I am writing this very cautiously.

I do not want to be seen as some old bastard who thinks nothing is right anymore.

Quite the contrary. I think A LOT is WAY better than it was in the past. However, I’ve been pondering something recently.

Why aren’t pop stars celebrating intelligence anymore?

A friend of mine, author Andrew Pyper, commented on a Facebook post I had a while ago. I was mentioning how weird it was that I was sitting in my car and navigating through the car’s computer to find a song on the connected USB drive that I had listened to in my teens by a group called Images In Vogue. I remember it suddenly felt like I was living in the future.

Andrew commented about how Images In Vogue had played a show at our high school and during soundcheck the lead singer had sat down in the gym by himself and was reading some heady philosophy book.

Images In Vogue sang songs about love and other fluffy topics and their lead singer was well read and smart. That just seemed SO COOL.

This week I remembered the band The Style Council quoted Jean Paul Marat, an 18th Century French Visionary on the back of their album cover.

Are any pop stars doing that kind of thing anymore? Or is it only cool to have money now?

I want someone who wears cool clothes, has awesome hair, is crazy talented AND is really smart or at least wants to look like they are.

Those who know me know that I am a shameless self-promoter. No, it’s true.

I am incredibly impatient by nature and that forces me to go ahead and promote my own work instead of waiting for someone else to come along and help me.

I’ve been thinking about marketing online recently. I’ve been trying various online marketing techniques for my book, SHORTCUTS – Book 1, and in the past I’ve used social media to market my music.

One thing I have discovered is that you cannot over-saturate the online market.
It’s simply not possible.

Thanks to social media like Twitter and Facebook, information or data comes at us continuously throughout the day. New information pushes older information down and out of sight/mind.

I have felt like an ass sometimes as I tweet about my book for what seems like the 8,000th time… but then I get a response from someone from that 8,000th tweet that makes it evident that they haven’t seen any of my previous tweets. They’ve all been lost in the gigabytes of data that person has consumed already today.

New information just gets piled on top of old information and that stack never gets taller…just deeper.

The new information that’s on the top of the pile is the easiest for people to deal with. Once they act on that information, they miss all the new information that comes in while they’re busy.

The most important thing you need to know about marketing on the internet is this:

Profile

That’s it. You MUST maintain profile with your potential customers.

In the old days, that meant simply keeping an ad in the paper or on TV or on the radio.
That’s not enough now.
Your potential customers are being bombarded with new information at an incredible rate as they check Facebook and Twitter on their phones, tablets and computers.

I’m not suggesting that you start bombarding people with useless information, but I am suggesting that if you want people to know something, you need to tell them and tell them often.

I hate bullying.

Amazon.com has, of late, not had the reputation of being a friendly player in the marketplace. First they had their price match app on smartphones that allowed people to walk into mom and pop stores, scan a product and find out that it was cheaper on Amazon.com. The user got to save a couple of dollars, Amazon got some free market research data and mom and pop stores made a little less money.

Fair? No, but life isn’t fair and the marketplace sure as hell isn’t fair.

My book (SHORTCUTS – Book 1) came out on Amazon.com on Dec 19th, 2011. I chose to release it on Amazon.com first because they are the biggest ebook and ereader retailer in the world and they had the easiest system to work with as a self-published author.

Amazon.com is currently pushing their new KDP Select program for authors. In exchange for agreeing to exclusively list your book (in digital form) solely with Amazon.com for 90 days, you can get it included in their Amazon Prime Lending Library (members can borrow the book for ‘free’ as part of their paid membership and authors get paid a share of a pre-determined pot of cash for that month) plus more importantly you get the opportunity to offer your book for free on Amazon.com.

I agree, it’s weird to think that in return for exclusivity you get to give away something you made for free.

However, one of the biggest hurdles to success as a self-published author is marketing. Traditional marketing costs a lot. The big benefit of agreeing to the exclusivity of Amazon.com’s KDP Select is that you get to price your book for $0.00 for up to 5 days within that 90 day period. It has been proven time and time again that free ebooks on Amazon get downloaded… a lot. Then those books potentially rise in the bestseller list and more people find out about them, which increases the potential for sales later on.

I’ve decided to gamble on KDP Select with ‘SHORTCUTS – Book 1‘. I’m going to offer up some free download days in the next week.

Will it work? I don’t know, but I’ll post my results here as they happen.

‘SHORTCUTS – Book 1‘, as of 3:59PM EST on Sunday, January 1st, 2012 is currently #77,063 in the Amazon Kindle Book Store out of 969,964 ebooks available.

UPDATE

JAN 2nd, 2012

8:00AM EST: 5 hours into the first free download day and the book is now #12,945 out of 969,954 ebooks available.

8:30AM EST:  #5,532

12:30PM EST:  #3,157

1:30PM EST: #1,869

4:30PM EST: #1,629  (#95 in Children’s Fiction, #98 in General Fantasy)

9:22PM EST: #1,265 (#82 in Children’s Fiction, #73 in General Fantasy)

—————–

JAN 3rd, 2012

9:00AM EST: 1,205  (#73 in Children’s Fiction, #66 in General Fantasy)

My kids blew up my car over the Christmas holidays.

I watched, in awe, as the video showed our car sitting in our driveway being hit by a missile that tore out of the sky.  Flames burst skyward and bits of the car spilled out on to the ground as it was engulfed in thick black smoke.

Thank goodness it was just a special effect on their iPods.

It was an app, a free app actually, that they had downloaded.  It was being used as a form of promotion for the new Mission Impossible film.  It let them film their own footage and then apply one of a number of disastrous effects.

The quality is outstanding, easily as good as any film you saw in the 80′s and 90′s, and it was being done by a 12 year old and his 9 year old brother on their handheld computers.

It struck me that technology used to be a huge barrier for creativity.  Now it’s barely a speed bump… and a rapidly eroding speed bump at that.

We still need people to advance technology.  That’s still important, however…

Creativity is where it’s at.

As it becomes easier and easier to actualize the ideas in our heads, the best ideas will be the most valuable/successful/important.

As we approach New Years Eve, a number of you will be making resolutions.

I’ve done the usual ones in the past; lose weight, work harder, make more money, eat less, drink less.

All admirable. All useless.

About 4 years ago I decided to make some different resolutions. I resolved to:

- swear more
- be louder

I nailed those that year. I think I’ve even kept them up pretty well.

What was great is that my silly resolutions really just were about being confident and more assertive and I could see the positive effects of them for that entire year.

If you make resolutions, try choosing some that are small changes you can make about yourself. Even seemingly silly ones (burp more? watch tv in your underwear?).

You might be surprised at how big of an impact they make in other parts of your life throughout the year.

The past few years have been rough economically for a lot of people.

That might mean that some of the folk on the fringe of your gift-giving list aren’t going to get an actual gift from you this year.  That doesn’t mean you can’t send them something to open on Christmas.

Here are 5 free last-minute Christmas gift ideas using social media:

1.  A Call From Santa
- Google has set up this fun and free online system that will have Santa himself actually call anyone you choose and  give them a message that you help craft online

www.sendacallfromsanta.com

2.  Christmas eCard from JibJab
- If you’ve got some pictures of yourself, some friends and your recipient you can create a free animated eCard at JibJab.  Who doesn’t like see elves dance around with huge heads that look like your friends?

JibJab.com

3.  Send a Message or Song by You
- Why not record yourself singing Deck The Halls and have it sent to your friends?  Vocaroo.com lets you record anything you want and send it via email.  At best they’ll think it’s sweet.  At worst they’ll use it as blackmail.  Either way, they’ll love the gift.

Vocaroo.com

4.  Personalized Facebook Status
- Nothing says “I do really like you and wanted to get you something  but I’m quite obviously broke because I actually spent some time and thought on this” like a brief but sincere Facebook status about someone you care about.   Tell people why you think so and so (put the @ sign in front of their name to create a link to their profile) is a great person and why you appreciate them as a friend.

Facebook.com… duh

5.  Olde Fashioned Email
- Skip the impersonal Xmas Newsletter and craft a personal and heartfelt email to give.  Attach some photos, add an anecdote or two and you’ve got yourself a lovely Christmas gift that will have them weeping and almost forgetting about the fact you didn’t actually buy them anything.

I’ve released my first book.

It’s called ‘SHORTCUTS – Book 1‘.  It’s a fantasy type book that, even though it’s geared to younger readers, is being well received by readers of all ages.  I even have a great review by well-respected author and former schoolmate, Andrew Pyper.

I loved writing the book.  I loved getting lost in the story and getting these characters I created in and out of various situations.  I’m looking forward to writing more.

I won’t lie to you though.  As the book came closer and closer to its release online, I started to fantasize about how maybe I’ve created the next Harry Potter.  There are more differences than similarities between SHORTCUTS and Harry Potter but I do think it has the same potential to catch on and turn into more books, a major motion picture, a theme park attraction, etc..

Is that silly?  You could argue that it is.   I’d argue that it isn’t.

Why?  Because without dreaming about the pie-in-the-sky level of success, most creations or ideas would never have gotten beyond the planning stages.

We need hope, dreams and aspirations to help propel us through the times of doubt, struggle and adversity.

I hope my ‘SHORTCUTS – Book 1‘ is huge.  I hope it takes off and becomes loved by people around the world.  I hope it becomes a movie.  I hope it becomes a theme park ride.  I hope I’ve created the next Harry Potter.

I’ve watched a few old video clips of Steve Jobs recently.

One of the videos of Steve Jobs speaking that I watched was from 1980.  He was outlaying Apple’s plans for the future.  Some of things that he was saying would happen, didn’t.  He also spoke of things he said Apple would never do, like making their own hardware obsolete (my iPhone 3G would probably beg to differ but it’s running too slow for me to wait to find out).

As I listened to him speak it reminded me of reading Cynthia Lennon’s book about John Lennon.  The book was an obviously one-sided look at the early life of one of pop culture’s heroes but it did provide some interesting insight into the person that John Lennon was.

I’ve had the privilege of meeting a number of very successful people in my life and one common thread has connected them all.  Watching the videos of Steve Jobs and reading a less-than-glamourous biography about John Lennon confirmed it as well.

They are all just people.

Yes, they have great ideas and the determination to see those ideas come to life, but that’s possible for practically everyone.

If you have goals, do whatever you can to achieve them.

Stop waiting.  Start succeeding.
Even if that means pushing past rejection and failure.  Just keep going.

The difference between Steve Jobs and you is not very much.

Someone somewhere, I hope, has been to a business meeting that was productive and beneficial for all involved.

I have not.

Every single meeting I have been invited to has been, invariably, a waste of time, effort and money for some, if not all, of the people involved.

Meetings are an amazingly effective way of feeling like you’re doing something without the risk of actually doing anything.

“That’s a great idea, let’s have a meeting about it.”

Meetings are like meth for business.  Business is addicted to meetings.

And I think most meetings are terrible for business.

The symptoms of meth use and meetings are eerily similar:

• rambling conversations
• sense of well-being
• intense highs
• paranoia

Even the signs of meth users and meeting attendees are frighteningly close:

• excessive excitation
• excessive talking
• panic
• anxiousness
• nervousness and/or restlessness
• agitation
• paranoia
• deception, secretiveness and lying

I don’t mean to make light of addiction.  There’s nothing funny about that and I hope that those people who are fighting addiction win their battles.

However, I am done with meetings that go nowhere, waste my efforts and prematurely age me.

I was fretting today.

I was emailing some friends and respected authors asking them to read my new book and provide me a blurb or quote. I was really fretting about it. I was worried I would look foolish.

I started to think about the people I’ve known…young people, I’ve known, who have had their lives thrown into turmoil by health issues. At best, they become consumed by the fight to stay healthy. At worst, they’ve died.

It reinforced the notion that provided you’re doing as much good as you can and you’re not hurting anyone, nothing else matters.

Be an ass.

Look ridiculous.

Dance like an idiot.

Ask that person that question.

Tell that person how you feel.

Say hello to that person you’ve been too scared to approach.

Stop waiting.

I tweeted awhile ago that you should live today like a memory you can change.
I still think that’s a good idea.