focusing-ideas Archives - Successful Blog

Get Edgy: Contest Ideas to Push ANY Blog to the Remarkable Edge

October 10, 2006 by Liz Leave a Comment

Writing Contests as Edgecraft

Writing contests, I know you’ve seen ’em so have I. I’m a writer and I don’t have time to enter them. I imagine that most techies and other nonwriters pass them by completely.

If you want my attention, doing two things is important.

Mix something successful from over there to something you have here.

Find the edge of here — be noticed, outstanding, and remarkable.

Seth calls moving out to that remarkable edge edgecrafting. It’s knowing who you are, knowing what business you’re in, and not letting tradition or the perceived risk — that perceived risk that edging out comes packaged in. It’s investing in, inventing, or trying new things to make a mark that will get people remarking about what you’re doing.

A nonwriting blog — say a techie blog — having a writing contest is a remix with posibilities. Curious at the very least, don’t you think? Gotta get past curious to way out there, in order to be at the edge.

I’ve got some ideas . . .

How to Set Up a Contest that Works

Nothing is less fun than a contest where no one shows up. So let’s start with the basics that tilt the balance in your favor.

Keep the rules few and the task simple.
Keep the deadline definite and the timeline short, but not too short — a week is good.
Announce it as many ways as you can. Remind folks daily on your blog. Send out email. Ask friends and colleagues to pass the word. Seek out and list your contest at sites such as competizione.

That being said, what kind of writing context might catch readers’ attention and get them to participate?

I’ve got a few ideas. . . .
[Read more…]

How Many Words Does It Take to Make a Book?

October 2, 2006 by Liz 101 Comments

Bookcraft 2.0 SERIES

An Average Book . . .

As an introduction to Bookcraft 2.0, I wrote Write a Book? Assemble the One in Your Archives! In the comments, Chris showed serious interest in finding out more about it.

. . . My new venture, SuccessCREEations has been up and running for less than a month and already has 23,000+ words, all fairly focused topically. So perhaps in a few months IÃ¢â¬â¢ll have enough there to put something together (provided I keep the pace steady).

Of course it begs the question, how much material does it take to become publish-worthy? If you figure an average of about 250 words per page, then what about 60,000 words or so for an average book? Is that anywhere near right?

My apologies. Chris, for trying to answer a BIG question with a small answer. I should have said, “Yes, Chris. you’re more than near right . . . because you write well, you might even have two books there.”

Let me try to explain it better in this post.
[Read more…]

Leaving Folks Room to Comment â Why It’s Imposstible Most of the Time

September 28, 2006 by Liz 80 Comments

In April — Advice from Readers Yea!

The conversation finally occurred on a Sunday last April. I’d been trying to work out why something was happening. It seemed the more I wrote, the less folks were commenting. Then finally someone said something — a lovely compliment — that put words to what I’d been feeling might be the issue. He said.

I used to comment more than I do now, but she writes so completely that I find it difficult to add my thoughts to hers.

That thought led to me writing, An Open Thought: Please Take the Keys, a post where I said . . .

Please Take the Keys

Movie stars have directors. Olympic athletes have coaches. IÃ¢â¬â¢m just a blogger. I have you.

If weÃ¢â¬â¢re talking about customer thinkÃ¢â¬âbrand you and meÃ¢â¬âwhat better case study than this blog itself? You canÃ¢â¬â¢t hurt my feelings talking about my writing. I know itÃ¢â¬â¢s not who I am. IÃ¢â¬â¢d like to know how to get myself off the stage and back into the audience again. Will you tell me what you see? Would you do me that favor? Just say YES.

Sometimes the customer needs to be in the driverÃ¢â¬â¢s seat. Please take the keys.

How will I learn if you donÃ¢â¬â¢t?

And after a few moments of testing the waters. YEA! and Thank you! for everyone who did.

People gave me lots of feedback and great advice. I grew a lot as a blogger that day. Leaving folks room to talk was a big take away for me.

In August — Advice from Liz Uh-Oh

In August when I wrote the post, 10 Reasons Readers DonÃ¢â¬â¢t Leave Comments, I was sure to include that — always leave room for people to comment.

I bring it up here because, I have to say that I’ve found that about half the time it’s bad advice. Some kinds of writing need to be complete. End of story.

So I’m here to say that,

It would be silly to leave out part of a how-to post so that people can add it back in as a comment.

It would be frivolous to drop out a fact from a persuasive argument.

You might not want to omit an event in a retelling of a news story.

The only place I’m sure that you can leave room safely is when you’re writing a list post. I’m sorry I gave you bad advice. I’m a long ways from perfect.

By the way, I’m still doing all I can to get off that stage and back into the chair beside you. I still appreciate any help you have on that. I like being eye-to-eye with people I talk to. It’s friendlier.

The keys to the blog are always there on the sidebar.

–ME “Liz” Strauss
If you think Liz can help with a problem you’re having with your writing, check out the Work with Liz!! page in the sidebar.

Bookcraft 2.0 Why Read the Date Archives Not the Categories?

September 28, 2006 by Liz Leave a Comment

What’s Established vs. A Fresh Look

I’m still sorting the pages I printed out when I read through Phil’s monthly archives. As I was sorting, I thought someone must have this question.

Why not just use the categories Phil already has?

It’s a great question and it’s an idea with value. Staying with the categories that are already established offers these benefits.

There are compelling reasons to ignore the categories and take a fresh look. [Read more…]

Bookcraft 2.0: Let the Sorting Begin

September 26, 2006 by Liz Leave a Comment

Pay No Attention to the Publisher at the Sidebar

I’ve completed the content rough cut by printing pages from Phil’s Archives. The next step is to sort those pages into meaningful chunks of related content. I’m doing that now. The process involves a couple of days to let things form and shake out properly.

In the meantime, we’ll speak of other things. I’ll be back to tell you exactly how this part of the process worked.

–ME “Liz” Strauss
If you’d like Liz to help you find or make a book from your archives, click on the Work with Liz!! page in the sidebar.

Archive Mining: How to Get From Working Book Title to Rough Cut Content

September 25, 2006 by Liz Leave a Comment

Bookcraft 2.0

When I left you in Find a Book in Your Archives the Way a Publisher Would, Phil Gerbyshak and I had agreed on two “working” book titles that can be built from posts in his archives and one “working” title that we’re going to write from scratch.

Phil and I chose one of the two “working” titles that drew from his archives. We made our choice based on these criteria.

the amount of content he felt sure was there
the success of his current book
what his readers would feel was a natural next step

With the working title in my head, I wrote a subtitle — the 25 words or less definition/premise of what the book would be about. That definition would be my tool for deciding what content to keep. Some folks call that statement the “elevator pitch.”

Armed with the premise as my tool, I could effectively mine Phil’s archives for relevant content.

Rough Cut Content Strategy

Rough cut mining for relevant content is what it sounds like, a systematic process of gathering the content that might be useful. Rough cut is the key term. I went to the archives to make a yes/no choice and move on. I used this criteria to gather the content to form the rough cut of the book-to-be.

1. The content is original.

2. The content ties to the premise of the book.

3. The content is of a size worth picking up.

4. The links are few and superficial (not integral to the point of the text.)

5. Quoted text is secondary to original content.

6. Link lists belong in an appendix, if anywhere. They are probably best left behind at this juncture.

The value of each point above changes depending on the type of book being built. The size of content chunk needed in Point 3 is larger, if the book will be running text and smaller, if the book will be a write-in work text. Point 4 changes completely, when my only goal is an ebook. Point 5 takes on new meaning, if the plan is to start each page with a meaningful quotation.

Rough Cut Content Tactics

I went right for the date archives and read them in order. I read to see whether each post meets the premise and the criteria set. Standard operating procedure for dealing with raw content is to get all content in pages of similar size and moveable form. So I also followed these procedures.

Print each post separately.

Make sure every print out carries the reference from where it came — in this case, the post date. If necessary, write it by hand. Captured keystrokes are valuable when the time comes to assemble the book.

The pile of pages on my desk is 140-150 pages deep. I’ll guess high and say that 30% won’t work. That would leave me with about 100 pages to play with. I can do plenty with that.

–ME “Liz” Strauss

If you’d like Liz to help you find or make a book from your archives, click on the Work with Liz!! page in the sidebar.