BlogHer PRO

BlogHer Pro LINK

I'll be speaking at BlogHer PRO next week on Tuesday and Wednesday, Oct 22-23. You can still join and attend.

Just click here to register and you'll be in full-on "California Here I Come" mode. Would love to see you there.

I'll be speaking about self-publishing, how I used Kickstarter to fund my book, Founders Less Than Three and signing copies of my book as well. Here's my book on Amazon, check it out!

My new book, Founders Less Than Three is done!

The ebook is done!* Check it out on Amazon. 

The Boston Globe says it's a great beach read and the best way to read at the beach is using the Kindle of course! 

What's it about?  Startups and sex. (That's the short version.) 

The longer version:  Founders Less Than Three is a funny, sexy novel about 10 start-ups with 5 CEO girls, 5 CEO guys and their race for funding and fun.

A quotation from the Boston Globe piece, when asked about the entrepreneurs who inhabit the startup world I invented in my novel: 

The startup world can feel very exclusive – like it happens exclusively in Silicon Valley in California and only young white males need apply. My startup world has lots of women, LGBT entrepreneurs, geeks of color – all colors – and is a very inclusive world. I want anyone reading it to know that great ideas have no gender, race, age or sexual preference. 

I also believe Boston will be increasingly important as a place for breakthrough ideas, since we have the best talent in the world right here in Boston when it comes to mobile technology, biotechnology and educational innovation, to name only a few areas of our expertise.

Here's the link to my successful Kickstarter crowdfunding program.

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/181348442/founders-less-than-three

*The paper book is coming soon. 

Need to get in touch -- I'm @halley on Twitter.

Writing: A Medium of Quiet

I write most mornings.  Today I'm in Connecticut on the shore at South Norwalk.  I'm waking up in my best friend's mom's house, like I did many mornings in junior high school and high school.  We lived in Greenwich then and their house was right on the water by Byram Shore Road. We could walk or swim before school in the early summer months on warm days like today.  Of course the water was freezing, but we were young and foolish.

I'm here for the Book Expo in NYC, a busy noisy place I also used to live in, but now, I crave this quiet sunrise and slightly dewy porch furniture waiting for a new day to start. No hustle and bustle need apply.

No noise here, just so much quiet and as I finish my book, I was thinking about the privacy and quiet neighborhood of a book. It's a place you go to find the thoughtful quiet, reflective musings of another person. I can share the delicate noise of one bird on the porch and the peaceful silence of this shore at sunrise with you in a book and it's hard to find that peace many places these days.

Despite the many ways you can write now (blogging, tweeting, facebooking), a book still has a solid weighty feel like no other.

No surprise there. For goodness' sake, a book is made of trees, like any good neighborhood. The medium has a luxurious quiet and whispers a story person to person, which we share, writer and reader, because as the writer I get up early and carve out the time to take you to the places I see and imagine.

Her house stood in Hurricane Sandy while many to the right and left of her house did not, because it was built in the 1960's by a contractor who already knew how rough Mother Nature could get.  He'd shored it up on a higher level with a rocky undercarriage to keep it out of harm's way, never knowing in 2012 his house would have the last laugh on this street, as his house stood up to the proverbial test of time. That's my idea of a good story with a happy ending.

How to Keep On Keeping On

Found it!  Cleared my desk and found the three most important pages from APE, Guy Kawasaki and Shawn Welch's book on self-publishing.  I printed them out last summer and they surfaced again just when I needed them most.  When it comes to writing books, they are so right on here:

How to Continue:
-- Control your doubts,
-- Remember the value you're adding to peoples' lives.
-- Ask for help.
-- Don't hide under a bushel.
-- Write every day.
-- Embrace the pain.
-- Don't let successful writers awe you. 

How to Finish:
-- Edit on paper.

Paper!  Wow!  I remember that stuff and it works so well!

And didn't Guy also recommend drinking tea and eating gobs of toast with tangerine marmalade on tough mornings when it's hard to get started?  Let me take a look at the book again, I'm sure it's in there somewhere.

Painted Ladies and Golden Retrievers

Here's my mug that features the Painted Ladies houses in San Francisco's Alamo Square, my tea ticket, my Kindle hiding behind the cup.  I'm ready to start the day but this will be a heck of a day for my manuscript -- have to pull it apart big time to reassemble it just the way it should be.  Thank God I have the greatest editor in the whole wide world.  I need your help big time today Erik!

I'm thinking of my friends in San Francisco who host us when we visit the area.  They have vacation rentals that are a great deal -- houses in North Beach near Coit Tower and their house at Alamo Square.

Here's their site for more info.  They filmed the TV show Full House near here, so their place is often rented for film shoots these days, making it hard to book as an overnight stay location, but their other houses are great too and you can do long stays there since they have full kitchens, multiple bedrooms.

The golden retriever puppies were born in December, three fluffy little balls of crazy energy.  I had no idea they get so big so fast.

I'm keeping a trip to San Francisco in the front of my mind as an incentive to get this book done asap.  I hope we can all get out there for a visit after it's done.  We try to see our friends there at least once a year.

Here's a picture of the parents with their baby on the front steps! If you get a chance, go to my FB page, check out the pix and link to Hakan and Ebba, the parent dogs' FB page.  They are the greatest.

Warm Up

In the morning before I jump back into writing and editing my novel, I do a warm-up exercise of sorts, a writing warm-up, but also have a few other warm-up activities.

First, we have two thermostats -- one for the first floor and one for the second floor -- so at night we leave the downstairs at around 55 degrees,  even in winter and keep the upstairs fairly cool too.  We are NEW ENGLANDERS for God's sake and have quite the selection of blankets, duvets, you name it.

My book: Founders Less Than 3

I write on the first floor, so it's cold when I start and the first warm-up is putting on the tea kettle and cranking up the heat.  I almost always pull on a wool hat to start my early morning writing too.  Don't you? I favor the Peruvian with ear flaps lately. "What?  You want to talk to me?  Sorry, can't hear you!"

A little bending and stretching is good too, a small physical warm-up, but I find if I put my exercise before my writing, it's so easy NOT to get the writing done.  If you're someone who puts their exercise before everything in their day, you know what I mean.  I would rather exercise first, but as I'm finally getting near the end of this book, I can't risk it.  A B C D E F G ... Z come first.

That said, I start by writing something unrelated to anything.  Not part of the book, not part of a story, not part of anything, I open a file and just start scribbling.  Sometimes I pull out a fountain pen and start scribbling on paper. Either method works, just to get the words flowing.

The house is warming up.  The tea is warming me up.  The hat always warms me up.  And now here come the words. Sound the bugles! 

Are You Good At Bouncing Back?

After reading Reid Hoffman and Ben Casnocha's The Start-up of You where they point out that our lives, resumés and certainly our LinkedIn profiles will show lots of ups and downs in this global and turbulent economy, I've been thinking about resiliency. By the way, it's a great book. Even if you aren't the least bit entrepreneurial, we're looking at a world of work where you better be good at bouncing back. I'm saying it twice. You better be good at bouncing back and quickly. You must be resilient.

When you get down, do you know how to get up again quickly?  One thing I learned from sales was getting back up quickly after being rejected. Seriously, sales is all about being rejected and the most successful salespeople have proven strategies for bouncing back. And bouncing back FAST. I was taught that nine "no's" usually meant the tenth time might be a "yes" -- so after I've been rejected about eight times, I can get excited and happy as I think, "Yes, yes, yes! I'm closer and closer! I'm almost there!" I really do think that way.

Studies have shown a most fascinating metric of success -- the shorter the time it takes people to recover from a failure or disappointment and get back in the game the better -- and it is predictive of overall lifetime success. In sales, you have to have strategies for bouncing back, or you'll never make it.

Sometimes, you just get down and feel a little hopeless. Everybody does. I have a mental list of things to do that get me back on track, and I think we all need to make that list and revise it every few years. It's more important than revising your resume. We need to build out a foundation of resiliency, like a foundation for a house we plan to build. The foundation of resiliency for me is reading, exercise (dancing in particular), being with friends, being in nature, faith and more than anything, having a very supportive partner.

I know so many people who are not happy in their relationships and since I've "been there, done that" and did get divorced, I know it matters a lot to have a good partner. I bet you didn't think I was going to talk about divorce (or break up) but honestly, maybe it's time to downsize your partner. If they don't make your life and home a place to rest, relax, restore yourself and bounce back, you need a new partner. It makes a world of difference. Make a list of ways to bounce back today and if your partner isn't on the list, well ... you know where I'm going. Time for them to appear on someone else's list.

Best Books According to Whom?

There are so many "Best Books of 2011" lists circulating and as a book lover, I want to blow a whistle and yell back, "best according to whom?"  


Take this book I had been hearing a lot about -- The Art of Fielding -- by Chad Harbach.  There were endless rave reviews about it and I ended up getting the idea that it was about publishing.  I bought it.  I read it.  I had the completely WRONG idea about it.  This is likely because half the reviews went on and on about how this book was changing publishing forever, or some nonsense.  This book is about BASEBALL and I hate baseball.

I mean, this book is about a shortstop. A guy on a baseball team.  (Insert a big "Who Cares?!" here please.)  I didn't really know what a shortstop did, nor did I care.  I spent the first half of the book figuring the guy who was a shortstop would graduate, go to New York and work in publishing and that was going to be the interesting part.  That never happened.

And I also don't know why anyone thought it was such a great book -- even leaving the baseball stuff aside -- I didn't think it was particularly well written.

So I guess I would say that finding a TRUSTED source for book recommendations is different from trusting a list of someone's idea of "best books."  

Help Wanted: Leader of Kindle and Print Book Editorial

Amazon posted this job on March 31, 2011.  Tall order.  Just think how much has changed in the world of books (and especially ebooks) since March, then you can imagine how difficult writing a five-year strategy would be! 

Job Description:  Leader of Kindle and Print Book Editorial

Amazon.com is looking for a seasoned executive to lead our Kindle and Print Book Editorial Team responsible for developing the vision for furthering Amazon’s position as a world-class book seller, and leading a team of Editors in the execution of that strategy.  The Director of Editorial is a newly created role responsible for the end-to-end Editorial vision for Amazon.com Books, he or she must have deep experience interviewing high profile authors and celebrities, and reviewing and creating compelling book content across all genres of Books, from fine literature to science fiction.  The Director of Editorial works with customers, publishers, authors and the press to ensure a best-in-class book experience for Amazon.com and its customers.

The key strategic objectives for this role include:
1)      Develop a 5 year vision for Amazon.com’s Editorial voice.  The strategy will incorporate existing Amazon metrics on book sales and customer segments, shifting patterns in customer shopping and online behavior, industry and competitive trends and will ultimately become the road map for how we talk with customers, authors, illustrators, publishers and the media.
2)      This leader will help innovate toward a better book buying experience. He or she will establish a best-in-class content experience, as measured by increased number of customers who purchase, the conversion rates at which existing customers purchase from us, increased customer engagement with us, and increased exposure in the media.
3)      This leader will innovate and develop new models for connecting with customers, helping customers connect with content creators, stimulating customer engagement with Amazon, identifying new and emerging sub-genre’s of books to introduce customers to, and constantly seeking new ways to use metrics and data to increase the likelihood of success.

The Amazon.com Books team interacts with over 100 million customers, 40 million books, across 30,000 publishers at any given time.  As book format options continue to evolve, and book publishing becomes increasingly easier for writers, customers look to Amazon to navigate the myriad Books available and help them find the exact book they are looking for.  The Director of Editorial plays a critical role in connecting customers with books in as seamless manner as possible.  The Director of Editorial is responsible for an Editorial vision that touches millions of customers and billions of revenue per year.
Basic Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree is required.

• 10+ years of relevant book experience.

• Strong written and verbal communication skills.

• Existing relationships with the media, top authors, and publishers.

• Tremendous editorial credibility with readers, content providers, and the media.

Preferred Qualifications
The ideal candidate will have demonstrated experience creating high profile book content, and is considered an influencer by readers, writers, and their peers:

• Creative, forward thinking leader with proven ability to innovate.

• Experience using data to drive decisions.

• Has hired and developed teams of at least 5.

Nicki Minaj says: "Books First, Music Second!"

I love Nicki Minaj telling these great little girl rappers, "Books first, music second" about staying in school being most important. Go #Minaj girl go!

What we do here at BoOkBoX

We're just starting up, but we will be a great place to follow all the news in the world of ebooks, Kindles, Nooks, and catch up on all the many ways the publishing industry is going digital. Just like you go to TechCrunch for tech news, you can go to bOoKBoX for ebook news.

Like my new logo? Susy Pilgrim Waters designed it for me as we talked about how digital publishing is going crazy -- a veritable revolution -- and even the letters are scrambled and don't know whether they are up or down, upper or lower case. See the big ABC's behind the words "bOoKBoX" -- it's a big lower-case "a" in green, a baby "b" thats falling over backwards in puce, and a "c" that fell down on its back in dead grass green and looks like a staple. Even the ABC's are all mixed up.