As Mr. T. was prone to say, “I pity the fool…that doesn’t get to come and hang out at SXSW and see all these amazing things happening!” So here are some you just gotta do! I’m up for Gonzo definitely!
The SXSW Film Festival (March 7-15 in Austin) and The Texas Book Festival would like to let you know about a few book-related feature films that will screen at this year’s 15th annual SXSW Film Festival. In fact, the first three people to email film@sxsw.com with the subject line “I love movies about books!” will receive a pair of SXSW film passes to attend screenings. For more information on how to obtain a SXSW Film Festival pass or tickets to individual screenings, visit: http://sxsw.com. Below you can find films, schedules, and their descriptions. We hope to see you at SXSW!
Dreams with Sharp Teeth
Directed by Erik Nelson
25 years in the making, Dreams with Sharp Teeth is a documentary that brings literary hero Harlan Ellison, his magnetic personality and amazing work to life, with appearances from Robin Williams and author Neil Gaiman.
9:00 PM, 3/08/2008, ACC,
3/11/2008, Paramount, 9:45 PM
3/14/2008, Paramount, 9:45 PM
Then She Found Me
Director: Helen Hunt. Writers: Alice Arlen, Victor Levin, Helen Hunt. Starring: Helen Hunt, Colin Firth, Bette Midler, Matthew Broderick. Adapted from Elinor Lipman’s novel of the same name, Helen Hunt makes her feature directing debut with this touching story of schoolteacher April Epner and her very unlikely path towards personal fulfillment. (Regional Premiere)
6:30 PM, Saturday March 8th – Paramount
Gonzo: The Life and Work of Dr. Hunter S. Thompson
Directed by Alex Gibney
With access to never-before-seen archives, this is a fascinating documentary look at the legendary and undeniable author Hunter S. Thompson.
7:30 PM, Saturday March 8th – Alamo Lamar 2
10:00 PM, Thursday March 13th – Alamo Lamar 2
Obscene
Directed by Daniel O’Connor & Neil Ortenberg
Barney Rosset is the greatest American publisher of the twentieth century. Under Rosset, Grove Press and Evergreen Review fought decisive battles to defeat legal censorship, and opened American life to new and dangerous currents of freedom. He helped bring such works as “Tropic of Cancer” and “Howl” to the public. But Rosset’s fight against hypocrisy and injustice is inextricable from his tumultuous personal life: the same unyeilding, quixotic, restless energy that upended centuries of law brought Rosset perilously close to destruction. This is his story.
5:00 PM, Friday March 7th – Alamo Ritz
2:00 PM, Sunday March 9th – Dobie
We Are Wizards
Directed by Josh Koury
In 1997, the book Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone exploded onto the literary scene, captivating readers all over the world and quickly spawning cinematic versions. We Are Wizards tracks the influential figures leading the creative subculture surrounding the popular series. The film follows a set of individuals ranging from web journalists, authors, artists, filmmakers and musicians, as they enhance and expand the Harry Potter story, often in unexpected ways. We Are Wizards is a portrayal of creative fans with a common goal: to make their voices heard.
3/08/2008, ACC, 1:45 PM
3/11/2008, Paramount, 11:00 AM
3/14/2008, Paramount, 1:45 PM
Choke
Director/writer: Clark Gregg. Starring: Sam Rockwell, Anjelica Huston, Kelly Macdonald.
An adaptation of Chuck Palahniuk’s novel, this is the sardonic story about a mother and son relationship, fear of aging, sexual addiction, and the dark side of historical theme parks. (Regional Premiere)
9:30 PM, Wednesday March 12th – Paramount
I love Book Expo America and this year it will be held in Los Angeles and Lewis Black will be there as part of the BEA events! Cool cool cool beans!
I highly recommend if you have not ever attended BEA that you see if you can make it to the “big show.” It’s an amazing event and the folks that put it on are deeply committed book lovers.
I might add they secured Thomas Friedman too and if you’re still thinking the world is round, you need to take a gander at his book The World is Flat – this book and “Freaknomics” are two of the must read books of the decade.
I’m always touting LinkedIn and ask all my clients to re-engage their “linkedin-ness” and this article in the NYTimes today by Michelle Slatalla is a superb take on LinkedIn and building that ever-necessary “web of influence” one ping at a time.
If you’re an author, musician or even a creative thinker at your company you know there are times when it seems like the world is against you and you can’t possibly find a way to succeed. But take heart and think like an ANT.
In my work with authors or musicians in terms of online efforts one of the wonderful things we get to do is collaborate on all the different ways one can possibly find the right listener or reader or mondo journalist! Our collaboration always starts and ends with abundance and a little picture of an ant that I have on my computer.
Why an ant?
Because one of the songs I sung to my kids when they were babies was the Frank Sinatra tune “High Hopes” and I always put them to bed with a stuffed red ant (we have giant red ants in Texas).
Part of that song goes, “Just what makes that little ol ant, think he can move a rubber tree plant, anyone knows and ant can’t move a rubber tree plant, but he’s got high hopes, he’s got high hopes, he’s got high apple pie in the sky hopes, so anytime you’re feeling low, just remember that ant. Oops there goes another rubber tree, oops there goes another rubber tree, oops there goes another rubber tree plant.”
So while the world will tell you and the news will tell you and maybe even your boss will tell you that the world is filled with unassailable rubber tree plants, I encourage you to be the ant that takes all those trees down and fills the world with your books, your music and your creative products.
And here’s a link to the ringtone for the “High Hopes” song – http://www.ringtones.lv/download/freeitem610715.html .
I’m thrilled to say that two books I helped do online outreach for are named as finalists for the Axiom Awards!
Lois Kelly’s “Beyond Buzz: The Next Generation of Word-of-Mouth Marketing” and Erika Andersen’s outstanding book, “Growing Great Employees: Turning Ordinary People into Extraordinary Performers”!
Congrats to both of you extraordinary authors and what a wonderful way to end a Friday!
I urge you to get these books if you’ve not yet purchased them!
The only other book that I’d hoped to see on the list is Geoff Livingston’s fantastic book, “Now is Gone: A Primer on New Media for Executives and Entreprenuers”, which is now being sold in Barnes and Noble and is being heralded as a must-read for folks who want to understand new media!
If you’re tired of the YouTube videos with someone singing songs to Britney then you might be ready for the site BigThink.com , which officially went live on January 7th. BigThink.com’s founder Peter Hopkins told the E-Commerce Times that his goal in creating the site was to “create a venue to exchange ideas online. Our goal is to help thinking to reach a higher plain,” said Hopkins.
I think you’ll see as this site grows so will it’s popularity among folks who are intellectual drivers and thought influencers. I hit the site this morning and it’s like a virtual video library of amazing insight from leading creatives, artists, scientests and economists. The content is free of charge and the interviews are categorized into themes like Arts and Culture, Literatures, Economics, Business, Medicine and more.
If you’re an author this is another site you might check out and see if some of your thought-leading content would work here. And don’t think “marketing my thoughts” think “sharing my thoughts” with people who can benefit from them!
Both the site’s founders were producers at PBS so you know the site is going to really be driven with the intention of providing superb and thought-engaging content.
Go to Bigthink here.
And my challenge to you is to deeply think about your insight and how it might benefit other big thinkers and the community of this web site.
It’s Valentine’s day and I’m in San Francisco doing a Web 2.0 presentation for an amazing group of publicists, authors and marketers, but I still want to send a great shout of heartfelt encouragement to all those folks who want to write and produce a stellar book. You can do it!
I also wanted to address a superb question that I get asked alot about blogging in terms of getting folks to comment on your blog.
There are some good things to try like the following:
1. Every fourth blog post be brave and ask a question that folks can feel compelled to answer.
2. Comment on other blogs that are within your peer arena because that will help others feel engaged to comment on your blog as well.
3. Use your e-newsletter to invoke people to comment on your blog. Set up some great invites in your e-newsletter every month around a blog topic.
4. The Queen of knowing how to engage bloggers’ comments as far as I’m concerned is Liz Strauss at http://www.successful-blog.com . Liz does an amazing Tuesday night Open Mike night and you’ve never seen so many wonderful commenting going back and forth and real, genuine, authentic, trust-filled support coupled with it! Liz always thinks of these fantastic topics and I’ve seen the comments go into the hundreds on her nights. I love to go myself when I remember to do so!
I’m not suggesting you copy Liz because the thing is you have to do what works best for your blog and the readers you want to engage, but Liz is a wonderful example of a blogger who trusts her readers and herself enough to really “let it all blog out” in terms of these open mikes.
5. Don’t engage in blog envy. Blogging is abundant, commenting will become abundant as well – just hang in there. Every single blog has the possibility of engaging comments, just be patient and trust the universe. There’s a great quote that Bob Dylan said on a PBS special once, “I didn’t change what I was doing to get the audience, I just kept writing the songs I wanted to and LET the audience come to me.” So just keep blogging.
6. Blog the change you want to see in the world. I’m constantly saying this but I mean it. The best way to invoke comments on a blog is to really be clear about how your blog can effect and initiate change in whatever “world” you’re working in. Don’t get downtrodden just keep writing.
7. Join a blog carnival – this really helps again in engaging folks about what you’re doing and encourages commenting on all blogs!
Happy Valentine’s Day. And just for today turn off your cellphone, email, blogging, electronic gaming once it’s 5 in your part of the world and spend the evening just staring at your family! You’d be amazed at how good you’ll feel!
Anyone that I work with knows that I’m crazy about my kids and being a Mom as well as my work.
To that end I wanted to alert all you other folks out there who have kids and enjoy the speed with which they learn all this new-fangled tech stuff that makes all of us sometimes feel Web .-1.
Here’s a link to Doodle for Google – a cool thing that Google just launched for kids in grades K-12 to participate in and possibly win college scholarships!
I just read while on the plane to San Francisco as I’m doing a Web 2.0 presentation down here, that Gmail now has 91 million users. It’s much less in comparison to what Yahoo mail and MSN email user numbers are if they combine companies, but the cool thing is how quickly GOogle was able to manage gathering all these gmail users!
It started out with invites from Google to test it and I was lucky enough to get one early on (in my tech journalist days) and then slowly but surely you got the capability to send out an invite for five of your friends and family to try it. Did you know that way back when it started there were even people hawking their gmail invite on eBay (until the Google guys stopped it)?
I write this to encourage to really see how quickly something can take off if you’re willing to put yourself out there in the mix of the crazy Web 2.0 world!
You have to just truly keep persisting with your books and your ideas and you will find like-minded and “link-minded” readers!
No go and get your kids – take the rest of the day off and Doodle for Google!
The online magazine Smith had a bunch of folks write the story of their own lives in a single sentence. The book that resulted from it is titled, “Not Quite What I Was Planning”. Wonderful book!
Read the full NPR story here. And I challenge you to write your own six word memoir.
Mine is: Birth to Emma, then Gibson. Amazing!
What is yours? I’d love to see them and if you click on the NPR story there’s a place to go where you can share yours as well.
Here’s some from the book itself:
Couldn’t cope so I wrote songs. (Aimee Mann)
Born in the desert. still thirsty. (Georgene Nunn)
A sake mom, not soccer mom. (Shawna Hausman)
Painful nerd kid, happy nerd adult. (Linda Williamson
Share yours! And I’d love to challenge someone more task-oriented than myself to start this as a MEME so it could spread across the whole blogosphere!
And if you wanted to make this a writing assignment to get your creativity flowing, do this:
1. What’s a six word one for your work life?
2. Six word one for your lovelife?
3. Six word one for your relationships with your parents, spouse, significant other or even a pet. Mine for my pet would be, “Pug love everflowing, neverending, always present pugilicious.”
You could also do a series of them around the decades of your life as well!
If you’ve got a new book out, or you’re in the early stages of planning a book release keep these five tips in mind to help you find your readers!
1. Think collaboration! Reach out to like-minded folks blogging on the same topics or type of book you’ve written and ask them if they’d like to be early reviewers.
2. Don’t forget to look to listserves, forums, and compatible e-newsletters to use as ways to connect with folks.
3. Use LinkedIn for good not marketing spam! Please don’t let someone send out a note from LinkedIn touting your book and begging folks to all buy it in the same 32 minute time period. Make real long-term connections by asking a question to your connections that might help evoke some insight around your book or your topic.
4. Be authentic, honest and engaging in your outreach.
5. Do Google alerts around the top books in your arena and build your own outreach list from the journalists that are writing about books like yours.
Let’s say you’re an author on a shoestring budget but you really think your book or its message would be a great fit for a radio show. But how does an author find radio shows without buying the services of a Radio/TV focused publicist?
Here’s one way that’s easy and I recommend – mind you, it takes work, because after you find the stations you’ll still need to hit the web site pages and look at the shows and ferret out the producers to pitch. But you can do it! Don’t let the niggling little tasks stop you from building your own radio outreach program!
Here’s a link to the online resource Radio Locator - it’s a superb resource that boasts tracking of over 10,000 radio stations and growing. Go and do a search on “News/Talk” shows for instance and you’ll find a ton of them. Those might be great ones to start pitching a one-page targeted talking points release! Start with the ones locally first and then spread out.
Remember, where there’s a will – there’s a way and you can do alot of promotion of your book without specifically relying on a publicist or PR person!
Ok, I’m registering my veto on the premise that every author must have a blog to be successful. That’s ridiculous. Seriously if you’re just going to do a blog because you have a book that’s coming out and you’re going to abandon it in a few short months to what is now a growing “Book Blog Cemetery” then please think about not doing one at all.
Sure, a blog is great, and it has great potential for inducing viral conversation, but you need to consider it carefully. Read “Blog Schmog” by Robert Bly for starters. Read blogs you like and notice how often they post, what they post and how dedicated they are to good content!
A blog is not the next greatest thing to selling thousands of books! I know social media consultants will tell you that you MUST have a blog. I say, “Stop in the name of BLOGS, before you break your reader’s heart,” (sung to the tune of Stop in the Name of Love by The Supremes).
A blog should serve as a wonderful resource for anyone who hits it long-term. What happens to all the readers who are crazy about your work and then three months down the line they never hear from you again! Depressing! Why would you suddenly deny updates to your readers who come to read your blog Get it?
Blogging takes time, committment, respect, and love for the fellow blog reader and love for your fellow blog arena. It’s not snarky, salesy, marketing-focused, or one-sided. Love the blog. Feed the blog. Take a long fruitful blog journey with your readers, not a cab ride!
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