Ammonites swam in Earth’s ancient seas for nearly 400 million years. These prolific cephalopods diversified into more than 10,000 species before meeting their demise during the end-Cretaceous mass extinction. Today, these spiral-shelled invertebrates are among the most abundant fossils in the geologic record, found from snowcapped Himalayan peaks to parched South American arroyos. People around the world have long been drawn to the mystery and beauty of ammonite fossils. These preternatura...

This industry-savvy guide will help musicians of all levels make the album that best complements their skills and meets their career objectives. Revealed here are the who, what, where, when and how of album making, and the tools to sell and prosper in the business. Included are interviews with P. Diddy, Ozzy Osbourne, and members of Linkin Park, and other top industry professionals.Allworth Press, an imprint of Skyhorse Publishing, publishes a broad range of books on the visual and...

From the New York Times bestselling author of Steal Like an Artist**, an even more forward-thinking and necessary book on how to take that critical next step on a creative journey—becoming known.**Show Your Work! is about why generosity trumps genius. It’s about getting findable, about using the network instead of wasting time “networking.” It’s not self-promotion, it’s self-discovery—let...

What do Madonna, Martha Stewart, John Lennon, Ellen DeGeneres, Ben Franklin, Ronald Reagan, Leonardo da Vinci, Thomas Edison, and Johnny Cash have in common? Each is (or was) a list maker. These successful people, along with CEOs and successful entrepreneurs, all use lists to keep track of their ideas, thoughts, and tasks. Finding enough hours in the day to get everything accomplished and allow for some downtime can be a struggle. It's no wonder so many of us are stressed, overextended, an...

Don’t miss the inspirational biography behind the exciting new Lifetime movie Aaliyah: The Princess of R&B, starring Alexandra Shipp as the extraordinary singer Aaliyah.Aaliyah Dana Haughton was that music business rarity: a teen idol who transformed herself into a critically acclaimed hip-hop soul artist, a singer who successfully made the transition to actress, and a beautiful woman who never let the trappings of celebrity go to her head. Following her i...

For everyone interested in starting a record label–to market new talent or to release and promote their own music–there has never been a better time to do it!Music can be released, distributed, and promoted for a fraction of traditional costs. Veteran author and music-business consultant Daylle Deanna Schwartz (who started and ran her own label) has rewritten and expanded her classic, Start & Run Your Own Record Label, to reflect industry changes and new opportunities for ...

For the first time, Appetite for Self-Destruction recounts the epic story of the precipitous rise and fall of the recording industry over the past three decades, when the incredible success of the CD turned the music business into one of the most glamorous, high-profile industries in the world -- and the advent of file sharing brought it to its knees. In a comprehensive, fast-paced account full of larger-than-life personalities, Rolling Stone contributing editor Steve Kno...

**The book that Inc. says "every entrepreneur should read" and an FT Book of the Month selection...How did the movie The Shawshank Redemption fail at the box office but go on to gross more than $100 million as a cult classic?**How did The 48 Laws of Power miss the bestseller lists for more than a decade and still sell more than a million copies?How is Iron Maiden still filling stadiums worldwide without radio or TV...

Alan Light, former writer for Rolling Stone, editor-in-chief of Vibe and Spin magazines, and author of The Holy or the Broken, “gets inside Prince’s mind palace in Let’s Go Crazy—a history of the making of his historic, semi-autobiographical musical masterwork, Purple Rain” (Vanity Fair).Purple Rain is a song, an album, and a film—widely considered to be among the most important albums in music...

Anyone can make a short film, right? Just grab some friends and your handheld and you can do it in a weekend or two before being accepted to a slew of film festivals, right?Wrong.Roberta Munroe screened short film submissions at Sundance for five years, and is an award-winning short filmmaker in her own right. So she knows a thing or two about how not to make a short film. From the first draft of your script to casting, production, editing, and distribution, this is ...

"A guidebook to the world of professional humoring . . . Randazzo pulls off the rare trick of being funny while discussing comedy." —Michael Ian Black, The New York Times Book ReviewIt takes guts to be a comedian, and it takes smarts to make a living off it. In this insider's guide, former Onion editor Joe Randazzo delivers a funny and insightful blueprint for those looking to turn their sense of humor into a vocation, and solicits advice and stori...

A decade ago the vast majority of mainstream music was funneled through a handful of media conglomerates. Now, more people are listening to more music from a greater variety of sources than at any time in history. And big corporations such as Viacom, Clear Channel, and Sony are no longer the sole gatekeepers and distributors, their monopoly busted by a revolution -- an uprising led by bands and fans networking on the Internet. Ripped tells the story of how the lap...