Daniel W. Drezner's The Ideas Industry looks at how we have moved from a world of public intellectuals to today's "thought leaders." Witty and sharply argued, it will reshape our understanding of contemporary intellectual life in America and the West.

In this book, Kathleen A. Kendall-Tackett, a seasoned psychologist with a successful record in publishing for a broad market, shows academics how to communicate their ideas effectively to a wider audience. With humor and personal anecdotes, she provides practical information on coming up with ideas for articles and books, beating procrastination, and writing effective, jargon-free prose.

Whether a side-street skirmish or an all-out war, fight scenes bring action to the pages of every kind of fiction. But a poorly done or unbelievable fight scene can ruin a great book in an instant. In Fight Write you'll learn practical tips, terminology, and the science behind crafting realistic fight scenes for your fiction. Broken up into "Rounds," trained fighter and writer Carla Hoch guides you through the many factors you'll need to consider when developing battles and brawls. • In Round 1, you will consider how the Who, When, Where, and Why questions affect what type of fight scene you want to craft. • Round 2 delves into the human factors of biology (think fight or flight and adrenaline) and psychology (aggression and response to injuring or killing another person). • Round 3 explores different fighting styles that are appropriate for different situations: How would a character fight from a prone position versus being attacked in the street? What is the vocabulary used to describe these styles? • Round 4 considers weaponry and will guide you to select the best weapon for your characters, including nontraditional weapons of opportunity, while also thinking about the nitty-gritty details of using them. • In Round 5, you'll learn how to accurately describe realistic injuries sustained from the fights and certain weapons, and what kind of injuries will kill a character or render them unable to fight further. By taking into account where your character is in the world, when in history the fight is happening, what the character's motivation for fighting is, and much more, you'll be able write fight scenes unique to your plot and characters, all while satisfying your reader's discerning eye.

The Snowflake Method-ten battle-tested steps that jump-start your creativity and help you quickly map out your story.

The creator of the Unmistakable Creative podcast makes a counterintuitive argument: By focusing your creative work on pleasing yourself, you can increase your productivity, happiness, and (eventually, paradoxically) the size of your audience. Creating for your own pleasure--whether you're writing a novel, composing songs, or painting a landscape--can seem pointless. It's tempting to focus on pursuing money and fame, rather than the process itself. But as Srini Rao warns, creating then turns into a chore that can harm your self-esteem and suck the pleasure out of life, rather than being a source of joy. Rao, host of the podcast The Unmistakable Creative, argues that we should counter this thinking by intentionally creating art for ourselves alone--an audience of one. In this book he shares the fascinating true stories of creatives who took this path, along with actionable tips and the research of creativity experts. You'll learn, for example: How Oprah's intentional focus on her own work rather than the opinions of everyone else catapulted her into one of the most popular talk shows of all time. How being process-driven can not only help you produce more work, but can make you happier outside of your creative time. How to put together a creative "team of rivals" whose feedback can help you hone your craft and filter out useless feedback. By playing to an audience of one, we can find more happiness, increased productivity, and a greater sense of community.

A great book is no longer enough. An author platform is the most powerful key to success in today's saturated market, and increasingly, publishers are demanding that new authors come to them with an existing audience of interested followers. Authors who are self-publishing have an even bigger need to build an engaged audience. Social media makes building the author platform easier than ever, but, unfortunately, most authors struggle to get it right. How can authors create their unique platform, connect with followers, write a manuscript, and grow their business? In Build Your Author Platform: The New Rules, top literary agent Carole Jelen and tech expert Michael McCallister apply their combined 35 years of expertise to outline 14 practical, hands-on steps to create a presence that will produce high book sales and expanded audience. From pre-publication through book launch and beyond, authors will learn how to: • Define goals and a unique brand • Employ successful website strategies, content, social presence, media authority, and training • Secure positive reviews • Attract viewers efficiently without cost Filled with detailed lessons, examples, success stories, and techniques used by marketing departments at major publishers, Build Your Author Platform is an indispensable guide for anyone looking for insight into publishing, promoting, and marketing books.

Rethinking the American Prison Movement provides a short, accessible overview of the transformational and ongoing struggles against America’s prison system. Dan Berger and Toussaint Losier show that prisoners have used strikes, lawsuits, uprisings, writings, and diverse coalitions with free-world allies to challenge prison conditions and other kinds of inequality. From the forced labor camps of the nineteenth century to the rebellious protests of the 1960s and 1970s to the rise of mass incarceration and its discontents, Rethinking the American Prison Movement is invaluable to anyone interested in the history of American prisons and the struggles for justice still echoing in the present day.