So there is a lot of huff & puff at the moment across the Internet about the EULA for the new Apple iBooks Author software which they released early this week. The software itself is getting mostly rave reviews for making the process of building a solid, good looking, engaging, modern multimedia eBook and especially a electronic textbook designed for tablets, really easy and open to far more people.But at the price of agreeing to only “sell” the resulting ebooks in the Apple iBooks application (so only for the iPad and other iOS applications since at least currently iBooks does not have a version for the MacOS).

However the EULA also allows for the FREE distribution of those books in any way you want – it just requires that commercial use be limited to via Apple (and subject to a separate agreement with Apple – i.e. they will pick and choose which books they distribute).

So below a few ideas which people should explore – whatever your feelings about the EULA. (and if you refuse to sign it – don’t forget that you can just not use the iBooks Creator and just write your book via more traditional tools – though this may require that you work with someone with the right (and often expensive) software and the skills to lay out the text, images etc. And building an immersive application or electronic version is yet another skill set).

1. Use iBooks Author to layout PUBLIC DOMAIN resources (see http://www.gutenberg.org/ for one) adding layout, public domain illustrations – or CC licensed works with the right licenses and credits. Then make these works available (for FREE) via Apple’s iBooks app. But also make the files available outside of that app (and perhaps explore whether Apple’s HTML5 output can be converted to another eBook format and/or rendered inside of a standards compliant HTML5 aware browser as a webpage.

2. Use iBooks Author to create updated textbooks for use by online educational offerings such as Khan Academy (http://www.khanacademy.org/) perhaps even including the appropriate videos from Khan Academy inside of your work. Again make these available for FREE – submitted to Apple for the iBooks store but also via downloads and if conversion is possible in other apps as well as perhaps as HTML5 webpages.

3. Leverage the fact that iBooks Author is a FREE application and use it to create a new form of globally collaborated upon book. Perhaps use a service such as Dropbox to share you files with co-authors across the Globe and use the free software to collaborate on writing an authoritative work on a subject upon which you and your collaborators are experts. Here if you like sell this (limited to the Apple iBooks store and possibly subject to agreements between the co-authors about the distribution of income etc) but also consider making these works FREE – and both submit them to the iBooks store but also make them available in other apps and online.

You might as “why go through all of the effort to make an iBook only to give it away?”

Consider two scenarios.

Scenario 1

You and your co-authors are talking with a prospective client. They want to see how you work and what you think about. You suggest that they go to your website, fill out a request form and download one of your “White Papers”. A 64+ page, text (and limited black & white illustrations) PDF file. They do so but barely can keep their eyes open past page 3, don’t have easy access to a printer (since they are on the road and working from their laptop) and you don’t hear back from them.

Scenario 2

You and your co-authors are talking with a prospective client. You send them an iTunes Gift which is of your book (should work whether or not the book is free). They open up iBooks, download the book and are greeted with an interactive and highly modern textbook on your area of expertise. It opens with videos of you (and your co-authors) and the text is in modern fonts and in full color with illustrations. The client reads your textbook on their next plane flight and when they land send over a contract.

Yes, “white papers” aren’t always dry and dull but these days if you are going to be giving away your content to sell your services (the model of countless consultancies) why not take a look at iBooks Creator as a possible tool to integrate content types and as a way of creating a more compelling and actionable content.

And if you are thinking about selling that content then sure you could sell it on your website (lots of tools for that) but if you have to spend the time (and money) but mostly time managing an ecommerce website you have to sell a great number of white papers. Sure 30% adds up (and if you as I might recommend sell your book not for $9.99 but for 10-40x of that amount) the percentage is all that more meaningful. But in the end if you just gave the book away you likely will make more from a single consulting project than you will from the book.

If not your consulting rates and project scope is vastly too low

Okay if you are +Tim Ferriss consider disregarding this advice (Tim’s third “4-hour” book The 4-Hour Chef (seehttp://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0547884591/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=jigzawinc-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=0547884591
is now available for pre-order on Amazon – and he’s almost certainly on his way to yet another NYTimes Bestseller. But even Tim might have some non-NYTimes bestseller content that might make a good free book – compilations of blog posts + videos from his blog or video series with +Kevin Rose for example might be one idea. Go see his FOUNDATION video interview when you have some time)But for the rest of us non-NYTimes bestselling authors Apple has just given us a fantastic tool. A tool to help possibly spread education and a tool which savvy professionals may use to stand out from a sea of similar consultants.

(originally posted to my Google+ stream)

1) not renewing any print magazine subscriptions & deciding on a case by case basis was print publications to subscribe to for 2012. I’d like to have 3-5 magazines a month – considering The Atlantic Monthly, Monocle and possibly a few others – what would you suggest? (serious news, politics, tech or non-serious games, rpgs, science fiction or fantasy are all options)

2) unsubscribing from the 300-400+ blogs I currently get via Google Reader and adding back just the ones I actually miss not reading. I’d like to ADD a lot of ones I don’t currently read – especially looking for good, unique perspectives on Business – technology & non-tech with a strong focus on design and innovation. But equally I want to read some great political blogs, some great gaming (not just video games but also paper RPG’s and boardgames) blogs, some blogs on writing – especially science fiction, and some “geek” blogs. As well as the still active blogs of friends of mine

3) Unsubscribing from many of the podcasts I currently subscribe to (especially the ones that have remained mostly unlistened to for many months). I’ll keep a few of the gaming podcasts that I keep up with, the comics podcasts I listen to but would like to add some great (but focused) tech podcasts (audio preferred to video) and possibly some political or general interest/geek podcasts?

4) unsubscribing from still more email lists – especially the ones that have remained mostly unread and/or which I rarely engage with these days. I’d also like to add a few new ones IF I can identify really interesting & active communities (and/or exceptionally currated content sources)

5) Picking a few online communities to really engage deeply with this year. I’ve never “gotten” Reddit but folks I really respect love it deeply. Clearly there is something worthwhile happening there. Equally I haven’t “gotten” into either LiveJournal or Tumblr and both might be worth really engaging with in 2012.

6) Creating my own content. Starting with posts here in Google+ but also writing on my personal blog(s) and soon our new corporate blog (more on that in a few days) but not ending there. I’d like to write more guest posts for other media outlets, write some articles perhaps for magazines or other publications and by the end of 2012 I’d like to have at least one book if not published then in the works.

Suggestions for great content I should consider adding to my media diet in 2012 are welcome – especially if you know me well and have some unique suggestions…

thanks!

What changes are you planning for 2012?
Filed under: Entrepreneurship, geeks, personal ]]> http://shannonclark.wordpress.com/2012/01/03/im-thinking-about-pushing-the-reset-button/feed/ 5 Shannon Clark http://shannonclark.wordpress.com/2012/01/01/looking-back-on-2011-and-forward-to-2012/ http://shannonclark.wordpress.com/2012/01/01/looking-back-on-2011-and-forward-to-2012/#comments Sun, 01 Jan 2012 08:00:04 +0000 shannonclark http://shannonclark.wordpress.com/?p=1274 ]]> 2011 ends in just minutes as I write this and it has been a year of highs and lows, perhaps too many lows. In any case I am looking forward to 2012, the first full year of marriage for me – I was married this past Fall – that’s definitely a major highlight of my year. But as well there have been some major lows – sudden deaths, professional disappointments (both my own and those of close friends) all in all 2011 has been a rough year and one that can’t end too soon.

Every year however I look back on the last year and forward to the next and wonder what I will be doing this time next year, what will have happened in the year to come and what will seem so common by the end of year that I can’t even quite imagine as the year begins.

Last year at New Years Eve I would not have guessed that this year I would end the year a married man, sitting at home watching local tv with my wife – very very happily doing so. The new year will start with a day of home chores – laundry and house cleaning and then the week begins with work.

A few years ago I spent New Years Eve at a friend’s house – at the time I was single – there was a tradition in that household (I think) where you wrote down one word that would be your theme (and goal) for the year to come. My word that year was “companionship”.

In 2011 I more than got that and I enter 2012 with the best companion in the world – my wife.

I love you Usha.

This weekend I am getting married!

It is a big “change of life event” to use the HR terminology – more importantly and more accurately it is an important next step in my life and relationship to my soon to be wife. The next few days will be a blur of family and friends – and lots of last minute details to be sorted (and client projects to finish) but it will all be worth it when we say our vows in front of family and friends.

Our ceremony will be a short one, it will draw upon our family backgrounds but it will not be a religious ceremony. Neither my soon to be wife nor I are religious (I’m an atheist, she’s perhaps less certain about atheism than I). A friend of ours will be the officiant and the ceremony is one that we have written along with our friend. It will have elements of the Hindu traditions, it will have elements of the Jewish and even some hints of my Irish-Catholic family. But mostly it will be short and will focus on the new family and partnership we are creating together – a relationship of equals (though like many smart men I admit that most of the time I’ll be wrong…)

The weekend will have a few events and we hope our love of great, local food will shine through – as well as our intention of welcoming our friends and family and celebrating along with them. We chose to be married over Thanksgiving Weekend because it is my favorite holiday of the year – a celebration of good food and our family and friends. As a couple we have hosted Thanksgiving meals (not always on Thanksgiving Day) at which we have invited both family and friends. For me Thanksgiving is a time to invite everyone over – not just immediate family but also the family that we have made for ourselves. It is a time to share

My main thesis is that if you are building a business you are in the business of selling something (at a price and in a volume that is sustainable and ideally scalable and growing over time).

If, in contrast, you are selling your business you are still in sales just now of equity not your actual product – and if you are great at that you likely won’t be great at your actual sales of your actual product.

Yes this is in contrast to the Silicon Valley mythos built up around press attention around each (hopefully larger) round of funding at progressively bigger and bigger valuations. Those are often examples of founders (and senior management) who are expert salesmen (and the occasional though perhaps to occasionally but that’s another post women) selling themselves, their brand and their “vision” over actual sales.

In contrast the Kickstarter model forces three key elements that are far more likely to lead to a successful business than if the model was instead focused on selling equity (as far far too many people IMHO keep proposing SEC regulations and opportunities for fraud be dammed).

1. Selling your vision quickly and succinctly The forcing effort of a great, short video along with a well written description (plus ongoing engagement) should not be discounted. I would guess that a majority (a large majority) of the founders I talk to are unable to sell their vision in a short, succinct and compelling message. They ramble, they sell themselves not their product, they talk about the vision for their business over the vision for a specific product. In contrast success on a site such as Kickstarter is in a very large and real manner dependent on presenting a compelling vision about what you are going to make (and what you are offering to supporters) which is so compelling that enough people want to see the final product (and in most cases get it or a copy of it for themselves).
2. Selling to actual customers something compelling enough to part real money from them The perks and stuff you offer on a site such as Kickstarter are really important, but notably the most successful projects often have very few levels of support. They aren’t trying to offer lots of levels with lots of unique perks, instead the successful projects tend to offer three distinct levels of support. A very low level that is just a few bucks and offers just credit/thanks or perhaps a digital only product (typically <$10). A middle level that offers the first production copies of whatever is being funded (typically $25-75 depending on the object often with a US and an International shipping option). This level doesn’t have to be complicated – offer the product you will be making (the very first ones to supporters) and some small (but next to no cost to you) extra as thanks. And a third level often $500 or higher that offers a limited number (typically) of unique special perks – original artwork, dinner with the founders etc. These levels however also don’t have to be complicated – keep it simple and focus on the actual product is the recipe many of the most successful kickstarter campaigns I’ve studied have followed.
3. Promotion with a side of hustle and more promotion Key to successful Kickstarter campaigns, the ones that grow beyong a small number of friends and family are the active and compelling promotion of your campaign. You have a limited timeframe and a discret success metric (funded/not funded) which helps force entrepreneurs to keep promoting actively and often. Hustle wins here. Social media is likely important but equally (and perhaps even more important) is knowing which social media channels, especially which small niche channels will lead to success for your specific product. Knowing this is another thing that a majority of entrepreneurs I work with fail to know – they have an idea of who their customers may be (often very broadly defined – more than you would like to see say “everyone on the planet/Internet could be my customer…”) but almost never do they know where those customers are active online – their variations, niche site (podcast, blog, magazine, video series) loyalties etc.

Since the 1990′s I’ve been seeing proposals for sites that would allow for the crowdfunding of businesses – for the “democratization” of capital (and/or access to “IPOs” as it was deemed in the roaring 90′s) but all that attention to raising money all too often misses the real goal of a successful business – creating sustainable value.
View or comment on Shannon Clark’s post »
Filed under: geeks ]]> http://shannonclark.wordpress.com/2011/10/10/selling-stuff-on-kickstarter-is-better-than/feed/ 0 Shannon Clark http://shannonclark.wordpress.com/2011/09/19/when-did-millionaire-shift-from-assets-to-income/ http://shannonclark.wordpress.com/2011/09/19/when-did-millionaire-shift-from-assets-to-income/#comments Mon, 19 Sep 2011 18:50:02 +0000 shannonclark http://shannonclark.wordpress.com/?p=1260 ]]> This is a political post – if you want to leave comments great but I have moderation turned on and I will delete any comments that are personal attacks or otherwise offensive.

When did millionaire shift from a measure of assets to a measure of income?

These are far from the same thing. Growing up I recall that a “millionaire” was someone who was worth over $1M dollars. This was notable and still fairly rare but it could and did include a lot of people who didn’t have a lot of income just, for example, the fortune to own a home in a state with high property values such as California.

But in the past few years, I’m not sure when this started, millionaires has started to be used to denote people with a yearly INCOME of greater than $1M. This is a very small number of people (though apparently the number of people in this category has grown in recent years as the very wealthiest people in the country have prospered even as nearly everyone else have not). But increasingly public policy is being dictated by folks who seem to think that changes that impact this small and exceptionally wealthy group of individuals are more important than policies that impact the majority of households. One party, the GOP, seems nearly entirely focused on preventing any tax increase of any form on anyone even as they simultaneously work to prevent a continuation of a tax break on most working families (the inherent contradiction in this position seems to have escaped them).

An individual or family earning over $1M a year is earning 20x the median income (roughly) of the typical American family. In fact they earn in a month what few families in the US earn in the entire year. When you are earning on that scale you likely have a mix of earned income (i.e. salaries) and capital gains (i.e. earnings on investments or things deemed by quirks of the tax law to be investments – such as VC’s earnings from their funds even though most of the money in those funds is investors’ money not most VC’s own personal funds). While most people don’t have a lot of control over when they get their salary (unless they quit their job) entrepreneurs, investors and money managers have a great deal of control over when they realize capital gains – since this occurs when they sell an investment at a profit or when their investments pay out a dividend (which in the case of many very high net worth individuals may be something they have enough control over that investment to dictate when and if that happens). And in many cases there are legal means to defer recognition of capital gains via reinvestment of those gains in similar investments or via offsetting losses (this gets complicated and I’m neither a lawyer or an accountant – in the case of real estate investments there are exchange rules that can come into play, in the case of financial investments investors may be able to sell off assets that have lost value when they also sell off assets that have gained value which does make sense as a legal means of offsetting gains but also allows investors to time and control how much income to recognize in a given timeframe)

But all of that complexity aside the question I’m curious about is when did millionaire become a term for folks earning $1M or more a year and why hasn’t this change been more emphasized in popular discourse and debate? It seems fundamentally different to earn $1M in a year than to be worth over $1M. The likely average net worth of individuals earning $1M (or more) each year is vastly greater than $1M – for example to earn $1M in interest payments would require assets of nearly $25-30M (3-4% interest earnings though with higher risk investments higher interest might be available but Treasuries pay even less than that at the moment). To earn $1M in rents from properties even in the current depressed real estate market would likely require $10M (or more) worth of properties and for that $1M to be income not gross rents would require even more (after paying for the upkeep of the properties, for real estate taxes, for professional management and all the other fees and costs with running such a large series of rental properties).

Very few small businesses have over $1m in gross annual sales, let alone have incomes of over $1M (where “income” is roughly defined as being gross income after costs of the goods/services sold by the business). Few businesses have gross margins greater than 30% – for gross income to be $1m implies gross sales of over $3M (roughly $3.3M actually). If someone is the owner of such a business they have a lot of legal means to control how (and if) that $1m in gross profits flows through the business to them as the owners. They can pay a portion of that as earned income, they can pay out much of it as a dividend (getting capital gains rates not income tax rates on that portion) and they can reinvest much of it into the business (or potentially other businesses) without having to pay personal taxes (or potentially much corporate taxes) on it. Though the details on all that depend on the legal structure of the business, the state they do business in and many other factors.

In 1991 as I prepared for my first year of college I bought my first computer of my own – it wasn’t a Mac, nor was it a Windows PC, I bought a used NeXT cube. The bit over $6000 I spent on that NeXT was probably among the best purchases I ever made in my life – more than college, more then my first condo. Okay not more than a certain ring I just bought but other than that, one of the most long lasting purchases of my life – as the skills I learned connecting that NeXT to the Internet have lasted to this day.

In 1991 from my college dorm room which included wired Internet access I had a static IP address and had nearly 1000 users from around the globe playing the MuCK which I ran for some friends on the NeXT (named Collatz). While I wasn’t ever a highly active player of the MuCK I helped to run that experience and the ongoing experience of the NeXT OS as an interface to the Internet in 1991 has shaped me and my technical interests to this day.

I purchased the NeXT largely because it came bundled with Mathematica (I thought I was going to be a Math or Physics major and had been an avid Mathematica user while working at Argonne National Lab). There are still UI and software elements of the NeXT which I think still would be innovative today – the multi-dimensional spreadsheet for the NeXT OS was really impressive and the mail included the ability to link photos to addresses (something only gradually available today via add-ons such as Rapportive to Gmail though Google is also making some strides to add this – but it still is far from standard).

A few years into to college, however, i sold my NeXT and bought my first laptop, which wasn’t a Mac but a PC. That served me well as a writing tool but less well as a technology tool and the various PCs I owned in the 1990′s and early 2000′s weren’t much better.

Finally fed up with Windows I switched to first an iMac for my home computer a few years ago and then added the MacBook Pro I’m writing on at the moment. Earlier this year my fiancee and I each bought an iPad and I’ve had an iPhone since the first version.

I’m still not a full power user of the latest MacOS (Lion) and I don’t do a lot of coding these days (though I did hack up an iPad app a while back and may try my hand at that again later this fall) but I’m appreciative of the power of the Mac platform and the reinvigorated Apple company that is Steve Job’s legacy.
View or comment on Shannon Clark’s post on Google+»
Filed under: geeks, internet, mac, personal ]]> http://shannonclark.wordpress.com/2011/08/25/my-steve-jobs-memories/feed/ 0 Shannon Clark http://shannonclark.wordpress.com/2011/08/09/why-i-dont-accept-most-connections-on-linkedin/ http://shannonclark.wordpress.com/2011/08/09/why-i-dont-accept-most-connections-on-linkedin/#comments Tue, 09 Aug 2011 15:08:37 +0000 shannonclark http://shannonclark.wordpress.com/2011/08/09/why-i-dont-accept-most-connections-on-linkedin/ ]]> Why I don’t accept most connections on LinkedIn or circle back on Google+Recently I have read articles which note that it is apparently the “accepted norm” on LinkedIn that most people accept all connection requests.

Perhaps this is true, but if so it also explains why I haven’t found LinkedIn very useful since that became the norm. When LinkedIn first launched (I was one of the first 1000 users of LinkedIn) my network on LinkedIn though I kept my direct connections to people I both actually knew and would refer business to (i.e. I didn’t then nor do I now accept connections on LinkedIn from anyone I wouldn’t do business with myself) I still had a reach that included much of LinkedIn’s membership.

In those early years I got a lot of referral requests for people a few degrees away from me, when the request was well written and reasonable I would forward it on to my contact who in turn knew the person who was trying to be contacted. This was a great system in that it was an opportunity for me to connect with and reach out to my contacts and in general it was highly effective as a business tool.

But now that most of LinkedIn have adopted this nearly valueless method of making connections the network graph on LinkedIn is far less valuable or reliable. As a result I rarely use LinkedIn other than occasionally as a research tool (but not for network connections or referrals but rather for information about a given business – i.e. the number of current and former employees they have, their job roles and types, the velocity of turnover at that business etc). All useful but not so valuable that I use LinkedIn frequently.
View or comment on Shannon Clark’s post »The Google+ project makes sharing on the web more like sharing in real-life.
Join Google+

A small example of this – a bunch of great SF writers and fans have launched The World SF Travel Fund (see http://peerbackers.com/projects/the-world-sf-travel-fund/) but note the highly limited scope of their imagination.

One Fan each year to One Science Fiction convention.

$6000 for two years of running the fund (i.e. implying $3000/award which seems about right)

The “World” Science Fiction conventions, one of the oldest science fiction conventions still happening now draw between 2000-6000 people each year depending on where it is held (the lower numbers in years when it is held outside of the US, the larger numbers when it is held in a major US city).

But at the same time conventions such as San Diego ComicCon, PAX Prime and PAX East sell out every single year and attract 125k+ attendees (in the case of ComicCon). These are massive events with the participation of many of the largest media companies in the world.

At the box office SF and Fantasy films dominate every year with billions of box office (and billions more in other revenues). Likewise while there are hit computer games that aren’t SF (EA Sports franchises, Rock Band etc) many of the biggest and most profitable franchise in gaming have SF or Fantasy elements – the over $1B/year World of Warcraft franchise, HALO, Diablo, Starcraft and countless others.

And leaving media and entertainment aside (I haven’t even mentioned the billions more in revenues from SF or Fantasy TV series over the years) we ourselves live in a world surrounded by real gadgets and experiences unimagined by most of our fiction, especially most of our Science Fiction, of the past decades.

A few examples

1) Everything Apple makes – the iPhone, the iPad, the AppleTV, the MacBook Air. All woven together in ways that dwarf the imaginations even of the 1980′s and 90′s “cyberpunks” and with capabilities in excess even of the perhaps original inspirations such as the Star Trek PADD (see http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/star-trek-padd/id446277240?mt=8 to turn your iPad into a version of one) or the Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy – see Wikipedia there…

2) Sometime earlier this year the number of cell phones globally hit over 5 Billion. That means that over 2/3rds of the planet likely has a cell phone (there are many people who have more than one phone so the exact # without a phone is hard to estimate). The societal, cultural and economic impact of that has yes to be explored – but the reality of this is something few writers have explored in our fiction (indeed most fiction – whether “science fiction” or “serious” rarely is written set in our current world – few characters have cell phones, smartphones etc)

3) Global logistics. This is the not-so-sexy stuff that allows you to place an order in CA on the weekend and get product from halfway across the planet delivered in the middle of the afternoon to your doorstep less than a week later. This is what allows you to order a customized piece of electronics, a made-to-order car, even entire homes or in the case of San Francisco most of a bridge to be built across the planet and shipped as needed.This is what ties businesses, people and countries together. This isn’t sexy and rarely is acknowledged in fiction but this is what has changed the planet in the past few decades (along with the Internet in the past two decades)

and there is much more
Peerbackers | The World SF Travel Fundpeerbackers-logo. Join Peerbackers Write About Us Get in. How It Works; Back Project; Submit Project; FAQ; Blog; Resources. Explore By. select an option to browse; closest to goal; buzz (most backers)…

View or comment on Shannon Clark’s post »The Google+ project makes sharing on the web more like sharing in real-life.
Join Google+
Filed under: futureculture, geeks ]]> http://shannonclark.wordpress.com/2011/08/01/we-live-in-the-beyond-past-science-fiction/feed/ 0 Shannon Clark *&refresh=31536000&resize_h=16 *&refresh=31536000&resize_h=120