New Post: A Day Late and a Dollar Short.

Shalakoc2011



The big news is 'The hyper media Daily,' which is a paper.li paperless newspaper.

This is a system of link following and reposting in a format that somewhat resembles the old newspaper, but which more closely mimics what our local paper has online. By setting up another Twitter account, and then following selected twitterers we get a very personalized newspaper, or 'world-class newsletter' delivered to our inbox at six a.m. 'daily.'

By using my hyper-media account to follow my own @louisbshalako account, I can put my own stuff in my own paper alongside sources whose credibility scintillates with the glister of hundred-carat cubic zirconiums under a dental surgeon's worklight. The funny thing is that there are moral considerations, in spite of the fact that I could post eighty links on facebook in a day and no one would remark upon it.

On #wjcht Wednesday night, @girljournalist noted, 'I know someone who had their entire twitterfeed plagiarized,' and while it's an interesting discussion point, there was this one time when I posted my credit card and pin number on www.legitimatenigerianbusinessenterprises.com and some asshole bought himself a whole truckload of A.K.'s.

So; I don't feel sorry for you at all, and you're not on the feed anyway! If you would like to be included, please follow @hyperlouis and then DM and in twenty-five words or less indicate exactly what it is that you are bringing to the table.

So far 'The hyper media Daily' has three subscribers, and @hyperlouis has eleven followers on Twitter.

Another consideration was 'attribution' and 'link rot,' also concerning attribution.

If you're in there, your name is on there.

The paper.li paper is automatically updated every 24 hours, and if a source does not repost in that time, the same story might appear twice.

(The paper is of course archived by the Library of Congress and a number of foreign and domestic intelligence agencies...right?)

As far as I'm concerned, it is an interesting experiment, especially in terms of what sort of reaction one might receive.

By adding and removing links, which takes a few minutes per day, we've invented a pretty good little personal news service--which is all it really amounts to.

It is the creative, aggressive, and disruptive use of the thing, and the potential political impact of the proper use of it, by someone who actually knows what he is doing, that is most disturbing to the bourgeoisie.

I could create ten or twenty targeted papers in a day, if I chose--that's disturbing to the pulp and paper industry. I have no doubts about that, ladies and gentlemen.

Most invalid criticisms stem from unaddressed social tensions, often working from the mid-strata down. It's largely a matter of misperceived social status.

New Post: Promo Insights from E-Book Week

by Louis Bertrand Shalako

c2010

All Rights Reserved


The nice thing about Smashwords is that the author gets some data, which is easily understandable and accessible from your dashboard.

Over the course of E-Book Week Shalako Publishing gave free e-books to anyone who was willing to sign up for Smashwords. This is comparable to sign-up at any other electronic bookseller; and for the purposes of promotion even simpler because customers didn't have to provide credit or debit data.

Early on, I was promoting on Twitter to some degree, but over the last two days I let that rest, although naturally I still monitored the stream. Every day I put out at least one or two links to my pages on LinkedIn and Stumbleupon, and that sort of thing.

For the last couple of days it was mostly reminders; bearing in mind that Facebook is my biggest 'audience' or group of friends. On Goodreads, I gave a general update once a day in the morning.

Here are the peak numbers: Heaven Is Too Far Away, up to 80 hits a day.
Paranoid Cat and other tales,about 70/day.
Core Values (up to) 50/day.
Case of the Curious Killers, a nice 125/day.
The Handbag's Tale, about 100 a day.

Over the course of the promotion we gave away 130 e-books, with Handbag's Tale taking the checkered flag, followed by Heaven, Case, Paranoid Cat and then Core Values. The first three had over thirty each, Paranoid a couple of dozen and Core Values was the one that brought in a small donation. We also gave away six copies.

One thing I would like to know is the formats of each download--it would be nice to know exactly how many people took what format.

While this is a small sampling, it is at least as accurate as inteviewing rich people as they come out of Nieman-Marcus and asking them if they are hopeful about the economy.

By five o'clock on the last day I was getting incredibly tired, and perhaps a little slap-happy with the buttons. It is really something to put out a link and then watch page views climb...then the number changes up with another couple of book-freebies.

With little or no marketing experience, the week provided experience, and some new questions, which is always good.

A big thumbs-up to all of our new friends.