Blithering Idiot on the radio (try click on Book publishing in Hawaii podcast on the home page)

Ron Cox of Bishop Museum Press and I were invited to be on Bob Sandla’s HPR program "Business of the Arts," a show dedicated to talking about the business and other concerns of non-profits in the islands. So I prepared, got all the facts and figures about our budget and how contrary to popular belief we get 70% of our funding from sales and individual donors. And only 15% from private foundations and 15% from government grants (both of which are drying up due to the downturn). So what does he ask me about? Hmmm…seems like he went to the website and poked around and asked "What is Teachers Corner?" you know that button up there at the top that doesn’t do anything yet…so I had to explain what we hoped to do with that button…

Then he asked "What is Word Bag?" Apparently he looked at that, so I had to explain that was at last year’s Book and Music Festival.

And then "Don’t you have a writers conference coming up?" Huh? Oh, the Penwomen’s Conference in April…that has a couple of BR writers participating, but it’s not our conference…

Then it went to "Well, what’s going to happen to publishing with Kindle and the iPad?" Ah, beats me.

So…if you want to hear me on the radio crash and burn, click on the "Book publishing" podcast posted on the main page under Podcasts. Me, I’m gonna put my head in a paper bag.

Ron Cox was great explaining about Bishop Museum Press although he got thrown a few curve balls too. I did get a chance to rib him about stealing our intern away from us, Ms. Lan Tu, who is now an editor at Bishop Museum Press. And thanks to Bob for having us on the show.