The Future of Publishing

Interest on the blog, but we'll see if people are gonna put any money into it.

Well, here's the deal, though. He was just talking about sponsoring. Having major corporate sponsors, and there are large organizations like Career Builder and all that kind of rigmarole.

Oh, yeah.

You know, to think about, like, who would have them as a target audience that actually might sponsor your book?

You know what was funny is I actually. So I'm a CPA by training, and I work as a consultant, so this is not my primary job, but it's just something I found a passion for. I had an interview last week where, you know, she told me in three to five minutes, I want you to try to sell me something. And she gave me two minutes to think about it. And the first thing that came to mind was this book that I haven't written yet. So I pitched it to her, and she's like, that's a really good idea. If you join here, I would help you write it. And that's something I know that she would want to give to all the new analysts that start. Just because, like I said, it's one of those things. You just don't learn it in school for some reason. I don't know why. That's just the way it is.

Yeah. That's very cool. Super. Yeah, I could think of probably. I could think of umpteen. You know, like, Randstadt might be another one, like those staffing services.

Oh, yeah, I should be writing that down.

I'm like, the idea fountain. I can always, like, help everybody.

You are awesome.

You're awesome. That's great. I want to hear about yours, Clarissa.

Oh, my gosh, Cynthia.

I can't wait.

It's my turn.

Okay, so let me get out the boring stuff first, right? Get ready to snooze for a second. I'm trained as a behavioral scientist and clinician in infectious disease and psychiatry.

Okay?

So really, I developed the idea about this book. Originally, it was going to be a book series or.

Right.

Because I wanted to do different areas of life. But I was most frustrated with relationships, okay. And, like, the technical part of the frustration is really about, like, modifying self.

Esteem for people, okay?

So I know that no one's going to ever read my book if I ever talked about self esteem and, like, techniques on enhancing self esteem. So I said, you know what? Let me just deal with how. Let me just deal with the book in terms of how I would relate to things and what I say to myself, right? Because that's more relatable than the clinical.

Aspect Right, right, right, right.

So nine years ago, I joked around and I said, you know what? I'm gonna create a book series called you'd're just a dumbass. And let me tell you, Cynthia, I love it. I think it's great already, but it's that horrible, right? Like, so first, when I started blogging about like six months ago, I kind of was still like a little bit afraid. So I was blogging anonymously only because you know what I deal with? I deal with infectious disease, you know, so. And I wanted to kind of, you know, because I still, I co founded a nonprofit that focuses on women in aids. And I never wanted any one of our patients to ever come across it and say, what?

Right, right.

Okay.

So I finally just put one identifier on the blog recently. Like, I put up my picture that's used throughout, like all my social media. So it kind of branded the blog that way.

Right.

But it's a very different universe for me because, listen, I come from like a very, like, very clinical academic background, you know, where, you know, you publish journals and no one ever reads it. You tell people what to do, they never do it. You know what I mean? So with the blog, I decided, you know what, let's just not be scared about talking about any of the stuff that's ever gone. Gone on in life. You know what I mean? Like I just said, you know what? Let me stop. Start with the most ridiculous online dating experiences I've ever had or the most ridiculous like, you know, pickup stuff that's ever happened because I needed to get a hook. Because people are going to look at, I mean, they'll laugh at. You're just a dumbass. Just a title, right? Yeah, but then, but then I needed people to like, read the, the technique that I really talk about. And meanwhile, this was all me basing my idea on, look, I want to tear down hospital walls. I want to tear down clinical walls. I want everybody just to have open access to this information. Like whoever is going through a breakup, you just look at my top 10 tips of the day. If you're working through a breakup or divorce, these are the things that I, in five sentences, what it really all means, you know what I mean?

Yeah.

So that's where I'm at. I've just been piloting this edgy content, not very clinical stuff, you know what I mean?

I think you should step out of the box and be this real person. That's why Sex and the City was so such a huge popular show, is because you suddenly started Dealing with, like, these relationship things going on. And, you know, relationships are, you know, it's like food. Everybody eats, everybody has sex, everybody dates.

Right, right, right. Yes, exactly.

You kind of have everybody there, you know, so you've got a lot of opportunities. You can seek sponsorship, too. I could see you haven't. I mean, why not directs? Why not? You know, like, I mean, why not just, you know, I don't know.

That's true. You know, I never thought about. I didn't even think. Like, honestly, this is such a, like, new area for me. You know, I come from, you know, just treating patients. You know what I mean?

Right.

So I didn't even know about sponsorship. Like, I really didn't, you know, that that could be an avenue. And I started thinking, I'm like, yeah, well, maybe I should get match.com to.

Yeah, that'd be another one. Yeah. They're looking. They're looking for ways to get themselves out there in front of people that are savvy and more interesting than just slightly slapping than just your average TV ad or whatever. TV ad dollars are going down the tubes.

Yup. They're played out.

They're looking for people that can distribute content to an audience. So what I would do with your blog is make sure you're building your audience with your blog and your social media profiles.

Yes, yes, I've been slowly doing that. But even that, to tell you the truth, is all new to me. You know, I mean, I've tried to, like, research what things make more sense and what, you know, and I'm, you know, because I'm a scientist, I always, like, measure everything, you know, I test everything before, you know, like, I watch what happens with the Google following for one whole week, and then I go over to Facebook and then I get frustrated because there's only, like a little bit of numbers on Facebook. Then I'm like, fuck this, let's cancel out. So everything is, like, so, so new and, you know, and Twitter, what the hell is like. It's just.

So Twitter's a great distribution and you can develop relationships on Twitter. My work, incidentally, is social media. So what I do is I help businesses get up to speed with all these platforms, and part of my job is to stay up to speed with it. It's like a moving target all the time because everything's changing.

Are you focused on some in particular or are you a person that's required to do them all? Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Tumblr.

I base it on the client and where I think their target audiences Are. So I'm looking at an overall strategy as opposed to them having this blanket approach. And so with a lawyer, he's got a different strategy than a psychologist, than an artist. I mean, the artist that I have deals with, his work is much more visual. So I really have to craft out the strategy specific to who I'm working with. But the platforms are all the same and I spend 12 weeks teaching and working with them on the platforms in their own voice. But they pay me on a monthly basis for three months of coaching.

What are you doing personally?

Do what?

What are you doing personally as far as social media goes?

Personally, I am very, very much. I have completely drunk the Google Kool Aid. I absolutely love Google Hangouts and I do a. I have a cooking show on Google on Hangouts on Air that is co produced with Larry Finnelier and I just love Google, I really do. You know, I've gone out. I used to be Apple fangirl and now that I can only do Hangouts on air on Androids, I now have moved over and love Samsung. So I'm part techie, part social at the same time.

So I need more hours in the day. The social component is growing, but nothing else is decreasing.

Well, you just have no, I hear you there. But you've got to, you know, also learn how to manage your time effectively and use platforms to do that for yourself. Like, you know, hootsuite or something. Are you using hootsuite?

Actually, I don't like it.

You don't? I use hootsuite and Buffer. Buffer is another one. So I'll focus on the blog myself. And I've been terrible because I've been building out everybody else's blog. So I've neglected my two blogs for the past few weeks. But I teach people and I mostly focus on the blog and then I engage more on Google and then I distribute now to Facebook and Twitter.

Yeah, that's what I was going to say about hootsuite is the distribution component. So when I first started using Twitter it seemed, or at least the people that I was following, it was much more interaction and now it's a lot of. A lot of promotion, not self promotion, but a lot of promotion and just kind of blog sharing.

Yeah.

Which is good. But the only time I feel like you really see people is when you know they're on hosting whatever their chat is that they've created, which is nice to interact during that time. But I feel like it's not really the spirit of social media if you know What?

I mean, once you hang out, you can never go back. It's hard to go back. It makes these chat sessions in Twitter, they just seem. They fall flat after seeing people face to face and hearing their voices. It's just. It's a whole other game.

It makes a difference, a big difference. I use this stuff for my family because I travel all the time. It makes a big difference, seeing that live face.

Yeah, well, not for me. I've met people all over the world that I'm now collaborating with in ways I never would have. Facebook or Twitter. Never.

Yep, that makes sense.

I mean, it seems like to me, you know, here we are all in ape. We didn't know each other before tonight, that we might be able to exchange ideas and maybe hold each other a little accountable.

You know, I was just trying to figure out how I could circle you from the hangout, but I don't think that's a feature yet.

Yeah, you can't do it from the hangout, but you can open up and then circle me and I'll turn around and circle y' all back and I'll just probably make an ape circle. Have y' all read his book yet?

I don't have it yet.

No, not yet.

You know how long it is? I'm curious.

It's about 300 pages. I've got it up right now. Hold on a second, I'll tell you. 324 pages. And it is chock full of tips. It's full of links. So they're live links. So as you read the book, you can click straight through to the links, which is really wonderful.

What are you reading it on? Are you on a Kindle or are you on a. What is it, the Nexus? You're the Android person now?

No, he sent it out initially as a PDF using a little Send it. It's called you Send it. He sent it out to some people to review, and I really haven't had the time to read because we've had Art Basel down here in my. I live in Miami, so we've had this crazy few weeks. So I'm just now starting to read the book and I'm going to review it actually on my blog. That was part of kind of the agreement. But I think you can get it on. I think you can get it on Kindle. I mean, on Amazon.com. just download it on Amazon Kindle.

Yep, I saw that. I think that was Pig that was saying it's available in any Kindle app. So I have an iPad.

Yeah.

For some reason, like I like surfing the web on, but reading books on it has been. I haven't really gotten into that, but.

Really?

Yeah.

Let me give you the. What I love about it, I'm a bookaholic. I love books. I love reading, but I also love writing in and all over them and making my notes. But with Kindle, you can highlight and then it's. It aggregates all your highlighted information into like one or two pages. So you can take the meat of a book out of the sandwich and get rid of all the rest of the stuff.

Are you using the regular Kindle or are you using the Kindle app on a different device?

I use the Kindle app on my MacBook Pro and on my phone as well.

Interesting.

So I can take it with me because what I do is I download it into the cloud, Kindle cloud, and then I can read it in either location, wherever it is that I am. So, you know, and I think we really are moving that direction. I'm excited about it because I have a four year old and I can just see her flipping through textbooks and, you know, well, instead of a paper textbook, like traveling and studying European history by traveling all over the world, by clicking on Versailles and the Colosseum in Rome. So I see where this is going and it's going to be exciting. I think.

I have a 4 year old too, and I see the same transformation. They get frustrated when they get a chance to interact with paper magazines. Just not as user friendly. She's trying to click across and do that whole thing.

Clarissa, will you share with us your blog?

Sure. You know, I just realized that James Worley just commented to me on this thread, I think that it's on air right now. I mean, how would this, you know, it is.

We are. It is on air now.

It wasn't on air before.

No, Right. It was temporarily, then it went off and now it's back on air.

Yeah.

So thank you, James Worley, for your comment. Hi, James.

That's good to know.

It's in the ape. It's in an Ape thread or the event thread?

No, it's in this event thread.

Oh, okay, cool. Ask him if he wants to come in. Can we invite him in?

Yeah, well, he actually directed the question. He gave me advice and then directed the question to you guys too. So let's do that. Yeah.

The only thing is we're not actually, we're not producers. So Gaia, I think, is the only one that can invite anyone in.

I think I just joined from the ape community. I saw it there And I just jumped in there.

Okay. Yeah, that's where I think I saw it too. So his name is James.

James Worley.

James, if you can. If you're in the ape community, I think there's a hangout button if you want to join us. You're welcome to.

Yeah, it was on the bottom right when I saw it. Hearing some weird sounds in my hotel room. I don't know what is going on.

Okay, this looks cool. You've got a good start. Yeah, you've got a good start. The only thing that I would say is that if you plan on any kind of commercial intent, which would be like selling a book, you're going to need to switch to WordPress, a self hosted WordPress, so that you're not violating their terms of service. That would be my recommendation. And you can import, you can export, import your existing WordPress.com over into WordPress.org you just need to buy the URL.

Right.

What term of service would you be violating? I'm curious.

WordPress.com is meant for personal blogging use only.

Right.

And they make you sign that and WordPress.org you self host through like hostgator or something like that. And then you're allowed to. She would be allowed to sell her book on a WordPress.org but not on a WordPress.com.

That'S good to know as well. Thank you for that.

I'm like a WordPress geek.

So do you think that it'd be. Do you think I should stay on WordPress instead of just going somewhere else? Because I did buy the domain name.

Yeah, if you bought the domain name, I'd stick with WordPressors. Even though Blogger is a Google product, WordPress has great, a great sort of search relationship with Google.

Yeah. Clarissa, you'll find that most people you come across are going to be WordPress to say the least.

Yeah. When I was looking at both, I decided on WordPress because it did have a lot more traffic.

I think it does have traffic. There's more maintenance though. That was what was a thing that put me off. I didn't want to do the maintenance with my job even right now I should probably be doing something else, but I wanted to do this instead. It looked more interesting. I don't want to be doing wet maintenance. I want to focus on the writing. And then as it develops, I feel like you always have the ability to move it, export to blog and then, you know, move it over as necessary.

You know what though, Clarissa? You could find somebody to outsource that little piece too. Like, and you know, pay them $25 a month just to upgrade your plugins and your make sure your WordPress is up to date so that it doesn't break. And when it breaks, it means your site goes all white. You can just pay someone a little monthly fee to handle all that for you. Kind of like a virtual assistant or something.

Oh, I didn't know a couple of guys actually from doing the blog chat on Twitter, if you're interested.

Yeah. Yes.

Please send this to me. Send me the link.

Blog chat's awesome, by the way, on Twitter.

You like that?

It's really cool.

Every week.

I stay on it every week because you know what? I have church during night at 9 o' clock when it starts. I have church and I'm on the. I'm on the chat ministry for that. So sometimes. So now I miss it. But it is a great group.

It's called blog chat.

Yeah, it's hashtag blog chat and it's nine. Is it nine until 10 o' clock every Sunday night? Yeah. And it's a great little. It's just a Twitter chat group and they all read each other stuff and so. Do you know Peg from that, Eric?

Yep. So I came across Peg on that. Then I started reading a few things from 12 most and then.

Yeah. Have you written on 12 most yet?

I've not written on 12 most yet.

I'm a 12 moster.

You are?

Yeah. I've got probably three articles, not a.

Whole lot, but I'm gonna submit something there. And then I ended up not doing it.

Do it. She's always looking for great content.

Who's that?

12Most is a multi user blog and they have various people submit blog posts and the format kind of goes like this. You title Your post the 12 most, blah, blah, blah, blah blah, whatever. Fill in the blank. Then you make a list of the 12 most things that you're blah, blah, blah, blah blah ing about. It's a list format so you can write one or two sentences and keep it really light and funny. Or it can be super informational. Like the 12 most predictions for social media in 2013 would be. And you know, the 12 most visionary, you know, you have to come up with some funky, you know, way to catch people's attention.

Some of them are more humorous than others. Yes, I know one of the people who I enjoy that writes on there is a Mark Ensign. I think that's how you say his last name. Yeah, I like the stuff that he writes on there.

I'm always amused by that Peg always has good stuff. Peg Fitzpatrick. And then Bruce Salon is another one that has had some good stuff.

Bruce does dad chat, so I know Bruce as well.

He's a cool guy.

Yeah, so it's a song.

Yeah, I saw that. About his road trip.

Yeah. I actually won a copy of that, so. I did read that one.

You did? Nice.

Very interesting. Yeah. Got a long ways before I'm doing that, though.

He's a good writer. Yeah. I've got a 15 and a 4.

It's a little age gap there. 15 help you out much?

He's up in New York now, so not. Not. He doesn't throw his socks on the floor anymore.

That's a start.

Where is he in New York?

He's studying at Bronx Science and Math or Bronx Math and Science or whatever. It's kind of a public school, but very hard to get into.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Bronx Science, Yeah. I'm from New York.

Yeah, yeah, that's what he's doing. Where are you, Eric?

I'm currently sitting in Minneapolis, but I live in Wilmington, Delaware, and I'm from Chicago.

Oh, cool. Okay. So you're on the east coast now.

Yep.

That's cool. Okay.

I'm trying to get back west, actually. That's where I went to undergrad. This 24 and 20 degree weather that I'm experiencing right now is not feeling too great.

Yeah, I don't know. I don't have that problem down here in Miami.

Yeah, I posted Rub it in. Yeah, we don't get that here.

I posted Sandy the Snow Woman on my. My stream today.

That's unbelievable. Yeah, I could do Miami too. Maybe I can talk my wife into that one.

It's nice. And Miami actually has some decent schools, like magnet schools, so it makes the school system not so bad. It is definitely predominantly Latin.

Schools in Wilmington, Delaware, are not very good. So it sounds like most people try to do private if they can.

Right.

So there's a hefty price tag that goes with that as well.

There are only a handful of really good public schools in. In Florida, and Miami has the bulk of them all the way up through high school is what I'm talking about. So. Well, you know, I'm excited to meet y'.

All. This is my first hangout with strangers, actually strangers now, but yeah, this is very nice.

Oh, do you guys know. How do you go about getting sponsorship?

Well, Guy was talking about that earlier and what he was saying in the panel was that he wrote. I think he wrote it maybe in advance. I don't really know, but that. Then he reached out to Samsung with what the plus and they sponsored him. I mean, of course, I mean, he's Guy Kawasaki.

Didn'T take a lot of convincing.

He's got name brand recognition and quite a following, so that doesn't hurt. But I don't know why smaller brands wouldn't pick up on what you're doing or even anything related to relationships or whatever. I mean, why not pitch it?

Part of that too, I feel like, comes from doing some of the chats. Clarissa. So for me personally, like, I don't have any sponsorships, but I had a small, like accounting software company asked me to guest post on their blog and then, you know, they wanted me to try out their software and things like that.

Right.

So like, you start building some of those relationships, you get involved in, some of the chats, get more exposure. All that stuff takes time, I think, but it happens pretty organically. You do have to get after it a little bit, though.

Yeah. It's a job in and of itself because you've got to have kind of, you know, your game plan or strategy of how you're going to reach out to these people. And in some cases it's PR agencies, you know, like kind of connecting in to who their PR agents are and pitching them, literally pitching them on the. And you've got to have your act together too. You've got to be able to say, listen, I have X number on Twitter and X number on Facebook and da da, da da. And like be able to give them your story. I think.

That'S the part that takes time. The numbers, that's what they're looking for. More so than a compelling story. I feel like you can have a compelling story and have readership or following on Facebook that's still fairly small.

Mm.

Because the word just hasn't gotten out yet. So all that stuff, and that's kind of what I'm doing now is trying to figure out how do you get more exposure, how to get more people reading what you're putting out there. Good content doesn't really do much for you if no one's reading it.

I'm gonna, I just put, just use Odesk or Elance or something like that. Clarissa. For a virtual assistant. And you put your thing there and you say, I need somebody who's going to help me on a monthly basis. I'm going to make sure that my WordPress and plugins are consistently updated. It's a once a month project and I'll pay X number of dollars. And then you'll get people that will kind of bid for the job and you figure out who you like the best. And you might have to test out 1, 2 or 3 or whatever until you find somebody that you like working with. Okay. I have a young guy out of India who I love and he just pings me whenever he's free and he's like, what can I do today? You know? And so I will give him little projects and I just pay him through PayPal or whatever. But Eric just recommended Bob. Done. So if Bob does this, I would definitely go with that.

Okay.

Okay.

You can ask him. I don't know what his prices are, but like I said, that's one of the people I met in blog chat. And I know that he teaches WordPress. I haven't used him, but he seems like a nice guy when I talk to him. So I just ask him.

And this would be after you decide to go the self hosting direction. I mean, that's, you know, he may be able to help make that easy for you and just do it for you.

I'm sure he's able. It's just a matter of what it's going to cost for them to do it versus maybe someone else will do it for less.

Yeah. So, you know, just shop it around. You've already got the content going on. It's just a matter of, you know, shifting gears if you decide to monetize it. How about that?

Yes, absolutely. So now, you know, going back to like, I know the appeal is different. Like everybody has content out there and they all think that their content is good. So it's all about the numbers and what's behind everything. So do you have suggestions on what that threshold figure looks like or what that range is?

You know, all companies are different. I mean, they will pay different dollar amounts and I know that's sort of a roundabout answer, but they all pay different things for different reasons. You need to have your range if you're going to do sponsored post, you need to have your range in your head that you're willing to do it for. Well, I'll help you in a second. Basically what I'm suggesting is you could do a couple for free in exchange for product, but don't sell yourself out all the time like that. It just kind of, you know.

Yeah, right, right.

Cynthia, where are you from?

Louisiana, originally.

I was detecting a bit of southern.

Twang there, but I haven't been back in a really long time, like 25 years.

So you still got it though. Just, just a hint.

I still cook it too.

That's better. I know who to call when I come to Miami. Get some gumbo while I'm down there.

My show is learning how to cook Louisiana Creole with a tropical twist. So I take these old recipes from these really old books that my grandmother left me and I cook them. But I add really wacko Florida type tropical fruits and vegetables, you know, are kind of neat. So.

You have a. You said you have a hangout show, so. Yeah, channel there.

Yeah, it's. It's actually, it's actually run on Larry Finnelier and he is under Trinny Man 50, I think on YouTube.

Yeah, I need you to type that in there.

Okay. And he's got several of us. I mean we're all under that. And then there's Hangouts network.

I love this stuff. I really just really got to get the hang of how to use it all.

But I don't host them. I should host them on my own YouTube channel, but I don't right now because he mainly does most of the co production. He's got the major following. So we'll open up an event and promote it in advance. I've kind of.