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Morning Jolt July 1, 2014 Welcome to July. 2014 is flying by . . . Boy, That's New! Another Call for More Infrastructure Spending! Hope you didn't need to use the Key Bridge today, Washington-area commuters:
Back in 2009, Congress made "the largest new investment in America's infrastructure since the Interstate Highway System" and then spends about $52 billion per year, and yet we're still hearing the same complaints about "crumbling roads and bridges." A Google search shows 111 news articles in recent weeks using the phrase, "crumbling roads and bridges." (Overall on the web: 321,000.) No matter how much we spend, we keep getting told that our infrastructure is crumbling like a stale doughnut and we absolutely must spend more. What, have we been building bridges out of balsa wood? Are we resurfacing our roads with graham crackers? It's easy to suspect that this spending isn't really driven by physical demands but by a desire to keep the money flowing. As for those fantastic jobs, as the president later acknowledged, "Shovel-ready was not as . . . uh . . . shovel-ready as we expected." The Very Quick Wrap-Up of the Supreme Court's Hobby Lobby Decision You already know to check NRO's Bench Memos blog for everything you need to read on yesterday's big Supreme Court decisions, right? Jonathan Keim on Nine Myths in Justice Ginsberg's dissent, Ed Whelan on the ramifications of the argument in Ginsberg's dissent, Matthew J. Franck on the good news that "there are only two justices on the Court -- only Ginsburg and Sotomayor -- who are willing to make the transparently bad argument that when you go into business for a profit under the corporate form, you lose your religious freedom under the law. " Elsewhere on NRO, the editors conclude, "That this increase in freedom makes some people so very upset tells us more about them than about the Court's ruling." Discussing the ruling on the Snark Factor with Fingers Malloy, Thomas LaDuke and Sarah Rumpf last night, I noted that we shouldn't put too much stock in liberals' collective conniption fit over this decision . . . because having conniption fits over Supreme Court decisions is what liberals do. Every 5-4 decision that goes their way is a wise decision guiding Americans to a better tomorrow, and every 5-4 decision that doesn't go their way is a dark and foreboding overreach suggesting the imminent ascent of totalitarian theocracy. The same chief justice who they saluted as the wisest voice since Solomon on the Obamacare individual mandate decision is now back to being Torquemada again. Supreme Court decisions to liberals are kind of like the World Cup to the rest of us. They largely ignore them until the stakes are highest, and then, in an unexpected, suddenly-revealed decision that could have been reversed if one participant had scored the other way, they explode in a mass exhibition of jubilation or furious disbelief and anguish over defeat. Advice for Aspiring Authors, Part Two Welcome to another edition of, 'Attempting to make a Jolt section about the book actually useful to readers who are tired of the sales pitches.' Getting it out of the way: The Weed Agency is . . . available on Amazon Prime, Kindle, at Barnes and Noble, Nook, and IndieBound can steer you to an independent bookseller near you. Yesterday on NRO, Adam Bellow, one of the most successful publishers of conservative books, wrote:
He's publisher and CEO of Liberty Island Media and Liberty Island online magazine, where "readers of a conservative or libertarian bent can find fiction, music, video and graphics that reflect their social values and political beliefs -- and readers of all persuasions can find new voices and undiscovered talent." There's a fascinating discussion in the comments section under Adam's article. I suspect there are a lot of aspiring novelists, screenwriters, storytellers, and other creative minds out here in the ranks of conservatives. I think, and hope, there's a great deal of untapped talent out there. But dreamers should prepare to face a lot of obstacles out there that are entirely separate from a liberal cultural monolith. Forewarned is forearmed. A while back I talked about the value of having an agent -- most of us aren't experts on the publishing industry and what's standard in contract law. Yes, a lot of agents will turn you down. If you want to quit after someone turns down your idea, then the process of writing a book really isn't for you. Be ready to wallpaper your room with rejection notices, and look at that wall as a source of pride of what you were willing to overcome. Yes, there are some self-publishing success stories. But it's very, very difficult to get a self-published book onto a bookstore shelf. (Also remember that just about all of us can benefit from the feedback of an editor, for everything from copy editing to fleshing out your ideas, themes, characters, plot twists, and so on.) (You have better odds in stores where you can accurately be described as a "local author.") Getting your book into the bookstore is only half the battle. Getting people to buy your book is probably going to be harder than you expect. Do you often go into a bookstore and end up purchasing a book you had no intention of buying when you walked in? If so, God bless you. Sadly, a significant portion of the book-buying public isn't like that. People know what they like, and they're only sporadically looking to try something new. They walk in, looking for the latest Stephen King or Stephanie Meyer or Diana Gabaldon or Brad Thor, and they don't spend much time looking for something new or different. You may have noticed that Barnes and Noble has a lot of books, and the vast majority of shoppers will never even see the cover of your book, walking right by it on the way to something else. That's just the way life is. You may have noticed that the front tables and displays at your local bookstore are dominated by books relating to current movies and television shows. Less than a week after the season finale of Game of Thrones, I saw a display in the Hilton Head Island Barnes & Noble for George R.R. Martin's series of novels, saying, "The Season Is Over . . . But the Story Continues." Movie studios and television networks are effectively staging big, expensive marketing for those books by marketing their own products. This isn't an ideological bias on the part of bookstores; it's a bias in favor of books that a shopper will have already heard about when they walk in the door. The easiest market for your book is people who know you. Getting strangers to buy your book is hard. Sales for The Weed Agency are doing fine, but one of my goals for the book was to break out of the conservative niche and reach some readers and audiences that I might not otherwise reach. To be honest, I'm not sure that's occurred yet or if it will ever happen. For whatever reason, it's not quite attracting the attention of the general media, outside of the political media. The world of book reviews could fill up another Jolt by itself, but the short version is that the space for reviews keeps shrinking in newspapers and magazines, and book-section editors have their own particular tastes and idiosyncrasies. You probably won't have to worry about your book getting a bad review -- the more likely problem is that it just won't get reviewed. ADDENDA: Right before the house move and last week's getaway, I taped a pair of video interviews with GOP Senate candidate (and friend of NR) Ed Gillespie. In the first, you can see that if you've donated to Ed Gillespie's Senate campaign, you can rest assured that your money did not go to fancy office furniture. In the second, Gillespie shows me some of the knickknacks in his personal office -- a letter his daughter sent to George W. Bush in crayon and the president's response; a windbreaker from his days as a U.S. Senate parking attendant, and mementoes of his work as a campaign manager for Dick Armey in 1986. Google Maps seems convinced that the Gillespie campaign is working in a giant oil terminal tank . . . Mary Katharine Ham is guest-hosting Chris Plante's show on WMAL in Washington D.C. today, and I'm scheduled to join her sometime in the 10 a.m. hour. Remember, tonight you can join me at a Happy Hour organized by Doublethink, a snappy publication featuring a lot of young conservative writers published by the America's Future Foundation. Joel Gehrke -- who you have no doubt been reading at NRO -- edits it. We'll have a bunch of copies of The Weed Agency. Tuesday, July 1, 6:00 to 8:00 p.m. Mission, Dupont Circle, 1606 20th St NW Washington, D.C. To read more, visit www.nationalreview.com
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