How'd You Like to Be the First Woman to Write for Playboy?

Susan Braudy has the scoop:

Almost as soon as I arrived in Manhattan to seek my fortune, I backed into a knuckle-bruising battle with Playboy’s Hugh Hefner.
My new city-slick literary agent Lois Wallace had signed me because she liked my articles in a zippy new Yale monthly called The New Journal. So after Playboy editors approached Lois about a piece on something called the new feminism, she lipped a smoke ring into her telephone and asked me, “How’d you like to be the first woman to write for Playboy?”
The year was 1969. I thought Playboy defined cheesy, but I was too timid to say so. Furthermore, I was afraid to admit I’d never heard of any new feminists.
Lois, however sophisticated, was a shouter: “You’re in New York, dammit, not in some ivory tower.”
Jim Goode, Playboy’s articles editor, contacted me that afternoon. Speaking more slowly than I thought a human could, he explained that Playboy wanted an objective account of the entire spectrum of the brand new “women’s lib” movement. “These women have important things to say, and I want our readers to hear them,” he said. “Let yourself go. Write anything you like but don’t pass judgment. Be fair.”
He concluded, “Write in a tone that’s amused if the author is amused, but never snide.”

[Jezebel]

Advice for Entrepreneurs from a Guy Who Wrote a Book About Porn (& Pong)

Creates a cult following: My book Porn & Pong: How Grand Theft Auto, Tomb Raider and Other Sexy Games Changed Our Culture created lots of controversy with its risqué cover, intense premise and cultural arguments (It actually got banned from one country, too, which has become a point of pride.). It was my first major book, so I was naive about how to weather the negative press and feedback. The biggest surprise, though, was how many people to this day are super passionate about my work. It was and is a divisive book and, through the book tour and social media, I learned it resonated with a surprising number of people.

[Inc.]