Successful Blog

Net Neutrality 11-02–2006

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Net Neutrality Links

I’m adding this link to the Net Neutrality Page.

Net Neutrality: Doc Searls : Saying What and How

I’ll cop to giving more weight to the future than to the present (because I prefer growth and dynamism over stasis). And to having a personal agenda: wanting the Net to be more than gravy on telephony or cable TV from the local duopoly. In both cases I want the marketplace to be free and open and not your-choice-of-silo.

How do we get that? I think we need something other than a choice between carrier regulation and carrier protectionism, which is how the two sides seem to line up right now.

As for evidence of harm, I’d cite the carrier’s asymmetrical bandwidth provisioning (not to mention port blockages) and tendentious arguments — “It’s what the market wants” — when the market has no other choice. The Net needs to enable and support production as well as consumption. It needs to support and not just prevent (or make difficult) new business in small and home offices. To name just two pro-market moves.

Want to know what you can do?
MA Bell Monopoly Versus the Free Internet — Tell the FCC Net Neutrality Is Not Negotiable

–ME “Liz” Strauss

Related
NET NEUTRALITY PAGE

Bookcraft 2.0: Even the Best Shoes Don’t Belong in a Bookstore

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Look for Books Like Yours

books

If you recall, Phil, an editor, and I have been through his pages. We sorted them into four parts. I’ve read the parts through again and begun the process of fine tuning the order. This will get us to the final book map. We also checked the market at Amazon to see what books like Phil’s new book were doing. . . .

I promised to tell you more about that.

When I started in publishing I was a freelancer. I read everything I could about writing and one bit of advice always confused me:

Go after the publishers who already sell the kind of book you want to write.

To me, that advice seem counter-intuitive. Why would a publisher want another book about writing if they already had a list full of them? Shouldn’t I go to where a publisher didn’t have any?

[Read more…]

A 5-Part Interview with Rajesh Setty

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Introducing logo

Which Raj Setty do you know . . . the journalist, author, technology geek, President of ForesightPlus, SOB, mentoring mind behind start-ups and numerous great ideas? You probably know his book, Beyond Code: Learn to Distinguish Yourself in 9 Simple Steps! and his blog, Life Beyond Code. How Raj finds the time to do all of these and still answer my email baffles me.

When I read Beyond Code: Learn to Distinguish Yourself in 9 Simple Steps! I wasn’t far into it when I started thinking I want to interview this man for Successful Blog.

As soon as I hit the last page, I contacted Raj and he agreed. I put together five questions that would take us beyond the book and let the author elaborate.

I’m proud to announce that you can look for the series this week and next week.

Monday, October 30 — Raj’s Story
Wedneday November 1 — The Need to Participate and Differentiate
Thursday, November 2 — The Inner Game
Monday, November 6 — The Outer Game
Wednesday, November 8 — About the Book — How It Happened

Thanks, Raj. This interview series is the best companion to the book!

–Me “Liz” Strauss

Bookcraft 2.0: Book Research at Amazon, the Data Giant

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Hitting the Market

books

Whether your plan is to sell your book or give it as a value-added premium, it’s a shame to invest the time to build a resource that no one is going to read. Book ideas aren’t different from other product ideas. They need market research to validate their worth.

No idea is a great just because someone had it.
It becomes a great idea when we prove it solves problem or meets a need in a new and remarkable way.

If you start from scratch or work from your own blog, a trip over to Amazon for research is the first place you should go once your idea begins to take form. Because I was new to Phil’s blog, it took time to get to that single — Hey this might be it! — idea. So we’re on our way over that right now.

Come along.
[Read more…]

No Worries

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I've been thinking . . .
When I was traveling to other countries, what I was most likely to bring home were a tiny change in my accent and a word or phrase that became mine forever. I also bought lots of books and an occasional other thing, but who knows where they went?

Considering my love of words, I think I ended up with a nice collection of souveniers.

One word I got from the Brits was Brilliant! It’s a lovely word for describing something wonderful and magical.

From the Italians, I carried home a pair Prego, Grazie. How much more musical could welcome and thank you sound? I want a life filled with the two of them.

In OZ, the land of the Australians, I couldn’t leave without No Worries. They’ve become my weekend words.

“No Worries.”

I worked out a while back that worrying about things I can’t change doesn’t make stuff any better and doesn’t make me feel good either. In fact, worrying makes me cranky. I get to feeling sorry for myself.

Talk about a way to blow weekend — being cranky ranks right up there.

So I subscribe to “No Worries” weekends.

(I have my meltdowns on Thursdays, if I really need one.)

Liz's Signature

Bookcraft 2.0: The 90% Rule of Repurposing Content

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Content Always Wins

books

When I left you on Friday, an editor friend and I were on our way to Milwaukee to meet with Phil to make a bookmap from the rough cut of his book. The rough cut had been built on a set of criteria that made choosing content from his archives an easy decision-making process. I outlined those criteria in Archive Mining: How to Get From Working Book Title to Rough Cut Content. Now, it was time for a finer cut. Armed with 5 categories of pages, I was sure that we’d sort them into 7 or 8 chapters and make a bookmap. That was the plan.

Because our topic is timeless, we can be flexible about schedule. That gives us even more room to focus on what’s best for the book. Here’s what happened.

We didn’t make a bookmap.

I was wrong about 7 or 8 chapters.

The plan went out the door early on

because

To make a great book, the content must win. Always.

Making the Finer Cut

In order to make that finer cut, we needed a finer set of criteria. Again, we turned to black and white rules — that crucial tool for sorting intellectual gray questions efficiently.

We made two black and white “gating rules.”

A simple definition of what the book would do — Every entry, story, or example would offer a practical application for the reader.

Every written bit of content had to meet the 90% Rule of Repurposing Content.

We read aloud each piece, if it failed on either point, without question it was out.

What is the 90% Rule of Repurposing Content? It’s a rule that I made up.
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