David Amerland's Blog: David Amerland on Writing, page 4
September 2, 2013
The Art of Pouring a Gallon into a Pint
For a writer words should come easy. They’re the building blocks, after all, that he uses to create constructs that contain the semantics that are unlocked upon reading, which is an unnecessarily complex way perhaps of saying he writes words that mean something to every reader.
So writing a brief, 750-word script for a video on semantic search should have been no problem? Well, yes, except the requirement, this time, was to take the contents of a 240-page book that had taken me eighteen months to research and write and put it into a five-minute video (hence the script) without sacrificing impact or meaning.
There are always two ways to tackle something like this: You build up or you pare down. When it comes to creating semantically dense information, to my mind, only the latter works. Building up means you generalize: i.e. you start off and write 750 words on the subject, but the assumptions you make leave logic holes for the reader that are usually large enough to drive a bus through. It makes for great conversations afterwards but the end result is dissatisfying, like a meal that looks great but fails to satisfy your hunger.
So paring down was the only option and that meant writing. A lot of writing. “Google Semantic Search” was fresh enough in my mind for me to be able to write the first 3,000 words without needing to go back to my notes. Semantic search and the semantic web offer massive practical opportunities and a host of conceptual challenges and these came easy to me, to write. Then came the double-checking, the facts that needed to be inserted, caveats and cautions and all the details. By the time I finished I had 5,000 beautifully written words each of which did something critical and there was no way to pare down.
The problem with this is that it would make for a video that would be 35 minutes long and clearly unworkable. When I suggested to the publishers that perhaps we could tackle this as a mini-series, splitting it all in five minute segments the looks I got were of the kind reserved for those who claim they have met an alien race, that lives amongst us and they mean us no harm.
With tones reserved for talking to imbeciles they patiently explained that the marketing budget in terms of time and effort only went so far and that the point of the video is to explain something well enough to make it accessible and generate interest in the book but not be so detailed that the book itself is no longer necessary (I know it’s kinda obvious when they explain it in two-syllable words, like that).
Paring down is no easy task. Having written 5,000 words I had to now get rid of 4,250 of them and still have what remained make sense. Having done it now, of course, I can claim credit and bask in the accomplishment but at the time I seriously doubted it was even feasible.
What saved me was a chance occurrence. In writing “Google Semantic Search” I had kept copious notes and though I am purely digital these days and hardly ever use paper, one thing I had done when the review copy of my book had been sent to me, prior to publication, was look at it with a reader’s eyes. And on the day of that first flush of seeing all the words, thoughts and ideas finally in a book, I had gone through the paper copy and made a note in the margin, at the end of the book that said: “Twelve points for twelve chapters”. That’s all it said.
Now, I am pretty sure when I wrote that I had a really deep, profound idea that meant something incredible. But when I read it back that day as I flipped through the book looking for inspiration the disconnect of that comment leapt out at me. It made me close it and look at it not as the writer who knows the subject inside out and tries to put in all that knowledge into every sentence, but as the reader approaching each chapter of the book for a very first time.
Each chapter then became a step leading to a better understanding of semantic search. Looking back at my 5,000 words, I was now able to prune back the writing using a broadsword as opposed to a scalpel. What I needed were the major points connecting the twelve chapters of the book, each becoming a step to better understanding the subject of semantic search.
The result of all that pruning was this video: http://goo.gl/ZF4Znl
Google Semantic Search: Search Engine Optimization (Seo) Techniques That Get Your Company More Traffic, Increase Brand Impact, and Amplify Your Online Presence
So writing a brief, 750-word script for a video on semantic search should have been no problem? Well, yes, except the requirement, this time, was to take the contents of a 240-page book that had taken me eighteen months to research and write and put it into a five-minute video (hence the script) without sacrificing impact or meaning.
There are always two ways to tackle something like this: You build up or you pare down. When it comes to creating semantically dense information, to my mind, only the latter works. Building up means you generalize: i.e. you start off and write 750 words on the subject, but the assumptions you make leave logic holes for the reader that are usually large enough to drive a bus through. It makes for great conversations afterwards but the end result is dissatisfying, like a meal that looks great but fails to satisfy your hunger.
So paring down was the only option and that meant writing. A lot of writing. “Google Semantic Search” was fresh enough in my mind for me to be able to write the first 3,000 words without needing to go back to my notes. Semantic search and the semantic web offer massive practical opportunities and a host of conceptual challenges and these came easy to me, to write. Then came the double-checking, the facts that needed to be inserted, caveats and cautions and all the details. By the time I finished I had 5,000 beautifully written words each of which did something critical and there was no way to pare down.
The problem with this is that it would make for a video that would be 35 minutes long and clearly unworkable. When I suggested to the publishers that perhaps we could tackle this as a mini-series, splitting it all in five minute segments the looks I got were of the kind reserved for those who claim they have met an alien race, that lives amongst us and they mean us no harm.
With tones reserved for talking to imbeciles they patiently explained that the marketing budget in terms of time and effort only went so far and that the point of the video is to explain something well enough to make it accessible and generate interest in the book but not be so detailed that the book itself is no longer necessary (I know it’s kinda obvious when they explain it in two-syllable words, like that).
Paring down is no easy task. Having written 5,000 words I had to now get rid of 4,250 of them and still have what remained make sense. Having done it now, of course, I can claim credit and bask in the accomplishment but at the time I seriously doubted it was even feasible.
What saved me was a chance occurrence. In writing “Google Semantic Search” I had kept copious notes and though I am purely digital these days and hardly ever use paper, one thing I had done when the review copy of my book had been sent to me, prior to publication, was look at it with a reader’s eyes. And on the day of that first flush of seeing all the words, thoughts and ideas finally in a book, I had gone through the paper copy and made a note in the margin, at the end of the book that said: “Twelve points for twelve chapters”. That’s all it said.
Now, I am pretty sure when I wrote that I had a really deep, profound idea that meant something incredible. But when I read it back that day as I flipped through the book looking for inspiration the disconnect of that comment leapt out at me. It made me close it and look at it not as the writer who knows the subject inside out and tries to put in all that knowledge into every sentence, but as the reader approaching each chapter of the book for a very first time.
Each chapter then became a step leading to a better understanding of semantic search. Looking back at my 5,000 words, I was now able to prune back the writing using a broadsword as opposed to a scalpel. What I needed were the major points connecting the twelve chapters of the book, each becoming a step to better understanding the subject of semantic search.
The result of all that pruning was this video: http://goo.gl/ZF4Znl
Google Semantic Search: Search Engine Optimization (Seo) Techniques That Get Your Company More Traffic, Increase Brand Impact, and Amplify Your Online Presence
August 16, 2013
How Writing Became a Social Business
Writing is the least ‘social’ of any business or creative activity you can imagine. Traditionally, a writer is sequestered (in a manner of speaking) from the world, his book the product of his mind, his writing a struggle with himself to help get his ideas from his head onto the page. The last thing he traditionally needs or wants in that setting are the concerns of possible readers, the contributing thoughts of well-wishers and the odd do-gooder telling him how to write.
I say ‘traditionally’ here, because all of this is changing and I am living proof of that. Before I explain how, or why, let’s examine what a social business is and what it does. The salient point of any business model is a sense of realignment of purpose. From producing a product (and a book, once written, is just that) that is intended to address a particular need in its audience to listening to its potential customers first, understanding what they need and working to produce something they really want.
It sounds simple. It ain’t. It requires steely resolve and the willingness to take a risk. It needs focus to take the professional part of the business that has depth and expertise and blend it carefully with the needs of its target audience without using the latter as a shortcut for all the critical choices only the professional can make.
When I conceived "Google Semantic Search" I knew I was ahead of the wave, my corporate speaking engagements had exposed me to a real need for businesses, entrepreneurs and individuals. My research told me this was coming much faster than anticipated. In the process of writing it, however, I experimented with something new.
I used my extensive following in Google+ to create a real conversation. As I was writing the book, I used snippets from research, data and ideas to seed the stream, to question, entice, guide and even surprise. I was doing two things through this activity: first I was sharing my own sense of enthusiasm for semantic search and a semantic web that will have an impact that goes way beyond the normal search vertical. Second, I was listening, really listening to concerns, ideas and needs. The things my potential audience needed to know, the concerns they had, the issues they were facing.
My conversation flowed naturally. I did not, at that stage, say that I was writing a book, though, at the very last stage of the conversation it became inevitable and had to be mentioned. My intent was to create, as much as I could, a fully participatory experience.
Here’s what happened:
My book writing style changed. Search is a largely technical subject with vast non-technical ramifications. Writing about it has to be a little detached, largely academic, tech-driven approach. I took a different path. I chose to write conversationally, the way, as a matter of fact I was interacting in the Google+ stream.
My book content broadened. I made a few judgement calls. Every book is defined not just by what it includes but also by what it excludes. Frequently, what’s left unsaid is every bit as important as what is being written about. The scope broadened to include the impact of semantic search in marketing and, even, everyday living. I would not have done that without the conversation that had taken place.
My audience and I arrived at the same set of goals. This is a critical step. By closely understanding what their needs were I was able to identify with them. Those who buy my book want to know what’s happening to their digital world, how changes in search affect it and what they can then do to best prepare for it.
Of the three changes the last one, arguably, had the most impact on my writing. By empathising so closely with my readers I was able to write the book they wanted rather than the book I thought they needed. The end results speak for themselves. Riding high on the Amazon best-seller lists across three countries and two continents, Google Semantic Search, got there before publication, even. The emails, reviews and Google+ comments I receive from total strangers who buy it have convinced me that, for me at least, this is now the preferred way to write.
The most striking impact however has been on the process of writing itself. By integrating myself and my journey so closely with my social network contacts the process of writing has been transformed. I am, now, no longer “alone” and writing is no longer “lonely”. It has become social in every meaning of the word.
Google Semantic Search: Search Engine Optimization (Seo) Techniques That Get Your Company More Traffic, Increase Brand Impact, and Amplify Your Online Presence
I say ‘traditionally’ here, because all of this is changing and I am living proof of that. Before I explain how, or why, let’s examine what a social business is and what it does. The salient point of any business model is a sense of realignment of purpose. From producing a product (and a book, once written, is just that) that is intended to address a particular need in its audience to listening to its potential customers first, understanding what they need and working to produce something they really want.
It sounds simple. It ain’t. It requires steely resolve and the willingness to take a risk. It needs focus to take the professional part of the business that has depth and expertise and blend it carefully with the needs of its target audience without using the latter as a shortcut for all the critical choices only the professional can make.
When I conceived "Google Semantic Search" I knew I was ahead of the wave, my corporate speaking engagements had exposed me to a real need for businesses, entrepreneurs and individuals. My research told me this was coming much faster than anticipated. In the process of writing it, however, I experimented with something new.
I used my extensive following in Google+ to create a real conversation. As I was writing the book, I used snippets from research, data and ideas to seed the stream, to question, entice, guide and even surprise. I was doing two things through this activity: first I was sharing my own sense of enthusiasm for semantic search and a semantic web that will have an impact that goes way beyond the normal search vertical. Second, I was listening, really listening to concerns, ideas and needs. The things my potential audience needed to know, the concerns they had, the issues they were facing.
My conversation flowed naturally. I did not, at that stage, say that I was writing a book, though, at the very last stage of the conversation it became inevitable and had to be mentioned. My intent was to create, as much as I could, a fully participatory experience.
Here’s what happened:
My book writing style changed. Search is a largely technical subject with vast non-technical ramifications. Writing about it has to be a little detached, largely academic, tech-driven approach. I took a different path. I chose to write conversationally, the way, as a matter of fact I was interacting in the Google+ stream.
My book content broadened. I made a few judgement calls. Every book is defined not just by what it includes but also by what it excludes. Frequently, what’s left unsaid is every bit as important as what is being written about. The scope broadened to include the impact of semantic search in marketing and, even, everyday living. I would not have done that without the conversation that had taken place.
My audience and I arrived at the same set of goals. This is a critical step. By closely understanding what their needs were I was able to identify with them. Those who buy my book want to know what’s happening to their digital world, how changes in search affect it and what they can then do to best prepare for it.
Of the three changes the last one, arguably, had the most impact on my writing. By empathising so closely with my readers I was able to write the book they wanted rather than the book I thought they needed. The end results speak for themselves. Riding high on the Amazon best-seller lists across three countries and two continents, Google Semantic Search, got there before publication, even. The emails, reviews and Google+ comments I receive from total strangers who buy it have convinced me that, for me at least, this is now the preferred way to write.
The most striking impact however has been on the process of writing itself. By integrating myself and my journey so closely with my social network contacts the process of writing has been transformed. I am, now, no longer “alone” and writing is no longer “lonely”. It has become social in every meaning of the word.
Google Semantic Search: Search Engine Optimization (Seo) Techniques That Get Your Company More Traffic, Increase Brand Impact, and Amplify Your Online Presence
June 16, 2013
How the Creative Choices of the Author Affect the Reader
Creative choices are usually associated with fiction writing. It is traditionally thought that fiction writers are the ones with all the genre-defining creative choices to make. They are the ones, after all, who work in made-up universes where all the rules are in a state of flux and where the characters’ fate is not decided until the author says so. Right?
Perhaps. Or rather yes, but not only. In truth writers make creative choices all the time, even when we are not writing fiction. You’d think of course that non-fiction writing is pretty much cut-and-dried. After all, if we are not making up anything and we are really relating what is (or what will be) extrapolating from cold, hard facts, then what is there to decide?
The truth is that a writer whether of fiction or non-fiction is not just a creator, they are also a metafilter, straining through their own conscious awareness a perception of what the reader wants to know and expects to gain. Take my latest book as an example. In writing “Google Semantic Search: Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Techniques That Get Your Company More Traffic, Increase Brand Impact, and Amplify Your Online Presence” a book on semantic search that details the best practical ways to operate on the semantic web I had not only to put in everything a reader would need to help them create greater visibility for their online business and make better use of the semantic web but I also had to actively think what the reader might already know (and how to guide them from there) and what they’d expect to find when they picked up the book.
These two points of reference created a roadmap for the creation of the content that had me make compromises in some chapters, create an entirely new one, add a lot more depth to others and make some others, still, a lot less technical and academic than I might otherwise had been inclined to make them.
Although the writing of the book was squarely on my shoulders at no point did I go for what I wanted to write as the only guide. For a start when it comes to search and the development of the web I am versed with the latest research and I am truly excited by academic flights of fancy that try to take search concepts into a new sphere. There is an elegance to the mathematics behind it all that I find attractive. They express concepts in a clinical, real-world ambiguity-free way that helps concentrate the mind and reveal what is possible. And it is addictive. Yet to the reader this is of scant practical use.
What the reader wants to know is: When is something happening, how will it impact their online work life and what should they do about it, in that order. This forces a different set of choices to be made. So what I included in the book and what I left out was guided by the precise need of the reader rather than the desire of the author.
To my mind authors and readers are mutually involved in an unwritten contract. Readers who pick up a book and pay money for it place their trust and a not insignificant amount of faith on the author. An author then needs, in turn, to respect that and create the kind of book the reader is most likely to find works for them. Authors who ignore that contract and just write the books they want to write, end up pleasing themselves more than their audience and that ends up being disappointing, ultimately, for both.
Google Semantic Search: Search Engine Optimization (Seo) Techniques That Get Your Company More Traffic, Increase Brand Impact, and Amplify Your Online Presence
Perhaps. Or rather yes, but not only. In truth writers make creative choices all the time, even when we are not writing fiction. You’d think of course that non-fiction writing is pretty much cut-and-dried. After all, if we are not making up anything and we are really relating what is (or what will be) extrapolating from cold, hard facts, then what is there to decide?
The truth is that a writer whether of fiction or non-fiction is not just a creator, they are also a metafilter, straining through their own conscious awareness a perception of what the reader wants to know and expects to gain. Take my latest book as an example. In writing “Google Semantic Search: Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Techniques That Get Your Company More Traffic, Increase Brand Impact, and Amplify Your Online Presence” a book on semantic search that details the best practical ways to operate on the semantic web I had not only to put in everything a reader would need to help them create greater visibility for their online business and make better use of the semantic web but I also had to actively think what the reader might already know (and how to guide them from there) and what they’d expect to find when they picked up the book.
These two points of reference created a roadmap for the creation of the content that had me make compromises in some chapters, create an entirely new one, add a lot more depth to others and make some others, still, a lot less technical and academic than I might otherwise had been inclined to make them.
Although the writing of the book was squarely on my shoulders at no point did I go for what I wanted to write as the only guide. For a start when it comes to search and the development of the web I am versed with the latest research and I am truly excited by academic flights of fancy that try to take search concepts into a new sphere. There is an elegance to the mathematics behind it all that I find attractive. They express concepts in a clinical, real-world ambiguity-free way that helps concentrate the mind and reveal what is possible. And it is addictive. Yet to the reader this is of scant practical use.
What the reader wants to know is: When is something happening, how will it impact their online work life and what should they do about it, in that order. This forces a different set of choices to be made. So what I included in the book and what I left out was guided by the precise need of the reader rather than the desire of the author.
To my mind authors and readers are mutually involved in an unwritten contract. Readers who pick up a book and pay money for it place their trust and a not insignificant amount of faith on the author. An author then needs, in turn, to respect that and create the kind of book the reader is most likely to find works for them. Authors who ignore that contract and just write the books they want to write, end up pleasing themselves more than their audience and that ends up being disappointing, ultimately, for both.
Google Semantic Search: Search Engine Optimization (Seo) Techniques That Get Your Company More Traffic, Increase Brand Impact, and Amplify Your Online Presence
March 27, 2012
Deciding on a Cover for the Social Media Mind
I have always believed that you should never judge a book by its cover. When I am in bookshops I browse for hours checking books out and my routine is always the same. I check out the title, pick up the book, read the blurb on the back, then open it up and read the first five pages. If I am not gripped by then I usually put it back.
Of course I know all the studies which tell me that we are visual animals. I know that there are 538 million cells involved in the processing of visual imagery in the brain. I know the phrase “a picture stops the eye so that content can engage the mind”, I know that “a picture is worth a thousand words,” and that “what we see is what we look for”, but I usually choose to ignore them because when it comes to books and their value I want to believe that they are more than the sum of their parts and that their packaging does not matter.
So, in my refusal to water down my idealism in this I have become what publishers regard as the easiest going of authors. Cover proofs are sent to me and my usual response is “Fab! Let’s go with it!”. That’s because I know that somebody has put deep thought into it and worked hard to create a book cover which was visually appealing and my contribution, mainly, has been to produce the words which go between the covers.
The Social Media Mind was the exception in this. Having spent the best part of a year writing the book I found myself spending long hours thinking scenarios which would help the illustrators come up with the cover. The reason is not that I suddenly changed my mind. I really believe that if you choose books just by the way they look you deserve what you get. But this was one book where, I was told, I could not rely on my reputation in search marketing and SEO. This was a book on social media which was many things to many different people. I needed to help get across the depth and complexity of the subject in a simple way (yeah, publishers send emails like that to authors) and that my assistance in the cover was something which would help the illustrators (there were two of them involved) help pin it down.
The first lesson I learnt from this is that you should not ask an author to think up a cover for his book. I grew up in the 70s when I had found a treasure trove of books and not a single one whose cover ever did justice to its subject. I suddenly found myself responsible for creating the seeds around which the illustrator’s art would grow.
The Social Media Mind is an expansive book. It covers the conceptual side of social media but it also contains a lot of practical examples and critically examines why social media marketing works and why it doesn’t. I had visions of showing might corporations crumbling, western civilization as we know it collapsing and rising again like a Phoenix born on the social media flames. I suggested scientists looking through microscopes and connecting with artists doing something different half a world away. I found myself waking up at three in the morning and scribbling on the pad on my bedside table “Gamers arranging complex str…” before going back to sleep.
In the morning I learnt that writing in the dark was not my forte and that having committed an idea to paper (as in this case) it was next to impossible to reconstruct it again in my mind, so that I never managed to remember the indecipherable words that followed the promising opening line of gamers arranging something complex.
The emails between me and the illustrators grew longer and more frequent until I was sure that I could detect a certain air of desperation in their pleading for definitive direction. Inspiration sometimes does come from desperation.
I was thinking just how difficult it was to portray the subtle differences between social networks. I was thinking that Facebook appeals to our primal need for a social circle, the security of friends and family and given the number of pouty-lipped women I have seen photographing themselves in their smalls, to the voyeur instinct in us, the part of ourselves which likes to eavesdrop on other people’s lives.
Twitter, on the other hand, with its broadcast, one-way, quality is a fairly challenging, economical way of communicating. You have something to say and you have to think how to say it pithily in a way which still makes sense and can allow those who read it to interact and re-Tweet it.
Google Plus was barely five months old back then and I was having some amazing conversations with total strangers plus I was discovering more material of greater quality than I had ever managed to in all the years I had been active on Facebook. It was while I was pondering all these that it sort of hit me.
In a way, I reasoned, each social network represented an evolutionary aspect of our minds. Social media, as a whole, has never been far away from us. It is part of our evolution as a species. It was there when the Persian empire became the world’s first super power and it was a catalyst during the Reformation. It helped again, make and shape the British Empire. I figured that identifying each social network with a progressive part of our brains which would reflect the evolutionary drive of our species made sense.
I tentatively floated the idea to the illustrators and waited. Uncharacteristically they took a day and a half to respond by which time I was thinking I had managed to exhaust the limits of my welcome with them. I was about to email them again and enquire if they were still talking to me when I received an email with the proposed cover. It clicked. A couple of tweaks later and within a day it had gone for production. It represents the work of three people, one of whom had been writing and researching the book for a year and been thinking about it for much, much longer and in the end it turned out to be as obvious as the title.
Of course I know all the studies which tell me that we are visual animals. I know that there are 538 million cells involved in the processing of visual imagery in the brain. I know the phrase “a picture stops the eye so that content can engage the mind”, I know that “a picture is worth a thousand words,” and that “what we see is what we look for”, but I usually choose to ignore them because when it comes to books and their value I want to believe that they are more than the sum of their parts and that their packaging does not matter.
So, in my refusal to water down my idealism in this I have become what publishers regard as the easiest going of authors. Cover proofs are sent to me and my usual response is “Fab! Let’s go with it!”. That’s because I know that somebody has put deep thought into it and worked hard to create a book cover which was visually appealing and my contribution, mainly, has been to produce the words which go between the covers.
The Social Media Mind was the exception in this. Having spent the best part of a year writing the book I found myself spending long hours thinking scenarios which would help the illustrators come up with the cover. The reason is not that I suddenly changed my mind. I really believe that if you choose books just by the way they look you deserve what you get. But this was one book where, I was told, I could not rely on my reputation in search marketing and SEO. This was a book on social media which was many things to many different people. I needed to help get across the depth and complexity of the subject in a simple way (yeah, publishers send emails like that to authors) and that my assistance in the cover was something which would help the illustrators (there were two of them involved) help pin it down.
The first lesson I learnt from this is that you should not ask an author to think up a cover for his book. I grew up in the 70s when I had found a treasure trove of books and not a single one whose cover ever did justice to its subject. I suddenly found myself responsible for creating the seeds around which the illustrator’s art would grow.
The Social Media Mind is an expansive book. It covers the conceptual side of social media but it also contains a lot of practical examples and critically examines why social media marketing works and why it doesn’t. I had visions of showing might corporations crumbling, western civilization as we know it collapsing and rising again like a Phoenix born on the social media flames. I suggested scientists looking through microscopes and connecting with artists doing something different half a world away. I found myself waking up at three in the morning and scribbling on the pad on my bedside table “Gamers arranging complex str…” before going back to sleep.
In the morning I learnt that writing in the dark was not my forte and that having committed an idea to paper (as in this case) it was next to impossible to reconstruct it again in my mind, so that I never managed to remember the indecipherable words that followed the promising opening line of gamers arranging something complex.
The emails between me and the illustrators grew longer and more frequent until I was sure that I could detect a certain air of desperation in their pleading for definitive direction. Inspiration sometimes does come from desperation.
I was thinking just how difficult it was to portray the subtle differences between social networks. I was thinking that Facebook appeals to our primal need for a social circle, the security of friends and family and given the number of pouty-lipped women I have seen photographing themselves in their smalls, to the voyeur instinct in us, the part of ourselves which likes to eavesdrop on other people’s lives.
Twitter, on the other hand, with its broadcast, one-way, quality is a fairly challenging, economical way of communicating. You have something to say and you have to think how to say it pithily in a way which still makes sense and can allow those who read it to interact and re-Tweet it.
Google Plus was barely five months old back then and I was having some amazing conversations with total strangers plus I was discovering more material of greater quality than I had ever managed to in all the years I had been active on Facebook. It was while I was pondering all these that it sort of hit me.
In a way, I reasoned, each social network represented an evolutionary aspect of our minds. Social media, as a whole, has never been far away from us. It is part of our evolution as a species. It was there when the Persian empire became the world’s first super power and it was a catalyst during the Reformation. It helped again, make and shape the British Empire. I figured that identifying each social network with a progressive part of our brains which would reflect the evolutionary drive of our species made sense.
I tentatively floated the idea to the illustrators and waited. Uncharacteristically they took a day and a half to respond by which time I was thinking I had managed to exhaust the limits of my welcome with them. I was about to email them again and enquire if they were still talking to me when I received an email with the proposed cover. It clicked. A couple of tweaks later and within a day it had gone for production. It represents the work of three people, one of whom had been writing and researching the book for a year and been thinking about it for much, much longer and in the end it turned out to be as obvious as the title.
March 16, 2012
A Picture of Me
Some people come into writing because they are chosen by it and some people come into writing because they choose it. It’s a fine distinction and it can make all the difference between those who write to live and those who write for a living. I belong to the former, first, even though now, writing is my main job description.
I do not know when I started wanting to write but I know what it felt like. It’s like a sense of pressure building up inside your head and staying there, not going away, making you feel like you are going to explode. And the only thing that can relieve it is … writing.
Funnily enough I studied Chemical Engineering as a career, before making a sideways leap at graduation into technical writing, at first, and then journalism. My short stories appeared in some of the UK’s most cutting-edge literary magazines, then I branched into business writing and business journalism before doing a long but rewarding stint in business communications and PR for one of the UK’s blue-chip retailers.
I sometimes view these as detours, but in reality they are all connected by a number of threads. Writing is all about communication. I grew up wanting badly to write fiction and despaired at ever being able to get the pictures inside my head onto paper. I learnt, along the way, that the challenge of communicating is constant, that the thrill of connecting with readers never goes away and that every book is a challenge of its own.
I made the transition into full time writing in 2011 with the publication of my third book on search engine optimisation (called Brilliant SEO: what you need to know and how to do it). I have been fortunate that up to now each book I have written has made it to the Amazon best-selling charts. The feedback I get humbles me and, in the social media age, connecting with readers in such a direct way is a privilege I had never imagined possible.
What really drives me these days is the fact that the world of business and the world of marketing are so closely integrated in their impact on daily life. It is exciting, it is challenging and writing books which have practical value makes me feel that I contribute in a very tangible way towards the shaping of a world that is a little bit better than the one we have left behind.
Do I write fiction at all these days? All the time. I have notebooks filled with characters, storyline ideas and situations. I have told myself that I need to get through the business book writing phase and then do some real writing. So, that’s what I am doing now. Writing.
I do not know when I started wanting to write but I know what it felt like. It’s like a sense of pressure building up inside your head and staying there, not going away, making you feel like you are going to explode. And the only thing that can relieve it is … writing.
Funnily enough I studied Chemical Engineering as a career, before making a sideways leap at graduation into technical writing, at first, and then journalism. My short stories appeared in some of the UK’s most cutting-edge literary magazines, then I branched into business writing and business journalism before doing a long but rewarding stint in business communications and PR for one of the UK’s blue-chip retailers.
I sometimes view these as detours, but in reality they are all connected by a number of threads. Writing is all about communication. I grew up wanting badly to write fiction and despaired at ever being able to get the pictures inside my head onto paper. I learnt, along the way, that the challenge of communicating is constant, that the thrill of connecting with readers never goes away and that every book is a challenge of its own.
I made the transition into full time writing in 2011 with the publication of my third book on search engine optimisation (called Brilliant SEO: what you need to know and how to do it). I have been fortunate that up to now each book I have written has made it to the Amazon best-selling charts. The feedback I get humbles me and, in the social media age, connecting with readers in such a direct way is a privilege I had never imagined possible.
What really drives me these days is the fact that the world of business and the world of marketing are so closely integrated in their impact on daily life. It is exciting, it is challenging and writing books which have practical value makes me feel that I contribute in a very tangible way towards the shaping of a world that is a little bit better than the one we have left behind.
Do I write fiction at all these days? All the time. I have notebooks filled with characters, storyline ideas and situations. I have told myself that I need to get through the business book writing phase and then do some real writing. So, that’s what I am doing now. Writing.
David Amerland on Writing
Writing has changed. Like everything else on the planet it is being affected by the social media revolution and by the transition to the digital medium in a hyper-connected world. I am fully involved
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