I must admit that when I first saw the agenda for the Writer’s Digest Conference, taking place in NYC this year, I didn’t quite understand why there was such a big social media focus at the event. I wondered if the event organizers weren’t just jumping on the bandwagon of the latest online trends.
Gladly, my skepticism turned out to be quite short-lived. Right from the very first session I attended, I immediately understood that this apparent merging of topics wasn’t any kind of a forced fit, but instead was a natural union that made perfect sense. The book publishing environment is clearly changing — it’s not just about getting an agent and finding a publisher anymore.
I decided that since my learnings might be of interest to some of my fellow creative friends, I put together this list of 8 things I learned about “21st Century publishing” and how social media can be used to legitimately bypass the bombarded Gatekeepers and make you a successful Gatejumper. Read more »
There is a lot of advice out there. Ask different coaches for advice on how to be successful and you’ll probably get a lot of different answers, sometimes conflicting, but certainly a core set of common beliefs, too.
Clearly one common ingredient to the success equation is: “having passion”.
A nice clarification I recently heard goes something like this: Passion alone won’t make you successful, but without passion, success isn’t likely or sustainable either – or, more technically speaking, passion is a “necessary, but not sufficient” condition.
So, what gets me speaking about passion now? Well, a recent post on this topic on Problogger: “How Passion Can Transform Your Blog”, along with the “Trust Agents” theme of “humanizing the Web”, has spurred me to share my passions as an experiment to see what, if anything, comes of it.
So, What Am I Passionate About?
Some passions are not so simple to rein in, but here goes…. Read more »
I’m sure you’ve probably heard the saying: “Less is More“. I would agree that, at times, saying too much, doing too much, giving too many details can take away more than it adds.
Sometimes leaving space for someone else to fill in the blanks can be truly magical. And, often, summarizing ”key take-aways” gets your point across much more effectively than losing someone’s attention half-way through.
The tricky part is knowing when to leave “well enough” alone. There is often that desire to add or give just a little bit more. It isn’t always clear when too much is simply too much, or when not enough is not enough.
Lately I’ve been starting to see how the Goldilocks principle of ”just right” can be nicely applied to embarking on new endeavors. Consider these examples: Read more »
So, who’s going to invent the next form of advertising? [I must acknowledge that I first came across this question from an iTunes podcast of Chris Anderson discussing his new book “Free: The Future of a Radical Price” with “Bloomberg on the Economy” dated 7/13/2009.]
As I wonder what the new form of advertising will look and feel like, I also wonder whether it will be discovered accidentally or invented purposefully. I’m guessing, it will probably be a combination of both because: (1) we will always have Inventors and businessmen who are actively looking to discover the next “Pet Rock”; and (2) like viral advertising, which is effective in its own right, it is always unpredictable to know what will take off and what will not. Read more »
It’s the first day of a new year, a time when there is much talk about making New Year’s Resolutions. There are many people with advice on: how to do it right; on whether or not any of the resolutions we do make will even last very long; or whether it even matters any more to make resolutions at all.
What made it easier for me this year was that I had already spent the past month or so, with pen and paper, figuring out what I wanted to do differently for the upcoming “unprecedented” economic environment that we’ve been told awaits us.
Yes, I agree, for me and maybe for many of us, this will be a year of going back to basics.
Read more »
Not all people are fans of blogs. There are many people that rarely read blogs much less bookmark them or ever revisit any that they may have bookmarked in the past. Many people probably don’t even know how to find good blogs if they wanted to.
Important and fair questions that are often asked include: “Can I even trust blogs?” and, “What do bloggers really know anyway?” My answer to that would be: “Probably more than you realize.” And, the best way to realize and appreciate what blogs have to offer is to find out for yourself by simply taking a closer look. Here’s how…..
First, it’s always easiest to start small by reading just a few blogs at first to figure out what you like and find useful. As your selections increase, it will become more efficient f0r you to subscribe to Blog Feeds and manage those subscriptions through a Feed Reader such as Google Reader.
The benefits of subscribing to multiple blogs in a RSS Feed Reader (a.k.a., Aggregator) include the following:
Read more »
Often the most important advice given to bloggers, writers, or anyone in social media (and probably in business, too) is to be helpful.
Whether you believe in good karma or not, it is not often disputed that if you are helpful to others without expecting anything in return, you’ll be surprised at what does come back to you in return. If your intent is the opposite, you may still get results, but more than likely not the same as if you did otherwise.
For me, the tricky part is in knowing what other people find helpful. Being helpful means different things to different people. There are many ways to be helpful.
I would say that the extremes on the ’scale of helpfulness’, if you will, would probably range from being totally selfless to being totally selfish. If helpfulness were put on a scale, I would put the following fifteen ticks on that ruler (generally ranked here from better to worse, though I’m sure some of you might re-arrange the order somewhat):
Read more »
Inspired by Chris Brogan’s advice in his recent post, “If I Started Today“, I put together my own list of what I’ve found to be 50 reasons to start blogging (and/or in social media) even if you don’t have a clear-cut business plan or idea.
My best advice is to start small and build from there. And, always remember that “starting small” is not the same as “playing small”.
Here are fifty things that I believe are best figured out along the way:
Read more »
More and more, we see and hear about social media, social networking sites, and micro-blogging tools. You probably heard about how the current election was impacted (some even say won) by the grassroots efforts of social networking strategies.
Amid all of this social media enthusiasm, there have also been recent reports about how the older forms of Web 2.0, namely, blogging, is dead or at least dying. This has prompted some to wonder if we should be dropping the old tools for the new.
Read more »
Blogging about politics is always risky. Usually quite early on, a reader will recognize which party you support and will respond accordingly — they’ll either keep reading if they identify with you or they’ll move on if they don’t. Few stick around to hear what someone of an opposing political party wishes to espouse unless they’re looking to judge that opinion and its believer as being ridiculous. I say this because I, too, have been there and done that (and try as I might, I still go there more often than I’d like to admit). We are all human (if that’s an acceptable excuse, I don’t know; you be the judge on that.)
I could avoid the topic all together, or not. As citizens, I don’t think we can continue to avoid these difficult conversations. I would agree that fighting for the sake of fighting doesn’t accomplish anything. So what do we do? How do we approach these conversations respectfully while still being true to ourselves as bloggers and as citizens with points of view looking for solutions and not as journalists that are obliged to be objective in their reporting of events?
Read more »
