Password Incorrect

Mo-books, writer 2.0, tech-absurd | Mo-booki, pisarz 2.0, tech-absurd

Do I care about mobile readers? [checklist]

Year 2010 has already been called “The Year of the Mobile”. Internet activity is shifting from desktop computers to laptops to tablets to mobile phones. This is an inevitable trend. People play music on mobile phones, update their social networks, watch movies and even play games. What about reading? It seems to be one of the easiest things. It’s not.

One side of the story is that people complain about general reading comfort – and this is a common excuse to stay with paper. The other side of the story is a fact, that a majority of Internet content is still not mobile friendly.

Here’s a quick checklist of things, which can be done to make mobile readers’ life much easier.

Do I publish my books in formats optimized for mobile reading?

If you plan to publish a next book, a free teaser of a book or any new piece of writing, think not only of Scribd, BookBuzzr or Lulu. Think also of sites, which convert your book to formats tailored for mobile viewing, like ePub or mobi. The most popular services, besides Kindle Store, are Smashwords, Feedbooks, Wattpad and Kobo. »»»

Book-hop music made with iPhone only

For two weeks now I’m using iSequence to compose music for a book trailer. It’s fun and it’s not GarageBand easy. Check the results below (I recognize even a style here, let’s call it book-hop). Read a kick-off post here.

One DIY author’s remark: writing a book is great, especially when you also have a chance to write something others can literally hear.

Trailer music v.0.91beta

Trailer music v.1.50001A

Trailer music v.2.1/Ooops

An iPhone made music for a book trailer

Modern self-publishing authors not only write books. They also design covers, record podcasts, run competitions, organize blog tours – everything they think is needed for the book to succeed. I imagine that every day every writer 2.0 is asking himself a question “what else can I do myself?”.

In my case, since last Sunday it’s also composing music. Last Sunday we went to a countryside, where there was wi-fi supposed to work. It was not. I had to do something to overcome the coming symptoms of a heavy Internet addiction. I started to play with iSequence on my iPhone. The feeling was fantastic, I’m pretty sure I’ve found the right tool to make a soundtrack music for a trailer of my two new books. I was trying Garage Band before, but it’s too easy, you just have to match together music loops. And it’s not from a mobile world.

With iSequence you are actually composing, so this is both a challenge and fun. To check how it works just watch this video tutorial. You can download the app here. And last thing: it’s just fantastic, that in our times we can plan to do things personally, as there’s surely at least one app for that.

PS. And if you want to try something completely new, a lack of wi-fi signal really helps.

Password Incorrect/Failure Confirmed – trailer music v.0.91beta

iPhone in a book, literally [video]

A sweet compromise between the amazing world of paper books and an amazing world of e-possibilities. This is it. Fun for a boy as well as for a big boy. Great example for those, who still resist the “e” factor in reading.

Indie authors, there is no better time to help each other!

This is a fantastic article written by April L. Hamilton, the founder of Publetariat, which I repost here in its entirety with her permission.  It’s a great challenge for indie authors – to find, read, review and promote other indie authors’ books. I love this idea, as this is the core of 2.0 approach to publishing – to help each other, being at the same time the author, the publisher, the critique and the reader.

Let me add Feedbooks to a list of sites, where you can find fantastic books by independent authors. The tag to follow an action on Twitter is #indieaction. Join in, have fun and spread the word!

An Indie Call To Action

Most of us indie authors talk a good game about how there are plenty of quality indie books available, and how there are plenty of terrible mainstream books. We also like to complain about the lack of variety and originality in mainstream book offerings as compared to indie books. Such musings generally lead to the conclusion that if people would just give indie books the same chance they give to mainstream books, if they would just put indie books to the ‘fifteen minute’ or ‘first ten pages’ test, the frequency with which they’d find books they would want to keep reading would be on par with that for mainstream books, and indie authors and readers everywhere would rejoice. It’s time we stop all the hand-wringing and blind hope, and make this happen.

Yes, we have the power. Every indie author is also a reader, and every one of us has a circle of influence. So if you’re an indie author or small imprint owner, I issue the following challenge to you: »»»

5 reasons why writers should mobilize their blogs

In this article I’ll try to describe how important is for a writer to mobilize a blook, blog or a site. In a next post I’ll give tips on how to easily do that.

Mobile Web is growing fast

According to a study by Morgan Stanley, there will be over 1 billion “heavy mobile data users” by 2013. It’s a major trend: people switch from desktop activity to mobile activity. On the other hand, mobile readers are disappointed when using mobile web. Non-mobilized pages are too slow to load on cellphones, they look ugly, and most importantly – they are unreadable.

Social sites dominate mobile web

A report by Openwave shows that four out of ten top mobile destinations are social networks. Why is that so important for a writer? Because probably for most of us social networks like Twitter, Facebooks and alikes are an effective way to communicate with readers. Ask yourself a question: how many of the readers of your blog and potential buyers of your book are opening your messages from a mobile device? In my case it’s a prevailing majority.

Links from mobile apps

And here comes the problem with links. If you tweet a link to your site, which is (still) not mobilized, it’s OK when a reader opens it from a computer. It can be disastrous when opened from, let’s say iPhone’s Tweetie. The reader will probably never try it again. You loose a chance to be read – and to be retweeted. »»»

Publish a book with your literary tweets

Have you ever thought of making an e-book with your literary tweets? If you still have doubts, consider this: you can easily do it yourself, you can do it without any costs, you can use the book as a promotional tool.

Below there are tips based on my personal experience. Just make sure you’ve got a large coffee ready – and make your book happen!

How to collect a content?

Twitter search is currently showing results from 9 recent days. Nobody will find your fantastic tweet, if it’s 10 days old. 10 days means  “gone”.

It might be difficult even for yourself to collect your own Twitter stream. And here is a rescue: Tweetbook. It’s a wonderful web service, where you can make a pdf or xml file with your tweets (up to 3200). Having all of them in one editable document will make it really easy to select the golden ones – those you want in your book. »»»

Paper – Dan Brown’s lost symbol of the book

Everybody is excited about Dan Brown’s new book. For the first time, when it comes to an uberselling book, the e-premiere didn’t follow p-premiere, but took place at the same time. This was for me the most important fact to observe. Results? Yesterday evening Paul Biba has posted on TeleRead an info from Kindle Nation Daily, that Kindle edition of The Lost Symbol is outselling hardcovers.

When you take a closer look, it’s obvious. You can have an e-book instantly. There is no need to wait to have the book packed and delivered. “I want it now”. And you have it now. What’s even more important – “can’t run out of digital” as @AuldHouse commented the situation. You are 100% sure, that you can have Dan Brown’s book any time you think of buying it. This makes purchase decision much easier. E-book is not only more convenient to read, but also to buy. »»»

I’m not Dan Brown. Guess how I feel

I’m not Dan Brown.

Dan Brown is releasing tomorrow his new bestselling novel. I’m not.

Dan Brown is a genius writer. I’m not a genius and I just try to be a good writer.

Dan Brown makes huge money on his previous books. I make little money on my current Google Ads.

Dan Brown is writing books in English. I’m not. And I will never improve my English to the level where I can stop thinking about Google Translate.

And now comes the most important part: Dan Brown is perfectly meeting people’s expectations towards literature – he is giving them a long escape to the past. I think this is wrong. The literature of digital age shouldn’t be just an escape. We’re too much stuck in daily life to have enough time to escape. What’s more, the stress we receive every minute, from people and technology, cannot be just escaped. But it can be defused. That’s why I try to give my readers a short reset to the future, so they can live a bit easier and happier the next day.

I believe that today’s world is just too diverse for just one Dan Brown. I believe that there are readers, who don’t look for lost symbols, but forgotten passwords.

Now you know how I feel. I just feel good.

Is the future of books going to look like this? [video]

Here’s a promotional video of a French publishing group Editis. Although it’s fictional, it helps you feel how our daily life will look like in the near future – if we only pay enough attention to electronic books. I’m ready for such life right now…

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