Tag Archives: ebook

What Annoys Jeff this Week: The Movie

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WAJTW 2012 - Cover ImageOK. I lied. It’s not a movie, but it is a book… and that’s like a movie, except for the part where there aren’t any moving pictures or dialog. You can still look mindlessly at the screen while jamming your face full of over-buttered popcorn and overpriced snowcaps, so it has that going for it.

I’ve been posting over the last few days as What Annoys Jeff this Week: 2012 in Review becomes available through the various retail sites, but since nothing is ever official until it shows up on the blog, I just wanted to let you know that you can now get your very own copy from Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and Smashwords.

For those using some of the more esoteric e-readers, WAJTW: 2012 in Review will also be available (through Smashwords distribution) from the iTunes, Sony, and Kobo eBook stores in a few weeks.

Recycling…

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If you spend any time reading the recommendations about “how to be a bestselling author in 978 easy steps” one that they come back to time and again is how important it is to get new material in front of readers as quickly as possible. That sounds well and good until you really start to think about the sheer amount of time and effort that goes into something as seemingly simple as publishing a “short” 150 page book. The reality is that I don’t see any way to do it in less than 18 months that doesn’t involve either giving up my day job or not sleeping. While one of those options would be temporarily awesome, it would inevitably lead to poverty and starvation. recyclingThe other would probably lead to some kind of REM-deprived psychosis. Neither is an option I find particularly attractive for the time being.

There is another option I’ve been kicking around for the last few weeks. I’ve got a blog just sitting here with seven years worth of more or less untapped material. Most people read a post once, maybe twice if it’s really epic, and it’s never seen again. With a little editorial effort, a few thousand words of fresh content, and some flashy layout, I could conceivably have two new books set to press in short order. It’s extraordinarily tempting, if for no other reason than it buys me time to work on something completely fresh while I’m editing these together.

It’s an idea still very much in its infancy, but I’m starting to outline two lines of effort:

1) What Annoys Jeff this Week: 2012 was a Bitch. This would be an anthology of 52 weeks of what is generally the most viewed posts I publish each week. Some I’d freshen up and expand a bit from what appears on the blog, but mostly they could be plucked root and stem and used shamelessly for retail purposes. It has the decided perk of also being a self-licking ice-cream cone – as long as Thursdays each weak feature WAJTW, every year I’ll have popping fresh new material for the next edition.

2) Epic: The Best of jeffreytharp.com. Over the last seven years I’ve posted more than a few epic rants covering everything from work to neighbors to random people at Home Depot. I haven’t dove into the research yet, but I’m betting that there’s more than enough here to turn into a respectable ebook maybe something in the neighborhood on 25-30,000 words. It’s definitely going to require some polish – if you haven’t been reading the Sunday archive updates, take my word for it; some of the early work is pretty rough hewn. Still, I think there’s plenty of meat on the bone.

So will either of these ideas come to pass? Honestly, I don’t know yet, but it does seem like a waste to sit on what’s got to be upwards of half a million words of content and not do anything with it. It would be like running my own personal recycling program… and that’s a good thing, right?

Introduction to Smashwords…

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So over the weekend, I realize that I may have not done a very good job explaining one of the retail channels I selected to do business with. Being the biggest in the business, Amazon and Barnes & Noble are pretty much self explanatory. They’re forces of nature that you just accept you’ll do business with if you want to write and publish a book. Sure, you can work around them, but why would you want to?

The third retailer I opted to work with is Smashwords. Unless you have a deep abiding hatred of the big e-retailers or are a serious fan of independent writers, chances are you’ve never heard of them. Hopefully I allretailers can turn you around a bit on that, because I’ve found Smashwords to be a fantastic platform for the indy writer (translation: the author gets to keep a much larger percentage of every sale than they do with sales through other retailers).

Although they are a retailer in their own right, Smashwords biggest claim to fame is that they are large and growing ebook distributor. That means their primary mission in life is making indy works available to a wide variety of other retailers like Apple, Sony, Kobo, and others. This is a good thing because the goal, really, is to have your work available in as many places as possible in addition to the Big Two. More distribution channels means more opportunities for someone to see and hopefully buy your ebook… and that makes for a happy author.

From a reader’s perspective, Smashwords has a lot going for it too. Primarily, that’s because once you buy an ebook from them, you can download it in all of the major ereader formats. Whether you own a Nook, Kindle, or iPad, a Sony reader, something from Kobo, or you just want to read on your laptop or desktop, you can download your book in a format best suited for what device you’re currently using. It’s a great way to make sure your ebooks are not locked in to a specific device or proprietary format. While the e-reader market struggles to sort itself and its industry standards out, you’re safe from the impacts of format change and obsolescence. If you happen to be a voracious reader with a large e-library, that’s a very good thing.

So that’s my pitch by way of introducing everyone to Smashwords. If you’re looking for a read that’s not on the best seller list or have a itch for some of the great independent work out there today, give them a go. I’ve been very impressed with them as both a writer and a reader for the last year. If you’re in a clicking mood, feel free to check out The Cynic’s Guide on Smashwords and take a look around the site.

What I know about marketing…

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I considered just leaving the body of this post blank to make my point more dramatic, but that’s not quite a fair assessment. I know some of the basics – like having a webpage and blog, using social media to get your message out, and even some old school tricks like punching out a press release. What I don’t know yet, is how to teach myself what I need to know about the business of marketing to someone other than your friends and fans on Facebook and whoever happens to stumble across your blog.

According to Google, everyone is apparently a marketing expert – or they’re trying to sell their own 16-sept program to super-powered sales. That’s fine. Everyone’s got to make a buck one way or another. It’s a little absurd to rant about someone shilling their own products when I’m spending so much time doing the same thing.

What I’ve found here at the end of the writing and publishing process, is the wide open, undefined space of “what’s next?” I’m going to try to spend some time in the next few weeks giving myself a crash course in marketing and sales… or at least looking around to see what seems to be working for other people in the same boat. Fortunately, I’m not the first guy to ever try doing this so there should be plenty of evidence out there of what works and what doesn’t. Still, I’m really wishing I would have paid more attention to that marketing class when I was getting my MBA. Stupid hindsight wins again.

Meetup…

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I’ve got an entire chapter of Nobody Told Me… The Cynic’s Guide for New Employees devoted to the nature, causes, and avoidance of meetings. Sadly, being forewarned only lets you know what you’re in for, it doesn’t automatically get you a Get-Out-of-Meeting-Free pass. It seems that no power on earth can shove a meeting off course once it has built up a sufficient degree of its own bureaucratic inertia.

Under those circumstances, you get what we’ve had here this week – which is a meeting schedule that looks something like this:

Friday Morning: Pre-Pre-Prep Meeting (1 hour)

Friday Afternoon: Pre-Prep Meeting (90 minutes)

Monday Morning: Prep Meeting Part 1 (1 hour)

Tuesday Morning: Prep Meeting Part 2 (90 minutes)

Wednesday Afternoon: Meeting (90 minutes)

Thursday Morning: Post-Meeting Meeting (90 minutes)

This is not a particularly extreme example of what takes place to in advance and following what I’ll commonly refer to as a Very Important Meeting (VIM). In this case, VIM preparation, the VIM itself, and its aftermath sucked up about 480 minutes, or eight hours. That’s one-fifth of the workweek lost to a single meeting (or one-fourth of the proposed furlough work week in case anyone at home is keeping track). I don’t even want to admit how much time gets spent scheduling, preparing slides, making sure video lines are available, and mastering the actual subject material for one of these sessions. How much time is spent preparing for and attending meetings would make the average person’s eyes water.

Look, I’m not saying that every meeting is an enormous waste of time and effort, but maybe if we could just have one or two of them instead of six, we might all be able to get a little more accomplished. Maybe I should go ahead and schedule a meeting to discuss this new and innovative concept.

You can’t see it, but I’m rolling my eyes.

The moment you’ve all been waiting for…

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Ladies and gentlemen, I’m pleased to tell you tonight that the moment you’ve all been waiting for has arrived. My first book, Nobody Told Me… The Cynic’s Guide for New Employees, is now available through three major retail partners – Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and Smashwords.

For the low, low introductory price of $2.99, you can enjoy (and critique) the fruits of my labor… so act now to lock in the introductory price before it goes up to full retail. Until I learn more about the printing side of this business, Nobody Told Me will be available as an ebook only.Cover

This has been a fantastic project and I’ve had a lot of help getting to this point – without naming names, I just want to say thank you to everyone who has had a hand in editing, provided material, or just let me talk though the ideas when I needed to. It would never have gotten done without your help.

To those of you who are considering laying down your hard earned money for this book, I want to thank you too – not just for supporting the notion that an independent writer has a shot at getting his work in front of people – but because you’re going to get a chance to look at the first edition. Even though it’s been through many, many cycles of editing I’m absolutely sure there are places where things can still be better. I want everyone to feel free to make recommendations, provide feedback, and have a hand in the process. I promise I won’t take it personally; not to mention once changes are made, you get to download the updates for free… and who doesn’t like free?

In conclusion, buy my book. Thank you for your attention in this matter.

P.S. Don’t forget to become a fan of my new “official” Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/official.jeffrey.tharp,

What Annoys Jeff this Week?

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1. Last minute discoveries. In an abundance of caution, I reviewed the major book retailers one more time last night and found, to my horror, that there is, in fact, a paperback on the market using my working title almost word for word. It’s not available as an ebook and I guess that’s why I missed it when I was doing my initial research, but there it is sitting on Amazon, priced at $64 and ranked at #3,184,365 in books. To say this sent me into a mild fit is possibly an understatement. So yeah, it’s back to the drawing board for a title.

2. Rent. I’m not a fan of renting. I’m less of a fan when the rent goes up. Sure, I know it’s been the same for two years, but with the real likelihood of needing to slash 20% out of my expenses for the next six months, even a minor increase is going to have an outsized impact. Like businesses everywhere, it means I’ve got to come up with a way to pass that cost on to my customers, because I’m certainly not going to take the hit from my own bottom line. I’m going to pass that rent increase right along to my own renters when their leases expire and thus the circle of pain continues for everyone.

3. Memory. I don’t know if it’s because I’m trying to keep up with a couple dozen things at once or if it’s early onset Alzheimer’s, but I don’t seem to be able to remember a damned thing lately. Writing it down helps, but only when I remember to write it all down in the same place rather than leaving a trail of random Post It notes in my wake. Either my brain needs to get itself in gear and start carrying the load or I need to come up with a better written system to keep it all straight, because right now I’m missing stuff and that makes me crazy.

When is good enough good enough?

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One of the hardest things, especially when it comes to writing, is deciding when something is good to go. In the print world, once the type is set, format, and layout is done, it’s really, really done because somewhere you have a warehouse rack filled with printed, final products. Find a mistake in one of them and it’s tough shit until (if) you get around to printing a second run. The ebook is a different animal. Even though it’s published and available for purchase, you can change it innumerable times by simply uploading a new file to your retailers. I’m afraid the tendency there is to make editing an ongoing process and never let the book “just be.”

I think I’m getting closing in on that territory now. I’m happy-ish with the formatting and layout, happy-ish with the cover, and happy-ish, with the content. There’s a lot of –ish in there. Mostly because I’m not complete satisfied. I’ll probably never be completely satisfied, though, so at a point sooner rather than later, I’m going to have to give it up, hit the “publish” button and turn this little project loose on an unsuspecting world. Wanting to get it all exactly right on your first go around is probably excessive, but hey, that’s just part of my charm, no?

If nothing unexpected crops up, I expect that’s going to happen in the next week to ten days. I’ve been secretly shooting for an Ides of March publication date, but for several reasons (mostly involving my need to continue working at my day job), that goal is all but out of reach. With that said, I’m still finding the occasional error that needs fixing, but the period of wholesale changes and rewriting seems to be at an end. Hopefully those of you planning on picking up an early copy will also feel up to sending in some constructive feedback once you’ve had a chance to see what I’ve been up to for the last eighteen months. I think you’re all in for a treat.

What’s the opposite of writer’s block?

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This last year I’ve spent a lot of time writing, reading about writing, writing about writing, and thinking about writing. It’s been my strength for as long as I can remember. Give me an equation or something science-y and I’m almost immediately out of my depth. Make me give impromptu remarks off the cuff and I’ll likely repeat myself three times and then sit down not having said anything that sounded so good in my head before I opened my mouth. Let me put it in writing and it’s a different story. That’s when I can really find my voice and make a coherent and passionate argument. Maybe it isn’t quite as grand a skill as being able to deliver soaring oratory, but it does get the job done.

Getting writer’s block is a common enough problem, but lately I’ve been suffering from its polar opposite – too many words all trying their best to come flying out all at one time. Since you never know when the well might run dry again, all you can do is try to get as many of them down on paper as possible so you’ve got something to see you from the lean times. While it was a rough work in progress, I sort of assumed that What You Didn’t Learn in College would be a one off – just something I’d put together for shits and giggles and the right to say I did it. As it’s slowly closing the gap between concept and reality, I’m finding some other notions that are just begging for the ol’ Jeff Tharp treatment.

It’s entirely possible that I’m throwing the cart way out in front of the horse, but I think I may be starting to glaum on to what’s next.

Big things in a short month…

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This is the space where I had planned to rant about the sequester (again) since today is the big day. Since you’re probably as tired of hearing about it as I am of writing about it, I’m opting for a different direction entirely. Even though the republic does seem to be in a constant of financial distress, there are a few high points to the week and month that was

First, www.jeffreytharp.com broke through the 1000 visits mark for the first time in almost year. I was pretty impressed with that since February is a short month anyway. Usually we slide along here with somewhere between 600-800 hits, so adding 200+ to that is kind of a big deal. When it comes to blogging, the more shrill it gets, the better people seem to like it. There could be a lesson in there somewhere.

Second, but first in pride of place, I launched a “fan page” for what I hope is the first of at least several book ideas I’ve been kicking around for as long as I can remember. Since both blogging and writing are extreme part time gigs, neither one happens as quickly as I might like, but things are happening. Every day the plan comes just a little more into focus, another couple of hundred words hit the page, and I realize that there may actually be an audience for the things I have to say. I’m not going to lie, it’s a pretty damned awesome feeling.

So, in summary: 1) February was a great month; 2) Even better things are in store for March; and 3) Thanks to everyone who is reading the blog, helping edit the Field Guide, “liking” away at what they see on Facebook, and retweeting whatever random thoughts and links show up in Twitter. You guys really are the best.