There's Inadvertence, and Then There's Postal Inadvertence

Postal officials seem to have developed a new meaning for inadvertent, the subject of today's Publishing Word of the Day.

Last month the U.S. Postal Service published a notice that it was expanding expand the service area for the Flats Sequencing System (FSS). But hours after Dead Tree Edition revealed that the obscure posting would inch up postal rates for publications and other flat mail, the USPS issued a statement entitled "Inadvertent Addition of New FSS Zones" that withdrew the change.

Some mailers were dubious, noting postal officials' come-hell-or-high-water approach to rolling out the Flats Screwing System regardless of the costs to the Postal Service or its customers.Those doubts were expressed in a highly unscientific poll that was recently conducted on Dead Tree Edition's Facebook page.

To the question, "How would you describe the recently withdrawn postal rate hike for flat mail?", 83% of respondents chose, "Inadvertent, my ass! Postal officials knew exactly what they were doing . The only thing that was inadvertent was that the USPS didn't mean to get caught and have to drop the change before it could even be implemented." The other 17% of the respondents chalked it up to incompetence or to the traditional meaning of "inadvertent."

What's clearly advertent is postal officials' desire to push up postal rates for flat mail more than is allowed under the current inflation-based rate cap.

This is the fifth in our 31-part Publishing Word of the Day series. Check back every day during July to experience the thrills and chills of cutting-edge publishing terms. Tomorrow's word: denialsizing.

The Four Horsemen of Publishing

Viktor Vasnetov's "Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse"

When publishers refer to The Four Horsemen, they usually mean Amazon, Apple, Facebook, and Google.

The concept of publishers having to joust with the fearsome, well-financed Four Horsemen started in the book-publishing industry. But the allegory is easily grasped by all publishers who warily view these web giants as, at best, frenemies.

The source of the moniker is the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse from the New Testament's mysterious Book of Revelation, who usher in nasty waves of Pestilence, War, Famine and Death. You don't suppose we publishers are at all paranoid, do you?


This is the fourth in Dead Tree Edition's 31-part Publishing Word of the Day series that will be published throughout July. We guarantee you've never heard all of these words -- because some of them were dreamed up in our own devious little brains.

Invasion of the Listicklers and Master Baiters

From TIME magazine's web site

Forget about journalists. What web publishers are looking for these days are listicklers and master baiters, our Publishing Words of the Day.

Sure, long-form journalism may be impressive, but for pageviews there's nothing like a clickbait headline, especially if it links to a 20-part slide show.

Say what? From WaPo.com

Master baiters are the evil geniuses who draw you in with those over-hyped headlines. Who wants to read about ISIS when you could be checking out "The Beauty of These Celebrity Daughters Will Drop Your Jaw," "15 Movie Stars' Shocking Plastic Surgery Fails," or "12 Weight-Loss Tips Doctors Don't Want You To Know"?

The clickbait headlines typically link to listicles, mindless lists created by listicklers that are long on images and  short on words. Listiculating is sort of like writing, but without all those annoying verbs and punctuation and grammar and stuff.

My theory is that Listicles was the Greek god of irresponsible journalism, but my web friends insist the word is a mashup of "list" and "article."

Still, you can turn some heads in a staff meeting by pronouncing the word as if it came from ancient Greek -- LIST-uh-KLEEZ. Hell, you can usually get a few smirks even by pronouncing it correctly.

(Some PC types who objected to the masculine sound of "listicles" proposed a gender-neutral alternative. But, somehow, "listnads" never caught on.)

From TheAtlantic.com

Many otherwise reputable publishers apparently believe their credibility isn't hurt by Chipotling their web pages with listicular cancer.

But consumers are apparently catching on that listicles rarely live up to the hype, take forever to load, and will try to trick them into accidentally clicking on ads. Readers are reportedly becoming less inclined to take the bait, which is leading to lower publisher revenue from listicles.

Additional resources:

• How Easy, Sleazy Money Is Ruining Publishers' Reputations: My article for Publishing Executive that focused on the masters of master baiting, Taboola and Outbrain. 
• A Kick in the Listicles: 7 Reasons Digital Media Are Inferior to Print, which includes these words of wisdom: "Let's face it, folks: The web has listicles, but print has balls."
• If you don't want to miss any of our 31-part Publishing Word of the Day series, write us at dead.tree.edition@gmail.com so that you will be emailed whenever Dead Tree Edition publishes something new.
• Tomorrow's word: The Four Horsemen. (Yeah, I know, it's not a word, it's a phrase. So sue me!)

Long-Form Journalism: New Name, Old Concept

TL/DR

Today’s hot Publishing Word of the Day is "long-form journalism", a much-talked about concept among web publishers who are trying to boost their reputations.

Long-form is web content that’s written in complete sentences and sometimes even, like, entire paragraphs. It’s what we old timers call “articles” and millennials call “TL/DR.”

In the magazine industry -- uh, magazine-media industry -- long-form means "stuff on the web site that was also in the print magazine."

Bloomberg BusinessWeek created a long-form stir last year by publishing a 38,000-word, 15-chapter piece called “What Is Code?” I actually started reading it on my -- Wait, someone's texting me . . . .

Where was I? Oh yeah, I never did finish "What Is Code?", nor did anyone else. But it did wonders for BusinessWeek’s sense of gravitas.

Tomorrow's Word of the Day: listicular cancer