There hasn’t been enough frivolity here today so I thought I’d share with you (if you haven’t already found it) the comic genius that is the Perry Bible Fellowship webcomic. Here’s a sample.
Category: Consciousness
Walking the coffee minefield
So, you’ve decked out your house with a “Microsoft Windows Game Pack” chic. And you’re looking for the perfect coffee machine to complement the solitaire wall display and FreeCell kitchen bench top.
Well, here you go. A dangerous looking coffee machine that’s set to explode onto the home coffee scene.
I was going to make this post one of those lists of “ten cool ___ designs” posts – but that will have to wait. I have bigger fish to fry today and blogging is likely to be sporadic at best. Again.
Apology (of sorts)
I apologise to the un-named pastor for my at times hyperbolic reaction to his reaction to my theological position on climate change.
We disagree. Fundamentally on the issue. But some of what I said was graceless and made the same mistakes I accuse said un-named pastor of making – namely casting aspersions on his character and ministry on the basis of his criticism.
I will leave the whole post as is because discussions is ongoing and I think with this disclaimer the spirit and tone of discussion can be rescued somewhat.
That is all.
Sharing is caring
I’m interested in the whole “social bookmarking” phenomena around the blogosphere – Simone said once that there are several link love languages – the click, the comment, the link, the email, and the discussion (in real life) – I’d add “the share”.
Which is like a link – but different.
You’ll notice that at the bottom of each post there’s a link to “share this” – on a number of sharing platforms. I haven’t decided which I like best – but they’re great for generating traffic.
I use Google Reader as my bookmarking platform of choice – having had dalliances with delicious, StumbleUpon, Digg and Reddit. I like Google Reader because I use it to make my daily links posts. Pretty seemlessly.
I also like it because I can see things my actual friends are sharing right there in the browser window.
And I always feel pretty special when I score a “share”. Craig Schwarze is a much renowned (or at least widely read) Sydney Anglican blogger – every Christian I know who blogs subscribes to his blog or reads it regularly. It’s pretty good – he keeps on top of a wide range of issues and some of the comment threads there get comment counts that are the envy of even the die hard professionals. I must confess that I am trying to come up with the perfect recipe for having a post shared by Craig – links from his blog get almost as many hits as links from Facebook.
I’ve had 44 items shared by my friends (from my blog) – Google Reader lets me search that sort of thing, I haven’t kept a running tally – that would be a bit too narcissistic even for me.
But I’ve had a quick look through the items that have been shared and it’s hard to narrow down set criteria. I’ve had half serious posts and half trivial. Some of them have been regular features like t-shirts and videos, and a couple of the beginners guide to taking over the world made the list too. But sorry other bloggers – I am yet to narrow down the secret ingredient.
On commenting on other blogs
Sometimes when I am a bit bored, or have some spare time up my sleeve, I choke up my browser by opening up people’s blogs and work my way through them commenting on the post at the top of the page. I don’t comment on every blog I open – but most of the comments I make in that vein are pretty vacuous and I don’t tend to return to continue the discussion or see if they’ve been replied to. But I do like you, all the people who write blogs I read. And I appreciate your efforts in distracting me from my sometimes mundane workplace existence. Here’s my blog link list from the left hand column of my page – if you’re a reader and I haven’t listed you – let me know. I have no doubt forgotten somebody…
- Bathgatesdotnet
- Carly’s Ramblings
- Chris’s blog
- Craig’s Blog
- Dad’s church design blog
- Dan’s Blog
- Findo’s blog
- Goanna Tree
- Hilton’s Blog
- Joel’s Blog
- Journo for Burdo
- Leah’s Blog
- Mr Snuffle
- Papermind
- Queen Stuss
- Simone’s Blog
- Tim’s Blog
- Vanishing Point
If you don’t already read some of these people – you should, they’ll no doubt say interesting stuff.
My old old man
We’re in Brisbane this weekend to celebrate dad’s 50th (which was a couple of weeks ago). I made this video. It’s now on YouTube.
Happy belated birthday dad.
Self Help Books for Dummies – Getting published
Getting a self-help book published is also fairly easy. Because of the size of the self-help market selling your book to publishers is like shooting fish in a barrel. The smaller the niche your book fits into is the smaller the barrel, or conversely the larger the fish. It’s important to pick the right publisher for your book. If you’re an aspiring novelist it may be worth holding on to your manuscript till one of the larger publishing companies shows interest. When this happens try to structure your deal to include a guarantee that the company will also publish your novel. Don’t be afraid to strike a hard bargain with the publisher, all they see when they’re dealing with you is the dollar signs. They can often be blinded by their greed.
A publishing company executive signing a multiple book deal with a self help book writer
The plane truth
We were on a plane this morning. In an exit row. I am constantly astounded by their ready availability. Don’t people ask for them? Other than me? That’s all you have to do… ask when checking in.
I’m also struck by a couple of other things about the airline industry that I’m going to record for posterity’s sake. The new $10 fee for luggage (because that’s what it is – it’s not a $10 discount for not having luggage) is surely an incentive for people to fill up the previously under used overhead storage areas. They are chockers now. They’re full of baggage from people avoiding the penalty by stuffing everything into slightly oversized backpacks and sneaking them past the check in people. It does nothing for the net weight of the plane – all it does is reduce the need for baggage handling at the other end, and makes check in less labour intensive.
Secondly, or perhaps thirdly, planes are yet to catch up with the obesity epidemic. This may not be a new thing – particularly when applied to the size of the seats and charging fat people proportionately, or on some sort of pro-fata rate. But there are some serious design and safety flaws with the emergency exits. I hadn’t noticed before Robyn pointed it out – but there’s no way a fat person is squeezing through one of those holes without a large degree of lubrication unless their flesh is particularly malleable.
So there you have it. Reflections born of a 5am awakening and a 6am departure.
Self Help Books for Dummies – The Cover
The old saying holds true, you can judge a book by its cover, especially a self-help book. When it comes to designing the cover for a self-help book it’s helpful to throw any artistic taste out the window. Bright colours and lots of lines at different angles are important when it comes to making your book stand out on the shelves of the bookshop. You don’t want your book to be buried in a sea of boring book covers, you want it to stand out like a pink neon sign in a black and white movie. Self-help book covers are one place where sticking out like a sore thumb or being a sunflower in a field of lavender is a good thing. It’s also important that your name feature prominently on the front cover.
The back cover of a self-help book is just as important. Readers of self-help books like to check who has been helped by either the book or its author in the past. It’s a good idea to have some positive quotes from well-known people or something quotable from a review your book received in the press. This doesn’t have to be the real press as it’s almost unverifiable. You could just send a letter to the editor of a really small newspaper that publishes everything and use your own quote, but only do this if you get really desperate.
An artist’s impression of the ideal book cover…
Proud brother
I’m often very proud of my sisters – all three of them. Today it’s little sister number 3’s turn. If you buy a Courier Mail you’ll find her on page 24 – and if you head to the dawn service at the Gaythorne RSL tomorrow morning you’ll hear her bugling. She’s playing my great grandfather’s bugle. The story is not online – but here’s a copy of the photo.
Self Help Books for Dummies – Writing the book
The key to success in the self-help market is to understand that you don’t actually need to provide any merit to your readers. They get enough benefit from simply adding your book to their self-help library to impress visitors. However, there are several tools that the successful self-help writer should have in their toolbox.
1. Statistics
2. Diagrams
3. Illustrations
4. Clichés
5. Repetition
6. Repetition
Statistics
The truth is 90% of self help books are never read, at least past the first chapter. Once your first chapter is finished you can pretty much write whatever you want to fill in the next nine chapters. This is both a valid lesson for the self-help writer to learn and an example of how statistics can be misused or just plain made up.
Diagrams
The old saying that a picture is worth a thousand words holds true in the self-help market. Because any given sample of 1000 words of a self-help book are unlikely to make any sense, you as the writer have a bit of freedom when it comes to diagrams. In fact the more complicated the diagram appears the more impressive it seems.
The idea cycle – another pointless diagram.
The most important part of a diagram is to have an appropriate caption so that people know what they are looking at. A really good caption will say a lot but mean very little to the reader.
Illustrations
One tool that the prospective self-help writer will have to develop if they want to increase their word limit in a hurry is to be able to use pointless, long-winded illustrations. Here’s an example of an illustration that will leave the reader looking for a point or moral:
“It’s like a boat, sailing on a really choppy sea, the sailors are getting sick, throwing up all over the place. In a situation like this the last person you want to be on the boat is the ships boy who has to clean up everyone’s mess, including their own.”
Often the reader’s interpretation of a story like that one will be much more beneficial to them than anything you could come up with yourself. While there are obviously many meanings that could be taken from this illustration its ambiguity is important if people are to gain any “real” meaning from your writing.
Clichés
Clichés are another important key to success. Especially when misused, they allow the real meaning of sentences to flow like water off a ducks back, where the duck is the reader. The more clichés you can pack into a paragraph the more confused the reader will get. It’s important when using clichés that you really give 110% to your writing.
Repetition
It’s a sad truth that people these days rely on repetition to enforce truth. Well sad unless you’re a self-help writer with a lot of space to fill and not much to say. The importance of repetition means that you can pretty much just say the same thing over and over again in new and innovative ways for the whole book if you want.
It’s vital that you repeat yourself so that the reader will recognise the importance of your message. Unless you repeat yourself several times your message won’t be enforced. This isn’t such a bad thing. It means that you will be able to fill up the empty pages of your book very quickly.
Always remember the golden rule for self-help writing – confusing the reader is the ultimate goal. You’ll eventually be able to release a sequel to your first book further explaining the concepts of the first. You can even use “for dummies” or “idiots guide to” in the title of the new book.
Universally speaking
Henry Petersen probably googles himself pretty religiously – so if you’re here, reading this Henry – thanks for the mangoes.
Henry Petersen is the promoter behind the “Fashion Bash” an event that sees young girls from Townsville fight it out on the catwalk for modeling supremacy every year – and an event that can now claim to have launched the career of the new “Miss Universe Australia” – Rachel Finch.
Henry apparently spotted her at the airport.
When you’re talking about shameless self promotion in Townsville, Henry Petersen takes the cake. He’s everywhere. He made national news for his “wife hunt” a few years back (his story is at the bottom of this link), he repays locally bestowed favours with fruit grown on his farm – and he relentlessly plugs his events with terribly worded emails. I’m sorry Henry. If you’re reading this. They truly are terrible. He once requested recognition at our tourism awards for his outstanding contribution – comparing himself to Peter Brock and Steve Irwin weeks after they died saying it was a shame accolades are so often dished out posthumously.
Well, now he’s a success again. In the news for all the right reasons. As a model scout. A teen model scout.
And Townsville is on the map. As a place capable of producing a Miss Universe Australia (MUA). Not sure if this little description of Townsville from the new MUA is productive or not as far as marketing northern Australia’s “largest city” goes…
Coming from such a small town it’s not only somewhere to grow up that’s naturally beautiful but you really learn the value of growing in that small community and you get a lot of support and love and you can take that in your heart and take that to a bigger city or move on with your life and your career and really make a change.
Yes, we’re all only here so that we can leave. Thanks Rachel.
Social networking
Being a marketer at heart my approach to “social networking” (outside of this blog) is pretty much to relentlessly promote things. To me Facebook and Twitter are pretty much marketing vehicles – though I do read my friends status updates and click their links – because I think that if I expect people to do that for me I should pay others the same courtesy. I will also comment on things that interest me, and chat to people. I’m not completely soulless. But still, I unabashedly use my status to direct people here.
You may have noticed. If you’re my friend on Facebook, or following me on Twitter. 9 out of 10 of my status updates or posts are a shameless piece of self promotion. This is mostly because I see my blog as my most substantive and relationally focused web presence – and because I like the idea of people hanging out on my blog and discussing things – like Christian music – I put a lot more time and effort into this blog than anywhere else online (excluding Tetris on Facebook). The shameless self promotion thing works. Here’s a graphic of visitors to this site and the correlation with posting links…
Self Help Books for Dummies – The Title and establishing credibility
Now that we have picked our topic, the next, equally important, step is to pick a catchy title for the book. There are several self-help brand names, and unless you have been specifically employed by those brands, it’s a good idea to steer clear of titles that end with the words “for dummies” or start with the words “an idiot’s guide to”. However, it may be a good idea to cater for the section of the market that these books ignore and launch your own “for geniuses” brand. Because lets face it, nobody really likes being called a dummy do they? And you don’t want to be a nobody now do you? Like any good title a little pun never goes astray. Catchiness is also important, but believe it or not, this doesn’t mean your title needs to be short and punchy. Think of the books you’ve seen at bookshops in the last year. Which books had the longest titles? That’s right, the self-help books. Titles need to grab attention. They need to speak to the potential reader on more than a superficial level. They need to make a connection with the average bookshop browser, a connection that says, “you really want to buy me.”
The three big rules for writing a successful title are:
1. Don’t insult your reader
2. Be as catchy as possible
3. Less is not necessarily more
So a good title for our book about getting into the fresh fruit juice industry might be – “The big squeeze – a genii’s guide to creating your very own fruit juice franchise”
Establishing Credibility
It’s important that a self-help author establishes their credentials early on in the piece. Self-help writing is one of the few times in life where having lots of letters after your name is actually an advantage. If you have no really fancy qualifications, don’t worry. There are a few really easy solutions. There are several online “universities” offering diplomas for just 12 easy payments of $39. If that is beyond your financial means or you just don’t have the four weeks to wait for them to mail your certificate there is still hope. Simply legally change your name from ‘Joe Smith’ to ‘Joe Smith (B. Fruit Juice Studies, hons, Dip Bus Man, OBE)’. It’s always nice to award yourself a couple of prestigious awards. While a knighthood may seem a little pretentious, an order of Australia or other fancy award looks impressive and nobody will really question its legitimacy. Now that you have your new identity and your credibility is established, it’s time to start writing.
All quiet on the blog front
I’m busy today. Doing my job. So not much time for posting – plus I have no real idea what to post.
I have been discussing things in a few comment threads that maybe you should check out.
Like this one on drugs, and this one on Mark Driscoll’s desire to take over the world.
April 28, 2009