Main Page
From FirebrandWiki
Welcome to the Firebrand Wiki. This wiki supports our community of publishers and partners.
Return to Firebrandz Community Home Page
SUPPORT
Contact Support at askburnie@firebrandtech.com
Attention, Attention, Attention
(queue the choppers)
All Firebrandz report to the “Swamp" at booth 4077.
Send your emails now to schedule time with your favorite BEA veteran.
Fran “Hunnicutt” Toolan : Fran@firebrandtech.com
Doug “Trapper” Lessing: Doug@firebrandtech.com
Rob “Klinger” Stevens: Robert@firebrandtech.com
This season looks to be a great show as we’ve expanded our camp to include special guest stars from NetGalley. We invite everyone to come visit our expanded booth and meet with Susan Ruszala susan.ruszala@netgalley.com and Jane Lindley jane.lindley@netgalley.com
The extra large booth (4077) will be a busy place with a full schedule of Blogger Signings. Meet and chat with your favorite bloggers, check out the schedule here and plan accordingly: http://followthereader.wordpress.com/2009/05/14/blogger-signing-schedule/
As always you can keep up with what we’re up to at http://www.firebrandtech.com/community/upcoming-events.php and if you Tweet you can follow us on Twitter @ftoolan, @dslessing and @Askburnie
That is all,
NetGalley in the news
Blogger Signing Schedule at BEA [1]
Sony e-reader giveaway contest from Unbridled books [2]
Check out "Follow The Reader" click here: [3]
About Follow the Reader is a new blog for those who read and recommend books. Follow the Reader is sponsored by NetGalley (at www.netgalley.com) but you'll most often hear two independent publishing voices: Charlotte Abbott, and Kat Meyer.
Important information for eloquence publishers who supply children's product POSTED 2/4/2009
Please read the following attachment from Catherine regarding CPSIA. Image:Product-safety.doc Here are the samples that are at the bottom of her email:
Image:ProductSafetyforELOWEBSITE.xls
Image:SAMPLE ProductSafetyforELOWEBSITE.xls
Interesting info on CPSIA
Greetings firebrand community, We at firebrand technologies have been working hard to keep everyone up to date with the recent developments on CPSIA. Last week we had a conference call with a number or our clients in an effort to determine what will be needed within Title Management to help track CPSIA information as well as what should be transmitted to trading partners via eloquence. This is an ongoing conversation and no decisions have been made at this time. We will be updating this site as well as continuing to communicate any news we hear on the subject. With this in mind here is an email from Fran and a link to news on CPSIA:
Hello all,
We still owe you minutes from our meeting, and Catherine is about to publish an email to all of you regarding how to get your info into eloquence, but the newswire is abuzz with a possible ‘stay of execution’ from the February 10th deadline.
I’m passing it along here for your review. http://www.cpsc.gov/cpscpub/prerel/prhtml09/09115.html
In reading it, I’m not so sure that this has huge affects on us because of specific exclusions related to products produced after Dec. 21, 2008.
CPSC Stay of Enforcement Offers Hope but no Solution to Small Manufacturers
Below please find a press release from the Handmade Toy Alliance regarding the stay of enforcement issued by the Consumer Product Safety Commission regarding the Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act. We hope this will prove helpful with any follow up articles you may be working on regarding this
-- Handmade Toy Alliance www.handmadetoyalliance.org
CPSC Stay of Enforcement Offers Hope but no Solution to Small Manufacturers
Action by Congress Still Urgently Needed
Stamford, CT February 2, 2009—On Friday, January 30, 2009, the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC), in response to numerous requests by industry organizations including the Handmade Toy Alliance, issued a stay of enforcement of several provisions of the Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act (CPSIA), important provisions of which were set to begin on February 10, 2009. This limited stay comes after numerous members of Congress urged the CPSC to quickly resolve numerous unanswered issues and a coalition of 67 business associations, including the Handmade Toy Alliance, requested a delay.
Although the stay provides temporary relief for small businesses for some aspects of the new law, the unintended consequences of the CPSIA will continue to cause severe problems for many. Even with the stay, retailers and manufacturers will still face considerable challenges beginning on February 10, 2009.
"The stay sends a message to Congress that work is still needed on technical amendments to the CPSIA to fix the law," noted Dan Marshall, founder of the HTA. "I think this is good news. Not because it solves our problems, but because it gives us some breathing room to get our problems solved. Our work is far from done."
Specifically, Congress needs to take action this week to make the necessary statutory changes to halt the February 10 effective date to give the CPSC sufficient time to complete and issue comprehensive regulations on the many outstanding issues. More importantly, such a delay would give small businesses across the country the time to fully understand and comply with this complicated new product safety law.
"We share the goal of consumer advocates to make sure only safe childrens products are sold." Cecilia Leibovitz of CraftsburyKids.com shared. "Yet we also need clear and consistent rules in place so sellers and makers of children's products can know how to comply with these important rules. So far, that hasn't happened."
The Handmade Toy Alliance is a grassroots alliance of 289 toy stores, toymakers and children's product manufacturers from across the country, who want to preserve consumer access to unique handmade toys, clothes and children's goods in the USA. Since November of 2008, they have been working to bring awareness to the impact and unintended consequences of the CPSIA on small businesses throughout the country.
"We recognize that the stay does not exempt us from the 600ppm lead limits within the CPSIA" Jill Chuckas, owner of CraftyBaby.com stated. "Nor do we want to be exempted. But it does recognize that all stakeholders need time to work together on common sense amendments and comprehensive guidance to allow our member businesses to keep doing what they love – creating beautiful, unique and safe hand crafted products for children."
There is no reprieve, however, for small manufacturers who sell to larger retailers or catalogs, most of whom will continue to require full compliance with the CPSIA by February 10. The CPSC still has not clearly defined how manufacturers must comply with the law and many manufacturers are therefore finding it impossible to do so.
And, the stay leaves retailers in limbo. Although manufacturers will not need to prove compliance with 600ppm lead limits, retailers will still be held liable if their merchandise exceeds those limits. And, without testing, retailers will have no way to assure compliance. Also excluded from the stay is a new requirement for children's products to be tested by February 12 for small parts hazards, which will also carry significant compliance costs, especially for small manufacturers.
Members of the Handmade Toy Alliance will be attending the upcoming Toy Fair held at the Jacob Javits Center in New York City from February 15 – 18, 2009. Rob Wilson, owner of Challenge & Fun, has devoted a section of his booth (#1249) at the show for the HTA and a CPSIA discussion forum. Members of the HTA will be present to answer and discuss issues related to the CPSIA with industry colleagues and members of the press.
Really Big News
We at firebrand technologies would like to welcome Ben Todd to our team.
Ben Todd joins Firebrand Technologies from B&H Publishing Group where he most recently served as E-Business Manager. While in this role Ben directed Internet marketing, marketing collateral development, and marketing strategy efforts. He worked to leverage the data within the B&H title management system to improve the content and traffic on various consumer facing product portals (Fiction, International, Leadership, and Academic). He also led development of individual book and author sites including launching a new community site tied to a major book release. Under Ben's guidance, traffic to the B&H domain grew 998.4% in a year. Ben was also involved in shaping B&H's digital publishing strategy and worked with Amazon to bring B&H products to the Kindle. Prior to the E-Business Manager role, Ben led the development of market research at B&H. He worked to develop the tools and metrics needed to better understand the book industry and the strategic opportunities that made sense for B&H. Ben also spent five years coordinating market research and new product development within a manufacturing company. In his various roles, Ben is always thinking of ways that technology can be used to improve the quality and effectiveness of marketing and business processes. Ben holds an MBA in Marketing and Strategy from Vanderbilt University and a BBA in Marketing from Texas A&M University. Ben resides in Franklin, TN (15 miles south of Nashville) with his wife Tara and four beautiful children: Megan, Zachary, Lauren and Liliana.
other news:
Check out the
photos from the Firebrand Community Conference 2008
Firebrand Community Conference 2009
Coming Soon: Watch for the Save The Date notice!
New to the Firebrand Wiki?
Finding Important Pages
- Many of the important pages you need to get started with the Wiki are found in the left hand navigation.
Creating and Editing pages on the Conference Wiki
- We've prepared several Help pages regarding the creation of new pages and how to use Wikitext, the wiki markup language of MediaWiki (the platform on which the Wiki is based).
- Creating a new account and logging in -- you'll need to login before you can add new pages or edit existing ones on this wiki.
- How to create new pages on this wiki -- very helpful in terms of creating new pages about yourself or about a discussion idea that you might want to propose at the conference.
- Wikitext Quick Reference -- it's pretty surprising how powerful Wikitext is in terms of formatting pages.
- Imbedding Images on Pages -- if you want to spice up the pages some with graphics.
- User's Guide
Where to find help
If you are still stumped, email Denise, Denise at FirebrandTech dot com, or call the office at 978-465-7755
