Now for something completely different...

I started this blog with the idea that I'll write about things related to books and technology and what not. But I find myself moving more towards things that I like and things I want to talk about, which aren't always related to books or technology.

The more I talk about the things I like, the more I want to talk about the things I love. So I'm going to try to get an eensy weensy bit honest here and tell a story to the few of you who have yet to click away.

Almost nobody who knows me knows that I write a lot. Mostly you could say it's poetry, but that's hard for me to say (and it took me a long time to come to the point where it was acceptable if you said it). Silly really. But after a while of writing what you think is unclassifiable, what do you got? Something no one can read because they can't find it. So screw it.

Over to the right is a short poem I wrote on the back of a business card last night. It's sort of about football. It's more about the athletes who train everyday and the trophies or the cups they work for.

I ripped this business card style right from Hugh Macleod, an excellent illustrator I've linked to many times before. Just look at the older posts from this month if you want to see what wows me about that guy. I'm not looking to do the same thing as him. I'm just looking for a format that's short and small, that can travel light better than a whole book can.

I'll still be writing about all sorts of stuff related to technology and publishing. I just wanted to give this side of me, the part that I see with, a bit of air.

Why music beats most other art forms

Daniel Lanois For the Beauty of Wynona
Album art by reknowned Czech Artist Jan Saudek

I have a feeling music is more popular than ever before. This might be like a Golden Age we’re in or something.

Is there another art form that reaches people the way music does? Music is instant. 2 - 3 minutes. If you like the song, you want another one. Like enough of them, you'll pull together to see the band live.

Music is so powerful that there are tons of sites and bloggers that talk about how technology is helping bands break, changing music distribution, killing major labels, etc. etc. I subscribe to the Lefsetz letter. A lot of the time he talks about Katy Perry and Lady Gaga, how these types of acts will be gone in a couple of years, how grass rooters like Arcade Fire and Mumford and Sons are doing it the long-haul right way, how older artists aren’t engaging a young audience properly (You mean it’s not actually Stevie Nicks who’s Tweeting?). Sometimes it can be a little bit too much.

If you read enough of that sort of stuff, you sort of lose track of how powerful music is on its own. It’s just about good songs. 2-3 minutes that communicate something, that succeed in making you want more or do not.

So in the spirit of simplicity and good songs, here are two from Canadian songwriter and producer Daniel Lanois' For the Beauty of Wynona. It was released in 1993, but I just discovered them today. They are instant.

The Messenger
"Oh the door that closes tightly
is the door that can swing wide..."



Rocky World
"She's turning twenty, and out on the make
Pounding the blacktop with a habit to shake
She's looking for a manger in the eyes of a stranger
down in the streets of a rocky world..."

Read more after the jump...

Libraries can make it

This post is yeeeeears late. Google and Amazon have been using their nimble pink tips to digitize anything and everything for a long time now. Libraries are shutting down. Amazon is selling more e-books than book books. Publishers are limiting what libraries can e-lend. I figure I’m not too late to shoot my opinion to all 1 of you reading (love you dad!).

First off, everybody loves libraries and thinks they are valuable. This is great news for libraries. I remember saying once that the reason libraries are failing is that anything you need from a library can be found faster and easier online, but that’s not totally true. Libraries do offer something unique, and it’s the reason why we value them and will miss them if they’re gone.

Anyone can walk into a library and read a book (new or old) for free. That’s it. That’s the whole thing. And that’s completely unique even today (though Barnes and Noble was giving public libraries a run for their money for a while).

It's partially about money, and public libraries have none. What they do have are lots and lots of people who believe libraries are valuable and want to see them survive (which is actually way more valuable than the public funding right now). Can they come up with creative ways that their fans and followers can support them?

If you look for ways you can help libraries, most library sites and Facebook campaigns ask people to write their congressperson, demand more funding, vote on this or that, etc, etc. They’ve missed the point. I don’t want to write my congressperson and explain why they should give libraries more funding. I’ve never written my congressperson. That doesn’t interest me at all.

There are ways libraries can generate income that are better than waiting for funding or putting a clear plastic drop box near the book checkout. In many cases libraries already let businesses in (but who in the world clicks on banner ads?). It wouldn’t be a stretch for libraries to introduce their sponsors to their followers and ask their followers for support directly.

If I could help my local library keep the lights on from purchases I made at Amazon (hello Aceman) or for that matter ProFlowers (we’re desperate at this point, aren’t we?) I’d gladly click through them to buy from sponsors.

Basically you have a unique institution which everyone values and would miss on the brink of extinction with no money and nothing to lose.

What an opportunity.

Adam Carolla turns down million-dollar radio contract to stick with podcast

“Folks, I'm out. I told you and your guaranteed seven-figure deal to hit the bricks. So here I am.” ~ Adam Carolla on May 11, 2011

I've said it before, but Adam Carolla is great.

I was listening to his podcast today and he started talking about one of the ways he keeps his daily podcast free for listeners:

“We made this deal with Amazon where if you’re gonna buy something on Amazon you click through Adamcarolla.com and you give us a couple pennies...Whatever you buy on Amazon, a flat screen TV or whatever, it costs you the same. There’s no moral decision. It’s just an extra 5, 6 seconds with your mouse and we can get a couple percentage points.”

Fans of the show have known about the Amazon click-through for a while, but today he made bigger news: he's turned down a multi-million dollar contract to do a terrestrial radio show and says he's dedicated to the podcast. Why? Listener support.

He says that listeners are using the Amazon click-through (and buying things they were gonna buy anyway from Amazon through his site) and are enlisting their friends to subscribe to the podcast (to help him reach the Guinness book podcast record no less). And one thing led to another:

“It said to me on sort of a grassroots level. It said to me, well, not only are we making some money from a practical standpoint...but I like the idea that people are listening and participating and wanting to participate and wanting to be involved and wanting to help and share and understanding this sort of dilemma of we’re here but it can’t all just be out of the goodness of our own hearts. Eventually we have to turn this into a business. And sort of right before my eyes it was turning into a business.”

Podcasts are cool because they're still sort of new and they're diverse and most of them are free. It’s even cooler that they're coming up with creative ways listeners can support them by basically doing nothing they weren't already going to do (I'm looking at you PBS and you public libraries). Adam gets a gigantic following from the podcast that helps him sell out shows and sell books. So the podcast helps him promote whatever he does, and that's huge.

Today, gaining followers is simultaneously easier and harder than ever before. It’s a bad time for lots of record companies and book publishers, but a better time than ever for bands and writers to reach an audience on their own.

Update: The ACE man has broken the Guinness Book of Records for the most downloaded podcast in the world beating out Ricky Gervais. Podcast here.

To read more about the Ace man, there was an excellent article in Fast Company last year: How Adam Carolla Became a Podcast Superstar.

The whole 5/10/11 show with guest Tim Daly where he talks about turning down the offer is available for a limited time over at his web site.

Or you can subscribe to his podcast free through iTunes.

Blogger sort of busted

Hello there. Well, Blogger (the blogging platform on which this and tons of other blogs run) has been sort of busted for the last day or so. So recent posts have disappeared completely. If you arrived here from a link to a post from Wednesday, my apologies. Google is working their hardest to get things situated and says everything should be back to normal by tomorrow.

So please do come back tomorrow for a piece of news about how one of the stars of the podcast world has turned down major dough from terrestrial radio to stay online.

UPDATE: All better now. The post mentioned above is back. Find it here.

How technology is changing publishing and entertainment

I posted this a while ago but I'm bringing it back and updating it.

Re: The article about Seth Godin in the Wall Street Journal going his own way, I was thinking about how digital technology affects writers who haven't published yet. Seth Godin has published books through traditional paper publishers before and every one of his books has been a bestseller. So he's left his publisher and is partnering with Amazon, the largest digital bookseller.

But the most important thing that the article mentions is that he "has a significant following online" (though he might prefer to call it a tribe). His point for the last while has been this: selling a book (or spreading any idea) without followers is tough. If you're an author, you create an audience by posting stuff on a blog your audience likes and returns for. Artists in other media are also using blogs and doing other things to connect their audience to the work.

Bands are putting up more and more of their own stuff (albums, bootlegs, tweets, merchandise) on their own. When they tour, everyone who follows them on twitter or Sidekick knows where they'll be. And it is becoming a whole other way to enjoy music. Look what Phish did.

The comedian Adam Corolla has been on TV for while. He was also on the radio with CBS before he was fired. He has a podcast which is very funny and free. The podcast is so popular that when he does anything, he alerts fans, and they turn out. When he goes on the road, his shows sell out. When he writes a book, it becomes a bestseller.

Not everyone is good enough to get that many people to follow his or her podcast or blog - Adam Corolla is smart and funny - but a blog is a step into the audience for any author. Seth Godin will be very successful with Amazon, but it still doesn't seem entirely accurate to say he's publisher-free like the headline of the article does.

Update: Since the WSJ articles was published back in February, more information has come out about the partnership. Seth and Amazon have opened up The Domino Project, which is just brilliant (see below). The key is publishing digitally and spreading ideas.

From one of his blog posts.

The Domino Project is designed to (at least by way of example) remap many of these foundations.

1. There is no middleman. Because there is infinite shelf space, the publisher has more control over what the reader sees and how. In addition, the Amazon platform allows a tiny organization to have huge reach without taking significant inventory risk. "Powered by Amazon” is part of our name—it describes the unique nature of the venture... I get to figure out the next neat idea, and Amazon can handle printing, logistics and the platform for connection.

2. The reader is tightly connected with the publisher and the author. If you like the sort of things I write or recommend, you can sign up here (for free, using your email) and we can alert you to new works, send you free samples and otherwise make it easy for you to be smart about the new ideas that are generated. (RSS works too).

3. Pricing can vary based on volume, on timing, on format. With this project, I’ve made the decision to ignore the rules that publishers follow to get on the New York Times bestseller list. There’s no point in compromising the consumer experience or the product merely to get a nice ego boost and a small shot of promotion. More on this in a future post, but I'll let you use your imagination.

4. Digital goods and manifestos in book form make it easier to spread complex ideas. It’s long frustrated me that a blog post can reach 100 times as many people as a book, but can’t deliver the nuance a book can. The Domino Project is organized around a fundamentally different model of virality, one that allows authors to directly reach people who can use the ideas we’re writing about.

Read the full post here.

May 1, Karel Mácha, and God Bless Blesk

May is a big time each year for the Czech poet Karel Mácha. This year pieces of his long poem May showed up in all sorts of unexpected places.

My particular favorite place was the tabloid Blesk. Blesk always spices up it's sensational articles and paparazzi photos with pictures of naked women (ah, Europe). But Blogger doesn't like that too much. So in order to show you what there was to celebrate this May, I had to crop these images very carefully. So here's a bit of Karel Mácha's famous spring poem getting a makeover. Wherever he is, Karel is psyched.

Czech: Byl pozdní večer - první máj - večerní máj - byl lásky čas. Hrdliččin zval ku lásce hlas, kde borový zaváněl háj.

English: Late evening, on the first of May - The twilit May - the time of love. Meltingly called the turtle-dove,Where rich and sweet pinewoods lay...

And continuing on the back:

Cz: O lásce šeptal tichý mech; květoucí strom lhal lásky žel, svou lásku slavík růži pěl, růžinu jevil vonný vzdech.

En: Whispered of love the mosses frail, The flowering tree as sweetly lied, The rose's fragrant sigh replied To love-songs of the nightingale.

There's a bit more to the actual photos than I can show. But you get the idea I guess. God bless the good people at Blesk for doing something to make poetry exciting.

Go get this free book: How to be Creative by Hugh Macleod

This book by cartoonist and businessman Hugh Macleod is really something special that you have to check out if you are into creating anything at all. It's really well written and designed, it's free, and it's been downloaded something like 4.5 million times. Here's a quote from the page:

MacLeod, an advertising executive and popular blogger with a flair for the creative, gives his 26 tried-and-true tips for being truly creative. Each point illustrated by a cartoon drawn by the author himself.

If you've ever felt the draw to do something creative but just haven't been able to pull it together, you'll love this manifesto.

Get it over at changethis.com.You will definitely find something in it that will move you.

Poetry in Movies - The Proposition, Before Night Falls

I've been seeing a lot of amazing movies lately that use poetry in such an amazing way. Here are two of my favorites.

The Proposition (2005)



"There's night and day, brother, both sweet things; sun, moon, and stars, brother, all sweet things; there's likewise a wind on the heath. Life is very sweet, brother; who would wish to die?" from Lavengro (1851) by George Borrow

Before Night Falls (2000)

For Spanish speaking friends out there, this one from the amazing Before Night Falls. I'll put it here with a translation below. Even if you don't understand Spanish watch it anyway and read along. The music really brings it to life.



"Walking along streets that collapse from crumbling sewers. Past buildings that you jump to avoid because they will fall on you. Past grim faces that size you up and sentence you. Past closed shops, closed markets, closed cinemas, closed parks, closed cafes. Sometimes showing dusty signs, justifications: "CLOSED FOR RENOVATION," "CLOSED FOR REPAIRS." What kind of repairs? When will these so-called renovations be finished? When at last will they begin? Closed... closed... closed... everything closed. I arrive, open the countless padlocks and run up the temporary stairs. There she is, waiting for me. I pull off the cover, and staring at her dusty, cold shape I clean off the dust and caress her. With my hand, delicately, I wipe clean her back, her base and her sides. In front of her, I feel desperate and happy. I run my fingers over her keyboard and suddenly it all starts up. With a tinkling sound the music begins, little by little, then faster; now full speed. Walls, trees, streets, cathedrals, faces and beaches. Cells, mini-cells, huge cells. Starry nights, bare feet, pines, clouds. Hundreds, thousands, millions of parrots. A stool, a climbing plant, they all answer my call, all come to me. The walls recede, the roof vanishes, and you float quite naturally. You float uprooted, dragged off, lifted high. Transported, immortalized, saved. Thanks to that subtle, continuous rhythm, that music, that incessant tap-tap." - Reinaldo Arenas

Walt Whitman's Song of Myself read by James Earl Jones

You haven't heard anything like this. He goes off.

Poet Laureate's Gift to Prince William and Kate Middleton

I don't know what's going on with this royal wedding business. I'm out of the loop.

But it is interesting that Britain's first female poet laureate Carol Ann Duffy and textual artist Stephen Raw got together to create a limited edition print of Duffy's poetry for the royal couple. Turns out there aren't too many actual pictures of the piece (titled "Rings") floating around. These were posted recently over at Stephen Raw's website:

Detail:

Text of the poem (thanks to the Guardian):

Rings by Carol Ann Duffy

for both to say

I might have raised your hand to the sky
to give you the ring surrounding the moon
or looked to twin the rings of your eyes
with mine
or added a ring to the rings of a tree
by forming a handheld circle with you, thee,
or walked with you
where a ring of church-bells,
looped the fields,
or kissed a lipstick ring on your cheek,
a pressed flower,
or met with you
in the ring of an hour,
and another hour . . .
I might
have opened your palm to the weather, turned, turned,
till your fingers were ringed in rain
or held you close,
they were playing our song,
in the ring of a slow dance
or carved our names
in the rough ring of a heart
or heard the ring of an owl's hoot
as we headed home in the dark
or the ring, first thing,
of chorussing birds
waking the house
or given the ring of a boat, rowing the lake,
or the ring of swans, monogamous, two,
or the watery rings made by the fish
as they leaped and splashed
or the ring of the sun's reflection there . . .
I might have tied
a blade of grass,
a green ring for your finger,
or told you the ring of a sonnet by heart
or brought you a lichen ring,
found on a warm wall,
or given a ring of ice in winter
or in the snow
sung with you the five gold rings of a carol
or stolen a ring of your hair
or whispered the word in your ear
that brought us here,
where nothing and no one is wrong,
and therefore I give you this ring.

A Great BAnd

also great



and if you like those

watch the making of their great last album starting here

http://youtu.be/4jMWgputRLo

Quote from the end by William Lloyd Garrison:

“I will be as harsh as truth, and uncompromising as justice... I am in earnest, I will not equivocate, I will not excuse, I will not retreat a single inch, and I will be heard.”

Old school: John Donne's The Triple fool

Old School: Old stuff that you were supposed to read in college that didn't make sense and didn't mean anything to you ("What's a merchant?"). But now you're older and wiser and now it means something. Maybe.

Fun facts about John Donne:

• He lost his father and several of his brothers and sisters when he was just a boy
• He went to school, learned a bunch of languages and then joined the navy 
• He married a woman in secret and then was thrown in jail by her father
• He got out and became a successful priest (one of his most famous sermons contains the passage beginning, “No man is an island” and ending, “Therefore ask not for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.”)

Now read this carefully. It's great.

THE TRIPLE FOOL.
by John Donne

I am two fools, I know,
For loving, and for saying so
In whining poetry ;
But where's that wise man, that would not be I,
If she would not deny ?
Then as th' earth's inward narrow crooked lanes
Do purge sea water's fretful salt away,
I thought, if I could draw my pains
Through rhyme's vexation, I should them allay.
Grief brought to numbers cannot be so fierce,
For he tames it, that fetters it in verse.

But when I have done so,
Some man, his art and voice to show,
Doth set and sing my pain ;
And, by delighting many, frees again
Grief, which verse did restrain.
To love and grief tribute of verse belongs,
But not of such as pleases when 'tis read.
Both are increasèd by such songs,
For both their triumphs so are published,
And I, which was two fools, do so grow three.
Who are a little wise, the best fools be.

Leaving comments is broken

So leaving comments on my blog or on other blogs doesn't seem to be working perfectly. I guess a lot of people are having this problem according to the Blogger Help forums. If you do want to leave a comment, please click here for my profile and email me.

I'll post your comment later when Blogger fixes the problem.

Update: Looks like it may be okay now. Still, email if comments don't work.

What happened to Amazon Pages?

If you read the Lefsetz letter Albums from yesterday (you'll have to subscribe to his newsletter to read it immediately), he says singles are how new bands get fans and releasing albums once a year is old hat. The article is about music, but there's a relation to books.

What if instead of buying an entire book you're not sure you'll like, you buy chapters as you go, or get a new chapter a week from an author you like? Bloggers see the world this way. When I read a blog (or in this case the Lefsetz letter) I'm reading self-contained pieces that could one day end up as chapters in a book. But the idea of buying chapters of a book like songs on iTunes is not mine. It's not even new.

Back in 2005 Amazon announced something called Amazon Pages where you would be able to do exactly that. Where's it gone? I don't know. Maybe there was a debate. Maybe books are not like albums. Maybe a book broken up is just annoying. Maybe books are more like movies, and you can't really break a movie into parts (unless you make VI of them). But here's an interesting section from Lefsetz:

...if you're putting out an album every couple of years you're reinventing the wheel, you're marketing from ground zero over and over again. You've even lost touch with your fans.

People still buy entire albums and books, sure. But the trend in music is towards buying the songs you like with the option of the album. And since it takes so long to put together an entire album (or a book), this idea for book chapters still has a place.

Bloggers are on the ball when it comes to writing. They're not even thinking in book form. I doubt they think about chapters. Today a steady stream of little pieces builds something larger, whether you're in a band, write books, or sell condos. And if you have contact with fans, why would you not put out anything for a year?

An interactive writing experiment where your name is used in a poem

Try this. It's not a survey. I just used survey gizmo to create it. I didn't know another way. Just pop your name in and click Go and you get a piece of writing with your name in it. Super advanced, I know.

Video Writing Post 1

My writing mixed with songs by The Postal Service.

Video Writing Post 2 - writing to music

Video post with voice over synthesizer reading my writing.

Song: I'm Official [Squadda B] by Clams Casino

Awesome Gears of War 2 trailer uses poetry

Missed this back in 2008 when it was originally released. Definitely cool, and just what I'm after: writing put to interesting use outside of books.
Text:I Have a Rendezvous with Death by Alan Seeger (1888–1916).

Spring time - new book "Avatar"

This is my new book Avatar :

Amanda Hocking's Blog: Some Things That Need to Be Said

 This is really good.

Amanda Hocking's Blog: Some Things That Need to Be Said: "Oh, the internet is saying so many things about me. I don't understand why the internet suddenly picked up on me this past week..."

The first book I ever made

This is the first book I ever made and put up online.