Gone Writin'

Hm ... it's been some days since I posted, so I ought to explain: I'm wrapping up two books and have put all my time and energy into them for weeks now. I may post again before the end of April (my deadline), or not. Afterwards, I have quite a few posts to make. Meanwhile, here's one of the new titles: On the Way to the Web: The Secret History of the Internet and Its Founders. (Preorder now and save $8.50.)

How to Become a Fulltime Freelance Writer, Kindle Edition $3.99

How to Become a Fulltime Freelance Writer is now available in an edition for Amazon's Kindle Reader. The price is only $3.99. Click the title or the cover image to check it out!

--Mike http://www.michaelabanks.com/

The First Online Wedding

If you search the Web, you’ll find all sorts of claims about the first online wedding. Some claim it took place on Prodigy in the 1980s. Others say AOL in the 1990s.

The first online wedding was held on CompuServe on February 14, 1983. The couple were George Stickles and Debbie Fuhrman. They met via CompuServe’s CB Simulator, and decided it would be fun to get married in the same venue.

The service was conventional and the logistics were fairly simple. A minster and the couple sat at different computers in the same room in Texas. All three were logged into a CB channel, along with more than 100 other CompuServe members. The minister spoke aloud while an assistant typed in his words. Stickles and Furhman spoke and then repeated their vows by typing them out.

If you’re broad-minded in your definition of “online,” you’ll be interested to know that the first long-distance, electrically enhanced wedding cermony was held in 1876—by telegraph. (See The Victorian Internet, by Thomas Standage.)

The booik? On the Way to the Web is my next title, due out in hardcover at the end of June. Click on the title or the image to buy a copy.

--Mike http://www.michaelabanks.com/

Copyright © 2008, Michael A. Banks

Used Car Buyers: Beware of New Scam

I don't usually post anything about scames, but a friend was almost pulled into this one: A guy is selling a car at an incredible bargain. He's in the military overseas and can't take it with him to his next duty post. Where he is stationed it's impossible sell a car (because the citizens of that country have to pay a big import duty, or whatever). He'll even supply the car's VIN. (On the deal my friend was considering, I did a search on eBay using the VIN, and found that the car with that VIN had recently been sold by a dealer in Texas. The scammers are geting legitimate VIN numbers for sale on eBay.)

The seller says a military aircraft will bring it to you free--right! All you have to do is send him half the money--that's the tip-off--which will be held in escrow by eBay.

Problem is, eBay doesn't hold money in escrow. The seller will have you wire the money to what he says is an escrow acocunt, but it's really a Western Union pickup.

You'll get an assurance that the car is being put on to a military plane, then you'll never hear from the guy or see your car gain. This scam has been posted on Craig's List and similar venues recently. Remember: If it sounds too good to be true, it is. (And the words "escrow," "overseas shipping," and "guaranteed" are alarms.)

Now Available as E-Books!

Several of my titles are now available as E-Books.

First, Blogging Hereos can be downloaded at the Wiley Web site as an Adobe Eboook: http://www.wiley.com/WileyCDA/WileyTitle/productCd-0470262141,descCd-ebook.html

How to Become a Fulltime Freelance Writer is available for the Amazon Kindle reader here: http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B0014A5A8C/michaelbanks-20

Plus, my short biography of Hugo Gernsback, titled Hugo Gernsback: The Man Who Invented the Future, is here:

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B0014AFWQC/michaelbanks-20

I think you'll find the Kindle editions have friendly prices.

--Mike

What's Up with Amazon.com?

So what's up with Amazon.com's "Search Inside The Book" program? It was there one day, and gone the next. Maybe it's a glitch. If so, Amazon must have a backup of every listing ready to go without the "Search" illustrations.

Speaking of Amazon, I've just put two books into their Kindle publishing program. One is an edited edition of How to Become a Fulltime Freelance Writer. The other is a brief biography titled Hugo Gernsback: The Man Who Invented the Future. I'll post about 'em (with links) when they show up on the system.
--Mike

Another Blogging Heroes Chapter on the Web!

One of the m ore fun interviews for Blogging Heroes was the one with Scott McNulty, of The Unofficial Apple Weblog (or TUAW). Scott has the nearly unique perspective of not being a died-in-the-wool computerphile. He didn't buy his first computer until after he graduated from college in 1999. (And despite that ended up working as a systems administrater for Windows computers).

You can read Scott's ideas and thoughts on blogging here.

In preview, here are a couple of quotes from the interview:

Never say/write anything that you are uncomfortable standing behind.
Write about whatever you are passionate about, and success will follow.

Book Preview

For anyone who may not have seen them already, there are several chapters from my book Blogging Heroes available online in PDF format. The chapter that interviews Chris Anderson is right here at his blog, The Long Tail. Have a look--it's a good sample!

In the interview, Chris notes that, "I do my best thinking via my blogs." Here are quotes from a few other bloggers I interviewed for the book:
* "For me, the future of journalism is blogging."-- Mary Jo Foley, All About Microsoft

"One of the true beauties and powers of blogs is that they can give voice to people who are not heard."-- Frank Warren, PostSecret

* "When I look out at the blogosphere, I don't see lots of inconsequential blogs. I see lots of possibility."-- Gina Trapani, Lifehacker.com

1948: Crosley Broadcasting Puts its First Television Station on the Air

As the original author of CROSLEY: Two Brothers and a Business Empire that Transformed the Nation, I enjoy sharing information and images having to do with the various aspects of the Crosley empire. Today (February 9) is the 60th Anniversary of Crosley Broadcasting’s first regular commercial television broacasts. WLWT, Cincinnati’s Channel 5, went on the air on February 9, 1948. Here’s an artist’s rendering of the Crosley Broadcasting facilities as seen from the air. This site was on Chickasaw Street in University Heights.

I'll be sharing some photos of early Crosley television activities over the next couple of weeks at my Crosley blog: http://blogspot.crosley.com.

Crosley's initial experiments with television began in 1939, with TV demos at the Carew Tower and inside the Crosley Pavilion at the Chicago World's Far. (Crosley was partnered with DuMont at the time.) --Mike

HDTV Converter Box Coupons

Five people have asked me this week about the Federal government's HDTV converter box coupon program, and TV newscasts are pushing it hard. With so much interest, maybe someone who needs the info will find it here.

The deal is that the Feds will give you one or two (maximum) coupons for $40 off a digital
TV converter box. But you have to use the coupon(s) within 90 days of when they're mailed to you. I figure the retail end will mark up prices when the coupons start coming in.

For info, call: 888.388.2009
Or go to http://www.dtv2009.gov/ and apply for a coupon.
Or write: TV Converter Box Program, P.O. Box 2000, Portland, OR 97208. (Correction: I don't think an SASE is required.)
This is also the address to which you send your application if you download it at this URL: https://www.dtv2009.gov/docs/Coupon_Program_App_en.pdf

Why Blog? According to Chris Anderson ...

As a part of the interview with Chris Anderson (The Long Tail) for Blogging Heroes, I asked him whether blogging required a significant time commitment. His response addresses the question, but also talks about why he blogs, what he gets from it, and more. He comments you may find interesting if you're a blogger or intend to be.

You know, I don't spend that much time blogging. I feel guilty about how infrequently I post. I’ve got this massive backlog of draft posts for the Long Tail blog, for example, that I feel guilty about.

As you've heard from probably everyone you talk to, having a blog is this beast—a monkey on your back. It wants to be fed every day, but we all have jobs and it's hard to do. So I don't blog as much as I'd like. I try to post on one of my blogs every day. But that doesn't mean that on every single blog I blog once a day. But I feel like I’m blogging all the time, and I also feel like I’m under-blogging.

Basically I devote an hour a day to blogging-related functions. That is, either writing posts, or editing other people’s posts, composing drafts, or thinking about or pulling together research that will go into drafts. I wish it were three hours a day. I'd love to spend more time. It's a really satisfying process. I think I do my best thinking via my blogs. Because that is really what a blog is about: a blog is a scratch-pad, and a discipline to collect your thoughts, compose your thoughts, advance your thoughts, and do it in public in a way that can amplify your thoughts by not only reaching an audience, but also getting feedback on your thoughts. Blogging for me is really largely a way to make myself smarter.

Blogging is incredibly satisfying. I’d love to be blogging full-time. But blogging is an avocation; I don’t make a penny from it. I have to balance it with my day job. We have colleagues here at the magazine who have taken blogging sabbaticals, which is to say they've taken sabbaticals from work so they can blog more. I'd love to take a blogging sabbatical.

Too Busy Writing to Write?

While I haven't posted in a couple of weeks, it wasn't because I wasn't writing. Several posts are saved in the background here and at the Crosley blog, awaiting completion. And over the past three weeks I've written something over 20,000 words' worth of chapters for the two books I'm writing. Another 12,000 words need need editing before I can turn them in.

The 12,000 words (about 50 manuscript pages) are waiting because I keep abandoning them to write new material. Just like I set aside the posts here. Why? Because I lose interest in the part I'm currently writing, and jump ahead to write later parts of the books. (The counterpart of that in terms of blog posts is that I think of a new subject while I'm writing a post, and put the current post away so I can get started on the new post.)

This isn't a constant for me in my writing; if it was, I'd still be working on my first book, instead of having written 42 books. It sort of comes and goes, and probably represents a desire to have the current project(s) finished--which of couse won't happen if I don't finish chapters. Fortunately, as I've done in the past, I'll eventually pick up those abandoned chapters and finish them, largely because I'll become bored with the later chapters.
--Mike

Interview with Me at Virtual Wordsmith

I enjoy being interviewed for the obvious reason that it gives me the opportunity to talk about my work to someone who's interested. More than that, I can use an interview that focuses on a particular book to share the experience of writing a book. Which I did in this recent interview with me about Blogging Heroes.

Have a look at the rest of Lynn's blog. She has a fine collection of interviews and reviews. And check out her Web site.
--Mike

Blogging and Ketchup (or Catsup)

When I was a child in the 1950s, we had hamburgers every Friday night. It was a big deal, largely because my mother cooked full-course dinners with all the trimmings the rest of the week. Hamburgers were fun food. (There were no fast-food outfits around then--not where I grew up, anyway).

The Friday night table always included a squeeze ketchup (or, if you prefer, catsup) bottle that carried a line art illustration of a waitress holding a tray on which there was a hamburger and a squeeze ketchup bottle. That bottle had the same illustration on it, as did the bottle it depicted, and so forth, as far as one could make out the details.

I was reminded of this a little while ago when I was browsing the list of bestselling books about blogging. (I have a vested interest in that list, of course.) Like the ketchup bottle illustration, the blogging books mirror a reality that mirrors a reality that mirrors ... and so on. It fascinates people; nearly a hundred books about blogging are selling in the thousands of copies. And some of the books are turning into blogs, while others started out as blogs. It's like squeezing the ketchup bottle and having another bottle come out!
--Mike http://www.michaelabanks.com

Interviews and Reviews

Having spent quite a lot of time interviewing people by telephone for Blogging Heroes, I was rather surprised to be attacked in a recent review of the book. The point of attack was the reviewer's contention that I had other people write the book by asking questions via E-mail. I don't think that's a good way to write a book--unless you intend to give the people who did the writing for you credit as co-authors.

Besides, that's not how I did it (something the reviewer would know, had he bothered to read the book before writing the "review"). The interviews were the result of actual conversations, from which I pulled quotes to use in the book, along with detailed research. I also wrote mini-bios of each interviewee. So putting together Blogging Heroes was anything but the cut-and-paste job of which I was accused. Having written 42 other books, I can tell you that planning the interviews, finding the right subjects, conducting the interviews and writing the book took as much effort as the average book of that length. Read this post, this one, this one, and this one to see what went into the book. It was no walk in the park (my editors will agree).

Had I sent a bunch of questions via E-mail, I would have had to poll a couple hundred bloggers to get a 320-page book. When you ask people to type up responses to questions, you're asking for minimal replies. You get more (and better) material when you actually talk with your subjects and get involved in the conversation. The bottom line: interviewing is another kind of research. The quotes were created by the subjects and me--not unlike going out and gathering facts by hand-searching old newspapers, magazines, and books, and on-site research--the kinds of research I did for CROSLEY and my other non-fiction books. The reviewer recommends that people page through the book. You can do better than that: there are entire chapters available free on the Web. If you like those, get the book.

No, I'm not bummed out by the carping. This is only the fourth negative review I've had in a quarter-century of writing books. Besides, in-person response at recent book signings indicates that people are fascinated by Blogging Heroes.

Not incidentally, some of the interviews I did last week were for this forthcoming book.
--Mike

Let's See ... Am I Michael A. Banks or Iain M. Banks?

Back in 2003 I wrote a book about being a fulltime writer. The publisher gave it the descriptive, if basic, title How to Become a Fulltime Freelance Writer.

The publisher was The Writer Books, which Kalmbach Books had bought some time before I contracted to write the book. After my book was in print for about a year, Kalmbach found that it just couldn't sell how-to books on writing. (Writer's Digest Books pretty much owned the market.) So Kalmbach dropped The Writer Books line and my title with it in 2004.

Even though it's out of print, you will still find How to Become a Fulltime Freelance Writer for sale at Amazon, because Kalmbach sold the stock it had left to another publisher. Almost from the beginning, there have been troubles with this arrangement. For openers, I make no money from the arrangement because I've already been paid the royalty on the copies being sold. The Amazon listing carried the wrong cover image. I got that fixed, and then the new "publisher" put different pubisher names on the Amazon listing. I got that corrected. That was corrected for a time, but now the wrong image is back.

But here's an even bigger blunder (or a prank): sometime in the past few months someone changed the author's name to "Iain Banks." Iain is a bestselling science fiction writer who lives in Scotland, and the author of classics like Consider Phlebas. and The Algebraist. (He sometimes writes as Iain M. Banks, though the "M" does not stand for "Michael.")

Should I be up in arms? I'm not so sure; putting Iain's name on the listing has quadrupled the book's sales. But perhaps I could perk up the sales of The eBay Survival Guide and some of my older books by making Iain the author. (Iain: I'll even give you a cut, brother!)

(I'll stop short of doing that with my New York times bestseller. I did write it, and I've already suffered from someone trying to steal the credit. And I haven't been paid for all the work I did on that book.)

Back to How to Become a Fulltime Freelance Writer, I can imagine the reactions of people who saw the listing: "A book on writing by Iain Banks? I'm all over that!" And then the reaction when they get the book and find out it's not really by Iain Banks ... Oops! But hey, folks: it's still a how-to, based on the experience of a New York Times bestselling author. So keep it and read it--and let me know what you think. I'm working on a revised edition.

--Mike http://www.michaelabanks.com/

Thanks

Here I am at one of two B. Dalton signings I did on Sunday, December 23. Although the crowds didn't quite equal last December's crush, it was all fun. As with all the signings I do, I collected stories for my next book from several folks who stopped in to talk about Crosley and Blogging Heroes. This emphasizes how important it is for a writer to get out and talk to people, beyond getting out for its own sake. (Speaking of stories, who remembers "Save cash with Kash?")

Thanks to Art Metzger, Sherry, Linda, and Mel from B. Dalton. And thanks to Sonny Moormon and Carmen Moorman for stopping by. Hope to see you all in July and August, when new books are out!

I Am Interviewed About Blogging Heroes by Nano

Recently I was interviewed by Ido Hartogsohn for Nano, one of Israel's largest news sites. You can read the interview in Hebrew here. Here's the text in English:

--

You call your book Blogging Heroes. What are blogging heroes? What makes one into a blogging hero?

As a title, Blogging Heroes was suggested by my publisher, Joe Wikert. To follow up on the theme the title implies, I looked for bloggers who were admirable in various ways. Like any hero, a blogging hero would have to be someone others want to emulate.

How did you choose the bloggers to participate in your book?

I chose the bloggers based on several criteria. First, I looked at the most popular sites, those most favorited at Technorati, for example. But I didn’t want the book to be just the words from those who attracted the largest numbers of readers. I also looked for bloggers whose blogs other bloggers blogged about. BoingBoing.net and Engadget.com are just two examples.

And I looked beyond my own personal interests for blogs to include. ParentDish.com is one of those. My own children are grown and I have no grandchildren, so parenting isn’t exactly a big interest for me, but I know many of the book’s readers have young children. Similarly, I included InternetDuctTape.com and The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW.com) because hundreds of thousands of readers follow those blogs.

I had several goals in putting this book together. First, I wanted to make sure that the book wasn’t top-heavy with technical subjects. Second, I felt it was important to include as many women as I could. I would have liked to have included more women, but many didn’t get back to me when I tried to set up interviews (true of many male bloggers, too). They may have been too busy blogging to talk about blogging. But there are a good number of female bloggers who have something to say; perhaps there’s a book there.

Finally, I looked for unusual blogs--blogs that didn’t confine themselves to gadgets and computers and hobby interests. Deborah Petersen’s Life in the Fast Lane (http://www.lifeinthefastlane.ca) is one of those. So are PostSecret.com and LongTail.com.

Was there a common denominator between the blogging advices the different bloggers you interviewed gave? Do you have a few popular ideas to mention? Is there a formula for a popular blog?

The common denominator in advice was to blog about your passion--something in which you are intensely interested. Other tips from the bloggers in the book involve persistence and blogging regularly (don’t disappear for a few weeks, then return and expect your readers to still be there). Dave Taylor (askdavetaylor.com) emphasized the importance of participating in other blogs. (At the same time, Chris Anderson of longtail.com told me he doesn’t comment on others’ blogs.)

The formula for a popular includes all of those things, and many more subtle concepts--some unique to this or that blogger. But all recommend patience, more or less “If you build it, they will come” mindset. More than one blogger stated that someone starting a blog now should expect to wait a year before seeing substantial traffic.

Who surprised you?

First and foremost was Frank Warren, of PostSecret.com. Frank has an intense dedication to this project--and he doesn’t view it as a moneymaking project or a freak show. He treats the secrets with respect, which is one reason he doesn’t have ads or otherwise try to monetize PostSecret.com. He has been granted an important public trust, and handles it that way.

I was also surprised by Deborah Petersen (lifeinthefastlane.ca), who also doesn’t try to monetize her blog. She covers such a wide range of subjects and spends dozens of hours each week blogging. She researches every post as if she was writing on assignment for National Geographic or The London Times. She is really dedicated.

Robert Scoble keeps up with over 700 different blogs--wow!

Chris Anderson wrote this very entertaining paragraph about the book's winning strategy:
This is very clever. First, Banks created a book by appealing to the vanity of bloggers, which is always a safe bet. Second, the book is mostly just those interviews with a few paragraphs of introductory text and talking points at the end. User-generated content! ... Wiley is giving away the book in small chunks, harnessing the combined distribution (and ego) of the prominent bloggers that are featured in the book. Each of us promotes the book to promote ourselves, and the book gets the collective blog buzz. Others who have done what I'm doing in promoting their own chapter include Mark Frauenfelder at BoingBoing, David Rothman at TeleBlog and Steve Garfield.

Very clever indeed.. :) Any comment on that? Was that kind of winning strategy in your mind when you decided to write the book?

The idea of promoting the book via the blogs it covers was a natural one, but it didn’t come along until after I started interviewing subjects. The way Chris and some others have described it, it’s promotion by ego. It seems to be working; sales are really good with the book out just two weeks now, and there’s lots of favorable response to the chapters and excerpts that have been posted. In addition to the chapters posted by the various bloggers, there are excerpts at http://www.theaveragejob.com, and I frequently post summaries and interesting quotes from the bloggers at my Real Writing Life blog, which is at http://mikebanks.blogspot.com.

You also used a pretty interesting marketing method, allowing bloggers to publish chapters from the book on their site. What was the idea there, and aren't you afraid that it will stop people from buying the book when they can get it online?

I think the interviews (and, in all modesty, the biographies and background information I wrote) are so interesting that people will want to have it all in a convenient format they can refer to often. Which is the hardcopy book itself.

Getting someone else to place chapters on popular, high-traffic Web sites is of course an obvious marketing device, perhaps the best way to get buzz started. I’m waiting to see others do the same thing. We’ve had blogs turn into books, and books turn into blogs, but this is the first time that multiple blogs have promoted a single product in concert. I guess we could call it “distributed book promotion.”

Blogging as Practical Politics?

A while back, Amazon added a feature that displays a book's rank in the top 100 titles in specific categories. I wasn't surprised to see Blogging Heroes show up frequently among the top 100 Internet Books. But it was a bit of a surprise to find myself at No. 7 in the Politics/Practical Politics category--one ahead of P.J. O'Rourke's Parliament of Whores.

My only real experience with politics was holding a low-level elected office twice in the 1980s. I happen to live in the small town where O'Rourke attended college; maybe that's more relevant.

It's interesting to see things go in directions you hadn't considered. And I'm certain that blogging will be an important tool in the coming elections.
--Mike
http://www.michaelabanks.com/

Blogging Heroes Excerpt in Blogger & Podcaster Magazine

The December issue of Blogger & Podcaster magazine has an excerpt from Blogging Heroes. The excerpt is the interview with Peter Rojas of Engadget. The magazine bills it as "an interview in a book excerpt." Click here to have a look; the layout is nice, and the opening page carries Pete's photo. This interview presents an interesting viewpoint on SEO--one that's shared by successful bloggers throughout the book.