Hofstadter's Law

Hofstadter's Law: It always takes longer than you expect, even when you take into account Hofstadter's Law. —Douglas Hofstadter, Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid^[1]

When to get a legal review of your book contract

There's a simple rule for when you need a legal review of your book contract.

"If the other side in the negotiations has a lawyer, you need a lawyer."

Authors Guild members can get a free Book Contract Evaluation from the legal staff of the Author's Guild. The evaluations take about 10 days, and they are concise, accurate and easy to understand.

If you are not a member of the Author's Guild, you might consider joining.

If you hire a lawyer, make sure he or she has extensive experience in book contracts.

Google docs for writing

A couple useful things you can do with Google Documents:

• Organize a book.
  1. Open a Google documents file, and add main topics as they occur to you.
  2. Assign each main topic and sub-topic a HEADER value.
  3. Add content to topics and sub topics as it occurs to you.
  
  Example:
  USING GOOGLE DOCS (Header 1)
  Easy to access from anywhere. (Expand this. Social impact?)
  Talk about Google?
  
  WHERE TO ACCESS GOOGLE DOCS (Header 2)
  Access at work.
  Multiple computers (access from any computer)
  Access from wireless at coffee shop. List wireless issues.
  
  COFFEE SHOPS (Header 3)
  types of coffee shops.
  at the local coffee shop, observations and pictures.
  

• Keep track of revisions
  Google docs keeps track of all your revisions.
  
  Open a google documnt and select: File>See Revision History.
  
  Google Documents will display a long list showing every revision you ever made to the doc. You can even compare versions by checking two revisions and selecting the 'Compare Checked' button.
  
  
  

Bowen therapy for animals?

Feral cats are almost impossible to domesticate. Their "attack" responses are on a hair trigger. A cat with such hair-trigger responses may be lying in your lap, purring one moment and the next moment explode into a windmill of teeth and claws.

The attack may be triggered by a movement in the cat's visual field (a plant waving in the breeze) or touching the cat's fur unexpectedly with your hand. Anything that startles the cat sets off an attack.

A friend tells me that she successfully used Bowen Technique therapy for a feral ferret. As best I can tell it looks like cat-acupressure.

The Author's Guild

The Authors Guild has been the published writer's advocate for effective copyright, fair contracts, and free expression since 1912.

Highly recommended for all published writers.

OReilly Tools For Change in Publishing

The O'Reilly Tools for Change in Publishing conference has some of the best minds in the industry talking about the monumental changes in publishing and information distribution.

I wonder how one gets an invitation to a Tools for Change conference?

I really need to write a book for O'Reilly.

Seth Godin's new media (book) marketing rules

Rules? We have rules!

1. Books are souvenirs.
2. Permission is your only asset.
3. Conversations are marketing.
4. Words for readers, not readers for words.
5. Blogs work.
6. It's not about selling books.
7. As an author, you are an idea merchant. (Not really rule 7, but I like it.)

Godin's presentation "10 Bestsellers: Using New Media, New Marketing, and New Thinking to Create 10 Bestselling Books" is the single best thing I've seen or read on new media marketing.

Seth Godin on book marketing

Seth Godin, author of 10 bestsellers, on how to market a book using new media in this presentation at the OReilly Tools of Change for Publishing conference.

The title of the presentation is: "10 Bestsellers: Using New Media, New Marketing, and New Thinking to Create 10 Bestselling Books"