My year in Instagram photos
I've been using the Instagram app all year. Here was my year, as captured by Instagram. The Robert Burns Dinner. I tried haggis for the first time, and am–amazingly–still smiling. A visit to Carleton College in Minnesota in early April. They get very excited about spring there. Two photos from the St. Louis City Museum. An amazing outdoor playground (and yes that's a bus hanging over the roof). Looking down on a 12-story spiral slide. I love this place. New York City, from the Highline Park. The new park is an incredible public space. The Campaign. Button up! Three Signs Read more…
2011: Year in Review
When I did a year-end post last year, I focused on what I’d “shipped.” This was based on a blog post by Seth Godin, and it reminds me of a quote I read in the Steve Jobs biography–“Real artists ship.” Essentially: you have to finish and deliver something. And looking over what you finished and delivered in the last year is a good way to do that. And I’ve finished and delivered a lot last year and this year. But this year has also taught me that there are many things just as good as shipping. I would say that Read more…
Merry Christmas!
I'm in St. Louis with Mary's family for Christmas and New Year's. I've always liked Christmas Eve, maybe even more than Christmas Day. Have some eggnog, sing a carol, a watch Elf, or whatever Christmas movie is your annual tradition. I'll post some photos and a year-end review at some point this next week, but for now–Merry Christmas!
What can free do for your book?
Self-publishing is all about experimentation. What works, what doesn't. So far I've tried many many different drivers to spur sales. Pay-per-click advertising Display advertising Social networking "Loyalty transferring" blog posts Targeting other books to piggy-back sales on … That list goes on and on. Some have been modestly successful. Some only a little. It turns out that so far the best promotion I've done has been–without a doubt–giving the book away for free. Yes, giving away a free book generated the most amount of sales. Let me explain. It was a trial run: use Amazon's new "promotions" opportunity to make The Read more…
“Hugo”
Mary and I saw Hugo last night, Martin Scorcese's new 3D family movie. He hits all the right notes. The 3D is used well, the family movie vibe is right on. And it's fundamentally about movies. Makes me want to pick up a camera and direct something again. Making movies is just a lot of fun. Maybe I'll have to adapt one of these novels someday … 🙂
“The back half of the chessboard”
Matthew Yglesias had a really interesting post last month that I keep thinking about, so I've finally decided to post on it. There's an old story about a king who agrees to pay someone by putting one grain of rice on the first square of the chessboard, two grains of rice on the next, four on the next, then eight, sixteen, thirty two, etc. Each square has twice the number of grains of rice as the previous one. The king things he's got a bargain, but with 64 squares on the chessboard, he's actually bankrupted the kingdom. By just the Read more…
Want to borrow The Marinara Murders?
I tried to get The Saints Go Dying and The Marinara Murders into Overdrive, the system that runs the Tacoma Public Library's ebook lending program. But unfortunately, it wasn't open to an individual author. So since I can't do that, I'm trying out the new Kindle Lending Library. Anyone with a Kindle and with an Amazon Prime membership can borrow The Marinara Murders (for at least the next 90 days). Of course, you're paying $79 for the privilege to borrow a book for free, but it comes with free shipping and streaming movies. Even though you're getting it for free, I will Read more…
Steve Jobs
One of the books I started and finished over the weekend in Portland was Steve Jobs, by Walter Isaacson. It is a massive read, and I found it at times very good.There are a lot of stories I hadn't known, but the stories of most of the products–the iPad, the iPhone, I had picked up recently. Perhaps most interesting was the role Steve played with Pixar. I had no idea how active he was with the company, and some of the stories about the creation of Toy Story were really interesting (early on Disney kept pushing for more "edge," so Read more…
Powells
Powell’s is always central to any trip I take to Portland. I think I was there three times this weekend. It’s so big that they now have an app on the iPhone that will help you navigate to a specific book. But of course, a bookstore as big as Powell’s is great for browsing, not just looking for that one particular book. I pared down my hardcover purchases to something much more reasonable. And I discovered a couple of new books I’m really excited about. I caught a bit of a cold too, so I had some early nights in Read more…
#booklust
I wanted all of these books at Powells, but the total cover price of the seven hardcover books (before any discounts) was $211. I ended up with Steve Jobs, 1Q84, and The Night Circus, which I felt pretty good about.
^