Go to the freshly-redesigned Parallel Mind blog and hit subscribe. Make sure that you tell me to send you Bird Seed in the comment box, or I won’t be able to tell if you want it or not.

On this page, you will find downloadable full-text versions of my book in open formats that contain no DRM (a stupid, scientifically bankrupt technology that seeks to restrict how you use and copy digital files after acquiring them). They are licensed under terms set out by Creative Commons, terms that allow you to undertake unlimited noncommercial distribution of the book. Share this book! That’s what it’s for. In the words of Woody Guthrie, “Publish it. Write it. Sing it. Swing to it. Yodel it. We wrote it, that’s all we wanted to do.”

What’s more, if you live in the developing world — a country not on the World Bank’s list of high-income countries — you can do much more. You can make your own editions, charge money for them, make movies, translations, plays and anything else you care to, and charge whatever you want, without sending me one cent — you don’t even need my permission. See the FAQ for more. The only restriction is that you can’t export your versions to the world’s high-income countries where all my paying customers are. Deal? Deal.

 

Download your free book here:http://www.craphound.com/

The Cowardly Lion, by Barry Moser

Barry Moser (born 1940) is a renowned artist, most famous as a printmaker and illustrator of numerous works of literature.

Interior of Moby-Dick or The Whale by Herman Melville. San Francisco : Arion Press, 1979 Wood cut illustrations by Barry Moser. This page shows a baseline initial cap in the shape of a wave.

He studied with Leonard Baskin.[1] Some of his most celebrated work has been his illustrations for Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass, each of which consisted of more than a hundred prints, and the former of which won him American Book Award for design and illustration in 1982.

His works have been displayed in such places as the British Museum, the Metropolitan Museum, Harvard, and the Library of Congress.

http://www.amazon.com/Barry-Moser/e/B000AQ4RA8

http://saulbass.tv/

A couple of years ago, I had a client who had lost his book designer to a family emergency and gave me the project. I was appalled at the state of his book. The book was a 500 page book and the book designer hadn’t though to leave enough interior margin for a book with this many pages—the text would have either disappeared or the text of the facing pages would have “kissed” at the spine.

The former designer had set the text in the font of the client’s choice which had a small x-height which made it really hard to read at the chosen 10pt setting, AND made the book much longer than it needed to be, adding to the base cost of printing the book. In addition, the text blocks were set at left ragged, not justified. The designer hadn’t defined the styles in InDesign, proving that she wasn’t a professional designer at all.

What did I do to improve the book?

First, I chose a highly legible serif font for the interior, setting the lines to a length that made it inviting to read. The font I chose made it possible for me to set the book in 11 point, increase the margins to a visually beautiful width, AND shortened the book at the same time. I defined the styles in InDesign for the chapter heads — I chose a display font to match the time period / theme of the book — and for other portions of the book, such as quotes, songs, etc.

But the job of the interior book designer doesn’t stop there: she has to make sure that there aren’t any widows or orphans throughout the book—single text lines on a page, or one word lines. If the author changes the book even by one word after the design has been done, the designer has to check that the text hasn’t re-flowed and created an ugly book interior.

The so-called publishing houses that cater to self-published authors can’t provide the kind of custom design services that will make your book stand out on the bookshelf. Many authors are lost when it comes to producing their book, and often end up spending more money because they have to do it twice: once with a publishing house, and again with a designer.

www.parallelmindzz.com

Bird Seed, an unconventional book on social media

The new medium of social media has created a new grassroots movement. It is such a big change that almost no one notices what happened.

Social media shows us that a new paradigm has evolved. You can see it in the verbiage:

Old paradigm verbiage
Consumers, corporate power, mass marketing, advertising, planned obsolescence, email blasts, broadcasting.

New paradigm verbiage
Individualists, informed buyers reporting on products and corporations, freedom of choice, democratized media, viral messaging, conversation, democratic media, inclusion & participation, flocking behavior, community, global reach.

Or to put it more succinctly, the old paradigm of the advertising age and consumerism is being replaced by a new era of individualism, free choice, and democratic grass-roots viral media.

OLD ADVERTISING AGE vs. NEW SOCIAL MEDIA ERA

Consumers vs. Informed Buyers

Advertising vs. Information

Broadcasting vs. Interactive Communication

Autocratic Media vs. Netizen Reportage

Customers vs. Neighbors

Markets vs. Communities

———————————

Wikipedia article on information overload:

A quite early example of the term information overload can be found in an article by Jacob Jacoby, Donald Speller and Carol Kohn Berning, who conducted an experiment on 192 housewives which was said to confirm the hypothesis that more information about brands would lead to poorer decision making.^[17] But long before that, the idea was introduced by Diderot, although it wasn’t by the term ‘information overload’:

As long as the centuries continue to unfold, the number of books will grow continually, and one can predict that—

a time will come when it will be almost as difficult to learn anything from books as from the direct study of the whole universe.

It will be almost as convenient to search for some bit of truth concealed in nature as it will be to find it hidden away in an immense multitude of bound volumes. –Denis Diderot, “Encyclopédie” (1755)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Information_overload

DO

1. publish your print book with LS however, there are definite hidden pitfalls in their service, so you should have outside help  — they are not geared to help you, the small publisher, and can’t design your book, or even advise you on how to best design for their unusual production process.

Using LS can maximize your profits while you outlay very little upfront, but you must remember that the standard in the industry is to offer distributors like Amazon and B&N a 55% discount; if you set your price too low, you could get into a negative profit situation.

Here is an example: you naively set the retail price for your 250 page book at a reasonable $12.00. Amazon buys the book from you at $5.40, but the POD printer (Lightning Source) charges $5.45 to print the book. So you have just lost in the transaction. If you sell your books yourself, you can cut out the middleman, but who searches the web for independent publishers? So the only way to profit from your book at your price is to buy boxes of your book and sell them out of your car, or at your seminars or workshops.

2. hire the following people: a professional content editor, a book designer, and/or book illustrator.

3. prepare your manuscript in Word. Make it perfect there before giving it to the designer; she is not there to check your work.

DON’T

1. output from Word for ebooks.

2. double-space after sentences.

3. use literal illustrations for your cover.

4. use services like Lulu that charge you for things you can do yourself. Spend that money on good design.

People do judge a book by it’s cover. If you don’t know what constitutes a good contemporary design, then check out the best sellers at your bookstore or on Amazon. The design of a book is one place where self-publishing can look amateur. If your cover and book interior looks amateurish, no one will read it!

BTW I started a new group for creative people on LI (I give a free business/web/book analysis for members who request it.) Join us at:

Creative Caffeine– brainstorm your life.

Here are some samples of my books and covers:

http://freshasylum.com/publications.html

http://parallelmindzz.com

time
money
effectiveness
sales
details
records
analytics
professionalism
the bottom line

The key bridge word is “communication.”

Take your right-brain stuff and use their words to reframe the issue. For instance: they want to use puke-pink on their website for men’s sports:

Say, “This design will be more effective, and communicate better to the target audience if we use this blue that has statistically been shown to appeal to men of our target age range. My research has shown that when men see this color, they buy products. I have even tested various shades of the blue to determine which shade delivers the maximum PPC, sales, click through…”

You could veer towards the silly with this, and have to be careful not to be sarcastic. You have to have solid proof that they will accept. The LB (left-brains) are very insecure with the RB’s way of doing things (by the seat of our pants — pure instinct), so you have to make them feel secure by using safe-sounding LB words.

Author of book on love: http://tinyurl.com/4d3t7xw
New releases are FREE to subscribers of the Parallel Mind blog

A few weeks ago I posted a question on LinkedIn to see how creative people were using Twitter.

Do You Have Any Unusual Ways to Use Twitter?

I have been tweeting excerpts from my book for the last two weeks and am only through Chapter 3 so far. Many people seem to be retweeting my quotes, and some of these people now follow me, so I am pleased.

How do you use this micro blog? Any great stories of Twitter use will be used in my blog on design and marketing, so please let me know if I can use your story and give me a link to your Twitter account and / or blog if applicable, so I can link to you from my blog.

Here are some of the best answers. I am reproducing the responses of only those people who gave me a Twitter address, and those who gave helpful, unusual answers, or useful links. There is no order in the following; nor have I rated the answers. Enjoy and tweet on!

—-

* note by author:

Since posting this article, I have received additional input, and have opened up the comment section below to allow other people to post their creative uses of Twitter. A new article will be generated from these posts. I expect a lot of hits again, so please include your Twitter handle and one other link in your comment. Too many links get put in spam.

Many people view this article, so your links will be followed! Please submit any creative use of Twitter that you have or know of, include your Twitter account: I will follow the best, most creative Tweeters.

Follow me at: http://www.twitter.com/parallelmind
On LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/aliyahmarr

I also have a newsletter on creativity and self-development at: http://parallelmind.wordpress.com

—-

Original responses:

I find Twitter to be compelling for many reasons. To answer your question about unusual ways to use Twitter…well, everything about Twitter is unusual. It is a new communication channel, that has more potential impact than email. From my tweets, I am picking up people with special interests that I don’t even know. Now that’s amazing…connecting, marketing and influencing a rapidly growing group of people of common interest to ‘me’, that are ‘following’ my assorted rantings, thoughts, promotions, recommendations and useful information.

One thought, as a reader of web content, make it easy to link to your Twitter account from ANYWHERE you have content. Please respond in the moment. Make it easy for them to retweet, follow you, check out your bio, website and other things that you care about. Make all of this personal.

I am using Twitter to help others get to know the REAL me. It is actually scary to be transparent to everyone that chooses to follow. Ok, so being real to strangers isn’t so bad, even if it is uncomfortable some times to be vulnerable to others. See, look how I’m bearing myself to you. It’s getting easier and people discern ‘real’. Perhaps what Twitter is doing for us is creating personal brand and trust, building corporate brand by building communities of interest.

http://twitter.com/TedTreanor

Ted Treanor

—

I have just started using Twitter in the past week as I beging the networking process. The people I have met have been extremely helpful in getting started. I have found that actually putting a question out is successful in not only addressing your needs, but in meeting new people and increasing your opportunity for people to see your work.

http://twitter.com/EvelynMcCPeters

Evelyn McCorristin Peters

—-

I use twitter to advertise my latest blog posts, note presentations I give across the US, find useful tools and trends that I see. It is great for marketing and getting the word out there as well as finding people tweeting about the same things to see what they have to say about common interests. I use shortened URLs to send links of interesting websites.

http://www.twitter.com/hgg101

Henrik De Gyor

—-

I have just posted a blog on this subject:

http://peterworsley.blogspot.com/

Peter Worsley

—

I have an account on twitter: myhairtalking – I have 100 followers within a few weeks. It is from my hair’s point of view. I write jokes, hair advice, I’m hoping to get a book. I also have myhairtalking.tumblr.com

I’d love people to come see me there. You can say and show a lot more on tumblr, but I’m just getting started.

http://www.twitter.com/myhairtalking

Lori Peters

—

I frequently write about Twitter at my Examiner.com

http://budurl.com/twitterbandwagon
http://budurl.com/twitterforcrisis

http://twitter.com/ZimblerMiller

Phyllis Zimbler Miller

—

I just followed you, Aliyah.
I tweet news on children’s books, mainly reviews.
You should check out the Twitter Mania Manual:

http://www.bookmarket.com/50WaystoTweet.htm

Download the Word document and just read it through.

If you ask “How do you use Twitter?” it’s like asking “How do you talk to other people?” The answer is: There are so many different ways but it all boils down to: be helpful, engage, be informative, and you may even be funny.

I particularly like quotes http://bit.ly/myquotes

http://twitter.com/calutateo

Carsten Peters

—

I avoided the use of Twitter for a long time as just another social media time waster – until I began getting emails in regards to a friend/design industry peer tweeting about the fact I wasn’t using Twitter. For a little over a year now, I have used Twitter to promote my books, speaking engagements, competition judging, published articles, and drive people to my blogs where they can learn much more about my design work. Twitter has also been used to inform others in my industry about related news-worthy topics, educational/conference opportunities, book submission and design competitions, and much more. I’ve also found Twitter to be incredibly valuable in promoting the creative efforts, books, and causes of friends/peers in design-related professions.

http://jfisherlogomotives.com

http://twitter.com/LogoMotives

Jeff Fisher | Engineer of Creative Identity | Jeff Fisher LogoMotives

—

I have been only using tweeter since August. I post mainly links i find interesting on social media, design, jobs, fashion, and everything else that catches my attention. I am using it because I wanted to give it a second try; i had created an account on the past but found it to time consuming. Today I have a different opinion.

This second time I started to follow much more people than i actually do now, but soon realized that it was just to much info at the same time for me to read and manage.

Meanwhile i am trying tweetdeck which i found that helps a lot managing your tweets, but again still pretty new…

Took a look on your tweets and i am following you know…here is mine, perhaps you are curious about it.

http://twitter.com/sofia_henriques

Sofia Henriques

—

Even if it’s OT: Don’t tweet auto updates from Massive Multiplayer Online Games (MMOG). I’ve tried it yesterday and lost 3% followers within a day. The next step is a security debate about third party authentication. Don’t do it!

http://www.twitter.com/birgerking

Birger Hartung

–

I use twitter to keep friends/followers updated on my life, my creativity, my work, designs, inspiration, dreams, poetry, & articles i find interesting…. I use it so people can get a sense of personality as well Thank you for your tweets… I’ve just added you…please add me:

http://twitter.com/TheDesignGenie

Carla Horn

–

Create a customer-attracting twitter contest

Links:
http://howwepartner.com/2009/07/get-more-customers-walking-in-your-door-with-a-twitter-contest/

Kare Anderson

–

One thing I think a lot of people miss with Twitter is conversation! Most people are savvy to self-promotion, and if all you post are info about yourself and your work, you’ll find limited, if any, success on Twitter (or MySpace or Facebook).

While I do post about my Christmas station and my record label, I also talk to people who I’m following (and who are following me). The instant interaction is what really makes Twitter tick.

Anyway, there’s my two cents.
http://twitter.com/SOCMusic

Ken Kessler

—

Hi Aliyah,
Twitter became my personal online daily pinboard full of interesting messages and activities of my own community (my followers). Before Twitter I checked so many blogs and sites to check out the newest stuff and innovation gadgets, interesting articles what so ever. Besides checking the messages of my personal pinboard, I use my online personal pinboard (twitter.com/mdenekamp) to post my own messages. My tweets gives me retweets and followers so my personal network is growing and also my personal online pinboard.

www.twitter.com/mdenekamp

Marjolein Denekamp

—
I don’t know that I’m doing anything particularly unusual with Twitter, though I do fall into Erica’s camp. Twitter isn’t a publishing tool, but instead a venue for two-way communication.

My main Twitter strategy is to serve as a resource on topics in my field of interest. (Web, design, marketing, social media, higher ed, science.) I do this by sharing links to interesting blog posts, answering questions, asking questions, jumping into conversations, reTweeting relevant posts and participating in Twitter real-time chats. The important thing about this strategy is that the information isn’t all my own. While I will Tweet various thoughts, opinions and links to my own blog posts, most content comes from elsewhere. Thus I function more as an editor than a writer.

This makes me a more valuable resource than if I was only sharing my own content, and thus Tweeps with an interest in my topics will follow me. To show my human side I also post random bits of fluff such as amusing videos, what I’m doing this weekend, etc.

As I mentioned above, Twitter Chats are extremely useful. I’ve found they are a great way to share ideas on topics such as blogging and social media. I participate semi-regularly in about 3 of them. I also have a blog post that explains more about these.

Happy Tweeting!

Links:
http://www.heidicool.com/blog/2009/07/27/twitter-chats/
http://www.heidicool.com/blog/2009/04/29/twitterfollowing/

http://www.twitter.com/hacool

Heidi Cool

—

Hi Aliyah,

I have a number of Twitter accounts and I use each for different purposes. My main account is VizCab, where I post about design. I’ll often use Twitter in conjunction with my Posterous blog. For example, I ran posts on Twitter and LinkedIn asking for input on my business card design which I uploaded on Posterous.

I was able to get around 1,000+ views and dozens of comments that were sprinkled between Posterous and LinkedIn. Using crowd-sourcing, I was able to see where parts of my initial design were confusing to people. I got a lot of good feedback (and some bad). I also got a lead on a better vendor to print my cards.

The Twitter community gives me a lot of fodder for my blog on information design at michaelrowley.posterous.com

I’m happy to share this story with you.

http://twitter.com/VizCab

Michael Rowley

–
Among the creative ways I’ve used Twitter:

* Follow people who provide links to subjects I’m researching
* Use my contacts to gain blurbs for my new book, speaking gigs, and client leads
* Use an ongoing search to add comments that sell my book and broaden my audience
* Be interviewed by a journalist in open Q&A, though I found this a rather frustrating format

http://georgekao.com/922s

Shel Horowitz
—-

Check out my free blog/newsletter on creative and personal development:

http://parallelmind.wordpress.com

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