Wednesday, July 30, 2008

Getting Things Done At Work

1. 9 Simple Strategies To Getting Things Done At Work on Lyved
2. 7 Zen Habits

Kindle, Ebooks and TOC (Tools of Change for Publishing)

A friend just got a Kindle.
He is downloading books daily at 49 cents. The Kindle will hold hundreds of books. What does this mean for book authors? No one knows. Looks like it's either a tremendous opportunity, or the end of the profession.

Useful links:
-> Amazon's Kindle Store.
-> A good review of the Kindle.
-> Kindle bestsellers
-> Is The Net Good For Writers? by RU Sirius.
-> OReilly TOC (Tools of Change) -- For Publishing. OReilly appears to be in the lead when it comes to sussing out the new publishing paradigm.
-> Steven Poole writes about giving away a book online. Comments outline the major issues.
-> Cory Doctorow advocates posting online simultaneously with publishing paper book.

Sunday, July 27, 2008

Writing A Book That Makes a Difference -- keep a journal

An exercise inspired by reading the book Writing a Book That Makes A Difference:

Write one page each day about an experience in your life. At the top of the page, give the entry a one-word description.

After a while sort the pages so all similar themes are in separate piles (or files?).

Combine particularly interesting experiences and use them as source material for an essay, article or book.

How can I use this on Digital Video Secrets book?

Writing A Book That Makes A Difference

How do you write a book that makes a difference?

Philip Gerard has written eloquently about this very subject in Writing A Book That Makes a Difference.

I found the book in a used book store in Santa Rosa a couple days ago, and I'm slowly working my way through it. Well written, competent, useful, insightful... it's a very good book.

Tuesday, July 1, 2008

Choosing the right idea--an article

My article Choosing the right idea for a book or film just appeared in the Writers Store Ezine.

After a book is published the real work begins... selling the book. Articles such as this are a way to let people know about my new books, Producing With Passion and Digital Video Secrets.

While writing the article, I continually asked myself--will this help a filmmaker or writer?

The article is essentially a summary of the material in one chapter of the book.

My message? Go! Now! Buy the books!

:-)

Movie Geeks interview

I'm scheduled for an interview at 7 pm tomorrow on the Movie Geeks Internet radio show. I'll be talking about Producing With Passion.

I'll be listening to Movie Geek shows today to prepare for the interview.

We're on our annual vacation, and as usual I'm working.

I usually work in a coffee shop, but today is Canada day and the coffee shop near the place where we are staying is jam-packed with cheerful Canadians and pretend Canadians.

It's a beautiful day. The sun is shining and the skies are blue. The temperature is in the 80 F range.

The weather in the Discovery Islands has been strange this year. They've had several long strings of overcast gray days. One man told me he is even thinking about selling his house and moving to a sunnier place.