Tag Archives: writing

Freebies

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Maria Speaks Episode 14: Freebies.

In this episode, I’ll tell you why I think a professional writer should consider writing for free. So if you’re a writer or want to be one, keep listening for my point of view on this often argued topic.

This episode is an updated version of an article I wrote for Maria’s WebLog back in December 2004. You can still find the original article there, along with some other thoughts about writing for a living. The best way to get to Maria’s WebLog is to click the link on the home page of my Web site, www.aneclecticmind.com.

I really AM a geek!

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I discover enhanced podcasts and just have to try making one myself.

Yesterday, after getting my dose of news from Salon and Slate, I checked out the iTunes Music Store’s Podcast Directory. I found CockpitCast, “A podcast from the $16million airplane strapped to my ass.” It’s a mildly interesting podcast for people into aviation, full of control tower chatter and radio communications as a pair of jet pilots fly from LAX to other points. I noticed that some of the episodes were marked as “enhanced” and wondered what that meant. It all became clear when I played one in iTunes.

Now please do forgive me. I know I make a living writing about computer topics, but I’m in the middle of a revision of a QuickBooks book right now and I’m trying hard to keep my mind off things like podcasting. So enhanced podcasts made their debut and I missed them. It won’t be the first time I missed a computer innovation and I’m sure it won’t be the last.

Well, the CockpitCast enhanced podcast included photos. And frankly, that kind of blew me away.

You see, I’ve been creating how-to podcasts on Maria Speaks — podcasts that teach people how to do things with their computer. One of the things the podcasts lacked was the ability to include screenshots, which can really help make an article understandable. I made up for that loss by including the transcript of each podcast on a Web site that I reference in the podcast. But with enhanced podcasts, I can now include the screenshots in the podcast itself.

I wasted no time locating and downloading a pair of software programs that would give me the ability to create these enhanced podcasts: Cast Easy and Podcast Maker. Although I first preferred Cast Easy, I soon realized that Podcast Maker was a much better product. And at only $30, it was quite affordable.

Podcast Maker enables you to take an audio file in MP3 or M4A format, insert chapters with pictures and link, and save it as a podcast. It’s very easy. (It’s also very disheartening, since I spent close to two days writing an eBook about how to create a podcast. Still my eBook explains how you can do it for free, so there’s some benefit there. Of course, that’s not an enhanced podcast. But it is a podcast with a customizable Web site. Oh, forget it.)

This afternoon, after finally finishing the 62-page Chapter 2 of my QuickBooks book revision, I came home and converted one of my Maria Speaks podcasts into an enhanced podcast. I used one that had a lot of screenshots. It explains how to send and receive faxes using Mac OS X Tiger. And it came out very nice, if I do say so myself. I just wish my voice wasn’t so nasal — I had a nasty cold when I recorded that episode.

Want to check it out? Visit http://feeds.feedburner.com/mariaspeaks/. Or better yet, just use that URL to subscribe to the podcast with iTunes 6.0 or later. You’ll see all the images in the iTunes window, or, if you have a new video iPod, you’ll see it on your iPod screen.

If anything was a motivator to get my QuickBooks book done quickly, this is it. I can’t wait to have a few spare hours to play around with this new technology. Stay tuned. I’m sure this isn’t the last enhanced podcast you’ll get from me.

On Blogging and Podcasting

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Episode 7: On Blogging and Podcasting.

Everyone has a different idea of what blogging and podcasting is for. I thought I’d take a few bytes to explain my views. It’ll help readers and listeners understand what motivates me to share the information I share.

Transcript:

Hi, I’m Maria Langer. Welcome to Maria Speaks Episode 7: On Blogging and Podcasting.

Everyone has a different idea of what blogging and podcasting is for. I thought I’d take a few bytes to explain my views. It’ll help readers and listeners understand what motivates me to share the information I share.

My blogs and podcasts are separate and, in most cases, do not overlap. This entry is one exception; it’ll appear in both.

My blog, which is called Maria’s WebLog, contains over 270 entries written since October 2003. These entries cover a wide range of topics dealing with my everyday life and opinions about what I see going on around me.

I consider Maria’s WebLog to be an online journal. My main purpose is to share my experiences and views with readers. Part of it is to journalize my life so I can remember events in the future. The other part is to let my friends and family members know what’s going on in my life. I’m surprised when I meet someone and they tell me they’ve read my bLog. They’re welcome to read it, but they need to understand that I’m not writing it for them. I’m writing it primarily for me.

I don’t know how many people actually read my blog because it’s hosted on my .

Mac account and there isn’t any stat software for me to track it. But it appears that it is widely read by people all over the world. (If you’re reading it now, you might want to take this opportunity to use the Comments link to check in with your name and location, just for kicks.)

Some people read my blog entries and are offended by them. I think that’s pretty funny. There are so many things in this world that are far more offensive than anything I could write. But these people focus on a comment or observation or opinion I made in these blogs and use it as evidence that I’m some kind of evil person. Whatever. I think people like that need to get a life.

I made an entry the other day that left people wondering whether my entries were truth or fiction. What do you think?

One more thing about the bLog. I maintain it using iBlog software, which is a Macintosh-based blogging client. iBlog is a really cool little software package because it runs on my Mac and does not require access to the Internet to use. Instead, it keeps a database of all my blog entries as I write them. When I’m ready to publish, I connect to the Internet and click a button. This was really useful when I took my laptop to my place on Howard Mesa, which is off the grid. I’d just hit the coffee shop in Williams a few times a week and use their wireless access to update my blog and check my e-mail.

Maria Speaks is my podcast. For the folks reading this transcript in my bLog, here’s a brief definition. A podcast is an audio recording saved in a format that can be listened to on a computer or MP3 player, like an iPod. I call my podcast Maria Speaks because it’s me talking and I couldn’t think of a better name.

My idea of a podcast is that is should share useful information with listeners. After all, that’s why I subscribe to and listen to podcasts.

For example, I’m a big fan of NPR and now that I’m not tuned in all day, I like to listen to NPR stories as podcasts when I’m driving or flying.

I’ve tried a bunch of podcasts that I thought were a waste of my time. I don’t listen to them anymore. If there’s no value in what I’m listening to — if I can’t learn something or be entertained by something I can’t hear elsewhere — then what’s the purpose? There are too many podcasts full of talking heads that aren’t saying anything worth listening to. I don’t want my podcast to be like that.

So when it came time for me to do my own podcast, I had a choice. I could either vocalize my existing bLog entries by reading them — like I’m doing here — or I could create new content of interest to listeners. Since I don’t think my bLog entries are informative enough to attract listeners, I decided to go with new content.

I make my living writing about computers and there’s always some tip or trick I could share. So I decided to focus on computer-related topics, including tips and tricks for being more productive. I’m primarily a Macintosh user, so most of my podcast entries are about Mac computing, although I did publish a cross-platform episode about Microsoft Word yesterday. And because I’m not comfortable recording without a script, each episode has a transcript available online, complete with screen shots if necessary.

Please don’t get the idea that Maria Speaks will only be about using computers. I hope to come up with other interesting topics to enlighten listeners. I also encourage all listeners to visit the Maria Speaks home page and leave comments about what they’ve heard. Was the episode helpful? Not helpful? Boring? Interesting? What do you want to hear? All I ask is that you be gentle with me. Harsh comments don’t get results.

You can find links to the home pages for Maria’s WebLog and Maria Speaks on my Web site, www.aneclecticmind.com. Those pages include links for subscribing to the RSS feeds for both.

Well, as usual, I hope you found this episode interesting. You can read its transcript on Maria’s WebLog. Thanks for listening. Bye!

Word Can Drive You Crazy

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Maria Speaks Episode 5: Three Ways Word Can Drive You Crazy…And What You Can Do About Them

This episode is the first audio recording of one of the many articles I’ve written for the Informit.com Web site. Informit is the Web publishing arm of Pearson Education, which is the company that owns Peachpit Press. Most of the books I’ve written since 1995 have been for Peachpit. This makes me one of Informit’s favorite authors.

The folks at Informit publish my articles with screen shots as I write them. They’ve asked me not to republish them on my site. To make these articles easy to find, I’ve linked to them on the Articles page of my Web site. So if you want to read the transcript for this article and see the screenshots that go with it, just visit the Articles page on my Web site, www.aneclecticmind.com.

And if you’re a Word user looking for a book to help you get more out of the software, I hope you’ll pick up one of my Word Visual QuickStart Guides. I’ve been writing them for a while for Mac OS and Windows versions of Word. You can learn more about them and read other Word articles on my Web site, www.aneclecticmind.com.

You CAN Make a Living as a Writer

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Well, at least I can.

I just got my quarterly royalty statement from one of my publishers.

The only known about a royalty statement is the approximate time it will arrive and the period it will cover. The amount is always a surprise.

Imagine having a job and getting paid once every three months and not knowing how much you’ll receive. That’s the boat I’m in.

Of course, when I write or revise a book, I get advances on royalties. The idea behind the advance is that it provides some income for the author while she is hard at work. This is a good thing because royalties are usually paid two to four months after the end of the period they’re due for. So, for example, the royalty statement and check I got today was for the quarter ending June 30, 2005.

Advances are deducted from future royalties. So a book has to “earn out” before I get another penny for it. That means that if I get a $5,000 advance and I earn about $1.00 per book, the publisher has to sell 5,000 copies of the book before I see more money. I’ll be the the first to admit that I’ve written more than a few books that haven’t earned out. That’s partially the fault of the publisher, for offering such a high advance. Fortunately, I never have to give it back. But if I revise that book the amount that was overpaid to me is cross-deducted from the earnings on the revision. Books that don’t earn out are seldom revised. Why through more good money away?

Another thing that can eat away at royalties are returns of previous editions. This really hits me because so many of my books are revisions. For example, my Tiger book is selling very well and, according to the royalty statement, my Panther book (which is the previous edition) is also still selling. But my Jaguar book (the one before Panther) is in its return phase. Since that book no longer has net earnings, the returns are deducted from my Panther book. When that goes into returns, the returns will be deducted from my Tiger book. Get the idea?

The first book I ever wrote was co-authored with Bernard J. David. Bernard once said to me that I should sign books in bookstores as often as possible. Why? Because then they can’t return them.

But I’ve never had to guts to go into a Borders or B&N, introduce myself, and ask if I could sign books. Heck, what if they were on to that trick and said no? How embarrassed would I be?

Anyway, I got a statement from Peachpit today and it came with a nice check. A very nice check. The best check I’ve ever gotten, in fact. Cliff (my editor) said my Tiger book was doing well, but he failed to communicate just how well that was. Now I know exactly how well. And those numbers are three months old.

A bunch of my other books paid out, too. Oddly enough, three editions of my Excel for Windows (2000, 2002, and 2003) are still selling briskly. (What’s very odd is that Excel 2000 is outselling Excel 2002.) And I got some royalties on translations of various titles to French and German. (My royalty statement from Peachpit is 53 pages long, with 29 ISBNs on it. Good thing I have an accounting degree.) So even if the Tiger book hadn’t done so well, the other titles would have pulled me through.

But my Tiger book is doing well. And I think it deserves it. This book, and the previous edition (Panther) are two of my best works. I worked very hard on both of them. They’re big, fat books with very reasonable price tags, giving readers a lot for their money. And I continue to support them by appearing at Apple Stores (I’m going to Tucson tomorrow), writing articles about related topics for Informit.com and the books’ companion Web site, and now publishing podcast entries with even more tips and tricks.

This is what I do for a living. I’m a writer. And I’m doing pretty well.