Business End

Articles about the business aspects of publishing and self-publishing.

5 Steps for Successful Social Media Damage Control

by

This post, from Sharlyn Lauby, originally appeared on Mashable on 7/9/09. While it’s primarily aimed at companies, much of the advice here is just as useful to an individual, or group blog, that’s run into some social media trouble.

I spent many years of my career in the hospitality business and the first rule of thumb when dealing with customers was, “if a guest had a positive experience, they’ll tell 3 people and if they had a negative experience, they’ll tell 10.” That same idea holds true in the new media world, except the numbers have grown exponentially. Instead of it being 3 people – it’s 3,000, or instead of 10 – it’s perhaps 100,000. The numbers aren’t meant to scare you. But what should you do when something goes wrong?

Our goal, of course, hasn’t changed – work to increase the number of positive comments written about your company, product, or service and take care of those who have negative experiences. But, how do you make that happen in the social media world? What steps to you take to keep negative social media damage to a minimum?

Minimize the damage

Before we even talk about how to fix what goes wrong, let’s talk about the positives. One of the best ways to minimize social media damage is to proactively create an environment that encourages positive feedback. There are two main things you should do to keep the accolades coming.

1. Foster a positive culture. There are plenty of studies showing that if your employees are happy, they will deliver good service to customers. Not only does this minimize potential damage, but it leverages your brand in a very positive way. Keeping your employees engaged and letting them know how they fit into the corporate culture goes a long way.

Case in point: I recently returned from a conference in New Orleans where Harvard Professor John Kotter showed us an old video of a Roto Rooter employee who had pimped out his van to make his job easier. It had everything from pull down maps (obviously this dated prior to the Garmin) to a makeshift toilet. The point is, this employee created all of these conveniences for himself so he could spend more time servicing customers. How many of your employees are doing that?

2. Train employees on the proper use of social media tools. Your employees represent your organization, and if they have a solid, credible personal brand, it will carry over to the company’s image.

It’s not enough to allow employees to have Facebook pages and Twitter accounts. Organizations need to show employees the proper way to use them. For example, Zappos employees are not only encouraged to have Twitter accounts, but they receive training during company orientation on how to use the application. Again, if your employees use social media well, it will benefit both those employees and the organization.

Keep in mind, however, that someday the other shoe might drop. Many companies have fallen prey to negative press, so don’t put your head in the sand. It’s not about “if” something will happen; it’s about “when.” In this transparent, authentic and real-time world, expect a hiccup to occur. But be prepared.

In the end, the issue is less about the mistake that was made, but the reaction that came after. So, here are some tips to follow if you find yourself in a damage control mode.

1. Monitor social media sites 24/7

Daniel Ruby, director of marketing at advertising network Chitika, recently had an issue where McAfee flagged one of their ads, thus making their entire network have issues with aggressive McAfee antivirus alerts. Ruby credits Twitter for alerting them to the issue. “We actually found out from one of our publishers who was telling a reader via Twitter, as well as the comments box on his site, that our ads were…giving McAfee users a red flag,” he said.

From there, Chitika could respond to concerned users (also via Twitter), and keep users up-to-date on the steps they were taking to fix the problem.

 

chitika tweet image

 

 

2. Respond quickly with a consistent message

No matter how proactive you are, customers will start to question your organization when they see problems. And, whenever there is an information void, those customers will tend to fill in the gaps with their own thoughts on what the cause may be. That’s why it is important to respond to issues quickly, even if the message is just, “we’re looking into it.”

Ruby elaborated that he “reached out to the publisher via his comments box, letting him know what happened and what Chitika was doing to resolve it.” He also kept him updated via Twitter (apologizing as profusely as one can in 140 characters).

Communication is key here. Make sure each employee knows the same message all the way down the chain of command. And, when that message changes, don’t forget to communicate those changes. This serves two purposes; (1) it gives the public a sense that you have your arms around the issue; and (2) it gives your employees a sense of unity – working together to solve a common problem.

Read the rest of the post, including steps #3-5, on Mashable.

17 Reasons Manuscripts Are Rejected

by

This post, from Laurie Pawlik-Kienlen, originally appeared on her Quips and Tips For Successful Writers blog on 10/24/08. Even if you intend to self-publish, this list of traps to avoid will still have some applicable wisdom for your work-in-progress.

These 17 reasons book manuscripts are rejected are from a panel of editors, literary agents, and publishers at the Surrey International Writers’ Conference in British Columbia, Canada. I’ve also pulled out some great writing tips and quips about the book publishing business from this discussion…

But first, a quip from an agent about getting published:

“You don’t have to have an agent to get published,” says literary agent Janet Reid, of Fine Print Literary Management. That may be true, Agent Reid, but representation sure greases the literary wheels! I’m with Special Agent Jon Sternfeld of Irene Goodman, and he’s knocked on doors of houses that I can’t even see…

Julie Scheina (Little, Brown editor) and Haile Ephron (writer and book reviewer at the Boston Globe) joined Reid for a 90 minute session about sending queries, editing manuscripts, and publishing books. For more info on literary agents, click on the Guide to Literary Agents by the editors of Writer’s Digest (and read my 12 Steps to Finding a Literary Agent). And, read on for 17 reasons book manuscripts are rejected… 

 

17 Reasons Book Manuscripts are Rejected

1. “The writer uses the phrase ‘fiction novel’,” says agent Janet Reid. Misusing the English language is why she – and many editors, publishers, and agents – stop reading and reject manuscripts.

2. The manuscript doesn’t seem organic or authentic. “If you’re trying to follow a trend, you’ll lose your voice,” says Scheina. “If I feel like this is something I’ve already read, I’ll put it down.” Read How to Write Authentically From Anne Lamott.

3. The manuscript is too complicated. “If there are too many characters and I have to make a list to keep them straight, then I’ll put the book down,” says Ephron. Your manuscript will be rejected if it doesn’t flow or transition easily.

4. The book is boring. “If your opening paragraph is someone driving and sleeping, I’ll put it down,” says Reid. “Most writers need time to warm up – but I don’t want to read that. Make sure your story starts in the first sentence.” Read Grabbing Your Read by the Throat for tips on writing introductions!

5. The writer offers no reason to care about the character. “Why do I care?” asks Scheina. “Each character has to be unique and special, or I’ll want to close the book.” The first day of school, moving, or packing your boxes aren’t gripping leads. “Prologues are really boring most of the time,” says Scheina.

6. The writer slips into a sliding point of view. “You get one point of view character per scene,” says Ephron. “Every scene should be narrated by one character in that scene.” Don’t shift the point of view. Stay with one specific character’s perspective throughout the scene.

7. The writer includes too many stock characters. Beautiful blonde bombshells, evil billionaires, and hookers with a heart of gold are all stock characters – and agent Reid is tired of them! Limp descriptions are also boring. “I want complex, nuanced characters,” she says.

8. The writer offers didactic messages. “Don’t send me fiction books that give moral messages, because neither kids nor adults will [read] them,” says Scheina. “If you have a message, it shouldn’t be on the first page or in the first chapter.” She also says readers don’t want to be preached to; morals and messages should occur to the reader after they put the book down.

Read the rest of the post, containing reasons #9-17, on Quips and Tips For Successful Writers.

Ebooks and Text-To-Speech Technology: A Legal Perspective

by

This article, from Charles A. Gaglia And Thomas R. DeSimone of The Legal Intelligencer, originally appeared on Law.com’s Legal Technology blog on 6/30/09.

Amazon’s recent foray into the electronic book business can be described in no other way than as a resounding success. In a short period of time, Amazon’s Kindle has done for the electronic book what Apple’s iPod did for electronic music: that is, make it easily accessible, downloadable and, most importantly, cool. However, Amazon’s attempts to find new ways to exploit this medium and enhance the reading experience have met with their fair share of controversy.

The Kindle 2 recently hit the market, and it included a new feature that had the publishing industry up in arms and threatening suit. Ths feature is commonly referred to as "text to speech," but according to representatives for the publishing industry and the Authors Guild, it may represent the beginning of the end for the burgeoning audio book market, in addition to constituting a blatant violation of existing copyright law. From a copyright point of view, does text-to-speech technology require a license? And should publishers be legitimately concerned about the demise of the audio book?

What exactly is an e-book? Quite simply, it is nothing more than an electronic version of a traditional paper copy of a book. An e-book is usually in some type of computer readable format (such as DOC, PDF, etc.) and can be read on any type of electronic device capable of displaying that particular file type. E-books have been around for quite some time but have had a limited appeal because of the fact that many people prefer the portability and ease of use of traditional printed media, as opposed to being tethered to a computer screen. Keenly aware of these shortcomings, several manufacturers attempted to develop dedicated hardware devices that would emulate the traditional book-reading experience while at the same time providing many advantages only possible with e-book technology, such as storage of hundreds or thousands of books on a single device and instant access to titles via downloading.

Sony was an early entrant into the field with its LIBRIe device, which never really found an audience. Sony tried again more recently with its PRS-500, which experienced moderate success, but has been largely overshadowed by the popularity of Amazon’s Kindle device. Unlike Sony’s PRS-500 reader, the Kindle does not need to be coupled to a computer in order to download titles. It uses Amazon’s wireless Whispernet (provided by Sprint) in order to download any available title from Amazon’s e-book library, wirelessly, on demand. However, the most controversial feature of the Kindle was introduced to the public when Amazon released the second-generation device, known as the Kindle 2. This device incorporated text-to-speech technology, which, at the press of a button, allows the Kindle to read the e-book.

Much like the e-book, text-to-speech technology is not something entirely new. In fact, the first computer-based text-to-speech system was completed in 1968. Text-to-speech software enables a computer to convert text characters into audible, intelligible words by virtue of the computer’s internal synthesizer. If one wants to get an idea of what typical text to speech carried out by a computer sounds like, it may be instructive to listen to any interview given by world-renowned physicist Stephen Hawking, who communicates with the aid of a computer because of severe paralysis brought on by the ravages of Lou Gehrig’s Disease. The technology continues to improve, and many who have heard the Kindle 2 in action have remarked on the quality and clarity of the Kindle 2’s electronic "voice." However, text-to-speech technology continues to be hampered by the software’s inability to convey emotion and to handle heteronyms, which are words that are spelled the same, but pronounced differently (e.g., "bow" as the front of a ship versus "bow," which is used to fire arrows). Considering these significant shortcomings, should the publishing industry be legitimately concerned that text to speech may replace audio books created by professional voice actors? The answer to this question is important, as it relates directly to whether text-to-speech technology is a permitted use of computer-stored text under U.S. copyright law.

As a result of protests made by the publishing industry and the Authors Guild that Amazon had not negotiated for the text-to-speech rights, Amazon elected to disable the feature at any publisher’s request, effectively forestalling any threatened litigation for the time being. In a press release announcing the compromise, Amazon steadfastly maintained its original stance that its text-to-speech feature was in fact a permitted use of computer text under their current license. In an opinion piece published in the Feb. 25 issue of The New York Times , Roy Blount Jr., president of the Author’s Guild, stressed the importance and value of protecting audio rights and the continued success of the audio book market. His argument was primarily economic in nature, stressing that authors be adequately compensated for their creative works and any derivative rights that may flow from them. But the letter is noticeably devoid of any legal support for the contention that text-to-speech technology is violative of U.S. copyright law. Blount concludes by noting that while parents need not fear any legal repercussions for reading bedtime stories aloud to their children, performing the same act with the Kindle’s text-to-speech function is another matter. He fails, however, to explain the distinction.

Under the 1976 Copyright Act, copyright protection may extend to any work of authorship. Among the works that are subject to protection are literary, musical, dramatic, choreographic, graphic, audiovisual and architectural works as well as sound recordings. In order to be eligible for copyright protection, the work must be "fixed in a tangible medium of expression." With respect to e-books, the underlying text itself is clearly subject to protection, in that the e-book text is fixed as an electronic file on the Kindle’s internal memory. (This assumes, of course, that the underlying e-book is still subject to copyright protection, and that the work has not passed into the public domain.)

However, the situation is not so simple when one considers that when a Kindle user activates the text-to-speech feature, there is no fixation of anything into a tangible medium. In fact, after the software completes the process of converting text into audible sound waves, and those waves have reverberated throughout the listener’s immediate vicinity, there is nothing tangible that remains. With respect to audio books, there is fixation, in that the sound waves of the author or professional reader’s voice are affixed to a compact disc, or more recently in the form of an electronic MPEG file affixed to the hard drive of a user’s iPod. But nothing similar exists with respect to text to speech.

Read the rest of the article on Law.com’s Legal Technology blog.

Authorfail: When Authors Attack

by

This post, from Victoria Strauss, originally appeared on the Writer Beware! Blogs on 7/7/09. In it, she shares some past and recent examples of authors behaving badly as the result of receiving a bad review, and gives authors many reasons to think twice before Tweeting, blogging or posting in anger.

Last week, the Twitter- and blogosphere were abuzz with two tales of authorial bad behavior: much-published author Alice Hoffman’s Twitter meltdown over a poor review (Hoffman tweeted several angry messages about the review, including one that provided the reviewer’s phone number and email address and encouraged fans to "Tell her what u think of snarky critics;" Hoffman’s publisher subsequently yanked her Twitter account, and Hoffman issued an apology);

…and philosopher and author Alain de Botton’s blog explosion (de Botton posted an angry comment on the reviewer’s blog, concluding "I will hate you till the day I die and wish you nothing but ill will in every career move you make"; he, too, subsequently apologized, excusing himself by saying "It was a private communication to his website, to him as a blogger…It’s appalling that it seems that I’m telling the world." Well, duh).

Although you can blame these errors in judgment on the social media phenomenon, which encourages us all to tweet (or comment, or post, or email) before we think, they are hardly isolated incidents. Authors wigging out over criticism is nothing new.

This past April, a Russian court ordered a journalist to pay compensation to a writer who objected to the journalist’s review of his novel. Compensation amounted to US $1,000; the writer had originally demanded much more. Per the news report of this incident: "Observers have commented that this judgment creates a very dangerous precedent, opening the way for lawsuits based on subjective opinion. Some have even suggested that if a book reviewer can be sued, a reader who did not like a book can sue the author for making a bad quality product." Holy frivolous lawsuits, Batman!

A recent article on the Hoffman debacle from Salon.com provides several more examples of authors behaving badly over criticism. Authors Caleb Carr, Jonah Goldberg, Stanley Crouch, and Richard Ford have (respectively) written invective-laden letters to, blogged obsessively about, slapped the face of, and spit upon/shot holes in the books of reviewers to whose analysis they objected (one of those reviewers, ironically enough, was Hoffman herself).

In 2007, Stuart Pivar sued blogger PZ Meyers for libel for Meyers’s negative review of Pivar’s book Lifecode, which proposed "an alternative theory of evolution." Most observers dubbed the charges "frivolous" and "empty." Pivar eventually dropped the suit.
 

Read the rest of the post on the Writer Beware! Blogs.

Change: Are You Initiating Or Avoiding?

by

This post, from Kassia Krozser, originally appeared on her Booksquare site on 6/6/09.

How can authors leverage change to their best advantage?

I have come to accept that our species is not fond of change. Some of us know it is inevitable and take the pain now rather than later, some simply refuse to change (I have seen this and it is awesome in its execution. Also, ultimately futile.), and some pretend to embrace change while carefully manipulating “change” to look like “same as it ever was”. It is that final group, I believe, who face the biggest letdown.

It is surely the rare soul in the publishing ecosystem who believes the business tomorrow will resemble the business of today. Change, being change, is messy stuff, best managed through experimentation. You can design the best process in the world, but until real people get their hands in the system, you don’t really know what will work and how. Change is iterative.

Mike Shatzkin’s article on evolving role of agents, coupled with his piece on the publishing portfolio reshuffle, focuses on key aspects of this change: the economics. You cannot unsettle an entire industry without considering and preparing for the financial impact on all the players.

There is no doubt that the physical retail environment is shrinking. The news about stores closing for good unsettles people in the industry. And outside. Many factors are behind this loss, from changing consumer behavior to high rents in bad economic times to “redevelopment”. The choice throughout the industry is clear: hope for a business-as-usual miracle or make the necessary changes to thrive in a new (sometimes uncertain) environment.

The booksellers who remain standing — and there will be many! — will react to these losses by changing their retail mix to accommodate new customers while incorporating new sales channels, such as digital. In the physical sense, there is only so much shelf space, and booksellers will, necessarily, be more particular and more aggressive about fresh product. The sheer volume of annual releases, with new titles coming out weekly, leaves the bookseller little room for chancy purchases and backroom stock.

Inventory management will be elevated to an art form as booksellers try to balance the slower reactions of customers who rely upon word-of-mouth with those who chase the latest and greatest. Factor in the enduring popularity of catalog titles, and it’s not hard to see that booksellers will be leaner and meaner (oh, and leaner and meaner indicates that booksellers will be purchasing fewer units because, well, managing returns for credit or cash is not a cheap endeavor).

Read the rest of the post on Booksquare.

Publishing And The Black Swan

by

This post, from Glenn Yeffeth, originally appeared on the BenBella Books blog on 4/20/09. In it, he applies Nassim Taleb’s Black Swan theory to publishing. The Black Swan theory posits that rare and unpredictable events can have a huge impact in whatever aspects of life and commerce they occur. Publishers, Yeffeth says, can apply some specific strategies to proactively minimize their exposure to "negative black swans" while maximizing opportunities to take advantage of those even rarer, "positive black swans" .

The Black Swan, by Nassim Taleb, is the best book on statistics I ever read. OK, that may sound like faint praise. But the book is one of the best books I’ve read in years. Brilliant, eccentric, and prescient, this book speaks to me in particular because of my stint in the PhD program in finance at the University of Chicago. I dropped out for exactly the reasons Taleb discusses in the book – the more I learned about mathematical finance, the more I realized how disconnected it was from reality (full disclosure: I also sort of sucked at higher math). If you haven’t read it, you want to, especially if you are in publishing.

The essence of Taleb’s theory is straightforward. Rare and unpredictable events, he theorizes, have an enormous impact on business, finance, on life in general. This might seem to be unexceptional, except that all of statistics, economics and finance (to name a few areas) are based on the assumption that this isn’t true. Everything you’ve heard about the normal curve or law of large numbers, or even the concept of an “average” is based on the idea that once you have enough data – say over a hundred data points – you basically know what’s going on in terms of risky events, that your average is going to be stable etc. The whole idea of finding an average from data, for example, goes out the window if one observation (once you already have lots of observations) can radically change your average. Yet in real life this happens all the time (half the growth in the stock market since WWII, for example, happened in 10 days).

Some businesses are negative black swan businesses. They seem to be making more than they really do make, because they are exposed to rare, but huge, downside risks (think banks and reinsurers). Publishers are exposed to some negative black swan risk (i.e. bankruptcy of major distributor or retailer) but, in general, publishing is a positive black swan business. The rare events can make publishers a lot of money. In fact, without the rare events (i.e. Harry Potter, Da Vinci Code) they barely make any money at all.

The essence of black swans is that they are unpredictable; if they were predictable they wouldn’t be black swans. No one knows they are coming, although everyone can see their inevitability in retrospect. Consider the numerous retroactive explanations for the success of Harry Potter, when, in advance, the original novel was rejected by every publisher that saw it but one, and that one (Bloomsbury) paid 2500 pounds and printed 500 copies. No one saw it coming.

So the solution is to design your publishing house so as to maximize your exposure to positive black swans and minimize your exposure to negative ones. Easy, right?

Not so much. It’s tricky to figure out exactly what to do about Black Swan theory, but here are a few ideas to start with:

  1. Have a healthy respect for what you don’t know. Your management processes will pressure you to predict how each book will do, and allocate resources accordingly. Don’t confuse this with the idea that you know what will happen. Allocate a bit more resources to your small books, and a bit less to your big ones, because you are less sure of what is small and what is big than you think.

Read the rest of the post, which includes 9 additional Black Swan ideas, on the BenBella Books blog.

Internet Defamation, Author Platform And You

by

Building and growing your author platform requires you to be very active and vocal online, and this opens the door to two outcomes you will want to avoid: being guilty of online defamation and libel yourself, or being the victim of someone else’s online defamation and libel. Most people seem to think that anything published on a website or blog is automatically classified as opinion, and is therefore protected free speech. They’re wrong. Bloggers have been hit with millions of dollars’ worth of libel judgments, and there are entire legal practices specializing in internet defamation.

Tweet to share this article

 
What Constitutes Libel?
I’ll open with the usual disclaimer: I am not an attorney and nothing in this article should be construed as legal advice. I can sure quote the heck out of people who are attorneys and legal experts, though. Nolo Press, the US’s oldest and most respected provider of legal information for consumers and small businesses, defines libel as, “An untruthful statement about a person, published in writing or through broadcast media, that injures the person’s reputation or standing in the community.”
 
For those of you living across the pond, Website-Law.co.uk has this to say about defamation and libel:
 
Defamation is all about reputation, and in particular about statements which damage others’ reputations. The English courts have not settled upon a single test for determining whether a statement is defamatory. Examples of the formulations used to define a "defamatory imputation" include:
 

  • an imputation which is likely to lower a person in the estimation of right-thinking people;

  • an imputation which injures a person’s reputation by exposing him to hatred, contempt or ridicule;

  • an imputation which tends to make a person be shunned or avoided.  

The law of libel is concerned with defamatory writings; whereas the law of slander is concerned with defamatory speech. There are some differences in the laws relating to slander and libel…defamatory statements on a website will be libelous rather than slanderous…
 
So any online statements you make, or which are made about you, fitting the above criteria are in violation of U.S. and U.K. law and subject to prosecution. Most Western countries have defamation and libel laws that read similarly, but as you’ll see later in this article, the defamer’s country of residence need not be a barrier to the victim in pursuing a charge of libel.
 
What Doesn’t Constitute Libel?
Bear in mind, not every negative or potentially damaging statement made online or in print constitutes defamation in the legal sense. The first and best defense against a claim of defamation is simply that the statement in question is true. The next go-to defense is often that the statement in question is a statement of opinion, because in most cases such statements are generally protected free speech (see next section for information on the exceptions). For example, imagine Johnny Author, the author of a book about business ethics, has a criminal record for fraud and someone shares this information online or in print. It’ll certainly injure his reputation and standing in the community, but it’s not defamation because it’s true. Now, suppose he was tried for fraud but found innocent of all charges.
 
Web Troll A blogs, “Anyone who trusts anything Johnny Author says is a fool; everyone knows he was arrested for fraud last year.”
 
Web Troll B blogs, “Johnny Author is a liar and a fraud.”
 
Web Troll A’s statement probably has the most potential to do damage, but surprisingly, Web Troll B’s statement is the one of these two that more clearly qualifies as libel because it’s the only one making “an untruthful statement” about Johnny Author. Web Troll A’s remarks are a mixture of opinion and fact.
 
How Not To Be Guilty Of Libel Or Internet Defamation
The easiest remedy is prevention: don’t publish nasty comments about other people on your website or blog. Even if the things you’re saying are true, sharing them only makes you look like a mudslinger and a gossip—hardly the sort of person with whom your peers or people in the publishing industry will want to associate. If you have a legitimate reason for making negative remarks about some person, to blog about a specific issue related to that person for example, then don’t refer to that person by name and leave out identifying details.
 
Couching your statements in explicit qualifiers like, “In my opinion,” “If you asked me I’d say,” and “It seems to me that,” etc., may strengthen your defense if you get hauled into court, but even a statement explicitly labeled as opinion can be legally actionable as libel if the court concludes any reasonable person reading the statement would interpret it as asserting statements of verifiable fact, or as implying that facts exist to support the defamatory statement. Only an attorney versed in internet defamation can offer an opinion as to whether or not your online statements would be likely to pass this test.
 
Also, none of these cautionary measures will grant you absolute immunity from a charge of libel or internet defamation here in the U.S., where anyone can attempt to sue anyone for anything, so why not make your life safer and easier by just avoiding such statements altogether?
 
My Own Internet Defamation Story
I was prompted to write this article after being subjected to internet defamation. It hadn’t previously occurred to me that internet defamation is an author platform issue. As damaging as it can be, it’s something most authors haven’t thought about and would have no idea how to deal with.
 
At first glance it would seem my case was hopeless. The defamer posts under a pseudonym, lives in another country, and posted the defamatory statements on his/her own site. Despite all these obstacles I succeeded in getting the defamatory material removed or blocked from public view, and so can you.
 
When You’ve Been Defamed Online
If you believe you’ve been defamed online, you need to ask yourself:
 
  1. Is the offending material really libel, not statements of fact or non-actionable opinion?
  2. Is the offending material likely to be seen by large numbers of people?
  3. Is the offending material truly likely to damage your reputation?
It’s not usually worth taking action to get the defamatory material removed unless the answer to all three of these questions is a resounding YES, and the defamatory remarks are being made in reference to you under your legal name, pen name, or business name. Defaming remarks being made about your online alias aren’t usually worth fighting unless your online alias is clearly linked with your legal name, pen name or business name (i.e., in a user profile, on your own site, Twitter profile, etc.)
 
Questions #1 and #3 can only be answered by you (possibly with the input of an attorney, in the case of #1), but you can get the answer to #2 using some free, online tools. Run the URL of the website—not the specific page, but the main website URL—where the defamatory material is posted through these two tools to view traffic statistics and other data about the site:
 
Even if you’re not absolutely certain the defamatory statement(s) will pass the ‘actionable opinion’ test, if you feel very strongly that your reputation among your peers, readers and/or the publishing community is being damaged, it’s still probably worthwhile to take action to the extent you can do so without getting an attorney involved. Most people would rather take simple steps to make a problem go away on their own than risk legal action, so the threat of that risk can often get results.
 
Chain Chain Chain, Chain of Legal Liability
Let’s say you’ve decided to take action. If you ask the defamer to remove the objectionable material directly, your request isn’t likely to be honored and will most likely generate more online abuse and exposure. However, that isn’t the end of the story. Even if the defamer posts under a pseudonym, lives in a foreign country, or is defaming you on his or her own site, so long as the company that hosts the site is based in a country with libel laws, you’re still in business.
 
The defamer is just one of the people in the chain of legal liability for internet defamation, and certain others in the chain are usually easier for you to get to—and have a lot more to lose. The chain consists of every person or company involved in the creation, publication and presentation of the offending material. This group may include:
 
  1. Discussion group administrator
  2. Site administrator
  3. Site editor
  4. Site owner
  5. Blog or Site platform/software provider
  6. Content aggregator
  7. Site hosting company
You’ll probably find you’re wasting your time lodging a complaint with parties #1 – #4, even if the site or discussion board in question has specific prohibitions against defamation in its Terms of Use (ToU) or Acceptable Use Policy (AUP). All of these people are usually ignorant of the law, and will tend to dismiss your complaint. Worse, if any of them are pals with the defamer, your complaint will likely backfire.
 
There are certain legal protections that tend to insulate #5 and #6 from most claims relating to the objectionable or illegal use of their services by individuals, so these are also usually dead ends. And this brings us to #7: the hosting company.

(continued, next page; read on to learn how to get defamatory statements & reviews removed) 

Twitter Strategy To Increase Targeted Traffic

by

This post, from Chris Al-Aswad, originally appeared on his My Corporate Blogger site on 5/7/09.

I’ll admit it took me awhile to fully comprehend the madness behind Twitter. But nothing is ever revealed right away in life and so it was with Twitter. In this post I will talk about a few essential Twitter tools to build a Twitter following, and my new favorite social media strategy to gain targeted traffic.

I have about eleven websites and blogs on the Web. My daily routine is juggling those sites, adding content to them, fulfilling my clients’ needs, and of course, finding new ways to direct traffic to my sites.  MyCorporateBlogger.com, what you’re reading right now, is actually one of my newest blogs and it is also my professional blog, where my clients can find me and learn what I’m up to.

If you want to dramatically increase targeted traffic to your website, here is what you will need. Think of it like a recipe:

  1. a blog
  2. a twitter account

In addition, you will be using these tools and services:

  1. Twollo
  2. TweetDeck or Hoot Suite
  3. Twitter Button
  4. TwitThis Button
  5. Huitter/Mutuality

Twitter Strategy to Increase Targeted Traffic

Step One:  The Basics, a blog and a twitter account

The first thing you will need to do is set up a twitter account.  When you choose your username, try to pick the same words of your site URL or organization.  Think keywords–something instantly recognizable.  On the twitter account I just set up for this blog, I use “mycorporateblog”.

The most optimal SEO strategy is to create a Twitter account for your business or your website rather than a personal account.  This is because your Twitter page has a small place to put your website URL and a short description.  Your Twitter page will therefore represent your website.  Focus on your site versus “you” the person.  But make sure you upload a picture of yourself.

These are the basics.

Next you will need a blog which you probably already have.  If you have a business website but no blog, then start a blog.  Why?  Because a blog is dynamic while a website is static.  User-generated content is what creates traffic.

Step Two:  How to use Twollo.com

There are a number of auto-follow Twitter tools on the Web.  These tools enable you to automatically follow people.  But remember, your goal is not simply to increase your followers.  What you want is targeted followers, followers interested in what you’re interested in, followers who belong to your niche.

For example, one twitter tool called TweepMe.com charges 12 bucks a year to increase your followers.  It is not a targeted traffic tool, however, and will do you little good.

I recommend Twollo.com.  On this service, you add the keywords you’re interested in and the tool searches conversations in which these keywords appear.  You tell the app to follow 10, 20, 30, 40, 100, 200, 500, or unlimited amounts of people who are using the keyword you have chosen.  You can add as many different keywords as you want.

But wait?  You’re following them; they’re not following you.  Correct, but about half of those people will follow you.

I also suggest paying the 7 bucks to give you priority in the system for one month.  This means the system will process your requests faster and ultimately you’ll gain more traffic to your Twitter page.

The traffic comes to your Twitter page, but your website URL is right there.  If people are interested in what you’re interested in (i.e. keywords), then they will click on the link to your site.

Step Three: Use TweetDeck or even better HootSuite

The phenomenon of Twitter is not going anywhere but up.  Twitter is the next Google mainly because of the possibilities in real-time search.  It will revolutionize communication and we’re yet to see what that will look like.  We just need to learn which tools will make that communication worthwhile.

It’s best to be as personal as possible and not to simply automate your Tweets.  Here is a great article from PC World  which I’ll quote:

If you’ve got a blog that’s connected to your business, you can use a service such as TwitterFeed to directly channel your new blog posts into Twitter posts. Sounds nifty, doesn’t it?

Well, don’t do it. Your business’s primary Twitter feed ought to be hand-fed. If you publish a flood of impersonal links, your Twitter account will just seem like a faceless promotion machine. And that’s not any way to engage people on Twitter. Link to the very best stuff on your blog, as well as relevant stuff you see elsewhere on the web, and also post items that don’t contain links at all. (Don’t forget to use a URL-shortening service such as tinyurl, is.gd, or xrl.us for your links.)

Rather than use automated feed, engage!  TweetDeck is a personal browser to connect and converse with your contacts across Twitter.  It allows you to see exactly who is sending you messages and simplifies the complex rhythm that is Twitter.  Twitter can be very overwhelming; an advanced tool such as TweetDeck is very worthwhile.

If you want to engage on Twitter and only have one Twitter account, then I recommend Tweet Deck.  If you have multiple accounts, however, use HootSuite.  HootSuite is my personal favorite because you can toggle between accounts.  For clients who are running multiple business websites, this is an ideal platform

 

Read the rest of the post, which includes Steps 4-6 and the author’s results, on My Corporate Blogger.

Internet Defamation, Author Platform And You, Part 2

by

(Continued from part one. As in part one, nothing herein should be construed as legal advice.)

Gather Documentation
First things first: take screenshots, create pdfs, or save offline copies of the web pages where the libel occurred. Be sure to note the URLs and bookmark them; you’ll need to share these with others later. Also retain copies of any emails, phone calls, faxes, instant messages, or other communications you send or receive pertaining to the matter going forward.
 
Identify The Site Hosting Company
Go to the Network Solutions WHOIS Search page and enter the domain name of the site where the defamatory material appears. For example, if you were investigating Google, you’d enter “google.com”. The WHOIS record will show in whose name the domain is registered, and will also list the Domain Name Servers (DNS) on which the site is hosted. The DNS entries will follow this format:
 
[server ID].[host company name].com
 
Now that you know the host company name, go to their website by typing www.[host company name].com into your browser. If that doesn’t get you to their site, do a Google search on the company name to find it.
 
Hosting Company Terms of Use / Acceptable Use Policy
Once on the hosting company’s site, look up their ToU/AUP. You may have to hunt around a bit to find it, and may have to click a link to a page where the company’s hosting services are being offered for sale, but the document you need will definitely be somewhere on that site. Find the paragraph in it which specifically prohibits defamation, libel, or ‘any other illegal activity’, which should read something like this.
 
[must not] encourage, allow or participate in any form of illegal or unsuitable activity, including but not restricted to the exchange of threatening, obscene or offensive messages, spreading computer viruses, breach of copyright and/or proprietary rights or publishing defamatory material;
 
If the document is very lengthy, you can use your browser’s Find > On This Page option to speed up your search. When you find the paragraph, make a note of the paragraph number or letter and save the entire document as a pdf, screenshot file, or offline web page for later reference. Even if you don’t find the paragraph, the fact that the host company operates in a country with libel laws gives you ammunition to proceed.
 
Put The Hosting Company On Notice
Click the host company’s ‘Contact Us’ link and look for the ‘Abuse’ department or email address. Some companies take abuse so seriously that they provide a telephone hotline.
 
Use the provided email address or phone number to report the incident(s). If you begin with a phone call, follow up with an email to create an electronic paper trail. You can follow this basic format, customized with your details:
 
Subject: Your Client In Violation Of Your [ToU or AUP]
 
Dear [Hosting Company Name] Representative:
Your client is using a website hosted on your server to make libelous statements about [me/my work/my business]. Your client’s statements are illegal and in violation of your own [ToU/AUP], [provide paragraph number or letter]. In allowing your client to utilize your hosting service for such use you may be held liable as the publisher of the libelous statements if you are made aware of them and fail to take action to remove them. Here are links to the offending content:
 
[provide links]
 
I am taking this very seriously, and if I do not receive notice that you are taking action to remove the offending material I will pursue legal action against your company in the matter.
 
–          [your name]
–          [your contact info]
 
School The Hosting Company
You may luck out and score a win with your first contact, but it’s more likely that the person on the receiving end will be ignorant of the law and respond with some boilerplate message about protecting the company’s clients’ right to free speech. So, you’ll need to take him to school. Respond with an email patterned after this one (including links):
 
You seem to believe your client’s defamatory material is protected free speech, but you are mistaken.
 
ACCORDING TO NPR’S "ON THE MEDIA": "The Media Law Resource Center, which tracks these cases, reports that there’s been over $16 million in [libel] judgments against bloggers."
 
ACCORDING TO ATTORNEY SEAN EGAN, OF LAWFIRM BATES, WELLS AND BRAITHWAITE: "The law of defamation prohibits defamatory statements being made and defendants may include the original author, a person publishing or editing the statement. Libel is making defamatory statements in writing. In principle therefore whoever hosts a webpage will be liable for any defamatory statement and will be considered to have published the statement."
 
[Host company name] is the publisher of the defamatory and libelous statements being made by your client on [his/her] site, and your company became complicit in the libel from the moment your company was made aware of the offending material and did not act to remove it or have it removed.
 
[If you found a paragraph prohibiting defamation, libel or other illegal activity in the host’s ToU/AUP, include the following paragraph as well:]
 
[Furthermore, I am advised that if you refuse to enforce your [ToA/AUP] in this instance, given all the documentation of that fact, you are establishing a precedent which any of your other clients may use to prevent you from enforcing said [ToU/AUP] in the event any of those clients violate your terms or policies. Selective enforcement is typically deemed no enforcement at all by the courts.]
 
Please provide your legal counsel’s full name, address, phone number, fax and email so I will know where to direct a Cease and Desist letter.
 
–          [your name]
–          [your contact info]
 
 
In the great majority of cases this second contact will spur the host company to action, if for no other reason than the fact that they must pay their legal counsel his or her usual hourly rate just to read your Cease and Desist letter and reply to it—even if the reply is nothing more than a legal-ese version of, “Get lost, we’re not doing jack.” Allowing a C&D letter to get through to their attorney also puts the attorney on notice that the company is potentially in legal trouble, and in publicly-held companies this sets a chain of notification requirements in motion: senior management must be notified immediately, followed by board members and shareholders if the matter isn’t resolved quickly.
 
It’s a whole lot cheaper and easier for the host company’s Abuse department to send a notice to their client advising him or her of the ToU/AUP violation and asking the client to remove the offending material on pain of having his or her site shut down with no refund of hosting fees. It also keeps the Abuse department manager from getting chewed out by the higher-ups.
 
The Cease And Desist Letter
If the second contact doesn’t work, your next step is to obtain a Cease and Desist (C&D) letter from an attorney and send it to the host company’s lawyer. If you Google “internet defamation” you should be able to find plenty of attorneys who specialize in these matters, and the letter should only cost you around US$100. While that’s a considerable chunk of change, it may just be worth it if the libel is hurting your sales, your standing as an author, your reputation among your peers or your reputation within the publishing industry.
 
Many communities and colleges with a law school sponsor low-cost legal clinics, so those are other avenues to try if you feel the libel is very serious but you can’t afford to hire an attorney at regular rates. Contact your local city hall, community center or universities to inquire about available low-cost legal clinics.
 
A Third Act Plot Twist For U.S.-Based Hosting Companies
Here’s where things get a little more interesting for defamation victims dealing with U.S.-based hosting companies. Here, in addition to charges of defamation, you can charge misappropriation of your name, likeness or trade name for profit, intentional interference with economic relations, and more. This sample C&D letter from the Chilling Effects website includes several charges. Your C&D letter should include as many charges as can reasonably be applied, per the opinion of the attorney preparing the letter.
 
A Common U.S. Defense Tactic: The Digital Millenium Copyright Act
Attorneys for U.S.-based software companies, internet service providers, hosting companies and similar are used to summarily rejecting any defamation claims levied against their clients’ end-users on the basis that their client is protected by the Digital Millenium Copyright Act; Google it if you want to know the particulars of that piece of legislation. In a nutshell, it’s intended to protect those providers from the illegal actions of people who use their software or services. In most cases it’s a more or less bulletproof defense. Does this mean our hero (you) is ruined? Not necessarily.
 
If the plaintiff can show that the provider has access to edit, block or delete its clients’ content, and has previously done so for any reason, the provider will have a hard time proving it does not act as the publisher of its clients’ content. Nevertheless, this can be tough to prove and therefore more likely to result in a legal battle than a speedy, out-of-court resolution.
 
Misappropriation: The Charge Most Likely To Get Fast Results In The U.S.
A charge of misappropriation of a person’s name, likeness or trade name for profit isn’t so easily dodged, and violation of this U.S. law is readily apparent to anyone viewing the pages with the defamatory material. If the page with defamatory material also contains advertising, or links to buy products being offered for sale by the site, host, blog author, etc., then the page content qualifies as content being used for a commercial (money-making) purpose. See this blog post from Internet Law Attorney Erik Syverson, and this one from Internet Defamation Attorney Adrianos Facchetti for more information, and specifics on how the same concept can be applied to defamatory online reviews.
 
How I Prevailed
In my situation, the defamer’s hosting company is based in the U.S. I put the company on notice with a first email as suggested in this article, which was answered with the expected ‘freedom of speech’ boilerplate. I followed up with the suggested second email, in which I reiterated the defamation charge and also added the bit about the risks of selective enforcement of the company’s ToS/AUP. I was truly prepared to go the full distance to clear my name and protect my reputation, and I made that fact very clear.
 
I can’t say whether it was the defamation schooling, the selective enforcement schooling, or the request for their legal counsel’s contact information that finally got the company to take action, but within 36 hours one of the offending posts was deleted and the other was marked as ‘deleted or locked’. A ‘locked’ post on the site is still visible to registered site members, but the site’s registered membership is a low number so I’m not terribly concerned about it. What mattered to me was having the post removed from public view and Google search results on searches of my name, site names, etc.
 
What About Retaliation?
The sort of person who would attempt to maliciously defame another is not the sort of person to graciously accept censorship. You may find that in winning the first battle, you’ve touched off a war in which the defamer takes to spreading his or her damaging lies about you on other sites.
 
No worries! So long as 1) the site carries advertising, or 2) the site, hosting company or corporate owner of the site is refusing to enforce its own ToU/AUP, or 3) the hosting company or corporate owner of the site is based in the U.S., U.K., or any other country with libel laws, I know how to get defamatory material removed.
 
And now, so do you!
 

Tweet to share this article

April L. Hamilton is an author and the founder of Publetariat and the Publetariat Vault.

36 – No, Make That 59 – Free eBooks For Authors

by

This post, from Holly Lisle, originally appeared on her Juiced On Writing site on 9/17/08. In it, she shared links to 36 free ebooks of interest to authors. While the individual links can still be followed from that original post, Holly has since combined them all, and added some more, in a downloadable ebook of her own and offers it for free on her site.

 

This list has now been superceded by the publication of a free e-book containing 59 Free E-books for New Writers. You59ebooks are welcome to download this e-book. For more details and to download please see The Ultimate Guide to Free E-Books for New Writers.

 

Original Post (October 2008)

Looking around the web, I’ve lately found 36 free ebooks to download for writers. These do not include the seemingly hundreds of free ebooks and articles available on writing or producing eBooks to sell, as I’ve tried to concentrate on creative or other online writing guides. Links are current at this point in time. Let me know if there are any more.

In no particular order –

1. Mugging the Muse by Holly Lisle.
This 209 page eBook incorporates many of the articles and workshops from Holly Lisle’s main writing site, with additional material. It is now available as a free download both in PDF and Exe ebook versions. This is one of my favourites, I must add.

2. The Non-Celebrity’s Guide to Getting a Children’s Book Published
This free eBook is avilable from Write4Kids.com, along with a couple of others.

3. Unleashing the Idea Virus by Seth Godin
Okay, not strictly about writing, but Seth Godin’s publications are some of my all time favourites because they are applicable to any writer’s lifestyle, marketing and creativity. And most are given away quite freely, so take a look around his site. Unleashing the Idea Virus is about word-of-mouth marketing.

4. Assaulting a Writer’s Thinking by Lea Schizas
This eBook is available via Free-ebooks.net, once you’ve registered. In fact, there are 44 results under the Writing and Publishing category at Free-ebooks. However this one has a good rating and is on a general writing subject, whilst most others are more towards ezines and eBooks.

5. Book Writing for Fun and Profit by Brian Scott
From the Bookcatcher site, this 84 page eBook in PDF format contains some information, some advertisements, and some resource links.

6. Improve Your Writing Skills
This is a little Exe eBook downloadable from Mantex.co.uk. It includes some simple grammar discussions, plus chapters on writing strategies, writers block and resources. Although dated 2002, the eBook itself is a good representation of putting together an exe eBook with a good format, working links to pages, and small relevant advertising to the side.

7. Legendfire’s Writers Guide V2
The Legendfires online creative writing community has published version 2 of its writing guide in March 2008, which provides discussion around goals and starters for writing. This 54 page PDF guide is well worth downloading if you are into creative writing.

8. On Creative Writing by Linda A Lavid.
This ebook is found on the Legendfire website also, and comes in 48 pages PDF format.

9. and 10. Blogbash and Blogging for Profits
Both of these ebooks are free to download, on the specific subjects of blogging. Blogbash came about after an event on the Chitika blog and interviews 30 successful bloggers. Blogging for Profits is written by Yaro Starak who runs the successful Blog Mastermind ecourses. Both give some excellent principles for writing for the blog platform. Both are free.

11. Manage Your Writing by Kenneth W. Davis
This is a free download via the Scribd website, where you will find other writing themed books as photocopies / scans or uploaded PDFs or text files from some authors. This eBook concentrates on Business Writing.

The Oxford Essential Guide to English, a scanned edition is also currently available from Scribd, as are other dictionaries and references.

12. Creative Freelancing
A free ebook available from writingcareer.com.

13. Make Your Words Sell
This large and free ebook by SiteSell.com’s Ken Evoy with Joe Robson. At 250 pages, it’s an excellent reference for copywriters, or making your words work on the internet. While you’re there, check out the other free large ebooks in PDF format – Make Your Content Presell, and Make Your Knowledge Sell (the last being on information products or eBooks).

14. How to Write a Great Query Letter by Noah Lukeman
This ebook is relatively famous out there on the internet, and has been given back as a gift to the writing community by the author. On the same page you will now also find the free download eBook, How to Land a Literary Agent. The How to Write a Great Query Letter is available only via a free download at amazon.com however. Which means there is a difficulty from my own perspective as I’m a UK amazon customer, and the U.S. Amazon places restrictions based on geography on digital downloads.

15. Writing Success Secrets by Shaun Fawcett
A general eBook of 89 pages on everyday writing – letter writing or writing essays or papers.

16, 17 and 18. Tropes and Schemes, Begin Writing Fiction and Dangers for Fiction Writers
These three short eBooks (around 35 pages each) by Shruti Chandra Gupta are available as free downloads at the LiteraryZone blog. These are a compilation of the content on the website, where you can continue to read this content if you don’t want to download the eBooks.

Read the rest of the post on Juiced On Writing.

Publishers: About To Make All The Same Mistakes As The Music Biz

by

This piece, from Susan Piver, originally appeared on her website on 2/11/09.

Hello book publishers. You’re starting to scare me.

I work in publishing but was a record label executive from 1990-2001 and am fascinated by parallels between the two industries. When it comes to the digitization of product and attempts to master/mangle the phenomenon of social media, the publishing business is where the music business was about 10 years ago. And although publishing probably sets its collective IQ (not to mention good manners) as superior to the music business, I can’t find evidence that their reactions to industry sea change are substantially different.

While attending this week’s O’Reilly’s Tools of Change in Publishing conference, I heard a lot of this:

There is still time to change course and we’ve got to do something now—but we don’t know what.

In the meantime, let’s co-opt whatever new trends we see out there by assigning some low-level marketing person to troll Twitter or hiring a social media consultant.

Please, please don’t let us end up like the record business.

If there’s anything to be learned from the recent past, it’s that none of these thoughts are worth pursuing. The “somebody do something” mentality duplicates the kind of hoping-for-the-best attitude espoused by long-time executives in music who simply could not or would not question the viability of the professional cocoons they’d built for themselves. And who can blame them—corporate mega structures are schooled in consolidation as the primary means of growth, not fleet-footed, shape-shifting responsiveness to change. But now we’re in a world where getting bigger is not the answer, getting smaller is.

The question I hoped would be addressed at the conference was: How will publishing avoid being trapped by its own environment? But it never was. Instead, I noticed a lot of talk of waiting and seeing how things are going to work out before making any earth-shaking, world-class responses to a world that has already changed.

At the conference, I was excited for a keynote aimed at comparing the music and publishing industries. Although entertaining, it lacked vision. The speaker talked about how only wimps fear the freedoms of the digital marketplace and attempt to control intellectual property rights and that at least we’re not going to start arresting people like those thugs over at the RIAA. I was disappointed not to hear a more sophisticated dissection, beginning with debunking the idea that digital downloads killed the music business, or could kill publishing.

Downloads did not kill the music business. Shortsightedness and turf-protection on the part of music business executives did. Piracy and changing distribution schema will not kill the publishing industry. Shortsighted infrastructure-protection on the part of publishing houses will.

Read the rest of the post on Susan Piver’s site.

13 Twitter Tips and Tutorials For Beginners

by

This post, from Darren Rowse, originally appeared on his TwiTip site on 4/18/09.

Just starting out on Twitter? Looking for some Twitter Tips to get you started?

Twitter is bound to have a load of new users today as it is being featured on Oprah – so I thought it might be a good day to share some tips for the beginner Twitter user who is just getting going with the medium.

1. What’s in it for Your Followers? – How to be Useful on Twitter

2. 10 Easy Steps for Twitter Beginners – good sound advice and tips on getting going on Twitter  

3. 8 Sure-Fire Ways to Tick off the Twitterverse – a few things to avoid on Twitter 

4. 5 Ways I Benefit from Twitter – this outlines why I love Twitter in my business of building blogs 

5. Defining Your Twitter Goals – this one is more for those who want to use Twitter for other purposes than just letting their family know when they’ll be home. 

6. How to Set up a Twitter Account – most of your are probably past this one but it could be useful if you’re a ‘Pre-Twitter’ user.

7. 5 Steps to Model Successful Twitter Users – an exploration of a few ways that Twitter is being used 

Read the rest of the post on the TwiTip site.

How Does A Bestseller Happen? A Case Study In Reaching #1 On The New York Times

by

This post, from Tim Ferriss, originally appeared on his blog on 8/6/07.

Last Friday, the impossible happened and a lifelong dream came true: The 4-Hour Workweekhit #1 on the New York Times bestseller list! Thank you all for your incredible encouragement and support. More unbelievable, this week 4HWW is simultaneously #1 on the NY Times and #1 on the Wall Street Journal business bestseller lists.

How is this possible? How could a book from a first-time author — with no offline advertising or PR — hit both of these lists and stick for three months and counting?

The book was turned down by 13 of 14 editors, and the president of one large book wholesaler even sent me PDFs on historical stats to “reset my expectations”–it could never be a bestseller. The odds seem impossible: there are more than 200,000 books published each year in the US, and less than 5% ever sell more than 5,000 copies. On a given bestseller list, more than 5 spots could be occupied by unbeatable bestsellers like Good to Great or The Tipping Point, which have been on the lists for years.

On a related note, how could a blog that didn’t exist six months ago now be #2,835 on Technorati with 874 incoming links and an Alexa ranking of 9,615?

Is it all luck? I don’t think so. Luck and timing play a (sometimes big) part, but it seems to me that one can still analyze the game and tilt the odds in their favor. I don’t claim to have all of the answers–I still know very little about publishing–but I’ve done enough micro-testing in the last year to fill a lifetime.

The conclusion, in retrospect, is simple… It all came down to learning how to spread a “ meme“, an idea virus that captures imaginations and takes on a life of its own.

First, let’s looks at how the bestseller status unfolded. Here are the stats and timing for all of the bestseller lists the 4HWW has hit since release date on April 24, 2007. [Publetariat Editor’s Note: the stats are lengthy, and can be viewed on Tim Ferriss’ blog via the ‘read the rest’ link below]

Those of you who have been here for a while know that I’m fanatical about analytics and imitating good models (in the business sense, not the Naomi Campbell sense).

Before I began writing 4HWW (I sold it before I wrote it, which I explain here), I cold-contacted and interviewed close to a dozen best-writing authors about their writing processes, followed by close to a dozen best-selling authors about their marketing and PR campaigns.

I asked several questions of the latter group, but one of the assumption-busting homeruns was:

“What were the 1-3 biggest wastes of time and money?”

This led me to create a “not-to-do” list. Number one was no book touring or bookstore signings whatsoever. Not a one. All of the best-selling authors warned against this author rite of passage. I instead focused on the most efficient word-of-mouth networks in the world at the time–blogs. The path to seeding the ideas of 4HWW was then straight-forward:

* Go where bloggers go
* Be there with a message and a story that will appeal to their interests, not yours
* Build and maintain those relationships through your own blog too

These three observations are from PR pundit Steve Rubel’s excellent summary of the 4HWW launch on Micro-Persuasion, titled “The 4-Hour Workweek – Behind the Meme.” Interested to know which events I chose and what the Amazon and Technorati numbers looked like at each step? Check it all out here.

For a good take on my blogging approaches, both as a book author and blog writer, see my multi-part interviews with Darren Rowse over at Problogger.net:
Part 1 – from the day prior to the official publication date (good for seeing how I prepped the market)
Part 2 – from about one weeks ago, after hitting the big lists (good for learning how I’ve built traffic)

4HWW created enough noise online that it was then picked up by offline media ranging from Wired and Outside magazines to Martha Stewart radio and The Today Show. To create a fast-acting meme, I’ve come to believe that you need to do a few things well. Here are the highlights, ordered to recreate the familiar acronym  PPC with a certain Don King-esque flavor:

Read the rest of the post on Tim Ferriss’ blog.

Authors: 5 Ways You Can Be Your Own Alchemist

by

This post is from The Creative Penn.com: Writing, self-publishing, print-on-demand, internet sales and marketing…for your book.  

Alchemy is the science and art of turning what is base into something precious. It means transformation and renewal, death and rebirth. There are many myths, legends and secrets around alchemy and it has been a creative muse for many people throughout the centuries. 

Here are 5 ways you can be your own alchemist for your writing:

 

  1. Take your darkest and hidden secrets and turn them into nuggets of gold. We all have our dark and dirty memories, but you can turn them into the basis for brilliant writing. It is not about baring your soul, but using what is down there and transforming it. Fictionalise it. Use the lessons to share your wisdom. Your story is original and people want to hear it. You are unique and you can shape that into brilliance.
  2. Edit your work dramatically. Turn your worst writing into something great. Sometimes our writing itself is base and dirty. It needs refining, sometimes drastically. The alchemist used fire to destroy and refine. You may need to be as brutal with your writing to make it into something beautiful.
  3. Transform yourself. Learn, grow and change to develop your self and your writing. “The book you write will change your life” Seth Godin. I truly believe this. The experience of writing a book, whether it is for you alone or for many readers, can transform you into a new person.
  4. Test and refine your methods and works. The alchemists were always looking for new ways to reach The Philosopher’s Stone. To be the one to finally turn lead into gold. They were chemists, scientists always experimenting. You also need to experiment as an author. Learn from failure and continue to move on. Try different techniques and methods. Include new ways of writing as well as book promotion and sales options. This is a lifetime of work, so you have time to make the changes.
  5. Include both spirituality and practicality into your writing. Alchemists have been linked with both the science of chemistry and also esoteric spirituality. Combining both creates a powerful writing career. Authors need to stay in touch with their soul and spirit in order to create and give their energy to the work. But equally, authors need a practical sensibility in order to deal with business, publishing and book promotion. To be entirely focussed on one without the other is useless.

Should You Talk About Your Article Or Book Ideas?

by

This post, from Laurie Pawlik-Kienlen, originally appeared on her Quips and Tips for Successful Writers site on 6/16/09.

Successful writers create new article or book ideas all the time – but do they talk about them before they’re written? Not according to Mario Puzo, Sidney Sheldon, or Ernest Hemingway…

“Never talk about what you are going to do until after you have written it,” said Mario Puzo.

Oops. I’m not only talking about my latest book idea, I’ve actually written about it on my blog (The Adventurous Writer), in Seeking Successful Published Authors. But, the good news is John Steinbeck talked about his book ideas before they were written, too!  Here’s a few quips from published authors about talking about writing – plus some tips. For more in-depth info on getting your ideas published, click on Putting Your Passion Into Print: Get Your Book Published Successfully! by Arielle Eckstut and David Sterry.

Should You Talk About Your Article or Book Ideas?

The quip: “I don’t like to talk about works-in-progress because if I do then it’s on TV 10 weeks later, and it takes me two to three years to write a novel because I do so much rewriting.” – Sidney Sheldon

  • The tip: Okay, we may be successful writers, but most of us aren’t in Sheldon’s league! Even so, many writers fear the possibility that their book or article ideas will show up in a magazine, another writer’s blog, or a book. I believe the chances that someone deliberately steals ideas are slim (plus, you can’t legally fight it because ideas can’t be copyrighted). I also believe in a cosmic karma/common sense flow that leads people to similar ideas at the same time. That is, leads for ideas are floating around in the news, on Twitter, etc – our world is so small, writers are bound to come up with the same ideas at the same time. (To figure out if your idea is valuable, read Tips for Recognizing Great Article Ideas)

The quip: “You lose it if you talk about it.” – Ernest Hemingway

  • The tip: If you talk about your ideas, be selective. Don’t spread your ideas around writers’ forums or on Twitter (oops, I goofed again). Rather, share your ideas with inspiring fellow writers, your writing group, or people you trust. Talking your way through problems with finding sources for articles or plot dilemmas for novels is a great way to find solutions! But, I encourage you to pull a “Hemingway”, and do what works for you.

Read the rest of the post on Quips and Tips for Successful Writers.