Nick Thacker's Blog, page 29
June 22, 2012
Does Your Blog Taste Like Chicken?
I cooked pork for dinner tonight.
Seared, then simmered in a garlic-white wine reduction sauce, sprinkled with parsley and pepper.
It was awesome.
But as I was thinking about the method–prepare, add ingredients, then cook until desired doneness, I couldn’t help but think of the relationship between cooking and blogging (I know, I’m a huge dork).
As we sat down to eat, I thought about the expression “tastes like chicken,” and I couldn’t help but wonder:
Is that a good thing or a bad thing?
When we c...
June 20, 2012
27 Ways to Make Money As An Author You Haven’t Thought Of
Okay, you’ll probably have heard of some of these things.
Amazon, Smashwords, and “directly through your website” are going to be pretty common heavy-hitters. But the point of this post is really more about the multiple streams of income.
Iwrote a post not too long ago on the amazing blog and websiteMenWithPenscalledWhat Writing A Book Can Teach You About Freelancing. It was a good post I think, but it didn’t really capture the “full” essence of my thoughts on that subject.
The idea in any parti...
June 15, 2012
What Are Your Life’s “Markers”?
strong> Note: This post is s guest post submission from Yvonne Root, a LiveHacked.com reader. Your Mark is as Important as Your Markers Walking away from the devastation after earthquakes, hurricanes or tornados with life and limb intact is an ultimate moment for some. A turning point. A distinct division. A marker. Sometimes we share markers with our families – the day Justin was born.At other times, our markers spread across neighborhoods or cities – the day of the fl...
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photo:
NeilsPhotography
June 14, 2012
Building A Home Base As An Author
As you might know, I recently released a book on blogging called Building A Blog for Readers: 101 Questions to Ask Before Launching Your Empire. It’s a quick read, almost like a manifesto, but it’s something that I believe is crucial for bloggers, online marketers, and of course–authors.
The reason I say it’s “crucial” is that it forces you to think in terms of actual visionrather than in sugarplums and daisies. It forces you to get outside of yourself and ask the tough, nitty gritty questions...
June 11, 2012
Selling Books: The Only Guide You’ll Ever Need
Note: This post is reallylong. I believe it’s pretty darn good, and there’s lots of information in it. If there’s onepost I’ve ever written that trulysums up my thoughts on writing, books, and making money from them, this is it. Here we go!
Since I’ve started this blog, I’ve grown a highly-targeted email list, gained attention in a crowded niche (writing and productivity), and have been able to correspond directly with literally hundredsof people.
I’m not famous, and didn’t start by being well-...
June 9, 2012
Introducing: The Writer’s Toolbox
There’s an interesting paradox about technology. The better it gets, the more it’s able to help us get things done better, cheaper, and faster.
But at the same time, the promiseof that technology (whether it fulfills the promise or not) can cause us to believe we need more and more of it.
When the personal typewriter was introduced, pencil and paper began to take a backseat for many writers except the most diehard wordsmiths.
Likewise, when word processing became a hit, suddenly every individual...
June 7, 2012
Why You Should Start Doing My Work for Me
I mean it–you should start doing my work for me!
Sure, you’ve got other things to do–like, for example, your ownwork. I get it.
But here’s the deal: I don’t care about yourwork nearly as much as I care about mine.
I’m not trying to be inane.
There’s a fundamental lesson in all of this that I really think is important for writers to grasp and understand. It has to do with earningattention andreaping what we sow.
Specifically, this is a “pay-it-forward” kind of principle, and you’ll see what I mean...
June 5, 2012
How I Wrote a Book in a Month
From Nick: This is a guest post from Jared De Roo, and it’s a great journey through the joys of using a realsoftware package to write a novel–in this case, Scrivener. I’ve posted about Scrivener before, and how I’ve used it to write a novel in a month or so, and Jared does a good job explaining it as well.
However, what I love about this post is that it’s not about the software as much as it is about the sheer need to just writeand stick to something you knowyou want to finish. As Jared says,...
May 31, 2012
The 3 Keys to Building Platforms
Do you know where the term “soapboxing” comes from?
If you’re old enough to remember (I’m not, but I’ve seenMusic Man), “soapboxing” was literally a type of word-of-mouth sales strategy, used by door-to-door salesmen of yesteryear and politicians. They’d pull up to a one-horse town, just outside of the barbershop and across from the town square, whip out an overturned soap box, and start delivering their message to whomever walked past.
This “elevated platform” strategy is basically the origina...
May 29, 2012
How to Know If You’re Asking the Right Questions
In the blogging and online game, people often think that they’ll know they’re “asking the right questions” when they strike it rich, hit “overnight success,” or otherwise become famous.
You’re better than that, and you know there’s more to it than that.
But really, though, what arethe “right questions?”
And frankly, why is it so important to be asking them?
The Right Questions
The right questions to ask aren’t about time (“how long until I’m rich/famous/sexy/etc.”) or numbers (“how many visitors u...
