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How to Cook
a Book
A 12 STEP PROGRAM
» Thursday 15 January 2009 | 5 pm
» The Bohemian Café, 524 Bernard Avenue
An informal afternoon hour showcasing people and ideas featured in Okanagan ARTS. Join us as publishing veteran Robert MacDonald explores the rapidly changing publishing landscape and how writers can benefit from emerging markets and new technology.
» This is a free event. Refreshments will be available at a modest cost.
» Seating is limited, please reserve yours HERE
Insider Secrets of Book Success Revealed
The most obvious quality that sets books apart from other media is the amount of human thought, skill and sheer hard work invested in each title, whether it's successful or not, whether it's published by a major publisher, by a small or niche publisher, or by the writer. This is bound up with the fact that the creation, production and marketing of books operates on a slower rhythm and a longer time-scale than other print media, and especially than the jump-cut, day-to-day busyness of the electronic media. Unable to provide instant gratification, books must insert themselves into the public sphere in a different way. Some of the book's attraction to readers arises from this sense that reading books offers an opportunity for more sustained thought - or escape - than can be found in a world of ephemera, surfaces and spin.
Readers today are far less likely to spend their time poring over a handful of authoritative volumes in search of revelation. In a world awash with text, people read many books once, rather than one book many times, they read for a wide range of purposes, and they have access to many sources of information other than books.
On Thursday, January 15 at 5 pm the ongoing weekly Okanagan Institute Express series at the Bohemian Café hosts How to Cook a Book: A 12 Step Program. Join us as publishing veteran Robert MacDonald explores the rapidly changing publishing landscape and how writers can benefit from emerging markets and new technology.
MacDonald maintains, "Many writers hanker for the time when books and their authors, with publishers as their gatekeepers, could set the terms of public debate. Those days are mostly gone. Books today are only part of a vast, deep and diverse matrix of cultural products. The question that now faces the book industry (and the individuals that empower and depend on it - writers, editors, designers, publishers, marketers and sellers) is how to make a future for itself in this rapidly changing landscape."
In this presentation, he shows how the digital technology that has transformed every type of publishing over the past couple of decades has also radically reduced the economic and temporal barriers to publishing books. He presents a straight-forward 12 step program that allows writers and publishers to create high-quality books, find a ready market and not break the bank.
 Robert MacDonald has had a long and distinguished career in publishing. He was the Director of the Publishing Workshops at the University of Toronto and the Banff Centre for fifteen years. He was a founder of the Canadian Periodical Publishers Association and the Graphic Arts in the Public Service Foundation. He has consulted for - and started - book, magazine and multimedia publishing companies in Canada and the US. He is the publisher, editor and designer of Okanagan Arts and Okanagan Home magazines, and the Director of the Okanagan Institute.
How to Cook a Book: A 12 Step Program is a free event, and takes place at the Bohemian Café. This marks the 73rd event the Okanagan Institute has held since the Express series got underway in July 2007. Since that time, the series has played host to many Okanagan luminaries, including former deputy secretary general of Amnesty International Derek Evans, artists Lee Claremont and Gary Pearson, BC Book Award nominee Don Gayton, CBC Literary prize winner poet Harold Rhenisch, distinguished editor and author Jim Taylor, poet and professor John Lent, animator and filmmaker Jim Cliffe, broadcaster Marion Barschel and others from a wide range of creative fields.
FOR MORE INFORMATION AND TO REGISTER ONLINE CLICK HERE
Where Enquiring Minds Gather. Okanagan Institute at the Bohemian Café A hearty feast of lectures, presentations, workshops and showcases celebrating our culture and community. Produced by the Okanagan Institute in association with Wheat King Publishing magazines: Okanagan Arts and Okanagan Home. Express is sponsored in part by the Arts Council of the Central Okanagan, Wood Lake Publishing, UBCO-FCCS, and in support of Project Literacy Kelowna.
The Okanagan Institute is a group of creative professionals that have gathered around the goal of providing events, publications and services of interest to enquiring minds in the Okanagan. We partner with individuals, organizations, institutions and businesses to achieve optimal creative and social impact.
Our mission is to ignite cultural transformation, catalyze collaborative action, build networks and foster sustainable creative enterprises. We invite the participation by all members of the creative community.
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