eBooks Compared to Cost of Print Publishing
Nook Color ebook ereader now supports Android Apps
As the print industry continues on an inexorable path to extinction, an analysis by the Wall Street Journal reinforces what many of us already knew. Specifically, ebooks are just less expensive to publish.
First off, I’m not a book hater. Actually, quite the opposite. I’ve had a lifelong love affair with print. I spent many years in print publishing. Now that I’ve started writing books, I’m hoping that print sticks around just a bit longer.
Unfortunately, that’s just not going to happen.
The Internet has has led to fewer people buying and reading books. That much we know.
Yet it took the combined impact of the Amazon Kindle, the Nook, and the iPad to make ebooks truly viable. These are devices that offer the features ebook readers want at the right price. Read more
Why Marketers Should Drive a Badass Car
Steve McQueen movie poster from Bullitt. He drove a Mustang and he was very, very cool.
If you work in Marketing, Advertising, or some kind or related field, you are probably familiar with the concept of personal branding. Or “Brand You” as it is sometimes referred to.
Your Brand You is something you live every day. It’s the job you do and how you do it. It’s also your clothing, your blog, your online footprint. It’s a little bit of everything that supports the brand that is you. It requires care and feeding.
For example, I was talking with a colleague, who is in a new-business development job. It’s part account manger, part business development, and all relationships. Anyway, he was lamenting the vehicle he drove, which is a Jeep Wrangler Unlimited.
I asked him what was wrong with his Jeep. He told me that he felt strange picking up corporate clients in a Jeep, which he keeps immaculately clean because of his training in the military. He motioned to the parking lot, which was a sea of cars from Audi, BMW, Infinity, Lexus, Acura, and Nissan. Those are the cars sales guys drive, he told me.
Yeah, I said, that’s is what they drive. And what you drive is different because you are different. Your brand is different. That’s not necessarily a bad thing.
Picture this: you’re a client. The sales guy has offered to take you out to lunch and for some reason, he actually has two cars with him. He says, “we can take the Audi or we can take the ’69 Corvette.” Which would you choose to go to lunch in?
My completely unscientific poll of industry colleagues and friends suggests that most people would go to lunch in the ‘Vette. Why? Because it’s a unique experience. It gives you something to talk about. The Audi is nice (which is why you buy one), but it’s not remarkable (unless it’s a performance model).
You want to be remarkable.
Read more
Getting Your Book into the Library Isn’t Easy
Comic Artist's Photo Reference: People & Poses
People never give much thought to how books make it into a public library. Books just sort of…appear.
As an author, I’ve always tried to make sure my book makes it to library shelves. Sure, I want to sell books, but I also want people to read them. Plus, I am a diehard library rat, so I want my own book on the shelves.
Unfortunately, I write in a deep vertical, specifically non fiction books for people who want to work in the comic book industry. It’s not a book for comic fans or kids. It’s for people who want to improve their craft (in this case writing or drawing comics) and break into the industry as a paid professional.
That’s a pretty narrow audience that lives deep in the long tail. Marketing to the long tail is an art unto itself, but that’s a different blog post.
In this case, I found an old email that I sent to my editor when my first book (Comic Artist’s Photo Reference: People & Poses) was published. I live in a large suburban town in New Jersey, and I wanted nothing more than to see my book on the shelf at the library. I’ve lived in the town my whole life, so I figured it would be no problem.
Boy was I wrong.
Read more
BN vs Amazon for What’s Left of Books
As Borders closes, their discounts on books increase.
Books are dying. Actually, if you believe the pundits, almost all of print is dying.
As someone who used to work in print publishing, I see many friends looking for new jobs. So, yeah, I tend to agree with the pundits on this one. Books are dying, and I am not happy about it.
As Borders closes the book on their business as booksellers, you can’t help but wonder what’s next for the entire publishing business. As an author of four books (and a fifth one coming!), I am more than just a little concerned about the untimely but not entirely surprising demise of this significant retailer. Read more
5 Easy Tips for Using Google+
Well, it’s official. Facebook finally has a real, serious challenger for their crown as king of the social media sites.
Google recently launched the Google+ social network. Geeks rejoiced (partially because it’s fun to play with new toys).
This isn’t Google’s first attempt at social networking. Far from it. They’ve had a few years of practice with stuff like Google Buzz, Google Wave, and Orkut. This time, it seems, they’ve come out with something that’s truly promising.
If you’re a marketer, you know that this will make it to a whiteboard near you sooner rather than later. Before clients start asking about it, you’ll want to know more about getting started with Google+.
Here are five really easy tips for getting started with Google+: Read more
Buying vs Earning Twitter Followers
Twitter logo as a blue square
I was an early adopter of Twitter, and yet, I’d failed to build a strong following. This was my fault, of course, since I was aware of the growing importance of the Twitter channel for social network engagement.
In fact, some of the people I’d helped to get started in Twitter were already miles ahead of me in building a strong following.
So, yeah, I was starting to feel like I needed to catch up. Fast.
I’d read a few interesting blog posts about purchasing Twitter followers, but I dismissed the concept. I mean, how good could these followers be, if they were willing to be bought and sold?
I was determined to build my followers the old fashion way: earn them. And then… Read more
How to Break WordPress and Destroy Your Blog
I broke WordPress.
Everything was working fine. Let’s get that out there just to start. My blog was not broken, nor did it need any specific adjustments.
But still I said to myself, “today…we optimize!” And that was the beginning of the end…and how I broke WordPress.
I’ve been developing websites for a long time. I got into this business in 1995 and the web was a very different place. There were fewer tools for generating webpages and they were buggy and frustrating to use. Making content online required generating HTML code by hand, which meant you really had to learn it.
I don’t mind monkeying around in the code. Experimenting is good, but you can go too far.
And now, let me give you a tutorial on how you can do exactly what I did to mess up my blog.
You too can break your WordPress installation, cause yourself hours of aggravation, lose productivity, and learn a very, very important lesson.
Ready for some fun? Break out the Rolaids ’cause we’re going to break WordPress! Read more
5 Tips for Professional Networking on LinkedIn
LinkedIn Logo
Because of the rapid growth of social media sites like Facebook and LinkedIn, many people are unsure of how they should draw the line between professional and personal communications. It’s a bit of a balancing act, but if you follow a few rules of thumb, you’ll do a better job of managing your professional brand.
First off, if you aren’t yet familiar with it yet, LinkedIn has become the hot destination for professional networking. It’s the ultimate social and professional mixer that helps people connect through career experiences.
Essentially, you go to LinkedIn to create a living resume. It may help you get discovered by HR recruiters or former co-workers. So it is essential for you to market yourself properly. Here are five easy tips for making the most of LinkedIn.
1. Be professional.
It’s strange to even say this, but you need to treat LinkedIn as you would any other workplace. Consider LinkedIn just another extension of your career, because for now, it kind of is. There are enough working professionals on LinkedIn that you must assume that everything you write is going to be seen and interpreted by some of your co-workers.
Separate your personal online life (e.g., Facebook) with your professional online life (i.e., LinkedIn). There is the “work you” and the “home you.” LinkedIn is the place for the work version of yourself. Read more
Three Steps to a Better Presentation & Story
Precondition your audience at the start of your presentation.
If you’re delivering a business pitch, you are trying to share an idea that the client will want to buy. That means it needs to be memorable. As a presenter, you need to make sure that your future client knows what the heck you are trying to say.
Don’t just tell them that you’re good at delivering a powerful message. Prove it in your presentation.
Here’s a good piece of advice for making presentations memorable, which I learned from my friend and co-worker, John Spingler (aka Sping).
Here are three basic steps to delivering a memorable pitch and marketing story:
- Tell them what you are going to tell them.
- Tell them.
- Tell them what you just told them.
Sounds really simple, right?
But if you’ve ever suffered through a dull PowerPoint presentation and wondered “where is this going?” then you know that delivering a clear message isn’t so simple. When a presentation lacks focus, it’s hard for your listener to remain focused. Read more
Defending Your Creative Ideas
Defending Your Ideas - A little sketch from the corner of my notebook, as we were brainstorming new ideas.
If you want to get into the business of marketing, you’re going to need to develop (a) a thick skin and (b) a strategy for sharing your ideas. Neither of these tasks are easy, but trust me when I tell you, they are necessary.
Many people think that marketing is easy, since just about anyone can come up with one good marketing or advertising idea. The real challenge, of course, is to come up with multiple ideas. Ideas that adapt to evolving strategic direction and new media channels. That’s not quite as easy.
In a brainstorm, there are some good ideas that everyone agrees is on target and makes sense. If there’s a whiteboard, it gets written in big bold letters as “an idea.” Kudos to you if you were part of that brainstorm session.
If you’ve ever been part of a brainstorm session, it can be fun and exhilarating, but it is also a little scary. Why scary? Well, if all of the ideas are safe, the group may not be trying hard enough. There may be fear in the room. Nobody wants to share their best idea, only to be rejected by the whole room. Making it to the whiteboard builds confidence. Not making it to the board is depressing. Read more
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