10 Steps to Creating a Book Based on Your Blog (Media Shift) I recently self-published an e-book based on my blog, and I want to share what I learned. This post focuses on the editorial process; in subsequent posts, I’ll share tips on coming up with a design for your e-book cover, choosing a publishing platform (I went with Kindle, for now) and marketing your e-book. --- Clayton Christensen Takes Closer Look at How Online Learning will Disrupt K-12 Education (GigaOM) A new study from disruptive economics guru Clayton Christensen’s think tank gives more clarity into how online learning could shape the future of education. --- Digital Tools for Crime Writers...

One of the best ways to learn as a writer is to study the work of other writers. And one of the best ways to learn as an entrepreneur is to study other entrepreneurs. So who should you learn from if you are an author who wants to not just write, but sell? Here are three authors whose blogs should be must-reads for you. These authors blog in an engaging, realistic way about not just the craft of writing, but the business side of it too. In no particular order... 1. J.A. Konrath (http://jakonrath.blogspot.ca/) Konrath's blog, affably titled 'A Newbie's Guide to Publishing,'...

Claire Ryan of The Raynfall Agency posted a pretty good article today on piracy; it includes the agency's thoughts about what authors need to know, along with some practical tips for avoiding piracy of their works. Ryan didn't cover anything new, but she did discuss the basics. I agree with most of what she wrote, but I think she weakened her argument right at the end. Removing DRM and making books available in all territories? That's excellent advice. Readers are far less likely to pirate if they can get your books in the format they like. And if the book is free of...

I'd like to introduce you to my friend Alexander Christou. Xander, as he likes to be called, is eleven years old and one of the smartest kids I know. He’s a passionate reader, a great soccer player, speaks Greek (his father is from Greece), and is a more engaging, interesting conversationalist than some adults I know! Xander blogs about what he reads from his home in Austin, Texas, where he lives with his parents: Karen, an artist, and Christos, a designer. He’s a huge fan and supporter of Austin’s great indie bookstore, BookPeople, and he's in touch with Topher Bradfield, their Children's Outreach Coordinator...

After several weeks of teasing me for burying my head in the sand and stubbornly refusing to transfer my Google Reader RSS feeds elsewhere, the Beloved quietly confessed last night that he has given up on Feedly and moved himself back to Reader, too, for the time being. Once I was done milking the required apology for his weeks of mocking, I asked him why, and found that he had reached the same conclusion—that in the battle between interactivity and linearity, linearity is sometimes the better way. Here's what he didn't like about Feedly: It was too dynamic for him. Every...

Earlier today, O'Reilly Media founder Tim O'Reilly announced in a blog post that after seven years of hosting the Tools of Change for Publishing conference, a digital publishing event attended annually by many of the biggest names and most important members of the industry, the conference is being officially retired. Also folding along with the conference is the popular TOC blog, which, like its namesake series of events, is considered a crucial portion of most every digital publishing professional's media diet. The rationale behind the cancellation of Tools of Change seems largely to be one of financial priority. In the aforementioned blog...

Looks like no social media channel is immune to ads. Today, Tumblr joins the ranks with ads on their mobile devices. Here’s the announcement on their blog. They seem similar to Twitter promoted posts, and the Tumblr staff assures us we’ll only see them “every now and then.” Naturally, I fired up Tumblr on my iPad to see what they look like. Here’s an example: That’s not too bad. It’s animated, which didn’t come through in the screen shot. If I hadn’t been looking specifically for it, I might have missed it since this is the sort of thing the blogs I follow...

L.J. Sellers has picked up on a trend on Amazon. The novelist who writes for the Crime Fiction Collective blog noticed old books popping up on lists for new releases. If the book has been out for several years, how can it become a “hot, new release?” Sellers writes: “The newest trend I've noticed is the republishing of the same book. What I see happening is that familiar books that were competitive on Amazon's crime fiction list, dropped off the list, then came roaring back with a new pub date and a high profile.” Essentially, publishers or authors are re-releasing e-books with a new publishing date, and...

Here's an interesting story from one of my favorite financial writers, Gail Vaz-Oxlade. The Beloved and I are devotees of her 'jar' system for budgeting, and my diligence at applying her simple financial planning 'rules' helped me pay off my student loan and simultaneously save over $10,000 in my retirement account in four years. She also has several popular TV shows that are quite entertaining. But, as Gail explains in this blog post, most of her books have only thus far been available in Canada; her American publisher was concerned that her new book, Money Rules, needed a different 'spin' as a...

One of my chief complaints about Feedly has been alleviated in the service's latest update. The Feedly app has a new vertically-focused layout that is more in line with what Google Reader users are used to. You can now view headlines and a few lines of text without getting distracted by a plethora of images. The Feedly Web app has also been updated with a “title only” layout that is designed to handle a lot bulk. This is exactly what Feedly needed to make Google Reader users feel more at home. Although the layout change is the most important part of...

Shantanu Bala figures he was probably around 10 or 11 years old when he first began picking up the basics of computer programming. "I was just really interested in technology and video games when I was young," he says. Along with a few friends, he started toying around with those video games—learning how they worked, and attempting to modify them—"and eventually," he says, "that led to having to learn more complicated things." Today, Bala is an 18-year-old Arizona State University student, although he's currently spending a semester abroad in Copenhagen. (That's him in the photo on the right.) He's also the...

If only WordPress, Drupal and the like were as easy to use as Windows Live Writer (screenshot) or at least the less cluttered versions of Microsoft Word! Inserting images and sizing and positioning them just right, for example, can be so much simpler with LW and Word. That’s why, here and here, I urged theDigital Public Library of America to come up with a good free blog editor, which in fact could be much more—a Swiss Army knife for all kinds of creation. Everything from high school term papers to heavily footnoted academic documents. You could still use WordPress, Drupal and other content management systems. But you’d do your actual writing with a Live Writer-simple...