TWIC: book publishing, podcast publishing, success and bikes

Bikes first because they have the least to do with theme of this blog. Add more bike lanes instead of parking. In the country I live in, that would be 'add more bike lanes to be misused for parking'.

70 percent of US mayors support making roads more accessible to cyclists, even at the expense of driving lanes and parking, according to the 2015 Menino Survey of Mayors. The 89 mayors in favor represent a bipartisan majority of mayors, hailing from cities of all sizes, that recognizes the benefit of bike accessibility projects to a city’s traffic flow and budget.

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A few months ago, my son told me he wanted to be a 'bj'.  Uncertain where the conversation would go, I asked him what he meant.  Broadcast Jockey.

Independent broadcasters called Broadcasting Jockeys (BJs) deliver live broadcasts to viewers, who can add them to their list of favorite channels using an Afreeca Player tool. Some channels have tens of thousands of viewers at any given time. Paid services such as quick views or channel relays allow BJs additional sources of revenue.

He now records and broadcasts playthroughs of Minecraft.

In doing so, he has introduced me to various recording apps and programs.  I already have audacity and used Screenr (which is now obsolete.) but together we learned about OBS (open broadcaster software) and screencastify.  The latter has a fee but apparently is easier than OBS.  For any podcast friends out there, I just learned of Zencastr, a program or app that assists in 'double enders' - recording audio from mics on different computers, for example on Skype.

Record & Stream
The host starts the recording and each party's audio is automatically streamed to the host's dropbox account in separate high quality file

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I found a list of 'things successful people do'. I normally find them to mistake correlation with causation and feel I am reading something like, "Successful people drive German cars. You should drive a German car." Still, this list, especially #1, is exactly right in pointing out habits I need to change.

1. Productive, successful people don’t get sucked into social media.
Being on social media—checking notifications Facebook, scrolling through pictures on Instagram, reading quick updates on Twitter, whatever—it’s part of everyday life. But if you don’t control how much time you spend on it, the hours will fly by and you won’t have accomplished anything on your to-do list.
So either put a time limit on it—set an alarm for when you need to minimize it, close the app, do something else—or only get on after completing necessary work projects. Use social media as a reward.

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Speaking of success, how do you measure it?  Amazon tells us only 40 self-published authors are successful.  Here is the measurement:

“Making money” here means selling more than one million e-book copies in the last five years.

It's hard to be a success in self-publishing. This author sold 20,000 copies of her book in one week but (claims she) was snubbed by the New York Times bestselling list.

Part of being a success means being noticed.  How can you be noticed when you are one of a million on Amazon?  Maybe build your own platform as these science fictions authors did.

These are authors who seem to have had a lot of success on Amazon, so it’s interesting to see them trying to create their own channel for connecting with readers and selling books (via “price promotions,” etc.) to them

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Coursera has a 5 part creative writing program going on right now. Part one is 'plot'.
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Troy Blackford talks about writing and his NaNoWriMo experience:

Turns out, there was a story up there. And man, did it end being crazier than I could have predicted when I started. Once again, my writing skills weren't nearly up to the task of telling it, but that's the whole reason you have to keep writing: to get better. I didn't outline a damn thing--not at the beginning. I like to use outlines once I get a story well under way, to help me stay on track, and don't do any really intense outlining until the very end of a story so I can tie everything together and deliver a satisfying ending. I like the creative freedom of starting with a blank slate. And, as I dug in on this marathon writing experiment, I had only one guiding idea.
In the first incarnation of Under the Wall, I had explored the idea of a loving cat with telekinetic powers, abilities which prove to be the only thing that enables the tiny but valiant feline to save his family from an evil madman.

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 Uncanny Magazine is open to short story submissions.