Blogging: Then and Now

I built my first website in February 2003 with a primitive site builder from Godaddy, it was one of the ugliest things ever to grace the internet and I loved it. At the time I didn’t know what I wanted to say or why I needed a website, but I knew I wanted to say something.

Like any intrepid explorer in a foreign land, I peeked covertly at what the locals were up to and tried to blend in. I don’t remember the first time I heard (or more likely read) the word blog, but I do remember wondering why anybody would handicap such a cool way of sharing information with such a silly sounding name. Blog, Blogging, Bloggers! It sounded like something Swedish Chef would cook and I assured everybody who asked that the word came from web log. I was careful to insert the maximum possible pause between the two words, but it still sounded silly, possibly even sillier.

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Ebooks: Changing More Than the Royalty Structure

As exciting as the changes taking place in the publishing world are, I think the opportunity ebooks present to do something new is even more exciting.

For the most part ebooks and epublishing is still so new that the majority of authors are duplicating the paper format digitally (and why wouldn’t they – it works) but as people become increasingly comfortable with ebooks, I think we’ll start to see some changes; some innovative souls will play with the format and the possibilities, and they’ll create something new.

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Writing, Marketing, and Digital Citizenship

I’ve just finished reading Inbound Marketing and have gone from:

Ugh! Marketing!

to:

Huh! That’s kinda cool.

According to the book, the days of interruption based marketing – the thing that gives most of us (me anyway) the Ugh! reaction – are numbered. In its place, we can expect companies to take more active roles in social media.

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Get to the Point

Put the information up front where readers can see it.

Online there isn’t time for the slow reveal or sexy info striptease.

Content is king and if the content is buried three paragraphs into a blog post or 30 seconds into a YouTube clip, the odds of visitors sticking with it are sorely reduced.

Social media, blogs, email, and instant messaging make it possible for people to come across dozens, if not hundreds, of interesting links a day.

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Publishing in 2011

There’s a lot of noise online about the future of traditional publishing and self-publishing. The most fervent of traditionally published authors would have you believe self-published ebooks will be the death of the publishing industry and quality fiction, and to some extent they might even be right, but their arguments smack of Stockholm syndrome and are hard to take seriously. On the other hand, extreme self-publishing evangelists envision a Utopian future where everybody throws failed novel attempts and old laundry lists on to smashwords.com and lives happily ever-after on the royalties.

It’s an interesting debate, even if it gets a little silly at times, and as with most debates the truth lies somewhere in the middle. The question that should occupy aspiring author’s thoughts today is:

What approach will work best for me?

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Magazines Target Unsuitable Mates

On the way into work this morning I saw this on the cover of a glossy magazine at a news-agency:

Top 50 Australian Bachelors

Which made me wonder, top 50 bachelors at what? The obvious answer from the available information must be top 50 bachelors at being bachelors. Meaning these guys are so good at being bachelors they either, really like being bachelors, to have perfected bachelorism to the level where a national magazine notices their efforts and reports them, or – and this is a biggie – they’re not fit for feminine company.

Either way, is it possible this magazine is publishing a list of men to be avoided by women looking for a committed relationship?

The Scythe

I can see him waiting.

His right foot, set perpendicular to the left, slowly tapping.

He is always there, lurking in the shadows of my peripheral vision, with his left arm cocked, empty sockets checking his watch, then shifting my way.