Life

Intellectual Property / Life / Web — No Comments
30
Jun 10

Interview at The Copyright Alliance about ‘Starving the Artist’

Recently I was contacted by The Copyright Alliance to answer a few interview questions about my latest book, Starving the Artist.  Part One of the Interview is now available, and Part Two is coming tomorrow can be read here..

For those of you unfamiliar with The Copyright Alliance, they are a “a non-profit, non-partisan educational organization dedicated to the value of copyright as an agent for creativity, jobs and growth.” They’re also the recent recipient of the Arnold Broido Award for Copyright Advocacy.

All-in-all, they’re a fantastic organization (in my opinion), and one that any creator or individual who cares about copyright or artists’ rights should be aware of and follow. You can learn more about them here.

Life / Music — No Comments
11
May 10

20% Of May Sales for Starving the Artist to be Donated to Tennessee Flood Relief

Working in the music industry, I’ve spent some time in Nashville, and I know what a great city it is. It, and Tennessee in general, are home to the greatest songwriting and music community in the world – as well as millions more magnificent individuals. This is why, when I heard the news and saw the footage of the destruction from the recent flooding, I felt it important to give to help out this area and people in need.

Since my new book focuses quite a bit on the plight of musicians and songwriters, I thought it would only be fitting to try to help out by giving 20% of all sales of Starving the Artist throughout the month of May to Tennessee Flood Relief. So, not only will $2 of every paperback sold and $1 of every Kindle download sold go toward helping this treasure trove of our heartland, but by reading the book hopefully respect of the value of what this community of songwriters and musicians creates for us will grow as well – helping them to flourish in the aftermath through their hard work and creativity.

Of course, if you’d like to donate directly you can do so as well. Donate to the American Red Cross online here, or text REDCROSS to 90999 to make a $10 donation.

Again, $2 of every paperback and $1 of every Kindle edition sold throughout the month of May will be donated to the American Red Cross for Tennessee Flood Relief.

Get the Paperback

Download it on Kindle

Life / Technology — No Comments
15
Feb 10

You Need a Robot to Do Your Dirty Work

I’m addicted to my Roomba. In fact, I’m so addicted that I’m addicted to three Roombas (and one Scooba).  They all have names.  There’s Bob 2, Bob 3 and Sir Roberto the Fourth.  (Bob 1 died, unfortunately).  The Scooba is named Norbert.

If you don’t know what a Roomba is, the basic idea is this: it’s a robot that vacuums for you.  (Scoobas mop). Yeah, it doesn’t take too much work to vacuum.  But what a Roomba does is quite a bit more than that – it’s the things you don’t really think about when you think of vacuuming.  Of course the actual “work” part of vacuuming is gone – but the additional benefits are where these little robots really shine.

Roombas are small in height, which means they go under all your furniture – no more moving the couch to clean up the cat hair that’s accumulated.  They’ll go pretty much everywhere you need them to go, and they’ll do it for you pretty much as often as you want. Continue reading →

Life / Marketing / Web — No Comments
15
Feb 10

Silence.

It’s been about six months since I last updated this blog.  That’s a long time – too long, if you’d ask pretty much anyone out there who’s telling you how to build your personal “brand.”

The thing is though, your personal “brand” needn’t be like everyone else.  What’s really important is what you want to define yourself or your brand as.

I’ve been silent for a long time – not because I don’t have anything to say, but rather because I’ve been taking the time to embrace silence.  Spending time updating a blog on a regular basis doesn’t really accomplish a lot for me, especially given the fact that life has limited time.

Continue reading →

Life / Publishing / Technology / Web / Writing — 4 Comments
10
Aug 09

The Genocide of the Creative Class (A Work-in-Progress)

In a recent post, I mentioned that I was working on a new novel. This is true, but what I didn’t mention is that I’m also working on a new piece of nonfiction. This work focuses primarily on the cost and value of creation, and the damages that are happening to the creative class due to some aspects of modern culture. In fact, a working subtitle for the book (at least as I’m writing it) is The Genocide of the Creative Class.

Here’s a snippet of the current work-in-progress.

For a lot of people, creation is their livelihood. For others, it’s where their livelihood should be. I may be modest at times, but I know I’m no Picasso. For people like him, there obviously was a motivation to create – but there was also a cost. In his lifetime, Picasso created an estimated 50,000 individual works. If nothing else, that’s a lot of paint, paper and time.

Still, the obvious question here is “What if Picasso had not been able to create as his profession?” Of course there is no way he’d have created 50,000 works – there simply isn’t enough time in one’s life to do something like that as a hobby. Or, if somehow he could have still produced as many works, it is highly unlikely he would have had the drive to do so, much less perfect his craft to the level which he did.

Continue reading →

Life / Money / Publishing / Writing — 1 Comment
1
Jul 09

Celluloid Cowboy: What Indie Publishing is For

Celluloid CowboyWith the experiences I’ve had so far as an independent author, I’ve come across quite a few like-minded individuals. The problem is that some of them aren’t that great at writing something that grabs me (sorry, but it’s true). Some of them, however, are.  This is where Scott C. Rogers falls with his debut, Celluloid Cowboy.

To be honest, at first I really wasn’t very interested in reading his book. The cover art definitely screamed indie, and the premise seemed a bit cliche (man’s life sucks, is presented with chance to change), and I am also usually pretty wary of author’s soliciting their works to me to read.  (I already have quite a few books on my to-read list.)  But Rogers and I emailed back and forth a few times (full disclosure here) and I told him that if he put it up on Kindle I’d maybe read it.  He did, he emailed me, and I went ahead and read it.

The thing is, this really isn’t my kind of book.  From some of the reviews out there he supposedly has some similarities to Bukowski, who I’ve never really cared enough about to read (and therefore can’t comment as to if he really is like Bukowski).  I will say this though: Celluloid Cowboy is really damn weird. Continue reading →

Life — No Comments
18
Jun 09

Communication Is Priority #1

Talk to me, people – and talk to each other.

That’s the most important message I try to get across to my team members.  As the Director of both the Web Team and Marketing/Editorial Team at Musicnotes.com, I have a lot on my schedule.  I directly manage and work with six extraordinarily talented individuals across these two groups, each of which is truly a master of his or her domain.  But along with being masters of their domains, they are also multi-talented individuals who are quite capable of helping each other out by stepping out of their specialty and into someone else’s (or  a specialty we didn’t know we even needed).

With such a talented group, and at a continually growing and forward-thinking company like Musicnotes, there’s always a lot going on.  When one project ends, another is always there to take its place – and oftentimes there are multiple projects being worked on at once.  These kinds of circumstances are the ideal cocktail for confusion and failure to brew; with so much going on, almost all of it “high priority,” it’s easy to see how things could quickly spiral out of control. Continue reading →

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