CAN ONE MAKE A LIVING FROM BLOGGING ALONE?

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Department of the Salt Mines, Talented Slaves Division

Clearly one can make a living from blogging though whether more than few make a good living – something of a personal matter – is an open question which I won’t attempt to answer. Currently, we’re going through a phase during which too many blog writers are chasing too few markets, so the fees paid to many writers are derisory; but that may change as the market mature and more attention is given to the quality of the writing. So far my impression is that a great many blogs are impressively mediocre, but  that some terrific talent is emerging In short, this new genre is going places.

I have been particularly impressed by some of the financial bloggers, and will shortly be posting a list on my TITANIC NATION blog (where I talk about the future of this country) but I am becoming increasingly aware of some marvelous writers who blog about writing and much more besides. One notable example is Carol Tice  who has just sent out a high content blog which lays out the details of how she earned $5,100 in a month. Her golden rule is “Never run out of story ideas” and she certainly seems to follow it because she wrote no less than 58 posts to earn her money. Frankly, she shouldn’t have to because she is damn good, but I suspect that reflects the current state of the market.

A feature of writers like Carol is that they are generous with their information and helpful to aspiring writers.  In that spirit, she is involved with The WM Freelance Writers Connection, a truly invaluable site that is updated every day. There is no doubt about it: If they don’t already, women are going to rule the world. If they are as talented as Carol, and work as hard, they may well deserve to.

But Men Write Too Department

We do indeed and here let me draw your attention to a highly entertaining writer called Brett Kelly who not only wrote the definitive guide to Evernote, Evernote Essentials but publishes a high content blog which helps computer illiterates like myself get the most out of our software. His extremely helpful blog is appropriately called Bridging the Nerd Gap – or chasm in my case. He’s just excellent.

Department of Sad News

About a year ago I did an assignment for the Piasecki Aircraft Corporation and was agreeably surprised to find that their director of administration, Vicky Myers, bore a striking resemblance to actress Jill Clayburg, a real favorite of mine since I saw her in that marvelous movie, An Unmarried Woman.  Today, we learned that Jill Clayburg had died – way too young – of cancer at the age of 66. I’m normally not much of a celebrity follower, but this news has touched me.

GIVEN THAT YOU, THE AUTHOR, ARE GOD, WHAT’S THE HARDEST PART OF WRITING A NOVEL?

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IGUANA IN MARATHON, FLORIDA
OR AUTHOR AFTER A HARD DAY'S WRITING

Department of Decidedly Difficult Things To Do.

One of the advantages of writing non-fiction is that before you, personally, start any work, the very raw material  you have collected will tend to indicate some kind of structure. This isn’t to say you can’t be unorthodox in your approach – starting a biography with a dramatic incident instead of writing it chronologically – but at least there will be an innate logic stemming from your research as to how you will present your writing.

Fiction suffers from the great advantage and disadvantage of offering infinite choice. Where a novel is concerned, the writer is God during the process of creation (though at a certain stage Satan will enter the process in the form of your agent or editor or both). True, being God means you can do anything, but it also makes you responsible for every single aspect of the world that is your book, a truly exhausting task given that one is faced with infinite alternatives. This leads me to the conclusion that when God created Free Will (this is an intellectual concept – you don’t have to believe in God to read on) He did so more in the spirit of delegation than as an act of ultimate generosity. Being no fool, He wanted us to do much of the work. God, as of course you know, is a capitalist.

This leads me to my main point. The hardest part of writing a novel – at least insofar as I am concerned – is the structural phase during which you drastically reduce the variables by making make the hard choices which will shape the actual work. Once that is done – within the six days or so generally conceded to be the standard for creating a world – you can put your feet up on the seventh day and let your characters get on with it. All they have to do is live (though dying is quite the thing where thrillers are concerned). But the hardest part is the plotting.

“ARE YOU SAYING THAT THE ACTUAL WRITING IS EASY?” I hear you scream.

Just not quite as hard; though considerable stamina in involved where a classic big thriller is involved. It’s more like running a marathon. True, running a marathon can kill you, as the pioneer of that race found out first hand, but at least you know where you are going.

Department of Discombobulating Details

Fundamentally, Al Qaeda are waging economic war against us; and we are assisting their efforts by over-reacting and waging the most expensive material war in history against that organization - thus draining our coffers and assisting Bin Laden in his objectives. For example, it costs us $50 million to kill one Taliban - and they are reproducing faster than we can kill them. This makes no sense. 

Department of Unusual Blogs & Fascinating People

I doubt very much that most of us have a handle on the kind of seismic changes which are taking place as a consequence of the digisphere but John Robb author Global Guerillas http://globalguerrillas.typepad.com/ may be such a man. 

PRODUCTIVITY FOR WRITERS? THAT HAS GOT TO BE AN OXYMORON… OR DOES IT?

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Department of Mindboggling Productivity: Enter ‘The Digiter.’

It’s rather hard to get a grip on an author’s productivity because such intangibles as ‘thinking’ come into the equation – and even then how can an observer detect what an author is thinking about, let alone the effectiveness of such thinking. Then there is the interesting fact that an awful lot of work is carried out by one’s subconscious (a tricky little fellow – or fellow-ess -  at the best of times) which seems to do its best work when one is asleep.  

Of course, a time and motion expert could count words; but that’s not as straightforward as it sounds since the quality of the words is a factor; and how does one judge quality since, all too often, neither author nor editor can agree? And how can you depend on measuring word-count when re-writing and polishing are so integral to the writing process?  

I rather like the idea of the languid lifestyle of a creative genius, and was brought up in an environment where a pre-lunch sherry was de rigeur, and lounging by the pool – drink in hand - looking at gorgeous women in Monte Carlo was just what one did every long and lazy summer, but the truth is that I work like a dog and take writing productivity very seriously.  Why so? Well, these days an author has to write, blog, market himself, and – for god’s sake - Tweet.  Hemingway would have had a heart-attack.

Enter ‘The Digiter, ’ the writer equipped with the range of skills and talents demanded by the digisphere – as much at home with multimedia as with wordsmithing, and with the talent for self-promotion and the thick skin of a Donald Trump. Is that a good thing? I’m skeptical but pragmatic. Writing is so demanding I suspect it needs total commitment, and every atom of air and molecule of blood you have left in your body. But I don’t make the rules and the current rules of the game in this Darwinian digisphere we are creating – but certainly not controlling - are demanding in the extreme. They remind me of the French Foreign Legion slogan: “March or die!” though in this case they might be better expressed as “Produce across the spectrum or be unrecognized.”

I’m far from sure all writers seek celebrity status – there are considerable disadvantages to that condition – but I’m fairly certain that all of us seek recognition. As to whether we are all prepared to pay  the price, I can only answer for myself. Suffice to say that: yes, I take productivity very seriously indeed.

Department of Unexpected Feelings & Three Legged Cats

Unending wars and economic gloom apart, by conventional standards my current situation might be regarded as extremely difficult at present, and I have never worked harder in my life; but I find myself strangely content and optimistic. Can writing, so associated with angst, have that effect – or am I under the spell of Charlie, The Three-Legged Cat, and her companion, Chester The Molester? Or am I enjoying morphing into a digiter?  

Digitate on that, and when I know the answer, I’ll tell you. Probably.

IN SEARCH OF THE NEW FRAMERS – THOSE WHO KNOW HOW TO FRAME THE RIGHT QUESTIONS

Image by Getty Images via @daylifeMining the Digisphere Department 
I’m continuing to squirrel away on work to do with marketing my books via the Kindle (to be followed by print) but the more time I spend in the DIGISPHERE - which I define as Internet + Computer Power + (a new wave of brilliant) Software + Mindset - the more I am convinced that we don’t as yet fully appreciate this extraordinary resource we have at our disposal. It’s much more than a giant encyclopedia crossed with instant communications technologies and leavened with multimedia entertainment capabilities. It’s a synergistic environment. The totality is vastly more powerful than the sum of its parts. It is also – both currently and potentially – a problem solving tool of unprecedented power and application.

But are we using it this way? My general sense is that we’re using it tactically to increasingly great effect – sometimes for good and sometimes to our detriment - but we’re not yet using it adequately to get to grips with our more fundamental problems. Yet I am convinced that the answers are out there and that with the aid of the digisphere, we can find them.

This viewpoint leads me to a number of conclusions: 

• We are neither asking the right questions nor framing the questions correctly. We are letting our various ideologies get in the way of our reasoning to a degree which is downright frightening.
• We haven’t given nearly enough thought to the fact the availability of the digisphere means we need to rethink how we do just about everything and particularly how we work. 
• We are absolutely failing to appreciate the sheer power of what we have at our disposal together with the fact that this power and its related capabilities is increasing geometrically. 
• We are in serious danger of letting this power be controlled by special interests to the detriment of democracy and the public good. 
• We need to change the Constitution to deal with this. NOTE: I’ll be developing these thoughts in a separate paper, but my essential point is that most of the big problems we are facing only exist because we are not bothering to solve them. They are no longer intractable. Our current addiction to ideologies – so much easier than thinking - may be an exception. 

Department of Incredibly Ingenious Solutions 
Want the font of your choice to appear in every just as you intended? Check out WebInk http://www.extensis.com/en/WebINK/index.jsp and drool. Being of a graphic turn of mind, I’ve been looking for something like this for some time.

Department of People Who Really Do Seem To Know What They Are Doing 
LinkedIn is a professional network made of some 80 million of the sort of people it tends to be advantageous to network with. It’s business oriented rather than social and, based upon my experience so far, surprisingly effective. However, I would have made much more progress if I had had a guide because it’s not entirely clear at first – or even later on - how everything works. Enter a lady with the rather glamorous name of Kristina Jaramillo who really does seem to know which fork one should use (metaphorically speaking) when in such illustrious company. - Kristina@getlinkedinhelp.com  and http://www.GetLinkedInHelp.com Her phone number is 609-306-6205

Department of Really Good Thrillers 
I hate to boast but since self-promotion is the American Way and this is my blog, I probably should. Let me compromise by quoting Cosmopolitan on Games Of the Hangman:

“The hunt for the Hangman drives the plot with all the urgency of the Indy 500, but the author never sacrifices character to action – a rare grace in this genre… A truly captivating, atmospheric, un-putdownable read.”

The new books will be Kindled very soon – and the wait will be worth it.

IS THE KINDLE ALL IT’S CRACKED UP TO BE?

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Department of “I’m reading again.”

I have many friends who have Kindles and all are impressed by the device. True, it doesn’t do color but its great strength is that one can read one for hours – much like a book – and you don’t get eyestrain. That is HUGE – especially as you get older or if you read a lot. Further, you can scale the type so read at whatever size you wish. Yesterday, an elderly man really got my attention when he proudly produced a Kindle DX (the one with the large screen) and said: “I’m reading again.”

This isn’t to put down the iPad – which is a truly marvelous device – but merely to say that when it comes to pure reading, the Kindle (in its various forms) is the best device currently available. It’s easy on the eyes; it’s light and easy to hold; it makes book buying incredibly easy and convenient – not to say fast; its battery life is excellent; and its controls are well thought out and easy to operate.

My only reservation about the standard Kindle is that I find the screen a little small. It is still entirely readable but it is not quite like a paperback – the standard which it is frequently compared with – because it contains fewer words per line at a comfortable reading size. This isn’t a major problem – page change is now fairly speedy – but I am predisposed towards the larger Kindle DX. Unfortunately, the DX is currently priced at $379. Is it worth it? I think so – if you can afford it. It also makes me think that a laptop with a similar screen might be of some interest. True, one would lack color but there is a lot to be said for a screen that one could read from for hours.

The National Networker Department.

www.thenationalnetworker.blogspot.com  I was introduced to this outfit by a professional colleague that I met on LinkedIn (of which more some other time). Essentially TNNW is a mutual help organization designed to give small companies some of the clout of larger organizations through mutual support. At first I was skeptical – I’ve been exploring so many sites – but then I found they had put out a press release about me that had been picked up by Digg. Hmm! We shall see. The internet is an intriguing combination of the truly impressive and the decidedly dubious and it’s hard to tell at first.

The Really Good Movie I missed the first time around department.

I stumbled across TO KILL THE KING quite by accident. It’s a completely compelling costume drama set during the aftermath of the English Civil War when Oliver Cromwell (Tim Roth) was pushing for King Charles I’s removal but was somewhat held in check by Roundhead general, Lord Thomas Fairfax. Watch and be fascinated. Marvelous screenplay, acting, costumes, décor and direction.  

THE INTERESTING CASE OF THE UNDETECTED BOMB – A TRUE STORY WHICH COULD AFFECT YOU

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Death by FedEx department: We are indeed a manipulated nation.

I have long found it a paradox that the U.S. Government is willing to spend $150 billion odd a year on foreign wars in Afghanistan and Iraq to defeat terrorism while at the same time refusing to take adequate precautions where air freight is concerned. Little old ladies are strip searched but remarkably little has been done about checking out freight. That means that although the cabin may be clear of lethal devices and the pilots safe behind their re-inforced door, you could well be sitting above a bomb in the baggage department. Why has this situation been allowed to exist for so long? Because even after 9/11 there has been an unresolved debate as to who should pay to check out the vast amount of air freight that is sent. Accordingly, I have been prone to talk about ‘death by FedEx’ for many years – to no effect - though really it could be any carrier. It’s a ludicrous situation and a perfect example of how so much that is done in the name of security is mere theatre. We are, indeed, a manipulated nation.

And for my next departmental trick, I’ll freeze all your electronics. Not good if you are in an aircraft. You die.

The recent discovery of explosive devices concealed in toner cartridges (a major intelligence success) should result in more effective precautions being instituted (though don’t count on it) but that will still leave the much neglected field of e-bombs. E-bombs are devices that send out bursts of energy which zap all electronic devices with in range. A nuclear weapon is an ultimate e-bomb but you don’t need a nuclear weapon to get a similar result if range is not an issue. Instead, a comparatively small device – about the size of a domestic refrigerator – could neutralize all electronics  inside a building; or inside an aircraft if conveniently located in the baggage department. And what does an aircraft whose controls don’t work do? It crashes.

But surely an e-bomb would be detected? Actually no. So how do I know? Well, it’s a strange story department

I’ll make it short. I carry out consulting assignments as well as writing and back in 2004, or thereabout, I carried an assignment for a company researching e-pulse weapons. To test out their detectablity, I suggested sending one (suitably de-activated) across the U.S. by air freight. Without warning me in advance, the company did just that – and sent it to my home.  

Department of: If it looks like a bomb and ticks like a bomb and contains explosives, it probably is a bomb. But supposing it just contains electronics and looks like some kind of computer…

No one will say a word.

Oh, and by the way..  department

I feature just such a device in my soon-to-be-released book SATAN’S SMILE. 

WE THE CONFUSED

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Holy Cow! Department

I’ve sworn not to write about the Mid Terms in this blog – I have moved my political and economic stuff to http://vortitanicnation.blogspot.com  (after my book TITANIC NATION) – but ‘We The Confused’ sums up my reaction. Exactly how voting back in the very party that caused the economic mess in the first place will help the situation is a mystery to me – not that I hold the Democrats in much higher regard. But I’ll write about all of that separately after all the results are in. Personally, I’m in favor of doing what the Founders expected to happen after a couple of decades – changing the Constitution to make it work better. It’s a very fine document but it’s not a sacred cow.

Gold Watch Department

I used to think that when I reached retirement age, and was supported by the large pension contributed by a grateful nation, corporation or academic institution – I would probably have won a Nobel Prize - I would spend the morning reading the newspapers and the afternoon tending my roses – before relaxing with a glass of wine (and a woman who looked like Diane Sawyer) in front of TV after the stresses of an exhausting day. Instead, though I’m 66, I’m working about 90 hours a week (not an exaggeration) trying to develop a modus vivendi for the Internet; and, instead of a Diana look-alike, I find myself chatting to a companionable three legged Ninja cat called Charlie (Charlotte to strangers). But I’ll confess I’m enjoying myself; I love to write.     

Overbooked Department

Thanks to recent developments, getting published is now relatively simple but how does one get noticed – let alone bought – in a world where thousands of new books are being published every day (and no book ever goes out of print)? True, I may have as many as one to two million readers out there but will they remember me in this age of distraction?  I look forward to finding out. If forgotten here, I may be forced to write in Chinese. They seem to be the coming country and even a small slice of 1.3 billion readers should enough for a civilized lifestyle. My friend, Chet Vanek, inventor extraordinaire (I met him during a supergun shoot at Livermore Lab) thinks I should give up on Diane and get a Chinese wife. It certainly works for him. New baby too. Nice people.

Where were you? Department

I stopped blogging for a couple of weeks because I wanted to give the digisphere my full focus (akin to descending into the bowels of the earth – and it was a successful mission) - but I’m back to writing with some relief. Exploring is wonderful, but if I don’t write my appendages drop off and my ears droop.

Interesting People Department

I’m privileged to know some very interesting people – and fortunately they span the political spectrum - so I’m forced to exercise my little gray cells. Jed Babbin is one..  He’s forthright, intelligent, thoroughly entertaining and an excellent writer. We don’t quite agree politically but he makes me think, gets me out of my comfort zone. Google him!