Author Laura Beauparlant is a branding expert and an extrovert. So I was wondering how she was doing at home, juggling her branding business with home-schooling her two boys, age 8 and 12. “I’m working harder than I ever did before,” Laura said, “and I’m a bit Zoomed out.” Last weekend, for example, Laura was supposed to hold a regular brand camp for four clients. It’s an intense in-person two-day affair. Instead, she did five two-hour sessions on Zoom over a week. It worked out pretty well, and the camp was priced a little lower because it was virtual (with [...]

For publishers and just about everyone else, the COVID-19 disaster is a classic snafu – situation normal all fucked up. Consider: Just after we went to print with a couple of spring books, our printer was ordered to close their printing plants in Quebec. Then the bookstores closed. Then Amazon de-prioritized delivering books. People are at locked down at home, and you’d think they have time to read, but most people are understandably obsessed with COVID-19, and the huge number of deaths from this terrible novel virus. All they seem to want these days is a mental break on TV, [...]