Can I Read My WeeBook in Oz?

October 8, 2008 By 100 Comments

This is part three of four.  Click here for part one, or here for part two.

If you don’t like something change it; if you can’t change it, change the way you think about it. 

~Mary Engelbreit

I’ve tried my hand at WeeBooks.  Rubbed the sticks together, but fire’s never flared.  

This doesn’t concern me.  I’ll keep rubbing.  Eventually, I’m sure, I’ll be sweating from the inferno.   Even if I’m wrong, WeeBooks have been well worth their time and casual assessment.  

Every WeeBook so far released was pulled from a portfolio, previously gathering cobwebs.  I will not wait for discovery, and have no fear of burning through my best ideas. 

Thoughts are like air; surrounding every second, and backing every breath.

My brief experience with WeeBooks has been an education.  They’ve taught me to release on schedule, collaborate, and work inside various mediums.  Even considering the dim sales of Number One and Two it!, I’m as proud of those eight pages with David Wright, as anything I’ve done.

I do not believe, despite conventional wisdom, that publishing and self publishing are mutually exclusive.  I do believe, fervently, that I can create content for both mediums without cannibalizing myself.  

I see the dangers in POD (print on demand), I do not see them with WeeBooks.

We are riding the froth of the first wave to crash upon the shore of our new Renaissance.  New writers are born every day.  In a couple of decades they’ll share their words with a world which barely resembles our own.  I have three blogs in my reader from children; eleven, twelve, and thirteen.  The eleven year old has been blogging since he was eight, and doing it in two languages.  Rapid change is twisting our wind; we can hide in the basement, or hitch it to Oz.

My art has yet to meet the needs of my audience.  I recognize this, and endeavor to improve.  Readers are patrons, and I will find a way to pen something which occupies the space between whispering muse and audience needs.  

That, I believe, is Shangri-La for any artist. 

Without ads, I’ll need assistance to draw the full magic from Writer Dad.  Of course, every reader need not purchase, but I will require a small rotating percentage.  The wider the reach, the smaller the needed percentage. 

I could never please every potential buyer on a single Friday, but I can create differing content for various divisions within a single audience.  You might not care to read about compound interest, but your sister Sally in Saucalito might.  Perhaps you’ll gift a download to her, or wait until the release of Writer Dad’s Dozen Rules of Writing (that title, by the way, is entirely hypothetical).  

At a buck, WeeBooks are the price of a tip.  I don’t have a donate button, and won’t be placing one, but I can certainly draw a parallel.  Most of us don’t think twice for dropping our change in the jar when handed a cup of coffee.  I myself never tip less than twenty percent (unless service is dreadful), and tend to frequent where I’ve established banter.  

I see no reason to ignore this design.  I know there are others like me.

Tips come in all sizes.  A minute to comment, Stumble, or Digg, helps these gears to turn.  If you have the ear of a Darren, Seth, Skellie, or Leo; or someone else as forward thinking, and believe they might be interested in any of these ideas, please, pass them forward.

WeeBooks are different; not quite posts, not quite appropriate to send along the publishing path.  Time will tell if I’m mistaken, but I see no reason why a WeeBook, or something similar, won’t be standard in time.

Two weeks back, there was tremendous discussion about various sorts of WeeBooks.  I’d love to continue.  What sort would you like to see, if any, and is there a breed you’d be willing to buy?  If you believe this to be a model doomed to failure, and have a moment to tell me why, please do.

Thanks.

Writer Dad

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Setting the Stage

October 6, 2008 By 99 Comments

“Are we not like two volumes of one book?”

~Marceline Desbordes

Hello, everyone.

Happy Monday.

This blog was born in a blended broth of belief and bravado.  I told no one of the undertaking, save Daisy and a family friend.

Mom, Dad, and KittyTown were gathered in the hug on my second Monday.

I expected to be lonely, at least for a while, but I wasn’t, ever or at all.

I knew I would speak, and hoped I’d be heard, but never presumed to be passing words like pastries across a table, toward every other page in the atlas.

Blogging has been anything but hermetic.  For that I’m thankful.  Maintaining a blog has been like building a talk show (albeit much smaller), where every audience member is afforded equal and instant voice .

There are no phone lines to light, or commercial breaks to pause thought in the white space of the blogosphere.

A blog is not a diary.  It’s an alliance between reader and author.

In the fullest relationships, both parties feel as though they’re standing at the best end of the bond.  Yet no relationship can achieve such sure footing without clear, consistent, and honest communication.

So goes this week’s discussion.

I’m penning this post in Pages, Apple’s answer to MS Word; the icon, a svelte fountain pen, inclined against a bottle of ink.  I’ve always used WordPress to write for Writer Dad, never Pages.  Pages is the suite where I edit my novel, or write letters to my wife and children.  It’s where I scribed our farewell, and where I’m writing the words you’re reading right now.

What rendered these words significant?

I’m laying foundation we’ll be walking a while.  Of course, this blog is enslaved to evolution no different than anything else, but I believe  it is time to place the planks of the floor where we will dance.

Penning our pre-school’s adieu was liberating.  I felt like it kicked down all the doors inside an empty mansion.  I enjoyed being Writer Dad, a lot, but it’s nothing compared to being Sean Platt, Writer Dad.

Now I can sing with all of my voice.

I’m not afraid to try new things (except sushi), and am certainly willing to pioneer, especially while the frontier’s fresh.

The internet is gridlocked in repetition.  I’d like to ponder a model that, to my knowledge, doesn’t exist.

Over the next few days, I’ll discuss why Writer Dad doesn’t display paid ads, and why it likely never will.  We’ll further discuss the new Renaissance, and writing for SEO and keywords.  I’ll elaborate on WeeBooks, ask some questions, and hopefully make you smile.

I’ll smear my ideas across the week.  On Friday, a surprise.

My favorite so far.

More than ever, I’d love to swap thoughts as the cement dries around our blog’s identity.  Please, for the next five days, ask questions, link, and stumble as much as you’re willing and able.

Thanks.

Writer Dad

If you enjoyed my words, please subscribe (for free) by RSS or Email.  If you’re a Stumbler, please consider Stumbling. Thanks

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Writer Dad Through the Looking Glass

September 1, 2008 By 62 Comments

“The artist’s world is limitless.  It can be found anywhere, far from where he lives or a few feet away.  It is always on his doorstep.” 

~Paul Strand

Writer Dad went live six weeks ago.

Though the site has met an audience quickly, there was a long month of prologue that I don’t like to discuss.

Those were the forgotten days of my stumbling stabs at a blog on blogspot, where early posts sounded much like an idiot rambling inside the corridors of an empty cave.  Each post carried the shame of a dirty magazine, and I was too mortified to show them even to Daisy.  

I had nothing to say; at least nothing that anybody would want to hear.

I didn’t have a cat to talk about, I didn’t feel like bragging, or complaining, about my children to a network of strangers, and I certainly wasn’t an expert on anything; at least not enough to pop out how-to lists several times a week.

Eventually, I swallowed, and decided to just start writing.  I could figure it out as I went along… as long as I had the right name.  

I searched for an afternoon that felt like a week.  Everything was taken, including a few ghastly choices, I’m thankful were spoken for.  Almost ready to retire, I typed writer dad dot com into the search field.  

Domain name available.  

I’m a writer and a dad; guess that’s green lights all the way.  

I registered the name and drafted my first post.  

On the other side of the looking glass, and a couple dozen of the states, was a gentleman by the name of David Wright.  He too, was a writer and a dad.  He had just been let go from his job as a reporter, and was trying to decide on his next move.  

He wanted to be Writer Dad.

He checked and the domain was available, but he hedged.  

An hour later it was gone.  

I can imagine the seething hatred David felt for the thief who had crept into his head and embezzled his idea.  Fortunately, animosity died a quick death, and David started reading Writer Dad.

He liked it.

A couple of weeks ago, I received an email.  Dave told me his story, and about his new blog, Blogger Dad.  He’s a seemingly terrific guy.

This is where a fun anecdote turns relevant.  

I believe in the new renaissance, and putting ourselves together.  I believe that barriers are breaking.  

My relationship with Dave is the first seed to crack shell and see a sapling stretch for light.  

He’s a cartoonist, with a long running strip called Todd and Penguin.  We’ve collaborated on our first wee-book, which we will unveil this Friday.  

This is the magic of the internet.  Dave and I weren’t assembled by a team of marketers.  We came together because I put my voice out there and he answered with his.  Collaboration has been superb; swift with no middlemen between us.  

If this is what the future offers, we should all be wise and listen.  

When it comes to things like Twitter and Facebook, I’m still a bit ignorant.  But the exchanges I’ve had with Dave, and a few others like him, could only be described as some of the brightest spots on tomorrow’s dawn.

Writer Dad

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Thank you to everyone who nominated Writer Dad for favorite writing blog. If you haven’t done it yet and would like to, you may do it here. Thanks.

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A New Renaissance

July 28, 2008 By 12 Comments

The New Renaissance

We have indeed found ourselves amidst the first undulating waves of a brand new Renaissance.  Last Monday was the first time I’d made any effort to get my words beneath the eyes of anyone other than Daisy.  Good communication cannot exist in isolation; it was time to clear my throat and step to the podium.  

Now, I imagine that to do this blogging thing well, you have to be at least the teeniest bit geeky.  

Check, no problem there.  

Throughout the week, I spent a few moments here and there, studying my feedburner numbers, more out of curiosity than anything.  I’m still trying to figure out how all this works, and I know I won’t improve if I don’t absorb as much information as well as I can.  So, I started looking through the stats.  On Monday and Tuesday, I saw pretty much exactly what I expected to see – a bunch of random looking hits from across the United States.  By Wednesday, Canada was saying, “Eh.”  By Thursday, the United Kingdom was saying, “Cheers.”  

By Friday, I was looking at evidence of a new Renaissance.

Feeds from The United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom, along with Australia, Russia, and (I kid you not) Uraguay.  

Wow.  A new Renaissance indeed.

I don’t want to kick a dead horse in his teeth, but the internet is a spectacular space.  In fact, the web runs right by amazing while he’s off staring into the ether, then rockets around the world in an internet instant, so he can sneak up behind amazing and slap him on the back of his head.  Saying that, I don’t think most of us even realize how primitive it still really is.  

Not since Guttenberg introduced movable type has there been such a quantum leap in communication.  Now, anyone can have a voice.  Someday, probably, everyone will.  When Andy Warhol said that in the future we’d all have our fifteen minutes, he couldn’t have had any idea how right he’d turn out to be or that a new renaissance was waiting right around the corner.

With so many views screaming for attention, one might argue that the odds of having a single voice make the impact of Martin Luther with his 95 Theses, or Thomas Paine with Common Sense are slim.  

I strongly disagree.  

History works in cycles.  Always has.  Truth finds its voice, and then power starts to shift.  Right now, power is shifting.  If someone has something new to say, relevant to moving us all forward, and they articulate it with enough truth and clarity, people will listen.  

Art and ideas have never been exchanged so efficiently.  We’ve never held so much potential.

Our world is at the brink of a brand new Renaissance, but it’s only ours if we demand it.

Writer Dad

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