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Material from:cnewblog.ru

The iPad is fostering all sorts of new ideas for how to create digital books, and the most interesting ones do not come in iBook form. Instead, they are being delivered as apps. A great example of this is Fotopedia Heritage, the first of a series of photo books for the iPad and iPhone (iTunes link).

It is not just a photo book dumped into the iPad. The Fotopedia photo book app goes well beyond what any conventional coffee table photo book can offer, making more than 20,000 high quality images of World Heritage sites available literally at your fingertips. Fotopedia creator, and former Apple technologist, Jean-Marie Hullot, gave me a run-through of the app in the video above (apologies in advance for the poor lighting, I took this on my iPhone).

The app is also available on the iPhone, but it was really designed with the iPad in mind. You can browse through stunning photos of World Heritage sites by simply swiping through them. Each photo has a number of tags related to the places and objects they depict. By pressing a tag with your finger, you can switch from photos of France to photos of Paris to photos of the Eiffel Tower, or from photos of Thailand to photos of temples. In this way, you can hop from one set of related photos to the next. If you want to go faster, you can pull up a filmstrip which appears on the right hand side and can be swiped independently.

All of the photos are pulled from Fotopedia, a social photo site which launched two years ago at TechCrunch50. The community of photographers on Fotopedia are extremely talented, most of the photos are under Creative Commons license, and each photo is linked to a Google Map and Wikipedia article. It is designed to document the world through photos. The iPad book is a way to organize a specific collection of photos. Fotopedia will release a new book every month or so. The next one is on national parks.

Since Fotopedia is a structured database of photos. Most photos are linked to Wikipedia articles, which create the foundational text for the book. You can also see on a map where any photo was taken, as well as links to TripAdvisor. And any photo can be shared via email, Facebook, or Twitter.

The Fotopedia books will be free when they are assembled from community photos with a Creative Commons license, it will also be a template for photographers on Fotopedia to join together and create paid-download photo apps using other images. In those cases, Fotopedia would get a cut of the download sales.

The app is essentially a slice of the Fotopedia Website packaged up nicely. I asked Hullot why doesn’t he simply do the same thing in the browser. His answer is that he will, but that it won’t be as seamless as the app. Still, this approach to digital books shows what can be accomplished when a digital book is connected to the Web—you get endless selection, and structured data that is searchable and shareable. Eventually, there shouldn’t be any difference between books and the Web.

When fellow Huffington Post blogger Christopher Ryan sent me a copy of his new book, Sex at Dawn, I have to admit that I expected to be just selectively interested in it. I thought I'd read a few sections that were relevant to my own obsessions, then treat the rest as a page-turner (you know, turn the pages until you find something worth stopping to read).

So what a nice surprise to start reading at page one and feel engaged, educated, and amused almost all the way through. Ryan and co-author Cacilda Jetha have a great writing voice — sometimes wry, occasionally mocking, almost always intriguing. So I kept reading and reading until I got to the bottom of page 302 (out of 312), at which point I was so disappointed that I had to set the book aside for a few days before I could pick it up again. More on that later.

Sex at Dawn fearlessly takes on some of the most fundamental assumptions of evolutionary psychology and some of the most basic beliefs of our time. Among the myths the authors challenge are that “monogamy is natural, marriage is a human universal, and any family structure other than the nuclear is aberrant” (p. 5). They have little use for the one about how “men and women evolved in families in which a man's possessions and protection were exchanged for a woman's fertility and fidelity.”

I love myth-busting, probably in part because I like to think that I'm in the same business myself (though focusing on different myths). So I appreciate Ryan and Jetha's questioning spirit, but I have to admit that I can't evaluate most of their conclusions. I'm not an anthropologist who could point to some tribe they may have missed, nor a comparative psychologist who could claim that some other sets of creatures undermine their claims. Most importantly, I have no expertise in evolutionary psychology, so I can't determine whether they've treated fairly the people and the propositions they are skewering.

Full disclosure: I have links to some of the people critiqued in the book. For example, Steve Pinker and I were graduate students together at Harvard. Also, Leda Cosmides and John Tooby (not mentioned by name in the text but their work is cited) are colleagues of mine here at UCSB where I'm a visiting professor. My impression of these three scholars is that they are often heart-stoppingly smart. I remember watching Leda Cosmides give a talk once, and it seemed like she couldn't talk fast enough to keep up with her own thoughts.

[Because this is a lengthy interview, I'll include here the full answers to only the first and last questions, and add links to continue reading the other answers.]

Bella: So, Christopher Ryan, here's my first question: How can you reconcile how smart I think these scholars are with, for example, the buffoon that you make Pinker out to be in recounting his TED talk (p. 183-185)? (And yes, you are allowed to say that I've been had.)

Christopher Ryan: That's an excellent question to begin with. Let's begin by stipulating that being smart doesn't mean never being wrong. So while I agree with you that the people you mention (whom I've never met personally) are very bright and very well-versed in the areas they write about, that doesn't mean they can't arrive at mistaken conclusions sometimes, just like the rest of us.

Having said that, the case you mention, which concerns Steven Pinker's claims–made both in his book The Blank Slate and in the TED talk you mention–that levels of death due to warfare in hunter-gatherer societies was off the charts, and then citing as evidence societies that clearly are not hunter/gatherers . . . well, I don't know how to explain that. I'm perplexed by it as well. The Blank Slate came out in 2002, but he gave the TED talk we cite five years later! It's hard to believe that nobody alerted him to the fact that his examples were irrelevant to the point he was arguing in those five years.

Evolutionary Psychology has a lot to offer, but unfortunately it's riddled with confirmation bias. We found several examples of glaringly shoddy arguments made by prominent scholars, particularly when in came to this issue of the origins of human warfare. It's really pretty dispiriting to see ideology so brutally dominate critical thinking among people who pride themselves on their critical faculties.

To be fair, I'm sure some readers will accuse us of the same sorts of oversights, but if they're right, I guarantee you won't find me citing the same disproven statistics five years later!

Bella: You have a lot to say in Sex at Dawn about humans as highly sexual creatures with a fondness for a variety of sexual experiences and partners. But do you think that sexual interest is like so many other human characteristics in that it is variable? Maybe there is a typical interest in sex and in sexual variety (and I think you are telling us that these averages are higher than we have been led to believe), but isn't there also a range, such that some people are much less interested than others while some are even more interested? (I'm describing some sort of bell curve, for those who are familiar with the jargon.)

Christopher Ryan: Yes, you're certainly right that any discussion of human sexual response has to assume a great degree of variability, both between individuals and within individuals–especially women. A woman's feelings and attitudes toward sex are [continue reading here]

Bella: Have you heard from any of the people you critiqued?

Christopher Ryan: No, not since the book was published. Before publication, we sent relevant chapters to Frans de Waal and Helen Fisher, to give them a chance to point out any errors they found or to make the case that we were being unfair in some way. [continue reading here]

Bella: Now that the book has been out for a while and you've had people buzzing about it (here is where I mention that Sex at Dawn has been on the NY Times Bestseller list and that I'm very envious), is there anything you would add or rewrite if you could?

Christopher Ryan: That's another excellent question, which nobody has asked until now. I guess that's the kind of question one writer asks another! At the end of the book, we added a short “What Now?” section where we tried to very briefly show how some of the information presented in the book might be applied to contemporary marital problems. This was something of an afterthought, as the original manuscript ended without this material. Our editor and others thought it important to at least offer some minimal prescriptive discussion, so we agreed to address the typical husband-gets-caught-cheating scenario. More than a few readers have written to tell us that this feels imbalanced [continue reading here]

Bella: OK, now I'm going to whine about my big disappointment. I really didn't see it coming. (I'm going to need to build up to my point here, so please be patient.) I had loved how, through most of the book, you shot down the supposed superiority of the nuclear family. I especially appreciated your pointing out that children may have an advantage when more than two adults take an interest in them and have an important place in their lives.

When I researched Singled Out, I read research reports by sociologists such as Rosanna Hertz and Faith Ferguson who studied single mothers intensively. They found that far from raising their children single-handedly, single mothers were part of a whole ensemble of friends, relatives, and neighbors who helped one another and the children. I looked closely at lots of studies comparing the outcomes of children raised by single parents to those of children in married-parent homes. I found that many of the dire proclamations about the fate of the children of single and divorced parents were greatly exaggerated or just plain wrong.

I continued to read the literature on children of single parents, and I've discussed it on my blogs (here and here and here). I made fun of Caitlin Flangan for her Time magazine story in which she peddles all those silly myths and scare stories. I thought for sure that from you, I'd hear about the studies showing that in some cultures, children of single parents actually do as well or better in some important ways than children of married parents – probably because extended family members step in to help.

So perhaps you can now understand how appalled I was to find you repeating those claims about how children of single parents are doomed, and using as your source, not a scholar, but Caitlin Flanagan! Please say “uncle.”

Christopher Ryan: Uncle! I defer to your expertise in this literature. But (You knew there'd be a “but” right?) in our defense, I would say that our main point is that American society is especially hard on single parents and their children. I have no doubt that many single parents do an amazing job, but let's face it, they're climbing a steep hill to pull it off. Here in Spain, where I live, you see extended families pitching in all the time, as most people live close to their parents and grandparents, so there's a free baby-sitting service always available. But in the States, women are often left without this sort of help from extended family and the amount and quality of public support for mothers and their children in the States is, frankly, shameful. I used to work with homeless kids in San Francisco. I saw first-hand how difficult life was for single mothers trying to make a good life for their kids. It takes a village, but there was no village supporting these women. Unless they were out-and-out destitute, they got little or no help from the government. In a highly mobile society like America, where families are often spread all over the place, and government doesn't pitch in to help, single mothers and their kids are in a very vulnerable position. So I think we agree that single parents deserve our respect and support, rather than criticism.

In addition to contributing to the Huffington Post, Christopher Ryan also blogs at Psychology Today. To learn more about him and his new book, check out this website.

Material from:laksy.ru

WikiLeaks, the whistleblower website that posted thousands of secret Afghanistan war documents, says it intends to keep publishing secret government files from all over the world even though the United States has demanded that it stop, as least insofar as the war is concerned.

In an interview in Berlin Saturday with the Associated Press, a WikiLeaks spokesman said, “I can assure you that we will keep publishing documents — that's what we do.” The spokesman, who told the AP he was using the name Daniel Schmitt to protect his identify, said posting the Afgahnistan war reports helped the public understand the conflict. He rejected charges that their release threatened national security and put lives at risk. “We have tried our best and we are still working on minimizing the harm that has been caused,” Schmitt said.

On Thursday, the Defense Department, worried that Afghans who have aided U.S. forces have been imperiled by the leaks, demanded that the website cancel any plans to put up more classified military documents and pull back secret war logs already posted on the Internet.

WikiLeak's Schmitt told the AP the website is a “globally acting organization” dealing with security issues of the entire world population, which may in some cases be in conflict with U.S. national interests. WikiLeaks has already posted 76,900 documents, mostly raw intelligence reports from Afghanistan.

Bradley Manning, a U.S. Army private, is in jail on suspicion of an earlier release to the website, but he has also been called a “person of interest” in the current controversy.

Two University of Iowa biologists have published a paper on how cells make specific interactions during development — in the hope of one day learning more about human developmental disorders — in the Aug. 2 issue of the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Dietmar Schreiner, postdoctoral researcher, and Joshua A. Weiner, assistant professor of biology in the UI College of Liberal Arts and Sciences Department of Biology, write on the subject of cell adhesion. Cell adhesion is the way in which one cell binds itself to another cell by using specific molecules, one large family of which is known as the cadherins.

The researchers found that when a specific kind of cadherin molecule — the 22-member gamma-protocadherin family — are involved in linking adjacent cells together, it exponentially expands the molecular diversity and specificity with which cells can interact.

“We already knew that with 22 different members, the gamma-protocadherin family was diverse, and we had already shown that they are critical for the developing nervous system,” said Weiner. “But what Dietmar was able to do here, for the first time, is develop a quantitative method to determine how each gamma protocadherin protein mediates cell-cell adhesion, and which family members can interact with each other. He finds that the proteins seem to freely associate in groups of four at the surface of each cell, but that in order for another cell to bind, it must have pretty much the exact same group of four. What this means is that, if you figure out all the possible combinations of gamma-protocadherins, this group of proteins can form over 200,000 distinct adhesive surfaces.”

One implication of the work is that scientists have gained a better understanding of the ways in which cell linkages, including those made during the formation and modification of synapses, the points of communication between nerve cells, might go awry in a number of developmental disorders such as autism and mental retardation, as well as how brain circuits assemble correctly during normal development.

In the future, the researchers plan to study directy how the differential interactions mediated by the many combinations of gamma-protocadherins affects the formation of synapses in the developing brain, and what adhesion mediated by these proteins “tells” a young neuron to do.

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Publishing A Children's Book

Material from:How To Publish A Childrens Book

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Material from:Buy Fast Download High Quality Mp3 Songs

Don’t you wish you could listen to your collection of MP3s from any computer without toting around a thumb drive or MP3 player?  What about sharing the music with others?  Wouldn’t that be cool?  Also, wouldn’t it be cool to be able to share podcasts and other similar soundbites on your website or another social media page?

All of this could be done if only you could stream your MP3 audio files for free, and embed the player.  Well, it is now possible and even made easy by a new tool called Iradeo.

You might be thinking that there are services out there like Orb and JukeFly that allow you to stream your audio for free from your computer to the Internet.  Yeah, you can do that if you want, but you’d better leave your computer on and hope it stays online because you’re hosting your own music in those cases.  What about Nutsie that lets you sync your iTunes collection on their server?  Great thought but what if you don’t use iTunes?  And that doesn’t let you embed a player wherever you want.

In the last paragraph I spoke of a few other services.  Among those choices you were given the ability to stream your music from your home computer (Orb and JukeFly) or a third party service (Nutsie).  Iradeo does things a bit differently.  They allow you to stream MP3 files hosted on a web server.  In other words, if you have webspace, you can stream your MP3s from there instead of using a third party or your own computer’s resources. So in essence they are only providing the platform to stream.

All of those details aside, Iradeo is the simplest way how to stream your audio for free.

Sign Up For & Set Up Iradeo.

Head to Iradeo and sign up for an account.

Once you finish filling in the fields and have signed up, you will be taken to the dashboard.

Notice that you will need to go to the settings page to set some things up before the player will be ready to go.  Head over to the settings page and begin to set things up.

One of the fields labeled “Audio Location” is not looking for your city and state, believe it or not.  It is looking for the online location of your MP3s (we will be setting this up in the next step).

Also head to the Profile page to add information there.

This will help the public find your “station.”

Set Up Your MP3 Folder In Your Webspace.

Since Iradeo streams from your webspace, you must create a directory and upload the MP3s that you want streamed.  You will also have to upload a “txt” file containing all of the names of the MP3’s in it, one per line.  You’ll need to name it whatever you are told to in the sidebar of the settings page.

Once you have everything set up (account, profile, MP3s) you should be able to go back to the dashboard and preview the player.

This is also where you grab the embed code from.  Just pop this code wherever you want your player to show. Now you can stream MP3s anywhere and to anyone just using webspace and Iradeo.

What other uses can you think of for a service such as Iradeo?   Do you have your own Iradeo station?

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Material from:housetr.ru

I
am befuddled by those who reach for their measuring beakers and electronic
scales, as if they were lab technicians, when pouring over sauce-smeared
tomes such as Cuisine Actuelle and French Chefs Cooking.
When I read lush descriptions of lamb tarts and pear Napoleons, my first
instinct is to chase my wife around the butcher's block.

I
am convinced that descriptions of pot lids trembling in the kitchen,
will, if executed well, quicken the pulse of even the most straight-laced
and proper. Who did not, for example, redden with embarrassment and
roar with laughter when, in the publishing and film sensation, Julie
& Julia, Julia Child compared the hot and hard sheaf of the
al dente pasta boiling in the pot to the stiffness of a man's
saucisson?

It
is probably the culinary image we will recall long after everything
else about Julia Child has been washed away with the dishes. And even
though cookbooks are the utilitarian manuals of the kitchen, the best
really belong in the boudoir rather than in the butler's pantry. Anthony
Bourdain, author of Kitchen Confidential, amusingly calls good
culinary writing “food porn.” He is entirely right. The language
of the kitchen – with its “searing,” “juices” and “drippings”
- is semi-erotic.

Of
course, some will consider it utterly inappropriate to be aroused by
the mere suggestion of pied de cheval oysters. Perhaps they are
right. But sweating palms and sweating onions have long been bedfellows
in the stews of great literature. Mrs. Waters' famous dinner seduction
of Tom, in Henry Fielding's Tom Jones, is not just serious
literature and highly amusing, but, in the Tony Richardson film at least,
also seriously hot.

But
reducing the sensuality of good culinary writing to mere sex also misses
the point. For the best culinary prose is really about a healthy and
earthy appetite for life, and the goal of the culinary-inclined author
is to stimulate the readers' senses until they are fibrillating with
excitement and ravenous for the very essence of life.

You
don't have to be a professional scribbler to get this. I was recently
studying the writings of a 13th century Buddhist priest,
research for my next novel, when I came across a letter thanking a supporter
for sending him a sack of rice. The monk wisely pointed out that rice
does not just sustain life. It is life itself.

I
couldn't agree more. In the hands of the great literary masters, food
morphs into a symbol for all of life, from the sensual trigger of a
deeply personal story (Marcel Proust's Remembrance Of Things Past)
to the instrument of deprivation at the heart of a cruel society (Charles
Dickens' Oliver Twist). Gluttony and starvation, the destructive
extremes of food intake, have consumed every scribe from St. Augustine
to Franz Kafka.

I
learned the value of food as social commentary when I was Forbes'
European Bureau Chief. My personal journalistic technique, when needing
to quickly understand where a country was on the global scale of economic
development, was always to head directly to the local markets. In the
Ugandan capital of Kampala, for example, I followed brown-hide longhorns
into the abattoir, where the walls were splattered with blood and the
steers' hacked-off hooves were stacked and sold as a culinary delicacy.
Outside, under the flame trees, women sipping milky tea shelled beans
and sold Nile Perch broth or a peanut sauce to go with a starchy-green
banana mush called matoke.

In
short, the hardscrabble African nation instantly entered my soul through
my pores, and the market descriptions in the subsequent article made
Forbes' readers in New York or Seattle viscerally understand Uganda's
economic landscape, far more effectively than the dry recitation of
per-capita GDP statistics.

Now,
in The Hundred-Foot Journey, my novel published by Scribner about a lowly Indian chef
who conquers the elite world of French haute cuisine, I have tried,
successfully or not, to use food in the same big-picture manner. The
novel is very much about the lighthearted joy that comes from whisking
together good food with eccentric characters, but it is also, at another
level, about clashing cultures, destiny, ambition, passion, and the
opposing pulls of modern society. All of life, in short, and it's
funny how, during the writing process, the unconscious pulls from its
depths the precise culinary image the novelist needs to make his case.

When
writing my novel, I came to a passage where I wanted to convey the shock
that hits my Indian protagonist when he is abruptly transplanted from
steamy Bombay to chilly London. At that precise moment, I recalled the
local Portuguese technique for catching octopus, which we all used when
I was a boy summering with my family in Cascais, Portugal, during the
late 1960s. I flashed to my father dragging the quivering grey blob
from its underwater lair up on to a rock, where he inserted his fingers
inside the slit of the octopus' gill, and then abruptly turned its
entire head inside out, so the octopus' organs were exposed to the
air. Death was fairly quick.

This
culinary image – head turned inside out – seemed like just the right
means of conveying what profound culture shock feels like. And that's
how it mysteriously unfolded. Every time I put pen to paper, I found
my nib dripping with the juices of a cognac-basted pork roast.

Pageant of the Masters
Today marks the opening of one of Orange County's flagship events. The Pageant of the Masters — yes, that scene in “Arrested Development” was based on something real — is 90 minutes of “living pictures” (see a video showing how it looks here). People pose on intricately designed sets to look exactly like a famous painting. It's all accompanied by live narration and an original score played by an orchestra. The event runs nightly through August 31st.

Poetry Festival
Tonight marks the beginning of the four-day InkSlam, the Los Angeles Poetry Festival. Taking place at the Greenway Court Theatre on Fairfax, the festival kicks off with “Ink’d OUT: Speaking Loud and Clear from the Queer Community” and a storytellers show. The festival is also the official host of the West Coast Regional Spoken Word Championship.

Material from:finanseuro.ru

I bought a murder mystery package for my husband's 30th birthday and here's a general overview of how it worked without a lot of specific details.

The whole point of the thing is to get different people/characters to talk to one another to find out clues (which makes your party fun, because people have to socialize with each other). Presumably the person who gets the most pertinent clues has enough information to figure out who did the murder and why.

The way the one I purchased was set up was that all guests had to fill out a questionnaire online and the company assigned each guest to a specific character. They then gave the guests info sheets about their characters and what they know and/or suspect coming into the party. Obviously, the guest chosen to be the murderer and the victim know this in advance too. Of course, the character part can be as elaborate or as simple as you want it. We had a 50's Vegas Lounge party, so people were gangsters and strippers and actors etc., but you can just have people be library patrons who know specific things too. I suppose you could hide clues in the library as well, giving some characters hints about where they are or partial hints that they can put together with clues from other guests to figure out where they are.

So people come to the party knowing certain facts and have to mingle with each other to find out clues. There were also plot cards that certain people got to help move things along. So, lets say there were 5 different plot cards that had key pieces of information on them and one was supposed to be read every 20 minutes to make sure that people were discovering information in a timely manner. After the first 20 minutes of the party goes along, the host says "Plot #1" [or whatever] and then whichever character was given that plot card (which was information they were supposed to reveal to people they were mingling with during the course of the party) needed to read out the information on the plot card.

At the party I hosted, everyone was always ahead of the plot cards, but they're helpful in case the party is really big and not everyone can talk to everyone else.

So eventually, the murder happens (the murderer connects with the victim in a private area at a certain point in the party – you can give instructions like, do the murder after plot card #3 or something) and all the plot cards have been read aloud. Then it's time to do a group guess on who the murderer is and why etc. The host has the story of the murder and the motive on a sheet and after people are done talking about it, there's the big reveal.

Obviously, there's more than one way to do it, this was just how the one I did worked. I'm happy to answer any questions, just mefimail me.
posted by Kimberly at 10:27 AM on June 11

No, I am not talking about the James Frey who wrote A Million Little Pieces, the controversial piece of creative “nonfiction” that initially made a splash with Oprah but then fell into ignominy. The man I want to praise today is James N. Frey, probably the best writing teacher on the face of the earth.

As far as I know, Jim is still leading writing workshops all over the place, giving of himself, helping others improve their craft. According to his website, “Many participants of his workshops have gone on to publish with major New York houses and receive solid advances (as high as $2 million) and much critical acclaim.” I don't for even a second doubt the veracity of that assertion.

I first met Jim in the spring of 1984, the year he published his first thriller, The Last Patriot. I had seen an ad in a Berkeley, California, newspaper for something called “The Story Laboratory,” a writers' workshop that met every Monday evening in the basement of the Finnish Brotherhood Hall near the corner of University Avenue and Chestnut Street in what we called the flats. We working stiffs lived there, not with the rich and famous up in the Berkeley hills. It didn't take me more than five seconds to decide to check out the Story Lab because I lived just a half block away on Berkeley Way. Somebody was trying to tell me something. I seemed destined to become a member of this little group of struggling scribblers.

When I walked into that basement, Jim was sitting at one of those long, institutional folding tables that reminded me of the ones at the Berkeley Chess Club, where I had spent a humiliating few weeks the year before. Jim was about forty, and my first impression was that he was a red-nosed Irishman who liked his whiskey just a wee bit too much. But that perception evaporated as soon as the rest of the crew showed up and he began to talk shop. Jim spoke more lucidly than any college professor about language, plot, characterization, setting, and something else of vital importance that I will get to in due time.

The way the Story Lab worked was that someone would read a short story or a chapter of a novel, and then the rest — especially Jim — would most likely tear it to shreds with scathing comments. Jim would invariably start out with, “The problem with this story is … ” And he'd always be right. The first work of fiction that I read at the workshop was of the type known derogatorily as a “slice of life” piece. Its title was “The Loft,” and it was about my experiences with a punk rock band in New York City during the late 1970s. It was full to bursting with funky description and quirky characters. I thought it was just great, of course, but no one else around the table in that cellar seemed to agree. They all had something a bit nasty to say, but only Jim was able to articulate what the problem really was.

“This bit of writing could get you into the Creative Writing Masters program at San Francisco State,” Jim told me, “but it isn't any good.”

The first part of that seemed rather encouraging, I thought, but the rest sounded crazy to me, as it appeared to contradict what came before. Jim went on to explain, “You use words very well, and the images are fine, but the story lacks conflict.”

I was flabbergasted. He was right! Why hadn't I seen that myself? I felt like a fool, and I told him so. Jim responded, “Don't feel bad. Everybody starts out as you did. But writing is like everything else. Somebody has to show you how to do it.” After that, I must have heard him say at least a hundred times to other writers around that table, “Your story needs three things: conflict, conflict, and conflict.” He liked to illustrate this point by showing how Charles Dickens had used conflict to the utmost effect in A Christmas Carol. Jim made that story come alive in so many ways that I realized I had taken Scrooge for granted all my life.

That was just the first of many invaluable lessons from the master, and it led to the writing of one of my best short stories, “Decibels.” Thanks, Jim, for helping with the manuscript.

I'll never forget the time I read another short story, “The Little Room.” Right after I finished the last sentence, Jim called for a break and took me by the arm and said, “Let's go over to Taco Bell and get a cup of coffee.” The fast-food restaurant was just across the street.

I thought for sure that I was walking my last mile as a writer, that Jim was going to tell me something like, “I didn't want to say this in front of everyone else, but I was wrong about you, kid. Give it up. You've got no talent.” But no. He said that my story was terrific and that I had found my voice as a writer. Actually, that's what I think he said. I was so blown away by his praise that I really don't remember his exact words, but he thought the story was good, and that's all that mattered. I think I was actually in shock as we walked back to the Story Lab.

When we sat back down inside the Finnish Hall, other members of our group had some comments critical of “The Little Room,” but Jim wouldn't let any of them stand. He said the story was a piece of literary fiction of the highest quality. Perhaps it really is as good as Jim thought it was, but perhaps it isn't. The point is that I wouldn't have been able to write it at all had it not been for Jim's tireless encouragement and excellent advice.

Sadly, I haven't spoken with him in years. I know I disappointed him by not living up to the potential he saw in me. After all, I don't have even a single novel under my belt, just a modest collection of self-published short fiction. But whatever writing skill I do have I owe to Jim. I hope he is doing well.

Jim has written nine novels, among them The Long Way to Die, an Edgar Award Nominee, and Winter of the Wolves, a Literary Guild Selection. Yes, I've read them all, and I've enjoyed every one. Jim is also the author of the How to Write a Damn Good Novel series of instructional books for fledgling writers.

Macworld:

A huge number of people think they might write a book some day–back in 2002, a survey pegged it at 81 percent of Americans. But what happens after you've managed to pen your 200,000 word epic on love and loss in feudal Europe–with vampires, naturally–but still can't get a bite from a publisher?

Read the whole story: Macworld

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Blade Kitten, Krome Studios' downloadable action-adventure game based on a webcomic, is expanding beyond its originally announced PSN release. The side-scroller will also be released this September on XBLA and PC.

The game now has a publisher, as well: Atari. The addition of a publishing partner may have something to do with its wider release. In the announcement, Atari president Jim Wilson relayed his excitement about delivering Blade Kitten to “an already rabid platforming fan base of gamers on XBLA and PSN.” You'll have to stop platforming long enough to play it!

The Guardian:

It is hard to get some children inside a library — but a high-street shop selling pirate eye patches or superhero equipment is much more of a draw.

This is the simple principle behind a literacy movement that has taken hold in America, and is coming to Britain.

Read the whole story: The Guardian

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Getting a book published and then to hit the Best Sellers list takes a lot of guts, even more determination, tremendous amounts of creative networking and even more persistence. Have you ever wondered how to get your book to be a best seller? I have and now have a book #1 at Barnes and #1 Business Books at Amazon. This is my first published book, Wiley and by working closely with the publishing company, hammering social media and then inspiring my customers, friends and associates it looks like we will hit the NY Times Best Sellers List this upcoming week.

Here is what I have learned:
1) Don't believe anyone when they tell you it can not be done.
2) Remember it is best selling book, not best written.
3) It will require a lot of energy, effort and creativity.

The first thing I did was decide that I could do it despite all the naysayers. The second thing, was write about a book that is personal to me and relevant to many. And then I did everything I could to make sure everyone knew about it.

The book is about the importance of dominating in business and the idea that competition is NOT healthy. This was inspired as a result of the recent economic contraction. This contraction was so severe it terrified me into the reality that individuals and companies are only protected against economic uncertainty by being the dominant player in their market or sector! And don't kid yourself the same thing holds true for book sales, dominant the charts or no one will know you exist!

As we redefined our business over the last 18 months I started writing this most recent book about what I was learning as I recreated and rebuilt my business so that I could get it into a more dominant position with the hopes of being immune from economic conditions. The first title I had was, Screw The Economy, Create Your Own and then I changed it to, Don't Be a Little Bitch but Wiley convinced me those titles might be too aggressive, even offensive to some, so we ended up with, If You Aren't First, You're Last.

I don't pretend to know the exact formula for getting your book to #1 but no one else seems to know the formula either. I can tell you, the most important thing is you have to get people to know about you and your book. Quality of content is critical but getting people to know about the book is senior! This is where a lot of writers seem to err, spending too much time on content and too little time on selling and promotion. In the real world, the quality of the product is meaningless if no one knows the product exist.

The days of going on tour and promoting at book stores are over. The margins for the stores are so small that they can't make sense of the energy it takes to put together book signings. I actually offered to do this at my own expense nationwide and there were no takers! It seems like TV is almost impossible to get without taking your clothes off, cheating on your spouse or overdosing. Today you must utilize social media, blogging and then inspire existing clients, friends and those that could benefit from getting your book sold.

Two years ago I went to my first book fair and walked into McGraw Hill's booth and introduced myself with the hopes of having them publish a book for me. I actually got them interested but because of other commitments to similar books they elected to pass. I went ahead and self-published my first book, Sell to Survive, which sold over 20,000 copies in two years. Only a small amount of these were sold on Amazon and only one book store, One Stoppe Shop in Clearwater carried the book. It's interesting book stores don't seem to like self published books even if they sell – no wonder traditional book stores are having problems. This book was successful because of the efforts of my company selling directly to our clients and at my seminars and then catching on by word of mouth.

I later hooked up with a niche publishing company that focuses on business books. I ended the relationship before we went to press because it just didn't feel right. Some thought I was crazy because I finally had a publishing deal but the same day I canceled our arrangement, Wiley Publications called me. They saw me there writing and liked was I was doing and asked me if I would be interested in them publishing my next book. We made a deal and I got busy selling books.

Here are some things I learned that may help you get your book to be a best seller:
1) Go where bloggers go and write as many articles as you can about the topic of your book.
2) Survey other authors about what they have done successfully in hopes that you can get them to review, comment or involved with your book's release.
3) Consider joint ventures where others promoting your book may benefit them.
4) Build your platform that you are going to sell the book to. Publishing companies want to see that you have a way of selling this book.
5) Build your social media and start talking about the books and then hammer it to levels others would consider unreasonable!

In the three months before the book came out we added almost 10,000 fans to my Facebook page, 3000 or so on LinkedIn and Twitter and starting making entries to inspire this public about the concepts of the book. This was building our platform. The day of the book's release I literally made entries sometimes every ten minutes for 18 hours of where the book was in the rankings as it fell from obscurity to 98,000, to 287 and then to #1 on Amazon Business and #1 overall at Barnes. This spurred more interest and had my clients and friends interested in helping the book move to #1. Understand that a few entries on social networks annoy people and seems self promoting. A consistent and unreasonable pounding of social media will get your audience intrigued and involved in moving your book to #1.

Grant Cardone, Author and International Sales Expert