Seth Godin had a post titled “Fitting in vs Standing Out” and I had a tough time getting it out of my head. Here’s my take at a visual of the article:
Here are a few things we found on the web this week that you might find useful/valuable:
– I keep it on my list of sites to check everyday.I think it goes something like this…
The traditional time that it takes to publish a book is extraordinary compared to the general news cycle we all live with today. Plus, your book will probably live on a few years before a new edition is produced. This makes for a perfect opening for a professional blog/website.
When authors ask me, “what should I blog about,” I just tell them to stick to what they know best, or what they are learning about. What they’re obsessed with.
A well run site will help:
When I talk with publishing professionals (and I talk to A LOT of them) about starting their own website or blog, the first response is almost always along the lines of, “That sounds great, Paul, but I already have a full time job.”
In a nutshell, if your publishing job looks the same as it did 10 or 15 years ago, there’s a good chance you’re not going to have to worry about being burdened with that full time gig much longer.
Having your own site/blog/brand is as essential today as a publicist’s Rolodex or a marketer’s co-op budget was 5 (and 30) years ago. In the coming weeks we’ll look at the things you can stop doing to make room for a website (or things a website can do better) and help to evolve the industry.
I’m not sure if there’s a way to calculate the number of abandoned blogs/websites, but it must out number the maintained ones 5 to 1 (maybe 50 to 1?). Ever come across a site with more “coming soon” pages than pages with content? What’s really weird is when those pages are 3 years old.
Hey, who am I to say what “soon” is anyway?
Story time: A guy in sales told me that the big trick to growing his numbers was, “just show up”. Picking up the phone, returning calls, answering emails, seeing who needed help and where. That kind of thing. No race to accumulate 50,000 Twitter followers or an intricate network of anonymous names on LinkedIn. He did the things the majority of folks skipped over. He delivered, without fail, to his base. His reputation grew. So did his base. So did his sales numbers. He never stopped and he’s happy as hell.
Do you floor it when a new idea hits you and then slowly drift off and quit, or do you keep plowing through, growing your base everyday?
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Have you ever emailed a writer/blogger to never receive a response? How about a small business? A major corporation? Me too. Really, nobody expects a response anymore. It’s a known fact that people are overwhelmed with email. They’re “swamped”. They’re “buried”. They seem to be constantly “digging out”. There are even consultants to teach you how to “process” your messages.
In reality, these non-responders are mediocre. Their lack of response is expected. They’re unremarkable.
If someone takes the time to email you, do you respond or do you do what 95% of folks do?
Yesterday I sent Seth Godin (who I never met and he couldn’t pick me out of a lineup) an email regarding the new iPod Shuffle. Apple’s product page shows a 
Shuffle with “Small is the new big” engraved on it. I shot it off to Seth, and, true to form, he replied. Two lines and I wasn’t looking for anymore than that. Actually I was expecting less.
He’s a remarkable guy that writes remarkable books. Plus he walks the talk.
Do you?
Time Magazine published an article back in January, “Books Gone Wild: The Digital Age Reshapes Literature“. Here’s a clip:
Fast-forward to the early 21st century: the publishing industry is in distress. Publishing houses–among them Simon & Schuster, Macmillan, HarperCollins, Doubleday and Houghton Mifflin Harcourt–are laying off staff left and right. Random House is in the midst of a drastic reorganization. Salaries are frozen across the industry. Whispers of bankruptcy are fluttering around Borders; Barnes & Noble just cut 100 jobs at its headquarters, a measure unprecedented in the company’s history. Publishers Weekly (PW) predicts that 2009 will be “the worst year for publishing in decades.”
To me, this is what the publishing industry has been waiting for. Not the guys that want to continue what they’ve done for the past 20 years, but for the ones that believe it can be better.
Dan Lyons, aka: The Fake Steve Jobs, wrote a piece for Newsweek awhile back, around the idea that although blogs can do a lot of wonderful things, but making money is not one.
Dave Winer, the man behind technologies like RSS and podcasting, responded with a fantastic and honest blog post:
How I made over $2 million with this blog
It’s an attention grabbing headline, indeed. But Dave takes a more rounded look at how a blog can drive income and reduce costs. Not in a “get rich quick” kind of way, but looking at a blog as a core business component. Just like someone would include a publicity department, marketing department, or mail room, a blog is a key spoke in the wheel.
Here’s the bottom line (from Dave’s article):
…and all I did was what any blogger does — talk about what I’m doing. And that’s the role of a blog, it’s a way of communicating what you’re doing. Companies, consultants and authors need to do a lot of communicating, and blogs allow you to go direct, and be more efficient, less diluted. People get a real feel for who you are and how you think and what you’re like as a person.
Can you still afford not to build blogs into your business?