The Universe (Astronomy)
An interactive scale comparison that really makes the size of things from a hummingbird to the observable universe apparent.
http://www.policymic.com/articles/81873/experience-just-how-big-the-universe-is-in-one-mind-blowing-interactive
Libraries (Life)
People might get the odd idea that I like reading, but if you ever drop by my place, there can be no doubt. Here’s some images of how others creatively manage their book piles:
http://www.bobvila.com/nation/post/37-home-library-design-ideas-with-a-jay-dropping-visual-and-cultural-effect
Indie (Publishing)
A complex look at how the eBook market came into being and what’s happening now as it settles and matures.
http://scottwilliamcarter.com/2013/10/20/a-tsunami-of-wonderful/
Reteaching (Sociology)
This is an amazing, and very brave, idea for helping people reimage America from anti-Muslim to a place so many Muslims have made their permanent home. And the reactions give me hope:
http://www.salon.com/2013/09/10/captain_america_in_a_turban/
Orangutans (Zoology)
So much of our understanding of other animals comes from assumptions that have been used so long they are accepted as fact simply because we cannot ask the subjects of our observations. This study noticed a distinct pattern that throws away the belief in animals having no sense of the future:
http://www.world-science.net/othernews/130913_orangutans.htm
In the flash and glitter of the Regency Era, a young noblewoman craves to dance not in the ballroom but on stage, blending music, movement, and soul. Will these scandalous dreams destroy her family, or gain her a loving patron?
Beneath the Mask
RSS - Posts
Scott misses one important point. Writing good quality books, packaging them in high quality format with high quality graphics is not enough. Writers, like most artists, often aren’t very comfortable with the business, administrative and marketing end of things. That’s what publishers used to do so writers can focus on their art. But today is a different world and the downside of independent publishing is that you have to be a one-man band, at least until you can afford to hire people. Unless you do, your stuff will get buried in the internet noise. You need to be louder than the din, as it were. That means you must learn effective online marketing. If you start with a good product, to be generic, since authors are not the only people facing this issue, and add effective marketing, you stand a much better chance of making a reasonable living, potentially, even up to the big bucks.
Just putting it on the web plus a blog and the occasional giveaway won’t do it, either. There are a lot of proven, effective techniques out there. Once you get the information, you have to parse out which of the techniques are pertinent to your business. For example, when thinking about the advice regarding social media, if I were promoting my food blog, I wouldn’t use Twitter or Tumblr or LinkedIn. I’d focus on Pinterest, with its heavy emphasis on graphics and huge following of people looking for recipes. Facebook would be secondary, and I’d only use it because a lot of people who might be interested in my niche are Facebook users.
Though for a lot of people, that method is exactly what worked, even for huge successes who built up their following by posting fan fic without any advertising of it at all.
I must say I agree about Pinterest and images too, though Twitter has become more picture friendly in the past few years. The advantage of Pinterest also is if you can get people sharing your post on Pinterest, it’s visible to more folks regardless of when you posted it, unlike LinkedIn and Twitter where once the content is gone, it’s gone except for specific reshares. There’s no global visibility function…well, unless it really hits it big.
I think the key word in your reply is “worked”. I’m not sure how well it will work in the future. I think Scott is saying that things are changing and I agree. I also think people will need to do more because there’s more and more stuff online every day. And because the search engines keep changing their rules, making it harder for people, especially newcomers, to be found. We’ll see how things play out as the inevitable changes occur.
True enough. The same can be said for many of the marketing methods that worked in the past as well. There’s a reason why marketing is a whole industry, and sometimes even they can go very wrong.
There’s a billboard on my way into town of an Audi ad. It states: If looks could kill, we’d have no customers.
Took me a bit to parse the twist on the meaning cause what it says is “we hate our customers so much they’d die from our angst-filled glares.”
Not quite what I’d expect to sell cars :).
Yes, exactly. 🙂