ImpBlog

How to Read More Books

Mon, 2 Feb 2009 20:51:50 -0500

Confession time.

How many books have you bought but haven’t read yet?

I’ll go first.

A couple of dozen or so.

Sad, I know.

Procrastination creeps in. Life takes over.

Rest assured; I read a lot. But I can never keep up!

Here’s the trick to up your body count:

Visit the library once per month and borrow a book.

This adds motivation to finish the book you borrowed before the due date so you can return it to the library and take out another book while you’re there.

Don’t get me wrong -- I’m still encouraging everyone to keep buying books. It’s good for all of us authors! It’s good for our faltering economy.

But up your kill ratio by visiting your local library once per month.

Make Dale Carnegie proud.

The Multitasking Myth

Sun, 1 Feb 2009 12:31:49 -0500

The past 48 hours have been... fascinating.

And eye-opening

On January 30th I said goodbye to an employee who decided the grass is greener on the other side of the Malinche fence.

It wasn’t until I received his formal notice of resignation on January 20th that I realized I had been carrying around a 200 pound weight on my shoulders for the past few years.

I only noticed this heavy weight’s crushing press on my shoulders since the turn of the century only after it was removed.

How is this possible?

It was only when I read his resignation that I stopped double-checking his (sloppy) work, reminding him of critical tasks to complete (usually forgotten), coaxing him to show up on time to meetings and appointments (he is perennially late), attempting to decode his cryptic and usually insensible emails and checking on his project status (never on time, always side tracked and frequently distracted).

Let me be clear -- every waking moment of every work day had me preoccupied with keeping this poor pony on the track lest he wander off to pastures unknown while, simultaneously, I performed my own daily tasks and to-dos.

Removing the load of all this mental exercise from my mind, all of that previously-occupied brainpower was suddenly available for other tasks.

Results?

My stress was dramatically reduced - instantly.
My ever-growing frustration with this employee was - gone.
My energy levels spiked.
My creativity exploded.

His departure was the best outcome possible for all concerned. Unless, of course, his new boss is far less tolerant than me and fires his absent-minded ass in no time at all.

I fault myself for being too nice for too long to an employee that was weighing me down, holding back my company and needlessly complicating my life altogether.

Moral of the story; continual multitasking took a tremendous toll on every aspect of my existence with the secondary nugget of knowledge being -- you just can’t be too nice to people.

Want more proof that multitasking backfires?

Not quite an hour ago (it’s 1:03 PM Eastern Standard Time as I type this) I wrapped up the final draft of a non-fiction book I’ve been writing along with co-author (and good friend) Carlo Cangro.

The book is entitled “Going Broker” and we’re sending it to the editor tomorrow morning.

If all goes well, Going Broker will be published later this year.

I’ve spent MONTHS on this project devoting countless hours of my time to help Carlo tell the incredible story of his life as a powerful bond broker on Wall Street.

If you’re thinking a non-fiction book on the boring bond market will make for a bland read then guess again...

... think of Going Broker as a cross between the movies Caddy Shack and Wall Street with the added bonus of being 100% true.

It was a lot of fun and a lot of work and it forced me to grow as a writer.

Side-effect: Less time and energy devoted to my own baby -- Saints in Sin City -- leading to enough blown deadlines to make Douglas Adams proud and, as a result, more publishing push backs than has ever been witnessed in recorded history.

One task. One focus. One thing at a time. It’s the only way.

And here’s a shout out to Tim Ferriss -- You’re so right about multitasking and doubly-right about keeping things simple.

Another Paradigm Shift

Thu, 29 Jan 2009 21:42:12 -0500

The New York Times Books section has put out some interesting news the past couple of days...

First -- The Bad News:

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/29/books/29post.html

The Washington Post is cutting back its coverage of books which is just additional confirmation of what we’ve all been dreading; the interest of the reading public is on a downward spiral. The New York Times will now be the sole source of a free-standing books section in the United States.

Second -- The Good News (mostly):

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/28/books/28selfpub.html

The balance of power in the publishing world is officially shifting away from the vaunted institutions of the book world.

This trend is altogether good because the public can gain access to books that would never see the light of day if the status quo held.

There is a dark side to this -- what if most of these new books suck? Any aspiring author with a “vision” and a credit card can become a published author and churn yet another title to join the ranks of the other 500,000 unique titles we can expect to see published this year.

Anyone even remotely familiar with my adventures in publishing interactive fiction (http://www.malinche.net) already knows that I went the self-publishing route from the get go because I realized years ago the giants of media in all of its forms (traditional book publishers, Hollywood, the recording industry, etc) only pay serious attention to things that have a high probability success.

(Example: Ever hear of a musical act called The Veronicas? Probably not. Warner Brothers gave this new act a laughably small promotion budget when they first hit the scene some four years ago. How do I know? Warner Brothers approached me to write an iPod game promoting them in 2005. They flipped at my fee and counter-offered a joke of a number which I refused to accept so, naturally, no iPod game for them. Four years later -- they sell a respectable number of units in their native Australia while their sales in the US and elsewhere are too small to register.)

Where’s the quality control?

As a capitalist, I understand and agree with “the play it safe” formula for commercial success in cranking out what the public wants. The company’s exposure to risk is minimized and the consumer is unlikely to be unpleasantly surprised.

As an entrepreneur I shiver at the thought of playing it safe. The biggest gains are made by taking the biggest risks.

The biggest losses can happen that way too, obviously.

As a creative artist in the medium of the published word I fear the staid approach to sticking with the tried and true. Going with the same predictable formulas for success breeds stagnation and stale stories and, ultimately, bored consumers.

Fresh works. Fresh fiction works best. And consumers are craving fresh now more than ever before in a world of doom and despair.

But what does the author (and the reader!) do in this new landscape where the old gods are dying and the young bucks may suck?

The budding author needs to step into the shoes of the established author by convincing readers through all reasonable means that what they write is worth reading.

The reader needs to take a chance on fresh fiction and give that unknown author a shot.

The publisher (or bookseller -- or both!) must take the risk away from the consumer so there is no downside to making a bad choice.

Wait a second. Didn’t I already accomplish all of this as the Chairman and CEO of Malinche Entertainment years ago?

I guess I need to stop keeping all of these paradigm shifts in the publishing world a secret....

Honoring John Updike

Tue, 27 Jan 2009 21:21:46 -0500

For versatility with the written word, you’d be hard pressed to find someone with skills superior.

His engaging writing made minutia matter as he touched the heartstrings with his heartfelt style.

The book world mourns.

We’ve lost another giant.

ObamaStock

Mon, 19 Jan 2009 20:38:06 -0500

Why are over one million people camping out in the cold to see a veritable neophyte start a job he is impossibly under qualified for?

Far out, man!