What kind of consumer are you?

I’m working on the books conclusion and thought I would share a bit on types of consumers. Actually, my intentions are selfish. I wanted to see if anyone else had any types of consumers they would add to the list. Let me know if you have any ideas or if the below passage rubs you one way or the other.

Are we bargain hunters that follow our pocketbooks more than our conscience? If so, we don’t care where or who made our clothes as long as we get a good deal. But some of us don’t have a choice. If we want to clothe and feed our families, we can’t afford to be anything else but bargain hunters. As much as we would like to have the option to worry about a garment worker in Bangladesh struggling to support her family, we are struggling to support our own.

Are we red, white, and blue consumers that, after watching our jobs and those of our neighbors slip away, want to support only American companies? Believe it or not, it’s possible. If so, we support companies like American Apparel, the U.S.’s largest garment manufacturer, which employs 4,000 workers at its facility in Los Angeles. Dov Charney, a controversial figure recognized in The Economist of, “…(having) been called a brilliant businessman, an amateur pornographer, a Jewish hustler and a man with a social mission,” founded the company in 2003. Anti-sweatshop and anti-globalization activists alike have praised Charney and American Apparel for their vertically integrated business model, keeping business in the U.S., and providing his workers with a fair wage and benefits. Charney told The Economist, “I believe in capitalism and self-interest. Self-interest can involve being generous with others.”

Where Charney sees his decision to manufacture in the U.S. as primarily a good business decision, other companies see their decision to sell only products made in the U.S. as primarily an ethical/patriotic one. All-American Clothing Co. – which incidentally is located in Darke County, Ohio, not far from where I grew up – sells solely American-made products online.

Are we conscientious consumers that want to be sure the products we buy were made under good working conditions and the workers are treated fairly? If so, we shop online at places like Justice Clothing, Maggie’s Organics/Clean Clothes, and No Sweat Apparel that ensure us they source from factories that meet our approval.

For most of my life, I have been none of the above. I was fortunate enough to not be restricted to bargains, yet I really didn’t put much thought to whom or where I was wearing. I was the worst kind of consumer – an apathetic one. I knew the people that made my clothes lived difficult lives, but I didn’t think about it.

Now I do.

I believe that we need to be engaged consumers. Until some type of GWC-like labeling system is available, we have to base our purchasing decisions on our own research. We should visit companies’ websites of the products we buy or are considering to buy from to see what kind of involvement they have with monitoring the factories they source from. If they only have a couple of paragraphs outlining their codes and how they self-police their factories, we might want to consider shopping elsewhere. But if they belong to organizations like the Fair Labor Association or have worked with the Clean Clothes Campaign, their factories are inspected by a third party, they have a position or department that handles social responsibility issues, and they acknowledge the challenges of ethical sourcing, we should consider giving them our business. Of course, this doesn’t necessarily guarantee that their products are made under fair conditions, but such actions show signs that the company is engaged.

Contractual benchmark obliterated and still obliterating

After yesterday’s day of writing I thought I had surpassed my contractually obligated 65,000 words and was feeling kind of proud. It turns out I had excluded a few chapters and my count is actually 71,163 and growing.

This is exciting in a sense, but it is also scary because I’m not done. I’m wrapping things up, but I bet I could be flirting with that 80,000 word mark by the end. Early on, I asked Caren, my agent, what was typical to be over or under. She told me 1,000 words. Yikes, that’s precise.

Although, it would have been even scarier if I finished the last chapter spot on the 65K mark because I need editing room. Normally, I write 1,000 words to get 800 (what I consider to be) good ones. That means I have to write 125% more than the target amount. It turns out that writing 80K to get 65K is pretty much on pace to do that. I love it when it looks like you actually know what your doing, but you know you don’t.

Next week I’ll probably pull out the red pen and start the slashing. It should be fun.

Introducing the “Where Am I Wearing?” cover

What do you think? Check out my guns! Actually, that dude is not me, but you’re welcome to imagine that it is. I’m neither that buff nor tan.

A big thanks to Paul McCarthy, the fella who designed the cover, and all of the other folks at Wiley who helped with it.

Bibi Russell on the World Vision Report

The World Vision Report aired my interview with model/designer/saint/UN Ambassador Bibi Russell. They mixed the interview with some Bangladeshi music and I think it turned out quite good. Especially, since it’s my first ever recorded piece to air.

Listen to it now.

Bibi plays an important part in my book. Here’s how the chapter she’s featured in starts out:

“Now is a good time,” Bibi said. “The electricity is out.”

I have never interviewed a supermodel before or even talked to one, for that matter. I never expected that she would be there - up three flights of stairs off the chaotic streets of Dhaka sitting in the dark.

When she stood I almost said, “Boy, you sure are tall and skinny,” but I didn’t. I would say dumber things later.

“Do you smoke?” She asked in her elegant, full-bodied smoker’s voice.

“No…”

“Good,” she said.

“But go ahead.” As if she needed my permission to smoke in her own office.

At war with China…

…and the chapter on China is winning. I’m on day two of pounding my head into my desk.

My mantra: Keep it simple stupid.

But that darn country is so complex!

Wish me luck.

It’s my birthday…how about a gift?

I’m beginning to learn that there is more work to writing a book than the actual writing. There’s the propositioning of other authors for blurbs to be included on the book, there’s the marketing considerations, and there’s the cover.

My publisher will primarily be taking care of the cover, but they asked me if I had any ideas, which was nice of them. I sent them a few pics of the workers and their homes and then they told me that we can’t use people on the cover. Then I directed them to the ultimate WAIW? slideshow to see if anything struck their fancy. So, I wasn’t much help. Here I’ve been thinking about all of the words that go in the book and not what goes on the book.

Today, I’m 29 and since I know that you want to recognize my last birthday before I’m 30, here’s something you can do for me…

Share any ideas about what images or concepts you think would be great for the cover of WAIW?

Or, if that isn’t quenching your desire to give me stuff, you can always send me money. Please round to the nearest $100.

The narrative journalism oath

1/29/08
Karl Schoenberger author of Levi’s Children: coming to terms with human rights in the global marketplace on narrative journalism:

“When the human rights narrative abandons the pretext of objectivity and crosses over into the realm of pure entertainment, it can become as preposterous as it is insidious.

The problem begins with the occasional purple-prose narrative journalism that reveals shocking tales of egregious human rights violations but neglects to follow up on the factual chain of events or to place the sordid tale into a broader context. The consumer of a newspaper article or a TV newsmagazine expose feels absolved of personal responsibility after experiencing a delicious emotional revulsion to the outrage, without being asked to think about how to prevent it from happening again. For an ephemeral moment, the passive audience for cheesy entertainment journalism can feel good about detesting Nike shoes or virtual slavery on Saipan without any obligation to revisit the intellectual and more challenges of the issue the next day.”

I Kelsey Timmerman, soon-to-be author of Where am I Wearing? do solemnly swear to not use purple-prose (or any other color of prose) in my narrative, to place all sordid tales in a broad context, to avoid having my readers experience any delicious emotional revulsion to outrage, and to cut the cheese out of my journalism.

Thank you.

It is official!

Publisher’s Marketplace made the official announcement today. If you can’t read the pic here’s what it says:

14 January, 2008

Non-fiction Narrative: www.whereamiwearing.com blogger Kelsey Timmerman’s WHERE AM I WEARING?, in which the author learns about the garment industry by following the Made In China/Bangladesh/Honduras tags of a complete outfit and goes to the countries to visit the factories that made his clothes and talk to its workers, to Richard Narramore at Wiley, for publication in 2008, by Caren Johnson at Caren Johnson Literary Agency (World).

It just goes to show that any idiot with a pair of Jingle These underwear and a propensity to blow money on strange around the world quests can become an author.

Living the dream baby. Living the dream.

What’s a literary emergency?

It’s when your agent emails you a long list of things that an editor interested in your book wants and you think to yourself, “Awesome! I should be able to get that knocked out in the next three or four days.” And then you read that you have to have it all done by 6pm and it’s already 3pm.

I got it all taken care of. With more time, I could have done a better job, but it is what it is. Plus, instead of hanging over my head for a few days, it was only there for a few (very intense) hours.

My proposal has made it several steps into a few publishing houses and I’ve got my fingers crossed. I really can’t think of a better Christmas present. Anyhow, I don’t like to get my hopes up or jinx myself by writing about it. So, I’ll stop.

Is this blog to bookish?

Because I’ve been told my proposal’s sample chapter are to bloggish?

Which is the reason I haven’t blogged today. I’ve been busy debloggifying the sample chapter. Actually, I think (hope) it’s just a matter of rearranging some of the sample chapter to giving it a longer format. It shouldn’t take more than a couple days to get it looking nice and bookish.

Editors are liking the WAIW? idea; I just need to keep tweaking the sample.