Sometimes I think aloud on Twitter in 140 characters or less.

Misuse of punctuation and sometimes dubious word shortening aside, Twitter is pretty good for random, pithy musings. In the case of my update above, none of the folks following replied to this muse.

In 2009 I won’t be subscribing to any of the high volume, often multi-authored posting blogs, like Techcrunch, Mashable, Techdirt, Read/Write/Web, Boing Boing, Engadget, etc. If these blogs post something that catches my eye it will have to be through the filter of others that I am reading (am sure that will happen). This isn’t because these sites aren’t worth reading, it’s because they simply hog too much of my time. Google Reader trends shows how many posts per day blogs you follow are making over a 30 day period. Mashable, for example, shows 8.0 posts a day which to me is 5 posts too time hoggy. If Pete Cashmore is listening, please consider creating a separate best *3* post a day full RSS feed for readers like me.

Would like to subscribe to these blogs if they would consider offering a best of the day full text RSS feed option. And if any of these publications take this suggestion, please use the comments below and/or trackback to tell me about it. I realize that by filtering using something like Y! Pipes or FeedRinse I could hack up these busy sites feed into only showing a maximum number of posts, and I might be motivated to do that in 2009, but in the meantime it’s goodbye to all blogs, big and small blogs alike, who average more than three posts a day. Having read from the RSS firehose for a few years I’ve come to the following 6 brutal conclusions about blogs:

1. no blogs where a writer tries his/her best goes without writing at least one high quality post eventually
2. most blogs rarely have a high quality blog post
3. some blogs are lucky to have one high quality blog post a month (or even less infrequent)
4. even fewer blogs are lucky to have one high quality blog post a week
5. the fewest blogs out there are lucky to have one high quality blog post per day
6. no blogs have more than an average of three good quality blog posts per day

Let’s take these one at a time. With #1 it shows that time and effort eventually pay off. This is a tenet in life that works far outside the blogging realm. Don’t give up my fellow blogging bretheren.

#2 is what I think of as the scrapblogging mindset. What I put in a scrapbook is of interest to me. Maybe of great interest, but will it be to you? So many sites have tried to spawn services around this like Stumbleupon, Friendfeed, etc. I think the best of what I’m interested in finds its way into a blog post someday. The rest of that stuff is there for those who want to see the whole slushpile. I know those type people are out there, I’m just not one of them.

#3 and #4 fit most of the blogs I’m subscribed to and most interested in. Posts that strike a nerve about once a month on average. So in the case of firehose blogs like the ones mentioned above, I don’t see the point in skimming thousands of posts to find a dozen or so every month that I enjoy a great deal.

I can’t come up with any blogs that fit #5 or #6, can you?

I would like bloggers to filter their best stuff for me. Put on the editor’s hat and be picky about your own work. I’m asking you, readers with blogs having more than three posts, to go one further step each day: take the best three of each posts you make every day and put them in a standalone full text RSS feed that readers like me can subscribe to. Here’s the rules:

1. you can’t change posts throughout the day, three maximum posts in this feed. You are welcome to edit the posts as normal, but you can’t change to an entirely different post
2. if you have already selected your three best posts, tough, you’ll have to wait to publish to me tomorrow as one of your best three posts of the day
3. bonus: if you already make less than three posts a day on average you need change nothing

For those using Wordpress who publish more than three posts a day on average you could do something like I’m describing above without using a plugin. Just create a new category and mark that for your featured posts each day. Then provide readers like me the option to subscribed to this featured post category. By default Wordpress creates RSS feeds for each category.

Of course It’s ok to publish more than three posts per day

I’m not challenging the business aspect of why some blogs post more – a lot more – than necessary. The more you publish, the more you push your message and blog brand if you will out there, the more chances you’ll have to grab eyeballs and mindshare. I get the business and promotional part of publishing 10 or more posts a day and have even suggested to bloggers in the past that the best way to increase your readership is to increase both the quality and number of posts published per day. I don’t think there is any blog out there that couldn’t increase readership by focusing on making the highest quality three posts max per day. Beyond that number there is this nagging little consequence of increased frequency:

Readers don’t have time.

We will make time if the material is very good, but what is good to me and good to you is subjective. I’ve had this discussion over what makes a quality blog post before and it usually goes nowhere that everyone agrees upon. That’s ok. One thing, however, that is not subjective is quantity. Give two readers three fish to eat and they both have three fish to eat.

Not monopolizing reading time

As you post more, readers invariably will skim more of what you write. Post less frequently, focusing more on quality and guess what happens? You create scarcity. It’s the whole author publishing one book a year on average scenario. If you follow many popular authors the trend is to publish a new hardcover once a year. The paperback comes out about six months after the hardcover and then promotes the upcoming hardcover book. If somebody like Stephen King posted a new novel say every three months some of his most passionate readers might be all giddy but slower readers like me would get behind and buy fewer of his books.  So a little scarcity blog posting analogous treatment could be a good thing.

Hey, when XYZ publishes something it’s worth stopping and reading the whole thing.  I may not see another XYZ post for __ hours.

Versus:

Oh man, not another post from XYZ. Don’t need to read this very closely because another will be along in ___ minutes.

In 2009 I must cut some corners on how my time is allocated online. There are areas I’d like to increase my time spent and yet need to reduce my time overall. One of the cuts is I’m going to (try) using only one RSS reader. Most people probably only use one RSS reader anyway and I’m the rare geek who uses more than one regularly. Google Reader doesn’t have all the features I want, but it’s about as close to useful and integrated with my Google account and bookmarks as any other RSS reader, so that’s the direction I’m choosing for 2009. For now, at least. Maybe that will change later this year.

Gone will be using ReBlog as I’ve done the last three years. This means my shared OPML file on the homepage of RSS feeds being followed will change. I believe Google Reader offers a way to share my OPML, but not sure as of this writing that it can be dynamically generated and accessed. On the list to-do list.

My preference in 2009 is not to cut back on the number of RSS subscriptions, heck I’d like to increase the number to get a wider variety of sources, but some additional quality control is needed.

1,095 posts a year is still a lot

I’m looking in the mirror here too, trust me. I won’t be publishing any more than *3* posts a day on average in 2008 at this blog. If you do the math you can figure out the maximum number of blog posts you could see published here in 2009 will be:

365 days x 3 posts per day = 1,095 posts

How many posts were published at Hmm in 2008? 225, an average of about 19 posts per month and included three months where there were less than 10 posts for the month (yowsa, a post every other day on average during those months). I might have gone to the other extreme. My published post goal for 2009 is at least 500 posts. We’ll see how that goes.

2008 was the lowest number of posts published in a year here to date and had a frequent reader remark to me that “you aren’t posting as much any more.” He’s correct. There was a couple back to back months in the past (April 2005 - 140 posts, May 2005, 2005 – 145 posts) where I published more blog posts than all of 2008. We’ll see how this 2009 max 3 posts per day plan will go. Could fall off the wagon, you never know. That would be hmm inspiring.

As I’m going back through with my editor’s hat on, having the benefit of time and distance (very important editorial skill, mind you), some of the posts made in these heavy quantity months were lower quality. Some of them are like a link or two with a picture. To make it worse some of the links are broken in the shorter posts. I’ve been working my way back through these anemic posts bulking them up and trying to make crepe out of crap with footnotes so I can not be embarassed that my name is on them going forward. Some other bloggers I’ve talked with have indicated that the archive posts are old news and not worth updating but I don’t share those feelings.

Does this mean that some days in 2009 there could still be more than three posts? Sure, an average is just that: average. But I’m going to try and stay away from doing much burst publishing unless there is a really good reason (like I enter another blogathon or live blog an event perhaps). In fact, most of the post you’re reading if you got this far (thanks!) was written in a day when three posts had already been published. So I held it over and finished this morning. There will be other days when I don’t have enough time to write and publish three posts.

Your turn. What do you think of this max 3 post per day average feed limit? Good idea, bad idea? I think there are a lot of bloggers who would love to be able to publish 1,095 posts a year, so this is speaking more to the larger, multi-authored blogs who, right or wrong, gobble a little too much time with their current firehose publishing output. We’ll see how many of these blogs care about keeping readers like me subscribed.

I’ve not watched or followed Oprah Winfrey that much but can’t help feeling sympathy toward her being duped by these bogus non-fiction authors who she has believed in and promoted. Winfrey, like most reasonable people, assume book publishers will vet their non-fiction titles to make sure they are, well, true. Heck, at least mostly true. Winfrey may have the scratch to be able to hire private investigators to check out the veracity of a non-fiction title but should she be forced to do so? I say no.

And how about these pieces of work like Herman Rosenblat, a holocaust survivor turned wolf fiction writer in sheep non-fiction clothing. Oprah deemed Pinocchio-Blat’s story about a girl throwing apples over the concentration wall to help keep him alive leading to a later coincidental blind date the “single greatest love story.” The only part Herman forgot to tell Oprah, her audience, and readers: it was all made up!

Rosenblat’s bogus autobiography is one of one of several memoirs that have been lauded by Winfrey and then later revealed to be frauds — including James Frey’s best-selling "A Million Little Pieces" and Margaret Seltzer’s "Love and Consequences" — consequently calling into question how much weight Winfrey’s future book endorsements will carry.

Writing a book is a lot of work. Figuring out the difference between the truth and a lie isn’t.

If one wants to write fiction then go right out and do it, but don’t be lame and claim some fantastic story as non-fiction. Fiction gives writers all the tools they need to spin tall tales legitimately. 

Some amount – a very small amount - of embellishment is reasonable for non-fiction book because memories aren’t perfect and not all historical events can be recalled in exact detail, but people like the ones blatantly duping Oprah and their readers are damaging the industry as a whole. I don’t respect or consider these writers to be anything more than scam artists. They are going the bathroom where others sleep, eat and drink. Not, not, not cool.

Rosenblat released a statement through his literary agent saying he only wanted to bring people happiness and that his tale was “only a dream.” He along with other writers pulling similar dreamworld confusion acts would bring writers happiness by categorizing their work correctly and honorably.

Submitted for your approval, the Savannah College of Art and Design (aka SKAD) along with Walker & Company are working on 8 graphic novels from the Twilight Zone!!! (just had to go exclamation crazy on this one)

They will be adapting these stories from the original Rod Serling scripts and releasing the first two in Fall 2008: "Walking Distance" and "The After Hours." My favorite Twilight Zone episode, "To Serve Man" will not be in the lineup, but can be seen on CBS. This one wasn’t penned by Serling but the timing of the ending is classic Twilight Zone twist.

Thanks to natashawescoat for the post alerting me to this. The only thing her post was missing was a link. Went to SCAD, typed "Twilight Zone" into the query and the story was the topmost link.

Rod Serling’s widow, Carol, had this to say about the graphic novels:

"I suspect that my husband, Rod Serling, the ‘father’ of ‘The Twilight Zone,’ would wholeheartedly approve of this ‘new dimension’ of his stories. The adaptations and fine graphic pictures have truly caught the feeling and climate of that wondrous world of imagination,"

Where these books can be bought — not in … The Twilight Zone 

Walker Books for Young Readers (walkeryoungreaders.com) is making them and they will be for sale through Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Borders and Waldenbooks as well as a bunch of independent booksellers.

Here are links for the Amazon listings I found along with the price as of this writing (very subject to change) and the release date, where applicable:

Twilight Zone: The After Hours ($13.25, available now)
Twilight Zone: The Monsters Are Due On Maple Street ($9.99, to be released December 23, 2008)
Twilight Zone: The Odyssey Of Flight 33 ($11.55, to be released December 23, 2008)

One of these days being it is my favorite show ever on TV I should do some sort of episodic tribute here at Hmm to The Twilight Zone. Perhaps go season by season, favorite episode by episode through the list. If you have never seen an episode of the original Twilight Zone series than put at least one of the definitive season DVDs for the first three seasons (when it was best) on your holiday shopping list. Season four and five were still good, but the first three seasons were incredible.

These graphic novels are not the only adaptions created. There are some audio dramas out there that were playing on Sirius at one time and also available via Amazon on CD. I caught parts of a few of these radio dramas when I had Sirius (don’t any more) and they seemed pretty well done. I need to buy one of these radio drama packages and give them a thorough Hmm review.

Unless you’ve been living on another planet, you’ve probably heard something about UFOs, aliens and Roswell at least once in your lifetime. The year was 1947, some 21 years before I entered this earth and would not hear about Roswell for a good 10 more years or so.

The facts 

In years since I knew something happened, there was some kind of crash, on a farm Northwest of Roswell. A rancher by the name of "Mac" Brazel stumbled upon the wreckage and was worried about having it on his property because his sheep would not cross past it.

He gathered samples and took them into town to the sheriff. His story in the beginning was that he didn’t know what the material was and took it into town, wondering if it might be the wreckage of a flying saucer.

The sheriff phoned the local 509th bomber group and was routed to military intelligence officer Jesse Marcel Sr. who went out to the sheriff’s office to review the strange material. Marcel wanted to see where it came from and Brazel led him out to the spot where the wreckage was on his property.

Marcel took more samples of the material in his car. He stopped home and after swearing them to secrecy, showed his wife and his son what was discovered. He told his son — according to his son, Jesse Marcel Jr. — that it wasn’t anything he’d ever seen before. They touched the material which was like aluminum foil, only lighter and without one side being paper-like. They handled it carefully, not wanting to damage it.

Marcel took the material back to the base and after showing his superior, General Ramsey, the general checked  around with other military bases to see if it might be part of an experiment, a sensational press release was made that was retracted later. What was described as debris from a flying saucer was quickly amended to a misunderstanding: it was just a weather balloon.

This is where the story twists, depending on who or what you want — or are willing — to believe.

Common sense and Hollywood

It’s important to note that neither Marcel or son has ever claimed to have seen any aliens. They both only claimed to have seen material they hadn’t ever seen before. I was unclear on this until I read Marcel Jr.’s book, The Roswell Legacy, pictured above. This is the only book I’ve ever read on the subject, but I believe almost everything happened as Marcel’s son described.

The book isn’t laid out in story format. Instead it’s told in first person with little narrative and mostly descriptions of what Marcel’s son had witnessed firsthand and/or been told by his father of what really happened in 1947. It isn’t filled with a bunch of grandiose hypothesis about what might have happened, as I’ve seen to be the case with the Roswell incident over the years. It’s a mere 174 pages, including appendix.

The book also goes into a little bit of who his father was, his military credentials and what happened to him after Roswell. There was a TV movie in 1994 called Roswell starring Martin Sheen which takes some poetic license with the story, but remains somewhat faithful to what Marcel Jr. says really happened to him.

There are other stories portrayed in that TV movie which get much more difficult to believe — like there was a second crash site Marcel didn’t see that had the aliens, one of which was still alive. Don’t get derailed there though yet, let’s stay with Marcel who only said he saw material not of this world, later rebuffed by the government to be common material he should have been able to identify.

Marcel Jr. a surgeon has also been a career military man like his father and the only reasons he claims (and I believe) he wrote this story were:

1. to keep a promise to his father over getting the truth out about what really happened in 1947
2. to defend his father’s honor that was besmirched over mis-indentifying the Roswell crash debris as something other worldly instead of a weather balloon.

Marcel Jr. has served in Iraq as recently as 2005. He a credible source to me.

Marcel being part of the elite 509th bomber group, the unit behind the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki should have been able to easily identify the wreckage if it came from some known material. That only makes sense. Especially if it was a weather balloon, which was the government’s official story shortly after the first report put out by the 509th.

A weather balloon.  They’ve stuck by that story for the most part. Amending it later after reopening the investigation to a mogul balloon.

In the book, Marcel Jr. provides a scan of his father’s diploma from radar school dated September 8, 1945. He also lists his various military awards and despite his alleged gaffe identifying the debris, he was later promoted to lieutenant colonel in the reserves.

This doesn’t sound like the type of guy who would go out to a local ranch, bring back some material, show his boss the general the material, and then be part of putting out a press release that said it could be from a "flying saucer."

I did some internet fact checking to see if a copy of the original press release could be found online. Wikipedia, in fact, has a scan of the story in the Roswell Daily Record dated Tuesday July 8, 1943

 
Source: Wikipedia

So was there really a UFO crash in 1947 or not?

At least for this post I’m going to steer away from the hard to believe claims about seeing actual aliens at the second site, that one of them might have been kept alive for five years. Or that the government actually had an exchange program called Project Serpo from 1965-1978 where military personnel visited the planet Zeta Reticuli (and later allegedly died from "excess radiation"). You can visit YouTube, type in "Roswell" as the query and be treated to a bunch of clearly fake alien autopsy videos or use your favorite search engine for any of these terms to learn more if so inclined.

(But hey, if you want a good laugh then check out Dan Aykroyd Unplugged on UFOs — lol! Don’t you dig it when people try to be serious and it’s funny instead?)

Mea culpa: I wrote back in August 2006 that I believe aliens have visited earth and that the U.S government has proof of it. I’m not sure if this first happening was Roswell in 1947 and the book being reviewed here doesn’t try to answer that (and if it does, then it fails to be very compelling in that regard). What it does try to answer was if there was a crash of something not from earth. If you can’t go as far as me and believe in E.T then at least see if you can go as far as believing something crashed here not of this earth.

I am ready to believe the wreckage Marcel and his son touched wasn’t from earth. There are simply too many holes in the government’s response to believe otherwise. Weather balloon? Come on.

Where it came from, I don’t know, but if we knew it came from somewhere on earth what would be the harm in the government declassifying this information 60+ years later? Since the declassification hasn’t happened, one of the following possibilities must be true (pick your poison):

1. the government knows where it came from and doesn’t want to tell us
2. the government does not know where it came from and doesn’t want to admit this to us
3. the government knows where it came from on earth, and doesn’t want to tell us
4. the government does not know where it came from on earth and doesn’t want to admit this to us (yeah, similar to #2)

I was glad to be able to solve the lingering riddle in my mind about what happened in 1947 just outside Roswell. For that reason I give this book the highest Hmm Reviews grade possible. The book doesn’t get all "tinfoil-hat" to use the author’s own description of the fringe UFO crowd — and don’t worry readers, I’m not joining that crowd either. In fact, until the last chapter it doesn’t get too far afield of what the author and his father witnessed. That type of non-fiction works great for me.

In the last chapter the author explains why he thinks we’re not alone in the universe. I agree with much of his thinking there too. We can’t be alone and it’s arrogant to think we are. The universe is much too big and there are too many parts we know absolutely nothing about.

He thinks the aliens that have contacted us have been benign and that they might have some Star Trek like prime directive. That would make some sense as to why we don’t see aliens everywhere but they might have been in contact with the government.

The Russians have acknowledged crashed debris as being not of this earth while the U.S government has done so to date. I think before my death, assuming living out a ripe old age, I’ll see this happen.

I think it’s well past time for the government to declassify the material in 1947 that’s sitting on a base somewhere, waiting for further critical study and research. Why not?

Conspiracy theorist or realist

Now if I’m to be labeled conspiracy theorist for believing the government has botched up the Roswell cover-up, so be it. I put this one with the JFK assassination as far as believing the government lied to us. I’d also add in the more recent Bush administration lying about the whole weapons of mass destructions.

I think it’s harder to believe that the government has never lied to us, don’t you?

Conspiracy theorist or realist? I’ll take the latter. If you are looking for a story about what really happened in 1947 in Roswell, run, don’t walk, to the bookstore and get The Roswell Legacy. It feels about as close to the truth as we can get until the government declassifies what they are secreting away from us for our own [snicker] protection. Grade: A+

Can’t miss mentioning the sad passing of author Michael Crichton, claimed by cancer, who if you don’t know the man by name like Stephen King, you have to know at least one of his works:

The consistent themes of his work are the consequences of man’s own hubris and a thoroughgoing paranoia. Someone is always coming up with a brilliant notion in Crichton, and it always goes hideously kablooey. Bring dinosaurs back to life? Okay, but they’ll escape and gobble you up. Organ transplants? Fine until the medical establishment starts harvesting them for profit. Robots? Forget about the robots: they’ll shoot you down ("Westworld") or come after you with knives ("Runaway"

Crichton (pronounced "cry-tun") is responsible for some fantastic fiction and movies (Westworld is one of my favorites of all time) over the years including dinodrama Jurassic Park. Although the title of my post suggests there won’t be any posthumous works, I’m hoping he had some more stories in the pipeline or a book of ideas that could be given to somebody else to continue his work.

That’s what the great ones do.

He was that kind of quality writer that you want to see their work continue. They’ve done it with the James Bond novels, so why not do it with Crichton.

Although some of his book to movie adaptions were lackluster (e.g Congo, Sphere), he had very few bad books. Sphere remains one of my favorite books. The first Jurassic Park movie was great, but it was downhill from there. Not to mention the guy was behind the hit TV series ER.

We’ve lost a good one at age 66. Think I’ll go on a Crichtonthon this weekend in his honor and re-watch some of his great movies over the years.

My high school English teacher loved the red pen. Especially when I misused apostrophes. Guilty as charged. http://www.its-not-its.info/ might be handy for fellow writing geeks who need a friendly apostrophe primer reminder.

As a reader past participles are one of my pet peeves. I’ve seen words like ‘took’ often misused. Had, have, has ‘took’ is wrong. Had, have, has taken is correct.

What’s your reader pet peeve? Something I keep doing here (hopefully not)? My English teacher’s ears are ringing. This post is for you, Mr. G.

Are you a true writer? Not ‘true’ as in a super secret club that only published authors or elite snobs belong. If the only writing you do is on a blog that you think nobody reads, you could still be a true writer.

You could be a true writer and not even have a blog. Heck, you could be a true writer and not even have an internet connection. It’s not where one writes that is important, it’s what and how one writes that does.

Criteria for being a true writer

I’ve come up with nine qualities that no true writer should be lacking:

1. Desire. If you experience withdrawal when you don’t write, even when it’s material that others may never see, that’s the mark of a true writer. You must do it. You are driven. It’s not a choice. You don’t write only to have others read, you write because it’s an insatiable need.
2. Read. You can’t write if you don’t read. It’s how you learn the language and the beauty of the craft. It could be argued that the best true writers read more than they write. Much more.
3. Furtive imagination. You often think about what you are going to write when you aren’t writing. Perhaps it’s laying in bed or on a long drive, but the cogwheels of your brain never stop spinning.  They might be spinning at this very second.
4. Quality control. You hone the skill of recording your raw imagination and thoughts to paper or digital ink. Accurate, honest and laced with passion. Through editing (#7 #8) you can make these thoughts even better, but before writing down an idea you measure its worth through your own quality control.
5. Practice.  You understand that you can’t get better if you don’t actually do something. You make plans to write something down regularly, even if it’s only a partial thought and/or something you don’t publish today.
6. Fresh meat. You do not like to trip over what you’ve already written and despise plagiarism. If somebody else saw what you did and published first, then step aside and give that writer credit. In the blog format where retelling and word repackaging is the norm, not the exception, this can be very difficult. Being fresh and original in a sea of talent might be the most challenging aspect of the blog format. This shouldn’t stop a true writer but it should weigh on his/her mind.
7. Trunk. I don’t know any true writers who are trunk-less. The trunk used to be a place for unpublished works and drafts, but these days is a set of digital computer files or unpublished database(s). True writers understand that what you’ve written today could be more or less useful in the future. The trunk is a snapshot in time. Knowing when to pull material from the trunk and publish is part of a true writer’s quality control skill. 
8. Edit. It’s the one part many writers hate, myself included, but it’s a cruel reality. You must edit. I enjoy the blog format of publishing because I can get away with less editing than all other formats combined, but total editing abandonment isn’t the mark of a true writer. You must learn to delete words, sentences, paragraphs, pages and even nuke your favorite posts. Just because. Yes, this is different from #4 Quality Control, because editing happens after the words are in place. Your quality control filter happens before it is written and after it has been edited. An editor takes what is there and shapes and molds. While the editor role in internet publishing might seem to be a dying art, a true writer knows how important the editor role is in improving the work.
9. The dreaded ‘other.’ There can be no true writer list without the ever important ‘other’ entry. This wildcard is your criteria for what quality makes a true writer. You, friendly reader, are what make published writing satisfying. The payoff for unseen mental blood, sweat and tears. What is the one quality you think every true writer must have? What have I overlooked that no true writer should be without?

I’ve read famous authors like Stephen King describe writing as an obsession; something he couldn’t imagine ever not doing. Sure, with fiction you need fresh ideas, but there are always ideas and it’s hard to keep an active imagination like his down. I’m reluctant to go as far as labeling true writing an addiction, but it is on some levels.

As long as I can remember, I’ve been a true writer. The blog format fits the bulk of my current publishing output, but some other type of format could come along and claim my writing time tomorrow. Someday I might stop writing at this particular blog, but I will never "retire." A true writer never retires, s/he dies. Perhaps at the keyboard, caught eternally in mid-thought.

There have been a couple web personalities who have talked about quitting or retiring from blogging recently and at the risk of falling into a potential attention whore trap I’m not going to use names in this post. You probably know these people as I’ve written about writers (I hesitate to use the term ‘bloggers’ as I think of blogging as a format, not a type of writer) like this in the past in posts like: Is it the blog or the blogger that holds subscribers? One of my goals in 2008 was to avoid falling into linkbaiting schemes and writing too much about web personalities. These people get far too much undeserved attention already. Call this my fresh meat filter tweaking. This leaves more space for highlighting passionate, compelling work by unknown true writers.

How many true writers are reading this post? I’d like to subscribe to you, please make sure your blog URL is in your signature.

I’m a sucker for practice. I hear some people complain about practicing like it’s some kind of time waster. Hey, if you want to improve your skill at something it should require work, shouldn’t it?

A couple days ago I shared the finger perils of not enough guitar practice and have referred to this blog numerous times as writing practice, so it should be no surprise that I’m also into typing practice.

TypeRacer joins the chorus of websites that lets you practice your typing skills. If you’re a busy person who needs more time but still love to write, just think what increasing your typing speed could do?

With TypeRacer you can compete against others to see who is the fastest keyboard masher of the pack. The results of my first time playing are pictured above. Third place for a little over 30 words per minute. My current typing speed is around 45-55 wpm.

How fast is your typing these days? And do you practice?

Chris Webb Executive Editor, Wiley Publishing and Wrox asked a couple intriguing questions this morning:

Should book publishers be involved in social media, or just concentrate on publishing books?

More intriguing because of where he asked the question: Twitter. Now don’t sigh, some decent questions and conversations do appear there from time to time. Being among his group of 280 friends/followers prompted me to write: “@chriswebb aren’t you doing that here and now? Maybe you should be telling us why you should be engaged in social media? Not asking “if.”

Chris repilied:

@TDavid here @chriswebb is just me - Chris Webb, Editor. I’m thinking of ways to get my huge 200 year-old company more involved gobally.

And then his follow-up response to his own question (emphasis mine):

Thanks for the responses. Let me try asking it slightly differently. How should book publishers be engaged in social media?

I try to avoid marketing buzzwords, so I’ll forgive Chris for using the slippery term “social media.” People love to buy, but don’t like to be sold. If only every salesperson would understand that, they’d move a lot more product.

Let’s peel back the onion and look at what I think Chris really wants to know: how can book publishers stay relevant? If Chris doesn’t want to know this answer, his “200 year-old company” probably does. Book publishers want to sell more books, period. Authors want to have a publisher that helps promote the book and becomes a partner of sorts. Readers want books which scratch an itch (entertainment) or solve a need (how-to, reference, self-help, etc.)

In this day where anybody can publish a book on Lulu and other services veteran publishers need to focus on their weaknesses and accentuate their strengths. Here are some ideas how book publishers can stay relevant:

1. More interactive, wired and wireless editors. Get them involved like Chris is doing. The fact that he has his own blog (ckwebb.com) and is working Twitter shows he is at least trying to be plugged in. For the venerable editors who stubbornly refuse to get connected? Encourage them to focus more on the details of the book process and get more web-savvy and friendly editors to be the conduit to the web. A good publishing house needs highly skilled editors, and the longer somebody does something they will have skills that newer less experienced editors don’t have, so don’t try to push for a younger, more trendy crowd of editors. Instead, try to analyze and focus how your talent pool is used and add where necessary.

Now what could editors like Chris do to help show the company the value of being more connected? What books are currently being edited? Where is the inside juice on books with authors? How about podcasts by each editor with the author during the publishing process?

2. Promote and reward reader interaction. Look at what Hollywood does with movies. We’ve been hearing about Iron Man for ages. Books need a similar promotional path that uses the web and current technologies. O’Reilly had a good idea with Rough Cuts but they charged instead of discounted people for getting involved. Big mistake. You want promotions that reward not punish interaction and effort from others.

3. Start opening up the publishing process as early as possible, share early pieces of early drafts and have some open dialog. Have countdown widgets (cross OS and especially new devices like Chumby) made for the book launch date or key intervals in a project. Allow those interested to have input and interaction during the process of publishing the book and give them something that they can’t receive by simply buying the book once published. Go reality book publishing style. That means some of the projects will fail. I remember a message from Chris that one of the books they were working on got canceled. Stories are there for publishers brave enough to share them.

4. Sell ebooks in open format. If ebooks are to succeed it will be because they are open and easy to share as physical books. Treating customers like thieves has never been a successful business strategy, just ask the RIAA. Instead, publishers should spend their energy and promotion on providing as many different ways for people to read the books and in formats that they like.

The signpost ahead: courage this way
There is a real danger that the music publishers are facing now because they didn’t realize what music fans wanted soon enough. Book readers have their own set of desires and needs. Fulfill them.

I would offer one final piece of advice to book publishers: don’t be afraid to experiment and fail. Traditional book publishers tend to be extremely conservative and some or maybe even all the ideas I mentioned above might sound radical. How will you ever know if something works if you don’t try?

I’ve waited to weigh in on the writer’s strike mainly because I hoped it would be settled right away, that both parties would reach an acceptable deal and that it would be a minor entertainment speed bump. It’s dragging into week four now, the holidays are looming and TV shows already shot from completed scripts are running out. If something good is going to happen, the next couple weeks of negotiations are critical.

Readers already know I’m pro-writer and if they don’t, they’ll learn quickly from past posts like Another Sweatshop Blog Emerges. Those who have been writing in the blog format for any length of time and consistency fully realize it’s work. And for any kind of legal work, I strongly support fair, reasonable pay.

Writers, by and large, are not paid fairly. Sure, there are exceptions and please spare naming them in the comments. Stephen King is more than fairly compensated. Dean Koontz makes good money. Danielle Steele isn’t suffering. Once you break through like these writers have, and huge kudos to them for doing so, being compensated fairly for each project is no longer an issue.

To better understand the disequity the star on the silver screen (think Brad Pitt, Angelina Jolie, Jennifer Aniston) making millions for what essentially is a few months work versus a writer making significantly less who spent at a minimum the same amount of time and probably much more. Actors aren’t brain surgeons and writers aren’t the also largely underpaid nurses. Once you factor in disparity in residual income from creative works and the current dispute: web income, one can better comprehend why writers are striking.

Joss Whedon, the man behind Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Serenity and other fine works writes eloquently:

It’s always hard. Not just dealing with obtuse, intrusive studio execs, temperamental stars and family-prohibiting hours. Those are producer issues as much as anything else. Not just trying to get your first script sold, or seen, or finished, when nobody around believes you can/will/should… the ACT of writing is hard. When Buffy was flowing at its flowingest, David Greenwalt used to turn to me at some point during every torturous story-breaking session and say “Why is it still hard? When do we just get to be good at it?” I’ll only bore you with one theory: because every good story needs to be completely personal (so there are no guidelines) and completely universal (so it’s all been done). It’s just never simple.

History of writer strikes
Mark Evanier has a good piece detailing the history of Writers Guild of America (WGA):

It’s always been like this, right down to the producers’ rhetoric and the suggestions that they can live well without us. That’s what they were saying back in 1933 when ten top crafters of movie scripts agreed to organize. Immediately and predictably, the studios resisted … In 1951, the Guild began to represent the writers of that newfangled thing called television … The strike of 1960 - which lasted 151 days, making it the longest strike in Hollywood until the Writers Guild later bettered its own record - was the one that secured a pension plan as well as residual payments when a movie was run on television … It wasn’t until a threatened strike in ‘77 that we began receiving [TV residuals] in perpetuity … In 1981, there was a three-month WGA strike to establish compensation in the then-new markets of “pay TV” and home video … The strike of [1988] year lasted 22 weeks - one day longer than the strike of ‘60. [In 2007] the burgeoning import of Internet delivery and other new technologies meant that we had to take a stand. There are too many dollars at stake for us not to establish our place at the table.

I’m hoping this gets settled much sooner than the 151 day strike of 1960. When it comes to episodic television, even though we haven’t had TV in our home for over 500 days, we eventually watch TV as it trickles down to DVD format and/or appears (legally) on the web. This situation could suck worse for those who pay to have cable or satellite and need to endure a steady diet of unscripted TV and game shows.

To play devil’s advocate, this could have more people making the move like our family: canceling TV altogether. As big a fan of internet video as I am, the general population isn’t ready for crappy, pixelated web video to replace episodic television.

When will the strike end?
A deal will get done. I think it most likely happens in the next couple weeks before Christmas. If not, then this could drag on like 1960 because the sense of urgency and compassion for writers will begin to deteriorate when the holidays pass. Not from me, I’m with the writers all the way. Give them a fair, reasonable deal.

Which side of the strike are you on?