cool global BIZ

The Reader in the Coffee Shop

 

ON A RECENT night, my wife and I celebrated my e-book's recent success on an Amazon Kindle Bestseller list by dining at a local coffee shop. Party people, yeah.

My fiction debut, a novella/business parable called The Billionaire's Gift, somehow had soared on Saturday to a No. 19 ranking on the Kindle Bestseller List for literary fiction (free book list) -- one of many bestseller lists created by Amazon's clever algorithms that seduce authors into believing we're J.K. Rowling. Since then, my e-book has sank to near-obscurity. But let's pretend it's still rising, I'm John Grisham, and we're dining with Manhattan literati.

As I droned on about the e-book market, I noticed a bespectacled middle-aged woman, in the booth behind my wife, eating dinner with her e-reader.  She looked tired, pensive, a tad sad. When I mentioned my book, she glanced up, then looked down when I caught her eyes. I thought of a quote from a novelist at last year's Los Angeles Times Book Festival: "I write for people who carry their loneliness with them."

As my wife and I got up to leave, I made polite chit-chat with the lady. She looked happy to talk with someone. I asked her if she liked her e-reader. Yes, she said, she reads a lot on it. When I told her that my fiction debut hit a bestseller list for two days, her eyes gleamed and her face lit up in a huge smile. She looked like another person. I left my business card with her, and thanked her for being such a passionate reader.

In the weeks before my e-book's roll-out, I had fretted over marketing strategies. I had gotten intimidated by savvy authors and their big reps. I had worried about what pros would think of my rookie efforts in the e-book game. As a journalist, I had stormed fearlessly into big news stories and business investigations. But as a first-time fiction writer, I was scared shitless. I knew there was a long trek ahead.

Sometimes, though, the most important things are right in front of you. Amid all of my nail-biting and head scratching, I had forgotten the most rewarding part of the writing journey.

The woman in the coffee shop was a stranger, and I'll probably never see her again. But the thrill on her face made my whole weekend. Clearly, she was a book addict, a devout reader. I hope that she got my novella and devoured it in one sitting. I hope that it touched a chord, made her ponder and reflect and even cry a bit. I hope that she enjoyed it, and that she keeps reading many more books and authors.

That's why writers write, yes?

                                                                       - Edward Iwata

 

"Reading Woman" by 19th century Russian painter Ivan Kromskoi. Photo by paukrus, under a Creative Commons license on flickr.

 

My Promise to Readers

 

HERE'S MY PROMISE to readers of The Billionaire's Gift and future books: If you have taken the time in your busy lives to read my writings, I promise to express my gratitude and appreciation somehow. By e-mail. By a tweet or blog post. In prayer or meditation. But mostly, by writing books, essays, and short stories that hopefully move and inspire others.

You have my word that I'll do my best to treat you with respect, regardless of your status and standing in society, whether you're rich or poor, young or old, famous or not. Are you an "influencer" or a non-influencer? Do you have one follower, one thousand, or one million? No matter. Your voice and your spirit count. If I ever break this covenant with readers, please tell me.

The global community of readers and writers remains one of the last great hopes of the world, and it must survive and flourish.  Thanks for your support of all digital and traditional authors.

                                                                        - Edward Iwata

Golden Advice from Author Seth Godin: "Start Down the Wrong Path, Right Now"

 

 

"My Heart is Split Like Rio" by Matthew Stewart, under a Creative Commons license on flickr. To find art for this blog post, I searched for "North Star" on flickr, and this photo popped up of this Queensland landscape. Stewart is a talented photographer in Brisbane, Australia, whose landscapes are striking, memorable, resonant -- all of the critics' cliches apply.

 

GOLDEN ADVICE FROM Seth Godin, the marketing pro and best-selling author in his blog, Seth Godin's Blog: "Don't wait for the right answer and the golden path to present themselves . . . The way to get unstuck is to start down the wrong path, right now."

This seems to apply to entrepreneurs, innovators and anyone chasing a long-held goal or dream. It doesn't mean make a blind, wild, foolish leap of faith. Do your homework and due diligence. Be realistic about your skills and resources. Follow your instincts. Then take that wise leap of faith.

Just don't surrender to fear and caution, to analysis by paralysis, to the many excuses that hold back all of us. Each hour, each day, each lifetime is full of risks. It's the easiest and hardest move of all, to find your true calling. There is no greater responsibility in life.

The New Global Business Diversity Goes Beyond 'Political Correctness'

 

MORE THAN A decade ago, I met an executive for lunch at a business club in a wealthy U.S. suburb. As we entered the club, the conversations grew oddly hushed. Heads turned sharply. Diners shot glares at me, as if I were a street person. The brusque maitre d’ looked blankly through me, as if I was invisible, while warmly greeting my lunch partner. My face flushed.
 
Clearly, dark-skinned folks – even a tax-paying, God-fearing American in a business suit who spoke perfect English – were not welcome there. How would the club members have reacted if I had a “foreign” accent? Women barred from all-male private clubs, or white males targeted by anti-foreigner sentiment while travelling abroad, know the feeling.
 
Luckily, times have changed in much of the United States, which is still the world’s model for business and cultural diversity. Today, a new global business and workplace diversity is dramatically changing the corporate world here and rippling overseas to modern and emerging countries alike.

Traditionally, the diversity practices of U.S. companies focused mostly on legal compliance and federally-required hiring data – a product of the civil rights era. The result? A more diverse workforce in the United States. But as the pace of globalization quickens, more U.S. and global business leaders – AT&T, Coca-Cola, IBM, Intel, Procter & Gamble, Cisco Systems, Unilever, Renault-Nissan, American Express and others – are raising diversity to a higher level than ever before and broadly redefining the concept.
 
Rosalind Hudnell, corporate director of diversity for Intel, calls it 'the new calculus of diversity' in an interview, while Ernst & Young CEO James Turley and others describe it as a new global mindset. 

Dave Eggers, Another American Writer Winging Across Borders in That Global Way

 

CHRIST, AND THEN came Dave Eggers, just nominated for a National Book Award for his new novel, A Hologram for the King. Where does that transcultural dude fit? How do we define him? He's a cipher and a chameleon, beyond typecasting. Was he born that way, flying Lady Gaga-like from the loins of all global writers? He not only bashes borders, he transcends them, reshapes them.

The Rise of Global American Writers, or Will Ethnic Literature Still Be Ghettoized?

 

SO JAZZED THAT American writers of more hues and cultures are winning wide recognition and critical acclaim, including Junot Diaz, Dinaw Mengestu, Krys Lee, and others who are eroding borders and shaping a new fictional language.  They represent a new generation of global urban writers who speak with much flava and authenticity.  They're the progeny of Sandra Cisneros and Salman Rushdie and Chinua Achebe.  A polyglot, mulatto, mashed-up crew of young writers who reflect a dynamic world spirit that only will grow.  No brush-painting in that cloying, annoying, colonial voice that old-school publishers loved to court.  Are modern-day demographics, cultures and commerce finally converging, creating what journalist Guy Garcia has called the "new mainstream"?  Will "ethnic lit" no longer be ghettoized?  Are outsiders the new insiders?  Is exotic the new norm?  Are the "other" now us?  And can we stop using the word diaspora?  For those who yearn for more literature of all shades, we've been waiting a lifetime for the rise of the next-gen global literati.  I have no doubt that we're at the cusp of a new cultural ethos.

 "Junot Diaz" by Christopher Peterson, via Creative Commons license on Wikimedia Commons.

BOOKS: Fusion Entrepreneurs: Cross-Cultural Execs & Companies Revolutionizing the Global Economy by Edward Iwata

 

Updated Sept. 2012:  Fusion Entrepreneurs: Cross-Cultural Execs & Companies Revolutionizing the Global Economy, a new e-book by award-winning American journalist Edward Iwata, can be found at Amazon's Kindle Store, Apple's iTunes and iBookstore, Barnes & Noble, Diesel eBookStore, Kobo, Mark Coker's Smashwords, the Sony Reader Store, and other e-book retail and library channels.*  Fusion Entrepreneurs is distributed by Smashwords, an independent e-book distributor in Silicon Valley.  Thank you for reading and supporting all digital and traditional authors, bookstores, and publishers.  Readers keep our craft alive.  

 

(Cover art by Edel Rodriguez, an acclaimed Cuban American artist/illustrator whose work can be found in the Smithsonian Institution, private galleries, the New Yorker, Time magazine and the New York Times.)

 

* Note:  If you're new to e-books, ideally you'll need an e-reader device or tablet (an Amazon Kindle, a Barnes & Noble Nook, an Apple iPad, etc.) from your favorite e-book retailer. Or you can download free reading "apps" (small software applications) from the stores right into most laptops, desktop computers, and mobile devices.  This will let you read e-books bought from those stores.  Like anything else, this is only confusing the first time for non-techies.  After you get hooked, it's smooth as butter.

 

Marketing Pro Seth Godin: Eating Our Peas, Dancing on the Edge of Finished

 

THIS SETH GODIN kid has a future in the writing industry. Someone give him a shot. A bald-headed buddha of business, with his damn koans and Zen-like aphorisms. There you go. Title for his next best-seller: Business Buddha: How to Find Peace and Profits in a Greed-Driven World. Godin's current blog post, "Dancing on the Edge of Finished," cuts too close and dead-on to many of us, including this mad perfectionist who's never happy with his work. "The cycle of never-ending" -- nice:

 

"Before, when your shift was done, you were finished . . . Now, of course, there's always one more tweet to make, post to write, words with friends to complete . . . And that's the dance . . . For the marketer, the freelancer and the entrepreneur, the challenge is to level set, to be comfortable with the undone, with the cycle of never-ending. We were trained to finish our homework, our peas and our chores. Today, we're never finished, and that's okay. It's a dance, not an endless grind."

 

Disclosure: This blogger/journalist does not know well-known marketing expert Godin and has no financial interests or ties to his enterprises.

 

Mexican Writer Carlos Fuentes Dies at 83: "If You Do Not Name, No One Will Name"

 

ROLE MODELS IN literature and journalism were scarce for me when I was growing up. Even through my 20s, as a young reporter out of college, few writers who reflected my reality were published widely in U.S. mainstream fiction and non-fiction. At first I read John Cheever and John Updike, as far from the 'hood in L.A. as I was from soirees in the Hamptons. Homeboy, Run. Then I read global writers based in other countries for inspiration. Strong, bold voices such as Salman Rushdie, Yukio Mishima, James Baldwin. One of those writers, Carlos Fuentes, the renowned Mexican novelist and journalist, died on Tuesday. If you wanna blow your mind, try reading Terra Nostra, his epic global novel to end all novels. Oddly, that morning I was digging through musty boxes in the closet when I found an old, yellowed manuscript that I hadn't touched in 21 years. Big psychological block there. The epigraph I had chosen to guide readers into the manuscript was by Fuentes. It goes:

 

"What is your name? What is the name of this mountain, this river? Who are your father and mother? Who are your brothers? . . . If you do not name, no one will name."

 - Carlos Fuentes, "The Novel of the Americas: Dreaming in Spanish."

 

• Paris Review, "Carlos Fuentes, the Art of Fiction No. 68," interview by Alfred Mac Adam and Charles E. Ruas.
  
• Daily Beast, "Carlos Fuentes, Mexico's Universal Man of Letters, Dies at 83" by Mac Margolis.
• NPR, "A Fleeting Memory of Carlos Fuentes" by Linton Weeks.
• LATimes, "Carlos Fuentes dies at 83" by Reed Johnson and Ken Ellingwood.

 

 

Photo credit: Carlos Fuentes at the Miami Bookfair International, 1987. Photo courtesy of MDCarchives, under a Creative Commons license on Wikimedia Commons.

 

 

From Africa to Asia, Colors (Colours) are Changing the Global Beauty Industry

 

 

"The State of the Global Beauty Industry: Entering a New Chapter"  by Euromonitor International, via YouTube.  Irina Barbalova, Euromonitor's head of cosmetics research, recapping her presentation made at In-Cosmetics 2010 in Paris, France.

 

MISS UNIVERSE CONTESTANTS might look like Barbie dolls in different shades. But beyond glitzy pageants, the colors (colours) of beauty are slowly but surely changing global consumer culture and the beauty industry, according to SkinInc.com ("Skin Color of the United States" by Daphne Kasriel-Alexander) and a new book by Harvard Business School professor Geoffrey Jones (Beauty Imagined: A History of the Global Beauty Industry).