Ford), hospitals–all publish or print catalogs, newsletters, directories, direct mail. Find out what they publish or print and contact them. Check with printers or suppliers; they may need people on the other side of the fence to act as liaisons, or customer service reps, or sales support for their organizations.
Beyond Full-Time Work
Be open to contract, freelance, or part-time work. Sometimes that’s a way to get in the door of an organization, and it may lead to other opportunities.
Volunteer
And if paid work is not coming your way, consider volunteering time with a trade organization or non-profit, or something that might be related to what you are looking for. This sometimes leads to a paying job, but at least it keeps you active and involved in the industry. I joined and became Secretary for the Greater New York Independent Publishers Association. I learned a lot about independent publishing, honed organizational skills, and met some interesting people, and later I was on the board of the Book Industry Guild of New York (now New York Book Forum) and chaired their annual New York Book Show twice, which was a big, well-known industry event. Very rewarding.
Use LinkedIn. If you don’t know how to best use LinkedIn, take a course or check the internet for tips and tricks. Use it to connect with people you know and try to reach out to others you want to know. But don’t go overboard and try to connect with everyone. That becomes burdensome to manage and dilutes the importance of your contacts, in my opinion. Unless you’re a salesperson. Then you want that large contact list.
When you become aware of an opportunity somewhere, use LinkedIn to find out who works there. Reach out to them, or people in your network who might be connected to them. Before I had the interview with Human Resources at a prior job, I looked on LinkedIn to see who worked for this company, or who was connected to the person I was interviewing with. Sometimes you may not be directly linked to that person, but you can see if you are two links away. Then you reach out to your direct connection to get introduced to the secondary connection. I found two people I knew who were connected to the person I was interviewing with. I reached out to them and asked them to put in a good word for me. At the end of my interview, I asked if the HR person needed references.
“Actually, I don’t need any references for you”, she said, “because two people already reached out to me to put in a good word”. Those little connections help.
Another time I again reached out through secondary connections before I had a phone interview with a company. When I called the person, right away she said, “Boy, you know a lot of people here! A few people contacted me”. Actually, I didn’t know anyone there, but I knew people who knew people there, and all were willing to help me out. But they’ll only be willing to help out if you have a good reputation, and don’t burn bridges. For people to help you out, you have to help them out throughout your career. Once you are searching it’s hard to ask for favors if you haven’t helped other people out in the years prior.
Generative AI
Use it. I’ve used ChatGPT (free version) to prepare for lunch or coffee meetings. Or before a webinar or educational event, ask it to prepare questions you can ask at the event so you appear knowledgeable. And my big win was when I was applying for a job, the interviewer asked me in advance to prepare a timeline, process steps, and pricing for a specific project. As you should know, to get good output, you need a good prompt. I talked to two people just to prepare for writing my prompt. And ChatGPT produced a very professional-looking Gantt chart, process steps, and pricing.
You need to check GenAI output, so I ran it by two vendors that might actually do the work. They both had some comments on it, but the basic structure and content was surprisingly good. I presented it at my interview, and was transparent that I used ChatGPT, but that I created an educated, detailed prompt, and then vetted and updated the output. They liked it, because they offered me the project.
Use generative AI to get background on people and enterprises. But again, do your homework to compose a good prompt, and to evaluate and edit the output. There are several products available, but the most common seem to be ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Microsoft Copilot. Try them out for different things.
Accessibility
You should be somewhat knowledgeable in Accessibility. In many cases, publishers need to be compliant with Accessibility standards to sell product, and to be adopted by governments and many educational facilities. Two places to learn:
Organizations
At the end of this essay is a list of organizations I have found helpful. Consider joining, or at least check out their websites on occasion. And subscribe or get on their mail list. Many have free newsletters. Note that the organizations and sites I list are my own personal favorites and are not intended to be a comprehensive list. But it is pretty robust, if you ask me.
Education and Proactivity
Don’t just look for jobs. Learn about the industry. Browse, learn about topics and trends in the industry. You want to stay informed. This helps when you can imagine different opportunities for yourself. For example, I read about a guy who started a Small Publisher consortium, helping small publishers buy mostly office products in bulk. I thought maybe he could offer these publishers Production/Operations help also, and I could be the person who did that. I contacted him about the idea. He liked the idea, and we met and talked about it. It didn’t pan out in the end, but it could have been an opportunity.
Another example: I had been reading the Bergen County newspaper The Record for years. One day I was browsing a local Barnes & Noble, and I saw a series of books about different local towns published by a small publisher, and I thought, why isn’t The Record doing this? They must have vast resources of pictures, stories, histories. I drafted a letter to the Managing Editor of the Record proposing they publish books, or special occasion issues or bookazines, and that I could manage the Production/Operations of this. The Editor called me, and we talked about it. Again, it didn’t pan out in the end, but it could have.
Act Quickly
When you see or hear of an opportunity, act quickly. Call, email, send a resume within hours. I had stayed in contact with a printer salesperson, and once, when between opportunities, I received a call from him. “Ed, I just had lunch with the VP of Production at XYZ Publishing company, and she has a Production Director who is retiring soon. Reach out to her.” As soon as I got off the phone, I called the VP. “Boy, news travels fast”, she said. And she called me in for an interview. I got that job. This is a great example of how a network works, how important salespeople are, and how you have to react quickly.
Interview Homework
When you get an interview, do your homework first. Research the company, see what kinds of materials they publish, browse the website, read some recent press releases. See if you can get the name of the person interviewing you, look the person up on LinkedIn and the internet, see what that person's history is. It helps to have a little background information. Look up the company on LinkedIn, see if there is anyone there you know or are connected to. If so, contact that person and ask him about the interviewer, the department, the company, etc.
In Sum
Patience. Use your search time wisely and productively. Set a daily routine. Get out of the house. Exercise more. Read more. Learn more. Spend more time with the family—if they’ll tolerate you. Expect to spend some money—for travel to businesses or meetings, to buy lunch or drinks, for education—as an investment for the opportunities to come. It’s difficult to hear this at this time, but think big, think about what you want to do, reach out to outlandish opportunities, while being practical and reaching out to what you know as well. Something will click.
Organizations
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Adobe—They have some great webinars on AI, workflow, digital files, and all of the Adobe Creative Suite.
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Advertising Production Club—Not solely focused on Advertising, this organization used to have great print-based learning sessions or networking opportunities but seems to have lost steam since COVID-19.
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American Book Producers Association—Used to be called “book packagers”, these are small companies or individuals that produce books usually under someone else’s imprint. Several virtual learning sessions per year.
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The Bibliographical Society of America (A personal interest.)
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Book Industry Study Group—Important industry group with great webinars, committees, and data and information for many aspects of publishing (metadata, supply chain, paper and sustainability, BISAC codes, distribution, and much more). Required. Weekly newsletter.
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Book Manufacturers Institute— “Supports book manufacturing leaders in their work to drive the promotion, efficiency, and growth of book markets for readers and educators in North America”.
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Bookjobs.com—Career site.
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Bosacks Media Intelligence/Heard on the Web—Bob Sacks’s free daily newsletter. You need this. And it’s fun. He published me twice!
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The Bottom Line—Newsletter from Jane Friedman. This is a must-read.
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Chronicle.com—Chronicle of Higher Education. The New York Times of Education.
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Center for Book Arts—Books as art, and old-time typesetting, printing, binding, and other book arts.
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Cip4.org—Printing standards, if you need specifics.
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Content Authenticity Initiative—If you’re concerned about content integrity, the CAI (formed by Adobe, The New York Times, and Twitter) is a movement to assure content provenance. Noble goal.
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Council for Advancement and Support of Education—CASE.org
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Frankfurter Buchmesse (Frankfurt Book Fair)—Some very good free “Masterclasses”, mostly focused on Marketing.
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George Washington University College of Professional Studies Graduate Program in Publishing—Great program with events available in person or virtual (and free), including the GW Ethics in Publishing Conference and the Student Journal Symposium for Literary and Research Publications. Also the GW Publishing Book Club with presentations and discussions with authors variously related to publishing.
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Guild of Book Workers—Created “to establish and maintain a feeling of kinship and mutual interest among workers in the several hand book crafts”.
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HERCjobs.org—Higher Education Recruitment career site.
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HigherEdJobs.com—Career site.
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Idealliance.org—Printing specifications and certifications.
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If we have magazines, they’re in aisle 5b—Substack from Joe Berger. Great nostalgia and information on the newsstand business.
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Indeed—Search here, but make sure you set up job alerts.
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Institute for Supply Management—Even if you are not involved in Supply Chain/Procurement/Sourcing, there are industry people that go to these meetings—printers, publishers, print outsourcing companies. And learning Sourcing and Supply Chain is helpful.
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The Internet Archive—Greatest imaginable library of all things digital—old websites, books, films, music, and much more. Important because they have early versions of websites or discontinued websites. They, among others, have captured government websites before our current president started making them “anti-woke”, erasing important history, and discarding research and facts. The IA has had controversies and legal setbacks because some publishers and writers believe they illegally copied content and made it available (even it was through Controlled Digital Lending), while others think they are making information accessible, which was the initial dream of the internet. Some recent court determinations have ruled against The Archive.
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Letterform Archive—Typography organization based in San Francisco. Sounds like great events, although I’ve never been. But they also have some fun and informative webinars.
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LinkedIn—Connect with people you know or want to know, receive career emails. Set up job alerts.
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Literarymarketplace.com—Looks like a website from the 1980s, but lots of resources. You need to sign up, though.
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The Magazine Diaries—Substack by Peter Houston. And The Grub Street Journal (also by Peter Houston). Grub Street is actually a print magazine about the magazine industry, as well as a website. UK-based, but still interesting stuff.
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Media Voices—UK based. Sign up for The Publisher Newsletter.
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MediaBistro.com—Was informational, now a career site.
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Morgan Healey—The “leading executive search business operating globally, with over 17 years' experience within STM Publishing, Open Research, Academic Publishing & Digital Content”.
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New York Book Forum—Was known as Book Industry Guild of New York; great speakers, virtual and some in person, focused on literacy, and more about print than digital books.
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Nonprofitjobs.org; and for New York: jobs.nonprofitnewyork.org—Career sites.
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Paperspecs—All about paper and ancillaries, and what’s available from various suppliers. Great samples and swatches, if you like paper.
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Poets and Writers—Classic magazine for writers.
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Poets House—Beautiful location downtown New York City overlooking the Hudson. A great space for readings and events. Incredible library of poetry books and chapbooks.
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Printed Matter—Great bookstore in downtown New York City specializing in small, independent, alternative publications. Events and readings.
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Printing Impressions—Perhaps the last newsletter dedicated solely to the print industry.
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Printing United Alliance—Printing industry group closely aligned with publishers and printers.
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Publishers Lunch—Part of Publishers Marketplace.
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Publishers Weekly—Free daily newsletters, the bible of the industry. Must read.
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Publishing Perspectives—Publishing news focused on international publishing.
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Publishingtrends.com—Good place to see who’s getting hired, promoted, hence positions opening up.
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The Scholarly Kitchen—All about research, journal publishing, science, and the journalism, ethics, and ethos of science publishing. A recent blog post gave you access to Homer Simpson’s “D’oh!” as said in nine different languages. In case you were wondering.
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Shelf Awareness—Free newsletter focused on book sales and distribution, with job listings.
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Tag—Was known as Williams Lea; one of the largest print management and outsourcing companies.
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Technology, Innovation, Publishing—Newsletter by Kathy Sandler, Sandler Techworks Manhattan. Lot of news on publishing, technology, and some good politics thrown in.
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Type@Cooper—All about typography from The Cooper Union in New York City. Sign up for alerts on classes and webinars. Many webinars are free. If you are interested in typography, there are a lot of esoteric webinars on type history, type ephemera, and the future of type.
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WhatTheyThink—Free daily newsletters focused on print and home of Frank Romano’s great vlog. Also, every Friday is Around the Web, a fun list of trivia and weird news, mostly print or publishing related.
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wnba-books.org—Women’s National Book Association
Copyright Boccawood Publishing 2025
“Jumping the Shark on a Daily Basis”
With invaluable contributions from Chris Marcantonio and Glen Johnson.
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