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Being Alain Miles

May 11, 2011 in Marketing | 5 comments

Cowardly Lion

Read your horoscope today? Nor me. That stuff we read in the papers is all a load of nonsense, isn’t it? But sun signs? Believing that our personalities are shaped by astrological forces? That’s another matter entirely. I’m a believer.

In my early years I had no idea I was a Leo. Timid, introverted, lacking self-confidence, cautious, I was a disgrace to my sign. Not that I’m blaming myself. Astrology wasn’t the sort of thing we talked about in our house. It wasn’t till my mid-teens that I first got my hands on Old Moore’s Almanack. I remember slipping it between the pages of Playboy so my mother wouldn’t find it.

The pleasure I had in those secret moments with old Moore. Again and again I thumbed his pages, shivering with excitement as I re-read my destiny. I was King of the Beasts, a born leader, a creator, a giver and receiver of love and affection, a pleasure-seeker. And I liked the mane. Other boys my age wanted to be an astronaut, a pop star, an accountant. Not me. I wanted to be a Leo.

It took me a lifetime of dedication to get there. At first I was a Cowardly Lion, but when everyone was out of the house I shut myself in the cupboard under the stairs and practised roaring. Soon I began to overcome my fear and doubt; I learnt to lead and I was never wrong. I fought the status quo unceasingly, intolerantly. And now I feel I’m a true Leo. I’m not perfect of course: still today I wonder whether I’m sufficiently regal and pompous. But whenever anyone asks to see my profile, I just refer them to Traditional Leo Traits.

As with Leo, so with Alain. I wasn’t always a proper Alain – in fact, I wasn’t an Alain at all. For years I floated quite happily through life, perfectly content with the Alan Miles brand. Until I came to publish my first novel. And then, to my horror, Google told me that I wasn’t Alan Miles at all. Or if I was, then I already had several books in print, and I had a face that wasn’t at all the one I remembered. I checked the mirror. No, I was right: I wasn’t blond and my nose was more … aquiline. So then I called my mother. Had she been keeping a terrible secret from me?

- Oh that’s good. So you don’t have to write books any more then? And you can go back to your proper job?

Thanks Mum.

I did some more checking and it got worse. There was another A Miles writing too. Writing diet books. Now, it’s true that I have been thinking about writing ‘Cooking For Me And My Dog’ – recipes we both enjoy. But a diet book!? It hardly sounds like me. Lions don’t diet.

So what to do? I suppose pistols at dawn could have been a possibility. But remembering my positive experiences as a born-again Leo, I decided that the best thing was to be a born-again Alan. Now if you’ve ever been born or reborn, you’ll probably remember that one of the highlights is getting a new name. And that’s exactly what happened. I was a born-again Alain.

Why Alain? Well, many people think it’s French. Just the other day, a reviewer was discussing my dialog style – my refusal to use quotation marks – and concluded it was some kind of “French thing”. Actually it’s because after years of faithful service in my garden office, my computer has a few dead insects trapped under the screen, so when I have scenes full of dialog, it can get very difficult to read: is that punctuation or an insect? Since I can’t get rid of the insects, I decided to get rid of the speech marks. But if thinking of me as French makes readers happy, adds a little je ne sais quoi to the writing, then it’s a myth I’m happy to build on.

But the truth is that Al Ain is a city in the United Arab Emirates, a country that has happy associations for me. I considered other cities there too: Dubai, Abu Dhabi, even Ras Al Khaimah Miles, but none of them had quite the ring I wanted. And besides, I think I might have some kind of metaphorical affinity with Al Ain too: an oasis city, stuck in the middle of nowhere and surrounded by desert.

So Alain it was. A new life as a writer, and with my new nom de plume, a new identity. Following in the footsteps of the greats: George Eliot, George Orwell, Mark Twain and Pimbo. But even for a Leo – strong-willed, positive, independent, self-confident, with no such a word as doubt in my vocabulary, this hasn’t been easy. To become the new person, I need to eradicate all traces of the old: just try telling Facebook and LinkedIn that you’ve become someone else. Or your mother. Or your spouse. (This wasn’t so bad: she said she was pleased.)

I spent the whole day yesterday being Alain and leaving Alan behind. I launched the Alain Miles author page on Facebook, rebranded myself in LinkedIn, retitled the blog, created an alainmiles.com domain. There’s just one problem: I might be a fraud. Facebook is certainly suspicious. Before they’ll allow me to ‘claim’ my page, 25 people have to ‘Like’ it. Not see it, not read it, but actually Like it. What if it never happens? I could be left in limbo for the rest of my natural days, neither the Alan I’ve renounced, nor the Alain I intend to be, just a figment of my own imagination ….

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If you’d like to help me out of author purgatory, please Like the Alain Facebook page.

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A Wedding, a Politican, and the Pursuit of Happiness

April 25, 2011 in The TwitFace Project | 1 comment



I’m beginning to wonder whether this week’s Royal Wedding in the UK is one of the most audacious feats of political skulduggery ever.

My suspicions were alerted when I saw a headline in the Daily Telegraph this morning.

Archbishop of Canterbury hails plan to measure national happiness

It wasn’t the normal Easter address from the head of the Anglican Church, calling on Christians to celebrate the Resurrection of Christ. Instead Dr Williams used the occasion to praise Prime Minister David Cameron’s proposal to replace GDP with GWB (= General Well-Being) as the primary indicator of the nation’s progress.

And then he called on us to celebrate the union between our future Defender of the Faith and his Kate, proclaiming ‘Let a thousand street parties blossom!’

Is it only your TwitFace correspondent who has noticed that hard on the heels of The Wedding – just a week later, when we’ll probably still be trying to find our shoes before we stagger home from the party – comes one of the defining moments in our political history? What defining moment? You’d forgotten? May 5th is the date set for our referendum on AV, the Alternative Vote, possibly changing the way we elect our politicians.

Every time I turn on the TV, I hear people talking about street parties. And what parties they’ll be! Starting on Friday, running all weekend, and continuing on Monday, MayDay. How do I read the timing of The Wedding and this incessant call for partying? Surely it must be an elaborate collusion between Church, State, Monarchy and Media to ensure that not a single person votes in the referendum? ‘Politics – blah! Pass me the Alka-Seltzer.’

A conspiracy? But of course. After all, AV goes against everything our Big Society stands for. The current system is monogamous: a voter chooses a single politician and pledges loyalty. But AV – ranking the candidates on a list – is designed to encourage open relationships with multiple partners. Some would call it a loosening of our moral standards. Some would say that at best it’s a ‘least worst’ electoral system.

Ever since he was hustled into his shotgun marriage with Nick Clegg, it’s been clear that Mr Cameron has regretted his vow to put AV to the public vote. And now I see that the Royal Wedding is simply a plan to scupper the referendum.

Some would call this plan devious – evil even – but not me. I’m full of admiration. It’s been brilliantly conceived, carefully concealed, and skilfully executed. And I’m sure that our Prime Minister will take no pleasure in the thought of those millions of people waking up with a headache after a week of partying, far away from their polling-station, and trying to remember why May 5th was important. I’m confident that his motives are exemplary because he’s a forward-thinker and a democrat. How else could you interpret his quest for General Well-Being?

I’m convinced that, like me, the PM realizes none of the current proposals for electoral reform address the fundamental flaws in our democracy. Which isn’t democratic. He’s done his sums, I’m sure. He’ll know that even when a candidate secures a 50% majority, the voting turnout is rarely more than 70%. What does that tell us? That there will always be a majority of people who either actively oppose the winning candidate – or could care less. Surely there must be a better way.

And of course, there is.

Tell me how many people in your household voted in the last national election? How many in the last local election?

Now tell me how many people in your household use one of the social networks – Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, for a start? And how many of them have registered a vote for something they’ve Liked in the last 24 hours?

No contest, is it? You may have exercised your chance to vote in an election once every few years. But here on the web we do it several times a day. The beauty of it is that we don’t even have to read more than a few words. As soon as we see a smart headline or a face we recognize, all we need to do is click on the ‘Like’ button. Surely that’s how democracy was always supposed to work!

It’s only unfortunate that having reached this conclusion, Mr Cameron then commissioned a quango – the Office for National Statistics – to carry out a £2 million, 9-month research project to give him the answers he already knew. I know! I know! Old habits die hard.

But with respect, Prime Minister, may I suggest that the time for action is now – or at the latest May 6th – the day after nobody has voted in the referendum. Close down the Office for National Statistics immediately, demonstrating your firm yet even-handed control of the nation’s purse-strings, and implement these reforms. The country will thank you.

1. Abolish elections

Let the people’s representatives be those who garner the best support in the social media. Those who are most followed, most Liked. Or perhaps you could use The Independent‘s clever algorithm, which ranks Twitter users by Authority, Audience and Activity.

With your 1 million plus Twitter followers, you need have no fear for your own seat, but abolition would result in the de-selection of almost all sitting MPs. At a stroke, you’d remove the lingering public suspicion of expense-mongering. And instead of Vince Cable, Ed Balls, Theresa May for company, you’d have Stephen Fry, Russell Brand, Rio Ferdinand … luminaries whose voices and opinions the people really trust.

Think of the change as a move away from end-of-year exams and toward continual assessment.

2. Abolish campaign funding

Approximately £67 million was spent on campaign funding in the UK during the 2010 election year, money that could be usefully diverted to other urgent social causes (such as my upcoming sequel to “The Social Network” – “Birdman of Folsom Street“).

Not one of The Independent’s influencers owes their position to external funding. Surely this must also increase public confidence in the integrity of our representatives.

3. Abolish parliament

My proposal is actually that we should restrict political statements to sentences of not more than 140 characters. Twitter has shown how completely unnecessary longer utterances are, and it provides the perfect platform for debate. I had a concern that replacing parliament with Twitter might lead to a devaluation of content, but research from Pear Analytics shows that in fact, the two forums are virtually indistinguishable. Analyzing Twitter content over a 2-week period in 2009, Pear organized tweets into 6 categories:

  • Pointless babble – 40%
  • Conversational – 38%
  • Pass-along value – 9%
  • Self-promotion – 6%
  • Spam – 4%
  • News – 4%


4. Sell off the Houses of Parliament

Since our representatives will communicate in cyberspace, there’s no further requirement for a property which occupies a prime development site in the heart of London on the bank of the Thames. No longer will Members need to maintain a second home in London (no more expenses scandals!), and the money raised from the sale could also be used to support my film.

5. Re-brand democracy.

The public is tired of hearing the same call to action for over 150 years – ‘One man, one vote’. That’s why turnout is often so low in elections: people expect different these days, people expect more. My suggestion is ‘One man, 104,000 Likes’.

The number has been carefully calculated. In a single week, each person would be allowed a maximum of 2000 Likes, in my view perfectly sufficient to express a point of view. More than that, and there’s a danger that campaign farms could be set up by candidates eager to wield influence, persuading followers to Like them day and night.

I’m not quite comfortable with ‘One man’. It cleverly builds on the original campaign, but perhaps we should make it clear that women have the Like too. Your suggestions would be welcome.

I’m quite certain that Mr Cameron’s thinking will be far in advance of mine. That’s what you’d expect from a man who has stated that the National Well-Being scheme should ‘lead to government policy that is more focused not just on the bottom line, but on all those things that make life worthwhile’. That he wants Britain to be ‘in the vanguard’ of efforts around the world to change the accepted measures of national progress ‘rather than following meekly behind’.

But he needs our support. So if you believe this plan could reawaken the public’s interest in tired old politics and politicians, then please click on the Like button below. Remember that in Egypt, it took only a month for social media activists to transform the political landscape. With your help, Mr Cameron could do the same.

Recent posts in The TwitFace Project:

Entertrainment
14 Ways To Make Friends With Americans

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7 Way To Engage Readers

April 24, 2011 in Reflections | 1 comment

Here’s a post from a year back on reader engagement. It’s a little dated – who remembers Tony Blair and Brangelina now? – but the advice still holds. Maybe I should re-read it too.

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Fame Costs - Book cover

This is the book I’ve been reading lately. Bet you didn’t think I was into that kind of thing. To be honest, nor did I, when Lena set it down next to the computer a couple of weeks back.

- It was only 20p at the stall in the market.

- Was it?

- Thought it might give you a few ideas.

Uh-oh. Been spending too much time on the damned book recently and not paying enough attention. So she buys me a Mills & Boon. Why didn’t she just say something?

- Look here – under the smiley man. ‘A true story of the author’s struggle to break into print.’ Useful?

- Um, yeah. Maybe.

Humour her.

 

Fame Costs is the true story of F.T.Unwin – or Pimbo, as he liked to call himself. He was from these parts, a Cambridge man, and it was Cambridge he wrote about. Not the university town. Not the tourist town. His books were full of stories of the people who have always lived here, and probably always will. Sentimental, nostalgic stuff. ‘He was, undoubtedly, an awful writer – which is all part of his naive charm’, that’s how he was remembered recently. Not much to appeal to today’s reader.

Unless that reader happened to be me.

Pimbo had a life-long ambition to be a writer, paid for writing courses, submitted to magazines, and after 30 years of rejections decided to go it alone with his first novel, using a vanity publisher. He managed to place a few copies in local shops, did some signings, and sold less than 100 books. So what to do with his stock?

Here’s what. He gets on the bus with a bagful of books, heads for one of the outlying villages, and starts selling door-to-door. Sets himself a small target every day and doesn’t take the journey home till he’s hit the target. Writes in the morning, gets the bus in the afternoon. He’s around 60 years old.

The first year was hard, but he began to attract attention, with a little press and radio coverage. Then it was local TV. Pimbo did it his own way. He was a character.

And the next year, when he took his new book on the same routes, people remembered. They invited him in, told him their own stories – which of course were then featured in his next novel. Pimbo’s readers began to have a personal stake in his books.

By 1987, with around 20 titles to his credit (nobody seems to know exactly how many), he had sold 80,000 books. Did his readers love them? Well, just about every review I can find includes the word ‘awful’, but as one commentator puts it:

Fred Unwin probably had a larger readership amongst local people than any better known author, and certainly amongst those who might not normally read books … He built up a list of regulars, brought great pleasure with his visits, and when he had made enough money from selling one book he would write another. He commands huge respect for that.

 

So what am I recommending? Write slush? Get out there selling door-to-door? Neither. But the lessons of reader engagement in Pimbo’s story still hold true today just as they did then, 30 years ago. Just one thing has changed. We don’t have to wait for the bus any more. Because we’re on the magic bus – the web – and we all have a free pass. This bus is especially magic because although you still need to start by going out to find your readers, you can soon get them coming over to your place – it takes just a second – if they enjoy spending time with you.

This is what I’ve learned from old Pimbo:

  1. Know who your readers are. For him, it wasn’t people who went into bookshops, or the city’s temporary residents, but the people who had lived in Cambridge all their lives.

    2.  

  2. Go find those readers. We shouldn’t expect people to buy our books just because they’re in the bookshop. Once we’ve identified our typical readers, we need to find where on the web they hang out, and spend some quality time with them. Not selling all the time: people hate that. But chatting, discussing, commenting, sharing, becoming one of the gang. And then when it’s time, inviting them back to our place – or places. (Different places for different types of reader.)

    3.  

  3. Make the visits frequent. Pimbo’s visits were once a year. Everyone would know when he was due back in the neighbourhood. Times have changed, and now our visits are two-way. When your friends drop in to visit you on your blog or website, there needs to be something new every day. Maybe not a major new post like this. But latest updates, new links, anything to keep the content fresh. And you need to be going out visiting every day, too, or people will quickly forget you. Of course, there’s not time to visit all those great sites you’ve bookmarked and leave comments. Only the key ones. But you can remind friends of your presence by posting regularly to Twitter or Facebook, at least a couple of times a day, maybe three or four.

    4.  

  4. Make every visit pleasurable. Sounds obvious, doesn’t it, if you want people to come back to your place again? But how? There are some great ideas from Misty Belardo in The 8 Types Of Posts That Get Maximum Comments. She suggests how-tos, competitions, personal experiences, showcasing your work, resource lists, thought provokers, creative work, humor. I’ll add only two things – there should be a place for most of these in your website or blog – and that the content needs to change quickly enough to keep it feeling fresh. Nothing turns people off faster than a static site.

    5.  

  5. Keep it personal. Pimbo met people face-to-face. We’re not actually going to meet most of our readers, but we can still engage with them personally, by encouraging questions and comments and reactions. I don’t think it’s necessary to respond to every comment individually – not if you’re busy – but we should be acknowledging the feedback we get, and we should aim always to answer questions. Within 24 hours. You might want to encourage readers to post their questions via Twitter – because all interactions will be less than 140 characters long. Nobody will expect long email answers.

    6.  

  6. Make the experience interactive. For Pimbo, this meant gathering stories from those he visited. In A Real Writer, I want to encourage everyone to assist with the research – by helping me, everyone helps themselves. And if readers do get involved, they’ll feel they have a stake in my success.

    7.  

  7. Remember that you’re part of the story. Pimbo’s novels were pretty awful, remember. And yet he sold 80,000 books. Let’s face it, my writing friends, a book very rarely stands or falls on its quality alone. Pimbo sold because he was a character. Then there’s this Tony Blair fellow – the one who’s book has won him a £4.6 million advance because, as his US publisher says, he’s ‘such an exceptional writer’. Would anyone have given him £1000 for a book in 1982, when he stood for Parliament in a by-election, won only 10% of the vote and lost his deposit? Unlikely.

    For your book to succeed, it really helps if you have a compelling story for yourself. I’m not suggesting that you necessarily need to start a war or two. And please don’t start telling your readers what you had for breakfast this morning, unless your name is Brangelina. But what is it that makes you stand out from the crowd? Start preparing that story too.


Have you found any new ways to engage with potential readers recently? Did you actually engage with any new readers today? How?

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One of our Tweeps is missing

April 18, 2011 in The TwitFace Project | 2 comments

Ommwriter message

A disturbing message

I’m locked into a world where there’s only a blank screen.

Nothing else.

No buttons. No menus. No pop-ups. No tabs.

Blank.

Alone.

No Twitter. No Facebook. Nothing

Friendless.

Likeless.

My head is ambient. Random patterns of sound, swirling, surging, repeating, fading. Electronic leaves falling. Electronic pulse. Electronic argeggios. Going nowhere. Piped into my brain, inescapably.

- You’re a writer? Then write. It’s your only escape.

I press keys. Thinly, they echo back, as shards of sound explode around me.

The page begins to fill, as I write my way back to reality.

How did I get here?

It was Joel Friedlander, The Book Designer, the writer’s friend. I trusted him. I’ve been greading his articles for years, meaning to look at them some day. Until, one day, I did.

When? I can’t remember. There are no clocks in this place, no sense of time.

I can’t even remember exactly what he said. There’s no window to the outside world, no point of reference, no way to send messages.

He said something about a writing tool. Something about concentration and focus. A recommendation. OmmWriter. Omm.

Omm.

There’s a sound sequence I recognize. I’ve been here before. The landscape becomes familiar. A friend. My friend.

- Is it enough? Have I done well, my friend?

- You must write. Always write. Only write, if you wish to escape.

They lied, and it’s a trap. They want to keep me here forever. Just writing. Word after word after word, tumbling out in arpeggios, falling like leaves.

Unnoticed.

Unfriended

Untweeped.

Help!

—————


This was the disturbing message I received, unsigned, this morning.

At first I thought it might be a hoax. You never can tell with the web. But I checked the references, and it’s true that Joel Friedlander posted an article a week back: OmmWriter Dana: My Second-Favorite Writing Program of All Time.

Now Joel’s credentials are of course impeccable. He’s written thousands of articles helping independent writers. Surely no ill can have been intended.

But I followed the trail back to the Ommwriter site, and my fears began to mount:

As mere mortals, we also face the usual challenges of daily life: a multitude of windows open on our computer desktops, messages, emails, calls, meetings, and those crazy thoughts that pass through our minds. OmmWriter emerged as an internal tool to help transport us away from the humdrum noise …

What else is this but a thinly-veiled attack upon the things we value most? Humdrum? Twitter? Facebook? Say it isn’t so. And look carefully at the name of their text editor: Ommdata Dana. Why Dana? Could it be “Download And Never Associate”.

And why are they so insistent on their mortality? Why do they claim to come from Barcelona? My mind is full of questions.

I’m convinced that my message was a genuine cry for help. So what if there was no signature, no avatar? Perhaps this hapless tweep has already been stripped of his – or her – social identity.

We’re a caring community, and I believe that we have a moral obligation to mount a rescue – to save this poor soul from a lifetime of perpetual writing. I would volunteer myself … but Monday’s always such a busy greading day for me, after the weekend.

If you’re as brave as I am, please do what you can … but perhaps you’d be advised not to go in there wearing headphones.

More from the TwitFace Project:

The Twitface Plan
Donate a Family. Save a Writer!
Shining Happy People
+ follow the Twitface Project tag.

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Social Saturation

April 14, 2011 in Reflections | 2 comments

At 3.22 this afternoon, I reached saturation point. I’d been busy on the web for hours, checking tweets and posts, following Facebook flows and LinkedIn chains, looking for inspiration and affirmation.

The morning hadn’t been wasted. I was delighted when someone tweeted that they were ‘becoming addicted’ to my writing ( – but be careful with that!) and I connected with Sara Sheridan, whose Guardian blog post today, ‘Why writers must embrace social media, no matter the genre‘, is recommended reading.

But suddenly it was all too much. Like being in a crowded room at a party, when all you want to do is get out and take a deep breath of fresh air. Who are all those smiling faces? And what am I doing here anyway?

I tracked back over the last 100 tweets. A quarter of them were from writers trying to sell me their book. Around 20 gave me news that didn’t really interest me. Most of the rest were either desperate to teach me something, letting me eavesdrop on gossip, or quoting something deep and meaningful.

Only one led me to a blog where I was truly entertained. Seth Godin again – you might have guessed.

Again the question. Why am I even here, blogging?

I guess the answer is that I’m selling too. Except the difference is I’m not going to headline “my AWESOME new book, just $0.99 at Amazon today“.

Instead, my aim is to put on a live performance. Not talking about writing, not trying to teach anyone to write, but just really writing. With proper stories, plot progression, characters you’ll love, hate, laugh at, feel sorry for. And if that gets you hungry for more, well then you’ll be able to get the book at the door at the end of the show.

It’s a two-way thing. Every artist needs an audience, and when it’s live like this, I can hear from your reactions whether I’m getting through to you or not.

And you know what? If I’m going to put on a good show, then I probably need to rest up more and spend more time in rehearsal. I’m not saying I shouldn’t talk to my friends and supporters – that’s an important part of the feedback – but maybe I shouldn’t spend so much of the day trawling for readers. If the show’s good enough, word will spread and people will arrive, I’m sure of that.

But wait. This has been a rant, not a performance. So let’s put that right. Here’s a 5000-word short story that I’ve just reposted on Smashwords: Waiting for Orders. It’s free, an irreverent satirical romp, short enough to be read in 20 minutes, and needs to be read in the voice of a young Jack Nicholson. Does it work for you? Cheers or hisses or silence?

And that brings me nicely to tomorrow’s topic – the importance of the short story, and why I’m going to be spending much more time reading (and sharing with you) other emerging writers I admire.

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If you’ve never used Smashwords before, you’ll need to sign up first. Then refer to this guidance page to optimize your reading experience. Smashwords allows you to download in a number of different formats to suit your e-reader. I’m still using my PC and the quickest way is to use the HTML version offered. But I much prefer using Kindle for PC – a free download – all the details are on the guidance page.

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What is Web ME 2?

April 8, 2011 in The TwitFace Project | 3 comments

World-Changing Articles

In 2004-5, two seminal papers changed the way we think about the web, the world, and everything.

Tim O’Reilly’s “What is Web 2.0” explained how the web had become interactive, with dynamic blogs replacing static websites, and readers/users becoming directly involved in the creation and promotion of new products. Proponents of Web 2.0, he said, knew how to “harness collective intelligence” – just the way that Wikipedia does it with literally thousands of volunteers adding, editing and correcting content daily.

Chris Anderson’s article, “The Long Tail“, showed how digital content would change the dynamics of marketing. Since the physical product – a DVD or a book, say – was no longer required, shelf-space effectively became infinite. Which meant goodbye to shelves, goodbye to bricks-and-mortar bookshops, goodbye to ‘out of print’, goodbye to big-publisher control of the market, goodbye to restrictive pricing practices. Later, in a follow-on book, Anderson included charts showing that, while a small number of best-sellers (‘the head’) would continue to dominate the digital market, the new niche products (‘the tail’) would always find buyers, and that the more digital content released, the more we would consume. While the tail didn’t exactly wag the dog, it was far longer than we ever imagined.


The Fourth Dimension

So according to Anderson, it all comes down to dimensional shift. When Length, Width and Depth are no longer a consideration, marketing and the supply-chain evolve. But there was another dimension he didn’t consider. A dimension that never changed. Time.

If I were a mathematician, I’d insert a formula here. But since my mind copes better with images, let me put it this way:

Give a dog a bone and he’ll eat it. Give a dog 5 bones and 2 minutes and he’ll take the easiest bits.

It’s not a perfect analogy. To get it working you’ll have to train your dog to be time-aware and give him a stop-watch. But you see my point, don’t you? That with the torrent of digital material unleashed upon us, and limited time, our consumption patterns were always bound to change. For the marketer, that’s irrelevant. He’ll count what’s easy to count. The number of dogs. The number of bones. Their availability and price. The cost of dog ownership. That’s how we measure our success in the digital economy – with numbers.

Most of us have learnt to go with the flow, whether reading or listening. Certainly my reading habits have changed. I’ve talked elsewhere about ‘greading‘ – the acquisition of more written content than I could possibly consume in a lifetime, just in case someday I might find the time to read it. ‘Headlining’ is another conveniently-packaged reading technique: scanning the latest news or posts, then dropping into the detail to speed-read where something interesting catches the eye. But reading – taking time with words, interpretation, deep understanding … thinking! – well, who’s got the time these days?

Of course there will always be die-hards who try to resist the inevitable. Watch this BBC video clip now and wallow in the nostalgia for a couple of minutes – but don’t forget to come back!

Telling, isn’t it, that they choose to listen on vinyl? Unreconstructed technophobes!


Web ME 2

In recent weeks, a new feature has been springing up all over the web – the Like button. The purpose of the button, as far as I can see, is to eliminate the need to read entirely. Not long ago, I used to get dozens of requests a day to read someone’s blog or book. Doesn’t happen any more. Now people just ask me to Like their work. I have to confess that at first – forward-thinker though I am – I was uncomfortable with this innovation. It seemed so … uncritical somehow. I’m not the sort of person who gets pleasure out of voting people down, and I wrote to a number of the sites offering ‘Like’ to ask if they could also offer an ‘Indifferent’ or ‘Can’t be bothered’ button.

But I’ve given the matter some thought, and I now see ‘Like’ as a very positive development.

First, it’s undoubtedly a time-saver. I’m saving dozens of hours a week not reading material that otherwise might have seemed important.

Second, Liking is deeply embedded in our democratic traditions. Politicians have known for years that what matters is not whether people read or understand their manifestos, but whether they have an opinion about them. The key to a successful election campaign is not sound policy but momentum in the opinion polls, building up an irresistible force of people who Like you. Why should it be any different with a blog or a book?

Third, this is a textbook application of Newtonian physics, as marketing scientists have explained. ‘Every body attracts every other body with a force that is proportional to the mass of each body.’ Thus, the attraction of a blog or a book which has 200 Likes is 100 times greater than the attraction of a book with only 2 Likes.

Look at O’Reilly’s definition again, and you’ll see that we need to redefine it. Web 2.0, it turns out, is not about harnessing collective intelligence, but harnessing collective opinion. ’1000 people say this blog is great. I’ll go along with that.’

Web 2.0 has reinvented itself as Web ME 2.



References

Of course I’m not expecting you to actually read these world-changing articles. But in case you want to gread them, or just Like them, here are the references.

What is Web 2.0? – Tim O’Reilly
The Long Tail – Chris Anderson

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Shiny happy people

April 6, 2011 in The TwitFace Project | 4 comments

Thumbs-Up

A big thumbs-up to Amazon and Smashwords after they introduced a Like feature recently on their book pages. Many of us are so busy greading that there’s no time any more to read reviews, let alone write them.

What I like about Like is that it requires no thought or time at all. It’s an entirely involuntary reaction, like a smile or a wave. You’re out shopping or running an errand in WebLand: you can’t just stop and chat with everyone you meet, or you’ll never get home. But a Like just lets them know that you’ve seen them, that all’s well with the world, that you’ll get together and catch up sometime – even if you’re busy right now. It makes the world a better place, full of shiny happy people.

But it’s important not read too much into a Like. Just because I Like you, it doesn’t necessarily mean that I want to have your babies. Let me illustrate.

Yesterday was a special day for me, an occasion. As you know, my TwitFace schedule doesn’t allow me a lot of time for getting out. In fact, it was the first time I’d left the house for three months. But I’d been unlocked from my computer chair, and there I was, on the train, heading south, to visit my aged parent.

It was in London that I saw the girl. All the seats were taken, so I stood next to the door, rucksack at my feet, laptop on my shoulder. I scanned the passengers, reading newspapers, text-messages, ads, thrillers. I made a mental note. Write in 15-minute segments: aim for the commuter-market. ‘Short is more’.

But she was different. She was reading on a Kindle. I Liked that. Maybe she sensed it. She glanced up. I let her know. Thumbs-up and a smile.

I sensed her coloring as she went back to her reading. Perhaps it was my book! What a coincidence that would have been. Did she look like one of my readers? Did my readers look like her? As our eyes touched again, I gave her two thumbs-up.

She turned to the guy on the seat next to her, and whispered. He looked at me, curious, rose. We’d connected.

- Hey man, why you coming on to my woman?
- No, not coming on. I was just Liking her.
- You gotta be kidding me.
- I thought maybe we could be friends.

Well, clearly he wasn’t a Facebook user. Fortunately it wasn’t too long before the next stop, and although not having my glasses meant I couldn’t post last night, I’ve been able to get a new pair this morning. So no permanent damage, only bruising.

I never did manage to ask if it was my book she was reading.


References

If you’re a commuter-reader, you might Like 40kBooks and eCapris, thinking of people like you.

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14 ways to make friends with Americans

April 5, 2011 in The TwitFace Project | 14 comments

Uncle Sam

On my lecture tours in Europe and the rest of the developing world, I constantly remind bloggers how important it is to make friends with Americans. The US, you see, is the cultural hub of the universe (- the precise epicenter is said to be just west of Hannibal, Mo).

We writers, in particular, stand in awe of the achievements of our American cousins. Take the mighty Amazon, for example (- what humility, not to call it Mississippi!): over 900,000 books in their US online store. (In their UK equivalent, by comparison, the number was 25, the last time I bothered to check.) And what writers! The likes of Stephenie Meyer, James Patterson, and now Amanda Hocking – living testaments to their culture. Most of our British writers are dead.

But it’s one thing to give advice: another to get followed by our trans-Atlantic cousins. To be honest, Americans don’t Like me much.

That’s why I was delighted to find today a wonderfully informative guide from New York University, Getting to Know Americans. In just a few minutes, I found out exactly where I was going wrong.

Now at this point, non-American readers, I’m afraid I’m going to have to ask you to leave. Because one of the first tips is to ‘spend time away from your compatriots to be with Americans’. Yes, I’m sorry. Just leave. Now! I need a little privacy here … well I don’t know, do I? … try another of the 30 million blogs out there, maybe? … AND YOU!

Right, sorry about that, but I think they’ve gone now. So let’s get down to business, shall we? Have I told you about my novel? (“Another expectation is that people are ready to ‘do business’ very soon after meeting, without much time spent on preliminary conversation.”)

Oh. We haven’t been introduced? Well, you can call me Al. (“Adults in the majority culture routinely use each other’s first names upon introduction.”)

No, from England actually. You’ve heard of it? Little island – west side of Europe. No, Europe … near Russia. Yes. Thames River, Big Ben, Parliament Building, stiff upper lip … yes, that’s it, Hugh Grant. (“Be patient if Americans are ignorant of some aspect about your home country. Use the opportunity to educate and share, just do so in a polite and brief manner.” – if you’re still struggling to place England, you may find this American writer’s description helpful.)

So, anyway, about my book … Oh, you write too, do you? Baseball thrillers? Sounds exciting. Yes, I adore baseball. Babe Ruth, eh? What a player! Joe DiMaggio. Joltin’ Joe! Marilyn Monroe. (“Know what topics Americans like to discuss. These usually include music, clubs, movies, sports, and vacation plans.”)

No, not much baseball in my book. None, really. I would have liked to, of course, but it was difficult to get a team together with just one … American in the story … but all the spelling’s American though. I wanted it to be right for your market. (“Americans often think that other countries should use their example and adopt their ways of doing things.”)

I’m working on a new vampire edition too – specially for US readers. New characters, a great new cover, and I’m raising the price to $5.99. (“Not only is the amount or worth of the material items valued, but there is often a priority on obtaining the latest version. The United States is a culture that tends to view change as good, as an improvement.”) Does your book have vampires?

No, I can see that might not work. You’re number 5 in sports novels on Amazon, you say? Up for Baseball Thriller of the Year? That’s wonderful! No, no awards really, not for books anyway. I did once get a swimming certificate. Oh, and I won the Pterodactyl award from the British Software Industry in 1990. A special award for my success in sending the industry into reverse. (“People act competitively, are proud of their accomplishments and expect others to be proud of their own accomplishments.”)

So can I interest you in a copy of my book? I see. Not enough Americans. No baseball. Right. Well, what about taking a look at my blog then? Perhaps I could get you to do a guest spot on baseball? (“Persevere through the disappointments with superficial interactions.”)

Yes, we’re very relaxed over there at Writers without Borders. Most of the time I write my posts, I’m sitting there working in my pyjamas pajamas. (“There’s a trend towards ‘dressing down’, that is, informally, in the workplace on Fridays and for Christian church services during the summer.”)

And I think you’d like the atmosphere over there. I’m proud that it’s an equal opportunity blog. (“Although there are many differences in social, economic, and educational levels in the United States, there is a theme of equality that runs through social relationships”) Anyone can write in and comment, even women. (“There is a strong feminist movement in the United States that aims to insure that women have responsibilities and opportunities equal to those of men.”) You know, one of my best friends was once a woman.

But hey, why are we just sitting here talking? Why don’t I get tickets for the Yankees-Red Sox match tonight, and we can carry on this discussion there? (“Rather than simply getting together with friends to spend time together, Americans will frequently plan an activity – any activity – and will tend not to get together without some focus to the time spent with friends.”)

Oh, you’ve already got plans? Well some other time then.

Yes, I’d be delighted to be your Facebook friend. (“Americans tend to ‘compartmentalize’ their friendships, having their ‘friends at work’, ‘friends at school’, a ‘tennis friend’, and so on.”)

And of course I’ll Like your book.

Notes:

(Unfortunately, as I was proof-reading this post, I found that the original source-article had disappeared from the NYU site. I’ll keep looking for it, and repost the link if it reappears.)

If I’ve whetted your appetite for a baseball thriller, then check out the well-reviewed Allen Schatz novel – Game 7: Dead Ball – and just to clarify, Alan and I did not
have the conversation described above. :)

Don’t miss the earlier TwitFace posts:
The TwitFace Plan
7 Health and Safety Tips for Bloggers
Donate a family. Save a writer!

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Donate a family. Save a writer!

April 4, 2011 in The TwitFace Project | 3 comments

A Declining Resource

I’ve had my concerns about blogging of course. Who hasn’t?

What is the impact on the planet, when every day millions of us use thousands of words, almost without thinking, as if the supply was never-ending?

There are those who claim that the word is a re-usable resource, and that we have enough words to last the next 100 years … by then, they say, we’ll have discovered new channels of communication. But my private research indicates an approaching crisis: each time a word is used, it loses a fraction of its original lustre and intensity, gradually diminishing until it becomes a meaningless black hole.

Here’s the evidence. In just 50 years, the life-expectancy of words has been reduced by a factor of 4. In the 1950s, the average reader struggled to understand Shakespeare and the King James Bible, but was comfortable with Dickens – so words had a half-life of about 200 years. For most of today’s readers, Dickens is impenetrable – and that’s a half-life of not much more than 50 years.

My fear is that with the explosive growth of blogging and the uncontrolled use of words, the rate of decay will accelerate until, in a matter of a few years, words will become meaningless even before they are written. All blogs – and even tweets – would be reduced to unintelligible mumbo-jumbo.

My Conservation Efforts

As a writer and blogger therefore, I feel I have a responsibility to the planet – to plant a new word for every thousand I consume. You may have noticed ‘macronym’ yesterday – an acronym using two or three letters of each word instead of just the initial; my example was ‘NaPoWriMo‘ – National Poetry Writing Month.

Here’s my contribution for today.

gread [gri:d] verb transitive or intransitive | p. gread [gred] | pp. gread [gred]

sounds like ‘breed’, ‘seed’

to download, subscribe to, or otherwise acquire large quantities of free or low-cost digital content without reading it.

e.g. “I’ve just tweeted all 50 blogs I’ve gread today.”

Derivation: a construct from the English words ‘greed’ and ‘read’


Greading: The Danger to Writers

If you thought word-decay was a problem, greading is a potential catastrophe. Because it kills writers and bloggers. Kills them with kindness.

This is how it goes. Annie joins a group including 200 other bloggers. Filled with optimism and good intentions, she tweets everyone in the group, subscribes to their blogs. Many of them reciprocate, and for the first few days, Annie’s on a high. But following the TwitFace Plan, her days are filled, and there’s no time to keep up with her new friends. Day by day, there are fewer responses, and before long, she’s writing mainly for her own pleasure once again, not anyone else’s.

Ed’s a writer determined to connect with as many readers as possible, so he decides to eliminate all price barriers to his novel. He’s interested, he says, in engaging with readers for the long term. Making money isn’t important right now. He offers his work for free, and is delighted with the sudden response. His books are ‘selling’ like never before. He waits a week or two for the reviews and the praise to start flowing. But they don’t. Because his books have been downloaded with hundreds of others, and the first page has never been opened.

For anyone who writes, only two things are important. Coffee and Attention. (I suppose I could add Money too, but if that’s a primary interest, you might do better getting a job in publishing, or setting up as an agent.)

A few weeks later Annie is playing Farmville; Ed has taken up online gambling. Hopes raised, then dashed – because of greading.

Another TwitFace Solution

But, my fellow TwitFacers, never fear. Now we’ve named the problem, we can understand it. And with understanding comes the solution. A distinctively TwitFace solution, which will benefit you, your family and the world community of writers.

Here’s the issue, you see: when everyone’s a writer, nobody’s a reader. We’re all just greaders. That’s all there’s time for. Tell me, truthfully. Are you a real reader, or a blogger making the effort to read? Aren’t you a greader too? Not just a little?

So here we all are, greading furiously. 30 million bloggers and 1 million writers … but wait! That’s not everyone! What about the other 6,878,887,629 people who don’t blog or write? Perhaps they’re not all your LinkedIn or Facebook friends, or you may not feel able to influence them … so let’s set our aims lower. What about the other 2.14 members of your own household? (Figures may vary – our household was me + 2.75 people last time I checked – but 3.14 people per household is the official average.)

You may remember that in my recent Health and Safety post, I introduced Standard Operating Procedures to minimize interruptions to your important work. I explained how effective Signage could help you maintain concentration even in a high-traffic area. But what better way to energize your working environment and silence your family members than putting them to work too – not as writers, but as readers? While you’re busy with the Ultimate Blog Challenge, why could they not be involved with NaDoFaSaWriMo? (That’s National Donate Your Family To Save A Writer Month – in case you haven’t figured it out. Aren’t macronyms a joy?)

Think what we could achieve. If you donated your 2.14 family members and each family member befriended 30 bloggers for a month, commenting on their posts every two days, you could singlehandedly support Annie and Ed and 60 other bloggers – who’d get dozens of comments a day. Greading would be unnecessary because bloggers would stay busy writing, not pretending to read. Your working hours would be significantly shorter, and disturbances significantly fewer.

We would of course need to insist that all bloggers supported by the scheme should plant a new word each day, in order to sustain and replenish the existing stock. But I can’t see why any blogger should object to that.

So if you’re as excited about this scheme as I am, why not donate your family today, by signing up below?

And to get things started, let’s see who can come up with the best caption for Ed’s photo, to encourage others to join TwitFace’s NaDoFaSaWriMo initiative – and save our bloggers and writers. There’s a prize for the most persuasive entry: a week’s worth of comments on your blog.

No greading!



Earlier posts in the TwitFace project:

The TwitFace Plan
7 Health & Safety Tips for Bloggers

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7 Health & Safety Tips for Bloggers

April 3, 2011 in The TwitFace Project | 5 comments



Is there a sextant in your
blogger’s toolkit? No?
Then you’d better read on.

It all started with Geoffrey Chaucer, who wrote:

Whan that Aprille with his shoures soote
The droghte of Marche hath perced to the roote ….
Than longen folk to goon on pilgrimages …

Yes, his spelling was terrible, but what do you expect from a self-published author? Anyway, the point is that April was a time when people started making plans to go off on pilgrimage. And why? Well, if you’re familiar with The Canterbury Tales, you’ll know that the whole point of pilgrimage was meeting up with friends and strangers to swap stories. Tall stories, comic stories, bawdy stories, moral stories … everyone got into the act. There was just something in the air.

600 years later, we’re still telling stories in April – except that now, there’s none of that unpleasant walking. You can join any number of tour-groups from the comfort of your own PC, laptop, tablet or web-enabled phone. There’s the Ultimate Blog Challenge – where pilgrims pledge to write 30 posts in 30 days. Or the slightly less arduous A-Z Blogging Challenge for all 26 days of April ( – quite properly, they discount the Sabbath). Or, if like Chaucer, the Muse moves you to burst out into poetry, there’s NaPoWriMo (- I know! But these macronyms are popular in the US, they tell me).

If you haven’t started yet, and you’d like to join, it’s not too late. You can still catch up with us.

Now although we have none of the physical hardships of Chaucer’s tale-tellers, we should remember T.S Eliot’s warning – that ‘April is the cruellest month’. I was reminded of that this morning when I read the tale of plucky fellow-pilgrim, Raven Howard. Injured in Spring Training, put on the disabled list, and missing the start of the season, Raven has decided to make up for her enforced inactivity by accepting the Ultimate Blog Challenge. It’s a wise decision: in my experience, the perfect way to warm up for a prolonged period of inactivity is to commit yourself to writing a blog, backed up of course by all the normal TwitFace support activities.

But blogging can still be dangerous. Why, only last night I fell off my chair after falling asleep at the keyboard – and I hadn’t taken precautions. Like Raven, I could have had a nasty injury. So, since there are so many inexperienced bloggers joining us at the beginning of this pilgrimage season, it seemed a good time to give you …

THE TWITFACE GUIDE TO HEALTH AND SAFETY

1. A quiet, secure working area

Your job is demanding and requires the utmost concentration. Exposure to noise and frequent interruption while blogging causes stress, and may even result in a missed retweet or direct message. Ideally you should set up your workspace in an area removed from normal family life. But if you choose to work under the stairs or in a cupboard, make sure that there is adequate ventilation and lighting. If your only option is to work in a high-traffic area, then follow the directions in note 2 carefully.

2. Signage

Make sure that working areas are clearly demarcated and signed, and that instructions are clear and precise. ‘Genius at work’ is an example of a particularly bad sign, since it gives no indication of how the reader is supposed to behave. It may also cause precisely the disruption that you are trying to avoid. More effective are: ‘Keep out!’, ‘Silence!’, or ‘Go Away!’. Your signs need to be prominently displayed. If you are working in a high-traffic area, I have found it effective to pin signs to your headgear or writer’s jacket (as described below).

3. Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs)

In my previous post, I demonstrated how to create a successful TwitFace Plan (and I’ve been delighted to hear that so many of you have found my schedule a useful template). But as well as micro-planning your own work, it’s important to define Standard Operating Procedures for other members of your household, and then to make sure that they understand and buy in to the plan. For example, there needs to be total clarity about when you may be interrupted. If the kitchen’s on fire or your spouse is having a nervous breakdown, at what point should you be notified, and what are the escalation procedures? For a deeper understanding of SOPs, please refer to the excellent post from fellow-pilgrim, Shilpa Venkateshwaran.

4. Ergonomics


Wanna end up looking like this?
The use that sextant!

Musculoskeletal disorders (MSD) are common in TwitFacers, due to poor chair and desk positioning. When setting up your workspace, check that your seating position, knees and elbows are all at a 90 degree angle, as shown not shown in the illustration. Beginners are then advised to check and if necessary recalibrate their positions every 15 minutes using a sextant. (For approximate angles, a spirit level may suffice – but it looks unprofessional.)

5. Clothing (The Writer’s Jacket)



(Back view)

Some time ago, my wife bought me the rather attractive jacket pictured – but until recently we’d never found a use for it. Now I’m a TwitFacer, it’s an important part of my writing equipment. Light, comfortable, it allows me to buckle or chain myself to the chair to prevent falls. There’s one small disadvantage: if chained in, you need a second person to release you. Earlier this week I was locked into my chair for three days before anyone noticed I was missing. That’s why I decided not to wear it last night – with disastrous consequences. A well-written SOP can help to prevent family oversights.

6. Protective Headgear

TwitFacers debate the best type of headgear for a writer. Some prefer the extra protection of a cycling helmet. I prefer a beanie, more comfortable and, in my view, sufficient to minimize damage to the skull in most writing-related accidents. I find it difficult to imagine that I could fall head-first from my chair, although encounters with the desk are not infrequent, particularly in late-night sessions.

7. Work-Life Balance

Don’t let social media take over your whole life. Remember there’s a real world out there too. Every so often, when you need a break, why not pull up the Sudoko screen, or play a couple of hands of Hearts?

Follow these guidelines and I’m sure you’ll find that blogging is an enjoyable and fulfilling experience.

Have I missed anything important? If you have any other great tips and advice, let me know, and we’ll add them to the list.

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