Ian Lamont's Blog, page 7

Selling to the federal government/GSA: a bureaucratic nightmare for small businesses

Selling to the federal government via the U.S. General Services Administration (GSA) sounds great in theory. The government spends billions every year on all kinds of stuff, ranging from toilet paper to tanks. Many purchases are made through GSA contracts. Orderscan be huge, and unlike the commercial books business, you don’t usually have to deal with returns. The government has all kinds of programs that give special consideration to small businesses, and even set up an e-commerce website ca...

A new user guide for the new Google Drive and Google Docs

This week, our top-selling guide received a facelift and a major content update. Google Drive & Docs In 30 Minutes (2nd edition) is now available for the Kindle, iPad, Nook, and Android devices, along with PDF and paperback versions (ISBN: 9781939924315). We hired a professional book designer to handle the layout for the new edition, but even more importantly, I made some critical updates to the contents of the book, which had become out of sync with new features and improvements to Google’s software interfaces. The post below describes the history of my Google Drive and Google Docs book, and the project to create a second edition. ... (Read more)

Kindle Textbook Creator goes up against iBooks Author: No contest (yet)

I have been dreaming of the day when someone releases a tool that makes it easy to create ebooks that contain video, snazzy layouts, and other interactive features that make for a rich reading and learning experience on a tablet. In my iBooks Author review, I was impressed with the creative possibilities and the ability to include video and high-quality photo layouts. However, I was disappointed with the lack of support for other platforms — there was no way to export a version of the book for the Kindle, the Nook, or Android tablets. So when Gigaom started talking about Kindle Textbook Creator going up against iBooks Author, I was very interested in seeing if Amazon’s new tool could fit my needs. I was disappointed in the results, as you will see from my review of Kindle Textbook Creator ... (read more)

Is it possible to learn Excel in just 30 minutes?

Today I am pleased to announce the second edition of Excel Basics In 30 Minutes. Yes, it’s possible to quickly pick up the basics, and to that end the new guide concentrates on the features and skills which I believe will most benefit new users. It is not intended to be a comprehensive guide, and I am not making any guarantees that readers will be able to take over their companies’ accounting departments, but 30 minutes after starting, readers will hopefully have learned some core spreadsheet skills … and even a trick or two!

Don’t believe me? Then listen to what readers have to say. There is already one review of the second edition of Excel Basics In 30 Minutes from a Goodreads member. She said:

Nice guide to learning how to use Excel for most basic functions. As someone who only uses Excel occasionally, I found the tutorials to be easy to follow. Additionally the visual aids (images of what your screen should look like) were beneficial. It is an easy book to reference if you are having an issue with a particular Excel task.

This is a major update, not only because it covers the most recent versions of Excel (e.g., Excel 2013, Excel for Office 365, Excel Online, and Excel for Mac) but also because ...

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Announcing Twitter In 30 Minutes, 2nd Edition

I’m pleased to announce the 2nd edition of our popular Twitter user guide, Twitter In 30 Minutes: How to connect with interesting people, write great tweets, and find information that’s relevant to you. Released this week, it's available in several different formats, including ebook (Kindle, iOS/iPad, and Google Play), paperback, and PDF versions. As part of the launch promotion, I am giving away 10 free electronic editions (more on that here) and I will also talk a little bit about the guide itself, including what’s new and why I wrote a second edition of the guide, considering the first edition was released less than a year ago!

The original 1st edition of Twitter In 30 Minutes was released in ...

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How to spend 30 minutes on a LinkedIn Summer Makeover

One of the most successful titles in the In 30 Minutes series is LinkedIn In 30 Minutes: How to create a rock-solid LinkedIn profile and build connections that matter by Melanie Pinola. This summer, we’re planning to share some LinkedIn love with a special promotion aimed at helping you give your LinkedIn profile a much-needed makeover!

Why would your LinkedIn profile need a makeover? Maybe it’s because the last time you updated it was when George W. Bush was still president. Or, maybe you’ve left out key elements. Even if you regularly update it with new job titles and summaries, you are probably missing out on some opportunities to really make it shine. This is not only useful for people actively searching for new positions, but also for so-called “passive” candidates who are satisfied with their current job but would respond if the right offer popped up.

LinkedIn In 30 Minutes is a quick summer read that will give you lots of practical advice on how to get your profile optimized. It includes sections about:

* LinkedIn registration and basic profile setup
* How building a LinkedIn profile is different than creating a resume
* How to find the right keywords to include in your profile
* Three things your LinkedIn profile must communicate
* Real-world examples of successful profiles and keywords

LinkedIn In 30 Minutes also has lots of tips about how to effectively network using LinkedIn. Having the right set of connections can make a huge difference when it comes time to look for a new job or advance your career, and Melanie’s guide has got you covered with explanations of the following topics:

* How to find people to connect with
* Crafting personalized connection invitations
* How to address unemployment, résumé gaps, or a career change
* LinkedIn Groups: Pros, cons, and participation strategies

Finally, she covers the LinkedIn job market, from how to find job listings to tactics for accessing the “hidden” job market on LinkedIn.

So, how can you get started with your LinkedIn Summer Makeover? We’ve already given away free copies of the paperback edition on Goodreads, and will also have giveaways for the iTunes and PDF editions — keep an eye on the @in30minutes Twitter account for announcements, which will take place throughout the summer. But if you don’t want to wait, we’ve dropped the price of the Kindle and all other ebook editions to just $4.99 (a savings of nearly 30%!). Load it up on your Kindle/iPad/Nook or Android e-reader today, so you can have it ready, whether you’re at the beach or lounging at your favorite vacation spot!

How to create conversational dialogue

Over the weekend, author Ursula Pearson sent me the manuscript for the sequel to Soulene, one of a small number of fiction titles published by i30 Media. Soulene is set in feudal times, and tells the story of 16-year-old girl mastering the healing arts as an apprentice of Hospice de Coeur Rouge, known as the Red Heart Healers by the local peasantry. Using a backdrop of 12th-century English and French history, Pearson weaves a fascinating tale about a young woman discovering her identity in troubled times. The sequel, called “Soulene II” in its draft state, continues the story of the young healer, and her trials and tribulations in early medieval Europe.

In this blog post, I am going to describe an issue that I spotted in parts of the draft manuscript for Soulene II: Dialogue that doesn’t seem conversational. It happened a few times, usually with new characters whose relationships with established characters hadn’t been fleshed out. I gave Pearson some suggestions on how to turn these one-sided passages into true dialogue, and I am going to share my way of handling it, using an example from the manuscript.

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Apple's iBooks Author: Pros and cons

Last week, my small publishing company released a new In 30 Minutes title that is remarkable in several regards. Easy Chinese Recipes In 30 Minutes by author Shiao-jang Kung is the first cookbook in the In 30 Minutes series. It's priced at just 99 cents, another first. It's also the first title made with iBooks Author (Apple's authoring tool for rich media ebooks) which made it possible to embed video and other app-like elements such as photo slideshows. I am going to give a short review of iBooks Author, covering some of the pros and cons of the tool. I also urge you to download a copy of the cookbook for your iPad/iPad Air/iPad mini -- it's only 99 cents, and it will let you see what the finished product looks like and how the various rich media elements work (it's also a great cookbook!)

I have known about iBooks Author for a few years, but never had to use it until now. Even though there are already many In 30 Minutes guides in Apple's iBookstore, all of them were created using other production tools -- namely Scrivener, which lets me export a single manuscript in various formats to multiple devices. This means I can relatively easily create an ebook that uses Amazon's .mobi format for the Kindle, PDF versions for on-screen reading and paperback production, and books based on the ePub format, which can be uploaded to Apple's iBookstore via Apple's clunky iTunes Producer software.

So why turn to iBooks Author? The answer: Video. I have been producing how-to videos since 2012 on YouTube, and have wanted to bring video to my titles, but Scrivener doesn't allow authors or editors to place video clips inside ebooks. For that matter, most other production tools don't either. While pundits have been talking about video and app-like functionality in ebooks for years, and various ebook technical specifications support video in theory, only Apple has actually incorporated video and other rich media functionality into its production tools. I know that video and other new features will come to the Kindle and Android e-readers in the future, but I want to start experimenting now … and iBooks Author was the only tool that allowed me to do so.

I have to admit that I was a bit apprehensive about trying the tool. It wasn't just the fact that ...

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Positioning: A powerful marketing concept that authors and publishers can use

A few years ago, I picked up Positioning , by Al Ries (with Jack Trout). It's a quick read, and an old book (it was written in the 1980s, and based on a series of articles for Advertising Age that date from the early '70s) but it was recommended by Lean Startup practitioner Ash Maurya, author of Running Lean. When I began writing books, I used some of the ideas in Positioning to position this Dropbox guide as well as a second guide that explains how to use Google Drive. But it wasn't just the technical topics that appealed to people -- I actually created a series of guidebooks that can be read in 30 minutes. I learned from customers that this "positioning" is very compelling. It's worth digging into the concept to learn how it can be applied elsewhere, while keeping in mind that there are some limitations.

Positioning starts with several compelling premises. First, we are constantly bombarded with marketing messages. "We have become the world's first overcommunicated society," Ries writes. "Each year, we send more and receive less." As a result of the huge volume of marketing messages, advertising is like a "very light fog that envelops your prospects." Note this was written long before the advent of the World Wide Web and mobile phones!Beyond the challenge of getting noticed, is the issue of convincing people to believe in the messaging. According to Ries, this is where many companies make a big mistake -- trying to change audiences' minds that their products are better than the market leaders.

"Were the average consumer rational instead of emotional, there would be no need for advertising," Ries says. The reasoning here: Customers would gravitate toward better-quality products, regardless of who produced them or how they were marketed. Of course, that's not what happens -- people tend to gravitate toward the familiar brands and products at the "top of the ladder" for each product category. And knocking the market leader off that ladder with claims about quality is nearly impossible.

Therefore, according to Ries, it makes sense to work with what customers already know. Strategy should be built from the perspective of ...

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Crowdsourcing Chinese recipe testing for the next "In 30 Minutes" title

Over on the official In 30 Minutes blog, I'm running a little experiment. I'm crowdsourcing the testing of recipes for the next In 30 Minutes title, which will be about Chinese cooking.

Originally, I had considered simply asking a close relative who is also a professional chef to help out with testing, but realized that the crowdsourcing approach has merit -- people in the actual target market can evaluate on the recipes on several axes:

* Is the language understandable?
* Do the amounts given for each ingredient work out?
* Are the instructions about heat accurate (we used gas and a stainless steel wok, but are curious about other cooks with electric ranges, iron or aluminum pans, etc.
* Is the video helpful?
* How does the recipe taste?

So far, one person has tried the first recipe, Soy-braised salmon (蔥燒鮭魚). The results were excellent, but we are still looking for more testers. Anyone who tries it out and gives written feedback that we can use in the book gets a free copy, once it's released.

Get the recipe/watch the video