Category Archives: Walking Down The Avenue

Apr 30 2012

Too Picayune To Note At The Hotel Dieu

First,  let me state right off that this post has nothing whatsoever to do with the construction of the new University Hospital in New Orleans.   A picayune was a Spanish coin worth half a real and the word has come to mean in English a matter that is trivial, minute or otherwise not worth worrying about.    And what,   you may ask,  is the picayune matter I have been contemplating today?    My online earnings.

My friend Peter today has a blog post that compares online marketers to farmers and contemplates the necessity of a “go big or go home” strategy.   It seems to me that with most if not all of the people I’ve spoken with and discussed online marketing with over the past 5 years or so,   there is most always a great deal of talk about various statistics and ephemera  (‘my Klout is up to 60 now!’ ; ‘did you see my page rank is up to 5′) and little if any talk ever about how many widgets have been sold or how much revenue produced.      While it is certainly true that mastering various aspects of web publishing and online marketing can help with the sales of widgets,  it seems to me that far too often online marketers get very focused on various statistics that don’t really mean much of anything,   and which can fairly easily be….well….faked,  and which have nothing to do with actually producing revenue.

I have just about decided,  that the next edition of Walking Down The Avenue is going to come out on July 1st,   which will be the one year anniversary of the original publication.    At that time I am also going to release a second book about using Empire Avenue missions to create social activity.    I am not yet sure about the pricing,   though I believe I am going to make the introductory book a bit cheaper than the missions guide.   The price will also vary depending upon where the book is purchased from.  The lowest prices will probably be available on iWriteReadRate.com,   the highest prices in Amazon’s  Kindle store and Smashwords somewhere in between.     Part of me is kind of meh about all the work I will need to do in the next two months to get both of these books ready for publication.   And yet,  like Pollyanna,   I am looking forward to the releases and feel certain that I will actually make some money this time  :)

Mar 12 2012

Don’t Be Afraid Of Change

Private conversations are the most important ones,  I’ve come to believe.     I know I’ve written recently that “any idiot can raise an amen chorus“  and I certainly don’t mean to disparage public conversations–  heck,  this blog has been all about public conversations–  but any real professional knows that private conversations online is where business really happens.   Whether it’s discussing future plans with a mentor,  re-hashing a major event with another participant or joking and daydreaming and just being friends,  private conversations are where any good social networker will invest a lot of their time.

I finally managed to steal a glimpse of the new Empire Avenue interface.   So they borrowed a designer from Pinterest to  make a graphical display of your Tweetstream.   Excuse me while I have a nice long YAAAWWWNNN.    I’ve yet to reach any judgment about the value or the utility of the  Empire Avenue changes,   but my first reaction is that they are  hardly game changing and will not require a great deal of revisions in the next  release of    Walking Down The Avenue.      However, a private conversation this morning,  in addition to alerting me to sneak a glance at EAv’s new interface  helped me to conceive  a great marketing innovation for the next release of the book.       Those  who pay a lot of attention to me and my web presence may note that the new account I created on Empire Avenue yesterday has nothing at all to do with Walking or its promotion and is actually about a new project I am conceiving  that is related to bullying and online reputation.     I’m not ready to publicly announce any more than that at this time.

I’ve said many times that the only constant is change,  and nothing in my life experiences so far causes me to in any way doubt this maxim,  which I believe is equally true in business,  in social media and in human life generally.     I find myself getting genuinely excited about writing and selling the next release  of Walking,   even as I continue blogging every day and trying real hard to have lots of public conversations here on my blog  (go say Happy Birthday to my friend Hank NOW if you haven’t already ;)   and think that my new project could be a lot of fun,  and a way to earn a bit of profit.     Life feels good to me this Monday morning.     I hope it feels good in your world as well  and that you have a great week ahead.

Jan 22 2012

#amwriting

My Inner Lazybones did not defeat me.   Sometimes it seems,  I spend considerably more time and energy dreading a job and procrastinating than it actually takes to do it.     Yesterday,  I took a deep breath and opened the published 1.1 manuscript and started at the very beginning.   I changed everything that needed to be changed to make it the manuscript for version 1.2.    I’ve updated to reflect all of the changes that have taken place on Empire Avenue since I released 1.1  on November 1st,  and wrote a new Advanced section about Empire Avenue missions.    It took a bit less than 2 hours  :)

I have contacted my friend who did the copy editing/proof reading for the previous versions to ask her is she would be willing to handle that task for me again this time.   I’ve set February 1st as the target publication date for 1.2.   I will almost certainly have it finished and uploaded before then.    I need to think about how I can get more people to actually buy the book.    I’ve gotten almost 500 people to download it since I released the first beta edition on June 30, 2011.  I gave away a lot of free beta copies and very widely distributed a 100% off coupon when I released version 1.0 on September 1st.   Sadly,  since releasing 1.1 and scaling way back on the discount coupons most of the downloads have ceased and I have only sold a handful of copies.   Maybe this time I will use a 50% discount coupon instead of 100%  (and raise the price a bit first)…and see if I can get some friends to promote it to their networks….That might work.

Meanwhile,  here in the Puget Sound area we have survived a major snowpocalypse.   My car was covered in about 5 inches of snow with two inches or so of solid ice on top of it.   It was a bear to get the car cleared off,  though once I did driving to the store and back was fairly easy.   The parking lot here in our apartment complex has not been plowed,  but once I was on the public streets,  all were cleared and driving was no big deal.    We’re hoping that it will not freeze tonight and that some of the huge amount of snow will melt.   Here’s hoping that you are safe, warm and dry this weekend.

Jan 5 2012

Happy Bear

So this Thursday finds me a happy bear.  My Empire Avenue stock is up to a share price of 105 and while I do have some back sliding days I am still (knock wood) above 105 today.   I invest some in newbies recommended by DES Daughter and invest back in people who have recently invested in me.   I do try to max out to 600 hundred shares in all of my investments,  but if your div ratio is not great it may take me a Very long time.   And if you sell off all of the shares you hold in me I will block you on Empire Avenue in order to be sure I do not again invest in someone who didn’t think enough of me to buy even a single share.

Now that I have Timeline I am going to try directing the FB post promoting this blog post Only to those on my Empire Avenue list.   It is possible I may have tagged a person or two incorrectly but I believe that all of the folks on these lists connected with me First through Empire Avenue or have been active on one or more Empire Avenue related discussions.  As I’ve mentioned before,  I was Not blown away by Google Plus and deleted my account on that service not too terribly long after starting it.   Honestly,  at this point Facebook allows me to meet and get to know and keep up with an ever expanding circle of virtual friends.

Since my main purpose in social networking is to meet and get to know other people,  and any business that results from these relationships is for me,  simply an extra benefit.  While I do promote my book regularly,  I try very hard not be one note about it and I talk with lots of different people about lots of different things in lots of different threads on lots of different web sites.      For me,  online socializing is very much a time consuming hands-on more or less full time activity.   But I try never ever to forget that it’s All about building real relationships with other real people.

(And I am a very happy bear this morning because I just got back from a great visit with my cub friend and I am maybe even Joyous Bear today  ;)_

Dec 29 2011

Still Counting

As we approach the new year,  I am still counting my blessings.      I decided to move my personal blog to WordPress.    Since Google introduced Plus  (the new social network I do Not find compelling and am mostly waiting for it to fail) I have had to log in to separate Google accounts for my g-mail (@libdrone.info), YouTube (where I am now WalkingEAv rather than Libdrone) and my old personal blog spot blog,  which I have never in fact  been faithful about keeping up with.

Since Empire Avenue is now tracking WordPress.com activity,  I realized I would be better served ditching a Google product I don’t really like and trying to focus my long form blogging activity here on WordPress.   I plan to buy a domain (possibly  libdronemusing.com).   I will also work on installing a better theme and uploading my own graphics.

I have decided that my immediate focus is going to be on writing a section of the advanced guide (haven’t settled on a title yet) that deals with Empire Avenue’s  new Missions feature.   As you may know the advanced guide will be directed  towards social media professionals,  so I am a little bit nervous,  but I think that if I do a really good job on the Missions section,  I will go ahead and release 1.2 adding the Missions section from the upcoming advanced book.   This will allow me to truthfully state that the book is fully updated to reflect all of the changes that have occurred going forward.   If Empire Avenue continues to grow I hope to be able to continue selling both books for years to come.

As I remarked to my friend Jenn last night,  the first advice is always to write about what you are passionate about.   And I continue to very much enjoy Empire Avenue and socializing with all of the great people I have met.  Honestly,  I don’t know if I will ever become a faithful scheduled poster to this personal blog.  But I know in my heart that there will always be long form things I feel like saying to my friends that will never quite fit into any of my specialty blogs.   (I actually have half a dozen sites on blogspot but most of them have not been updated in years.)   I intend to keep my music and words blogs on Tumblr where I feel their abbreviated format is a perfect fit.   I am going to wait until I get the new domain to re-register this blog with Empire Avenue.

I’d like to take a moment to thank each and every one of you for being a friend and for your help and kindness throughout the year.    Here’s wishing you an yours a safe and prosperous new year.

Aug 26 2011

Walking Down The Avenue v1.0 coming next Thursday!

Dups and Aaron and the team did not defeat me.   As I had feared all along,  they did make multiple significant changes to Empire Avenue this week.   But I am pleased to say that I have just finished all of the revisions.     One more through proof-reading tomorrow or the next day and Walking Down The Avenue v 1.0  will be ready to “smash” into a real eBook.

A friend who is a retired graphic designer made the book cover for me,  using a public domain image.   I’m thrilled with the cover  (Which looks So much nicer than my very amateurish effort on the beta).  I expect that I will upload it to Smashwords on Tuesday.  Provided there are no problems with the upload and it all goes according to plan,  I may give the book’s sharehloders ((e)WALKING) the first sneak peak via a shareholder mail on Wednesday.   Then starting Thursday I have a list of 14 people,  all of whom have lots and lots of shareholders,  who have agreed to send out a shareholder mail containing a 100% off coupon.

Although the price is going up from free to $2.99,  I don’t expect to sell many at all at that price this first month.  I will be promoting the book with the 100% off coupon all over the place and hope to get twice as many people to download the $2.99 version as did the free version, but I’m not really expecting that many of them will pay for it.    What I hope is that Empire Avenue continues to evolve, change and grow.   To a point where a year down the line,  hundreds of newcomers each day get the book recommended to them from the first thousand or so who get to read it for free.

If you’d like to be one of those first thousand,  you might sign up for my very low volume mailing list in the sidebar.    On September 1st,  I plan to mail the 100% off coupon to my e-mail list.    It will only be the second e-mail I have ever sent out on that list,  which is really only for updates about Walking Down The Avenue.  So if you’d like to peruse the eBook when it’s published next month,  please fill out the form and check your e-mail on 9/1/2011.

Aug 3 2011

Getting ready for 1.0

On September 1st I will be releasing version 1.0  of my eBook Walking Down The Avenue.   At that time I will raise the price from free to 99 cents.   I feel certain that I will not distribute as many paid copies right off the bat as I did free copies,  but my  strategy with this book has been as a long term project.  If, as I hope, Empire Avenue has a nice long run and the game continues to constantly evolve and change,  I should be able to continue publishing up-dated versions every two or three months.

Actually,  I am hoping to have the new text and all of the edits done and the new and improved book cover image uploaded by August 30th or so,  so that I can make sure that everything is working correctly.   Then on September 1st I will announce the new book release in a guest blog post on a popular social media blog.   A free coupon code will be available to Empire Avenue shareholders,  both mine and those of the host of my guest blog post.     I will probably be fairly free in giving out the coupon code to shareholders.     I will also be distributing the coupon code via my e-mail list.   So if you haven’t already,  you might want to sign up in the sidebar at the right.   This is a very low volume mailing list.   Every six to eight weeks, at most I will send a new message.   So far the only message I have sent was to announce the availability of the beta version of Walking. I give you my word that I will never be a spambot.

How much work I am going to have to do on revisions depends largely on how much Dups and the team change the game between now and around August 23rd.    I have already made some updates and revisions and begun adding new material,  but I am very much at the mercy of developments on the Avenue as to how much updating I will have to do.   I am so pleased and grateful to everyone who has downloaded and read Walking Down The Avenue and especially to the 32 of you who have subscribed and even more grateful to the 15 folks who opened the message.   So here is just a little added incentive to sign up for my mailing list– everyone who is subscribed by August 31st will continue to receive a free coupon code for my eBook for as long as I publish it.    As I said I plan initially to be very free in handing out the free coupon code,  but just as what is now free will cost 99 cents next month,  I don’t plan on giving the book away forever.   So be one of the few who have the savvy to sign up now and continue to get the most useful eBook about Empire Avenue for as long as the game goes on.

Jun 30 2011

Walking Down The Avenue– Available Now!

A day early,  and absolutely free of charge  my new eBook Walking Down The Avenue is now available on Smashwords:

https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/70323

I  tried very hard to be clear and concise and to take as much of the confusion that seems to define Empire Avenue out of the picture.   I hope that you will take a look at it–  it’s available for download in all e-reader formats as well as in .pdf   if you prefer to read on your computer screen.     I know there is at least one typo that made it past my many, many proof-readings.    I am very interested in hearing about any errors you notice as well as in getting any and all feedback you might care to share.     You can leave your feedback as a comment on this post or feel free to e-mail me privately at  writing@libdrone.info.

Here’s wishing you and yours a great  Fourth of July weekend.

Jun 28 2011

Almost There

I have been making much progress towards publishing my first eBook,  which I still hope is going to happen on or shortly before July 1st.      I know my homemade cover looks nothing like a professionally designed one would  (and I do hope to be able to afford a real cover at some point in the future).    It’s also going to be a very short little eBook– only about 18 word processor pages.

(I can here the snorts and derision alreadey–  ’it took you a couple of months to write 18 freaking pages?!???’    Yes, actually.    Empire Avenue changes and evolves every day and many of the sections have had to be re-written multiple times as changes on the Avenue made them inaccurate,  in some cases within minutes of being written.)     I play to continue updating, revising and expanding and expect to release new versions every month or so.    I have tried to upload the book to iWriteReadRate– my friend Adam’s great new eBook site.   Unfortunately,  it did not work properly for me.   The site produced a  .pdf file that is 2700 pages long and has text in on the middle 1.5 inches or so of each page.    Adam has his tech folks looking into it and I am hopeful of being ready to sell on that site by Friday.  

Meanwhile,  my project for today is to add and link a table of contents and make a couple of other changes to comply with the Smashwords style guide,  which will enable me to upload to Smashwords, which would make my little book available via a huge number of eBook vendors including Amazon kindle, B &N Nook, etc.    I am very hopeful of finding success in the brave new world of eBooks and honestly can’t wait to see what this week will bring.

Jun 11 2011

Reserve a free copy of Walking Down the Avenue now!

So I’m writing a book.   About Empire Avenue as a matter of fact.   Honestly,   it is slow going.   EAv is evolving and changing so rapidly that even in the early pages of  draft,  I’ve had to re-write sections several times due to changes in the rules and procedures.  

I find myself very taken with Empire Avenue as I become more and more involved with and spend more and more time hanging out with great friends like Holly, Jake, Suspiria, Anise, Gina, Casey, Dirk, Scott and Ryan.   Not to mention Shannon, Travis, Hank, Carole, Stu, Sheree, Robert, Peter,  Mike, Paulo, Cyril, Caleb and Adriel.   Or Nakeva, Sharon, Michael and Jeffrey and so on and so on.   Honestly,  I’ve met so many people from all over the world since joining Empire Avenue that I have to mark it as a life changing experience.  My one gripe is that Empire Avenue can be very confusing to newcomers.   So much so that it  is even a bit off-putting.   Even to people who have mastered Twitter.     Which is why I decided to write a book specifically directed at Empire Avenue newcomers.   I am trying to be definitive without being verbose.   Authoritative without ever talking down to anyone.    A book that is short, useful and cheap.

I hope to have the beta edition  (this is going to be an eBook and I plan to number the frequently updated editions like software) available for sale by mid July.    If you would like to receive a copy of the beta edition, not at the amazingly low list price of  79 cents,  but instead absolutely free of charge,  please sign up for my very low volume mailing list– using the widget in the right sidebar.   The first message I will send to this list will be when the eBook is published and ready for download,  as I said hopefully in early to mid July.   After that you can expect that I will write to you at most every four to six weeks.   (Yeah,  I am going a bit overboard to avoid being spammish*)