Mark Gilroy

Bringing Books to Life!

10 Warnings On Personal Branding

warnings on personal branding

Warnings on personal branding? I’m not sure what personal branding is—and definitely didn’t know it was dangerous.

Personal branding, defining and refining the you who you want the world to see, makes a lot of sense even if you don’t perceive yourself to be selling yourself or anything else.

Why? Even if you don’t perceive yourself to be selling yourself … you are. Unless, of course, you are a sociopath or a recluse. Selling yourself is really not a bad thing. Most of us would prefer to be liked rather than not liked; respected rather than disrespected; trusted rather than mistrusted; understood rather than misunderstood; heard rather than ignored.

Those are qualities and dynamics we like to sell. And they don’t sound very dangerous.

Personal branding sounds a lot less conniving when we use old adages to describe it, like put your best foot forward or you only have one chance to make a good first impression or dress for the part. [Read more…]

The Assignment Clause in a Book Publishing Contract

Q: What is the assignment clause in a book publishing contract? Is it important?

A: It defines whether you or your publisher can give-grant-sell to someone else the rights and obligations found in your Agreement. It might matter a lot.

Does the assignment clause ever become a business matter in book publishing?

Does the assignment clause ever become a business matter in book publishing?

I’ve worked on and signed hundreds of book publishing contracts as a publisher, author, agent, and packager. The first Agreement I signed as an author was in 1986 (the book is still in print and I still get a small royalty check every six months) and was just two pages long. Most publishing contracts today go from twelve to twenty pages with the goal of covering absolutely any and every potential situation and conflict imaginable in the ever-expanding and changing publishing universe.

I recently got a call from a friend from the advertising industry who was working on book contract, which was filled with new language and terms for him. He had a checklist of questions, including the assignment clause, [Read more…]