Archive for the ‘writing’ category

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Latest Work

February 6th, 2012

What have I been writing lately? Well, I have been working on some books, but I still keep on top of a variety of websites. For example, I have this recent page on my “ideas” site:

The Value of Things

This is an article about the contextual nature of value. We tend to think about the value of things in currency terms and in terms of “market value,” and that’s a useful perspective. But things are worth something different to each of us in reality. Gold coins would be just another toy for a baby, for example, and vacation to France might have a value of $10,000 to one person while having no actual value to another. I further explore what it means to have value.

Deep Thinking

This is a how-to article from my brainpower website. I start with the assumption that » Read more: Latest Work

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How I Make a Living Writing

January 25th, 2012

If you want to make a living writing, you have to get busy writing. Ideas are just a start; getting them down on paper or into a computer file is what you need to do. And sometimes you even have to write on subjects which are less than inspiring, if that’s what it takes to get the income flowing.

For example, this morning I wrote a new page for my website on how to remove carpet stains. You can see it here if you care about the ongoing debate between carpet lovers and those who prefer wood floors: Carpet Versus Hardwood Flooring. No, I am not thrilled about writing on the subject of carpet, but that little website pays all the household bills, so I figure I should devote thirty or forty minutes to it every week or two.

Fortunately it is easier than ever to write about anything now. This is, of course, due to » Read more: How I Make a Living Writing

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The Thousand Mile Hole

January 17th, 2012

That’s the name of my newest book. Subtitled, “A Guide to Deep Thought,” it starts with a fall into a hole that is (you guessed it) a thousand miles deep. There is something different about a hole like that, when compared to other holes. Normally, if you fall off a cliff or into a deep hole, you die very quickly. Perhaps you have the proverbial “life flashing before your eyes,” but it has to flash quickly since you will hit bottom in mere seconds. But with a hole of a thousand miles, and the with humans reaching terminal velocity at around 125 miles per hour, you would fall for eight hours before certain death.

Or is death certain? That’s one of the many things I explore as I fall to my death all day long in Chapter One. This is an extended version of the classic “thought experiment” used by Albert Einstein and others. In Einstein’s case, he imagined things like running alongside a beam of light, or a man falling from a building. He used these exercises in imagination to change the face of modern physics.

In other chapters I look at many ways to think deeply and creatively about almost anything.

The book was really finished more than a year ago, but I got busy with many other projects. In order to get this one out there I finally decided to skip the paper version for now. The book  has been published only on Amazon Kindle. You can get a copy here:

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B006U1OQ2Q

Fortunately, if you do not have a Kindle reader, it costs nothing to » Read more: The Thousand Mile Hole

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Three Tips for Writers

December 28th, 2011

Just to get a post up (it’s been a while), I’ll give a little bit of “insider information” for writers who have a book being published, or those who hope to soon. Three items come to mind as I think through the process of getting my book “101 Weird Ways to Make Money” published.

1. Negotiate

It may seem that as a first time author you should just take the deal given to you, and in general that may be true. But there is always room for negotiation. When the contract was sent to me by Wiley and Sons, I had problems with four or five relatively minor parts of it. They  agreed to changes in all of them. The details are unimportant here, since they will be different in your case, but I didn’t ask for  more of an advance or higher royalties. I suspect that first-time authors would not often be able to negotiate higher royalties or advances unless they are famous or in the news.

2. Buy Your Books Online

Should you buy your own copies of your book from the publisher? Maybe; but check the price that you pay and if it only pennies more to buy online, get your copies there. Many publisher/author contracts will require that » Read more: Three Tips for Writers

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Free Chapter

December 5th, 2011

Here is a free chapter from 101 Weird Ways to Make Money (you can order the book through the link to the right).

Chapter 8

The Business of Chasing Criminals

Bounty Hunting Careers

I was a skip tracer many years ago. Sometimes confused with bounty hunting, skip tracing is simply finding people. I did this primarily by phone when working for a collection agency, and I had to actually physically locate the person being sued when I was a process server. Bounty hunters, also called “bail enforcement agents,” use skip tracing techniques, but their job is more interesting and dangerous than simply locating someone.

They are primarily hired by bail bond agencies. Suppose a court sets bail at $50,000 for someone charged with theft. A bail bond agency might charge the accused $5,000 (and sometimes require collateral), and then give or guarantee the court the $50,000, which is forfeited if the defendant doesn’t make it to trial on time. In this case, rather than lose the $50,000, the bondsman » Read more: Free Chapter

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A Radical Book or Two

November 28th, 2011

Yes, I have some different ideas about things, and the time has come to publish a radical book or two. Actually I have four in the works, with the first one completely done and the other three just in need of editing. I have even paid to have book covers designed for them. They will be only available as e-books on Amazon’s Kindle and the Barnes and Noble Nook. I should have them published by January.

They are collections of essays, some of which I wrote years ago, and many more recent ones. People think I am outspoken about issues, but the truth is they don’t know the half of it. If I’m not asked I rarely offer my opinion on a matter when talking to others. I do not want to offend people just to show off my own beliefs.

On the other hand » Read more: A Radical Book or Two

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Working While Traveling

September 30th, 2011

I like the idea of working while traveling. I even bring this full-sized laptop that is in front of me now (in the past we just brought a mini). But it isn’t actually easy to work while on the road or in airports.

At the moment we are in a hotel in Portland Maine, and I have already done the usual five minutes of daily work that gets done when traveling: checking email. This is my feeble attempt to do more than that; a simple post–but even that just a short note on my personal blog. In a few minutes we are heading out to sea on a schooner.

It is worth at least » Read more: Working While Traveling

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Working at Home

September 24th, 2011

One of the great things about working at home is that you can take a break whenever you like. One of the problems with working at home is that you can take a break whenever you like. My routine consists of working for a while, and then eating, maybe taking the cats outside (they don’t go out unsupervised), and then working some more. This pattern of work mixed with other activities continues throughout the day. When we are not traveling, Ana and I work seven days per week.

Now, I thought I was working quite a bit. Years ago it was easier to make a living online, and I worked about 20 hours weekly, but lately I had been really putting in the hours–or so I thought. About ten days back I started tracking the time I spent on my writing and our business (which are the same thing). I just wrote down how much time I had spent at the computer whenever I left it.

It wasn’t very many days before I realized that » Read more: Working at Home

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Another Radio Interview

September 21st, 2011

I did another radio interview on Friday. It was for Martha Stewart Living Radio, on Sirius XM 110. The show was “Making a Living,” with Maggie Mistal, and I did fifteen minutes live, talking about my book “101 Weird Ways to Make Money” and about jobs in general. It went well I think. Here are three questions Maggie asked before the show, by email, along with my responses:

–What is the most creative way you’ve made money in your career?

A lot of creativity went into the walking sticks I used to carve, or into the real estate deals I’ve done, but probably my most creative work has been in the internet business my wife and I currently own. It’s surprising which creative niches can be profitable, and I have numerous interests, so I get to write in so many areas and make money doing it. My website metaphorology.com, for example, which is all about metaphors, actually makes a little money. My site on ultralight backpacking made more than » Read more: Another Radio Interview

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Make More Money With Your Writing

September 8th, 2011

I’m always looking for ways to make more money with my writing. I experiment quite a bit to look for those ways. I have found that I can sometimes make more money giving away an ebook rather than selling it, for example–by including affiliate links to products that I like. I have made it work the other way too, selecting free content from my websites and then packaging and selling it as an ebook. I have published some books in paper and as PDFs, and other only as paperbacks.

Luck Book

Sometimes, though we miss the obvious, for a lack of knowledge or just–as in my case–a presumed lack of time.

For about two years now I have been making a couple hundred dollars monthly selling my books as Amazon Kindle downloads. In case you’re not familiar with the Kindle, it’s a e-book reader that is now owned by millions of people, which gives instant access to tens of thousands of books from virtually anywhere. It costs nothing to start a publisher account with Amazon and then make your books available on Kindle.

So, publishing only books that I have previously written, at the total cost of about two hours each to format them properly and upload them to the Kindle platform, I have been making a nice extra income stream. Of course I knew that Barnes and Noble had their “Nook,” another e-book reader, but I » Read more: Make More Money With Your Writing

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