The Second Annual New Author Writing Contest

I participated in this contest last year with a love poem. I was honored to be one of the finalist. I am planning to submit another poem for this year’s contest. I highly recommend participating and sharing your writing with others. Please go to http://the-new-author.blogspot.com/2010/02/second-annual-new-author-writing.html for more information. Good luck!

What has been your experience when participating in a writing contest?

The Death of the Paper Book (And the Rise of the E-Book)

by Sean D'Souza

On December 25th, 2009, something quite remarkable happened at Amazon.com.

For the first time in Amazon's history, the sale of e-books overtook the sale of physical books. And on that specific day the paper book downslide officially began. The Kindle officially put the early set of nails in the coffin. What the Kindle didn't complete, Apple's iPad (and other book readers) will be sure to finish off.

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But surely books won't die.
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The death of books have been exaggerated before and hey, they're still around. Surely books aren't going to die in a hurry.
Books won't die; the paper book will die.

Less than ten years ago, it wasn't uncommon to load up your car with dozens of CDs as you went on a trip. It wasn't uncommon to have a stack of CDs in your lounge. Where are those CDs now?
They're all nicely ripped and sitting in your iPod, iPhone or at the very least on your computer. Only a dinosaur carries CDs around these days.

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That dinosaur story applies perfectly to books ===============================================

So you're headed on vacation, and you pick up a few books to read.
You want to beef up on a specific topic? Again, you pick up a few books from the store or from the library. In a few years from now, that idea of lugging around books will seem kinda quaint.
Why would you want to have dozens of books stacked around taking up space, when you can have them all on your Kindle or your iPad?

Sounds too sci-fi? Well the librarians don't think so. Across the planet, libraries have latched onto the digital media. One of the early libraries to lend out Kindles and Sony Readers was North Carolina State University Library. And the list of libraries giving out Kindles, Sony Readers and e-book readers continues to grow (here's a partial list).

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If this revolution to digital media seems unreal, Apple just wait till devices like the iPad catch on.
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Kindles set out to allow you to download books or newspapers from anywhere. This means you could read the New York Times or just about any book in the Kindle store without having any access to a wireless hotspot or internet connection. However in order to keep this download small, all the fancy colour and graphics were stripped out of the Kindle display. This meant of course that you were largely restricted to text in black and white.

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Apple's iPad has no such restriction
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Not only will the iPad work via 3G, but it will also easily work through wireless. Assuming Apple allows all of the apps to work on the iPad (as it does on the iPhone) what you now have is the ability to experience the best of both worlds. If you choose you can simply download the Kindle app onto your iPad and read a book (in a nice big font and size).

If you choose to ignore the black and white, you may be able to download the book in full colour (Yes, publishers are already queuing up to have their books on the iPad). As if that were not dramatic enough, you'd be able to do it wirelessly through a choice of 3G or indeed over your wireless hotspot.

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Digital books have existed for a while, but there's always been a problem
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You could indeed take your PDF and try and read on a flight. Or you could download a magazine from Zinio.com and read it in bed. But you always had to contend with a laptop at the very least. And I don't know about you, but a computer doesn't exactly come close to the happiness you get when reading a book.

On a Kindle or iPad that frustration goes away. Now instead of lugging a computer to bed, I can prop up my iPad and voila--I have the very same, if not an enhanced experience.

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Enhanced? How could it be enhanced?
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Already you can bookmark pages on a Kindle. That should be standard on a tablet device of the future. Underlining, scribbling on the book, doodling etc., is just a matter of time. But that's just the reading experience. What really kills the paper book is the storage experience.

I can now store whatever I want in a tiny little device. And find the darned thing when I want to find it (As it is, I already buy books and store them on my iPhone Kindle app, just for reference purposes). With the iPad and future devices, this storage and convenience will become standard fare.

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This news isn't for the sentimental folks
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Most of us who are sentimental about paper and books will resist even the thought of the 'death' of paper books. This column isn't for the sentimentalists. It's about business and how it will affect your business.

If you're an author, or if your company puts out documentation, it's a matter of time before you will need to put your information in an ePub (e-publishing) format. And no, it's not even PDF, though PDF may well do for the short term. You may be so in love with the paper book that you may see information like this as being overly sensational. And again you're missing the point.

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The point is simply this:
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1) Your business needs to understand the e-book format.
2) It needs to be ready to publish in the ePub format.
3) It may well turn out that you can continue to print a paper book as a collector's item or a special bonus, but the paper book will simply become unfeasible in the long run no matter how sentimental you feel about it.

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The paper book will fade away.
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Film in cameras faded away. CDs faded away. Horse and carts faded away. And paper books will have it's own ride into the sunset--still around--but niche and largely marginalized.

You may not agree with this assessment. But you have little choice in how history unfolds.

And Christmas Day of 2009 changed history forever.

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Product Offers: Links you should visit
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What do you think about e-books vs paper books?

Five Essential Tips For Better Writing

By Daphne Gray-Grant
Daphne Gray-Grant is a writing and editing coach and the author of the popular book 8½ Steps to Writing Faster, Better. She offers a brief and free weekly newsletter on her website. Subscribe by going to the Publication Coach.

School has changed a lot since Sister Mary Rosa taught me to read in the 1960s -- but one thing doesn't seem to have evolved. The teaching of writing. Most schools don't do much of it.

Sure, they teach little kids how to hold pencils to form the letter W and they grade the papers of pre-teens and teens with lots of red X marks for spelling and grammar mistakes. Better teachers even render little check marks for thoughts and ideas that are well expressed. But how many of them teach kids how to come up with their ideas and how to make a reasonable point? Precious few.

On the day after Labour day, when most North American kids are returning to school after a summer break, let me share with you five essential tips for how to approach writing. Learn them yourself, to improve your own ability and most of all, teach them to your kids.

Make a schedule. When you get an assignment -- whether for school, your boss or a client -- immediately write down a realistic assessment of how long it's going to take you to finish it. Don't think "oh that's not due for three weeks -- I can plan later." Do it right away. Furthermore, don't just think about your plan -- write it down. This is important for two reasons: (1) it increases your commitment, (2) it gives you a track record against which you can measure your performance -- useful for future planning. Being realistic is also extremely important. There's large evidence that if you are a perfectionist you seriously underestimate the amount of time it takes you do anything. Be aware.

Spend more time on prep than on writing. When you prepare your schedule, remember to allow for a significant amount of planning time. There is nothing worse than sitting in front of a computer with a mind that's blanker than your screen. In other words, in order to write, you need to have something to say. Writing takes preparation. It frequently requires research but it always involves thinking -- and almost no one I've ever worked with has allowed adequate time for thinking. One of the best ways to think is by creating a mindmap. If you signed up for this newsletter, you'll have received a little booklet on mindmapping. Get it out now and re-read it. Then do it!

Write in dribs and drabs rather than in one big chunk o' time. I can't tell you how many people regularly carve off an afternoon to write a report. Then they embarrassedly report to me how little they accomplished during this huge chunk of time. Don't make a big deal about writing. Write a little bit whenever you have the chance. Say you're waiting for a meeting to start. Start scribbling some thoughts in your notebook. Say you're waiting for a call to be returned. Start typing. Take those dribs and drabs of time and make them useful. When you next sit down to write you'll be thrilled to discover you're no longer facing a blank page.

Separate your writing and your editing/re-writing. This is the single most important piece of advice I give. Do not allow yourself to start editing while you write. The two tasks are completely different and use different parts of your brain. When you write, write. When you edit, edit. Don't confuse these very different jobs. As I say in my book, trying to edit while you write is like trying to wash the dishes while you're still eating dinner. It really doesn't work.

Forgive yourself. Guess what? You're going to screw up and make mistakes. Your schedule will be inadequate. Your prep will be incomplete. You may not find enough dribs and drabs of time and you may find yourself sneakily editing when you should be writing. Worst of all, your written work may not be perfect! So take a deep breath and tell yourself: "I don't have to be perfect. I just have to get this done. I will have the chance to edit later. Moreover I will have future writing projects."

The more you write, the better you'll get. Just do it mindfully and with planning.


Which of these tips have you used in your writing?

Top 100 Blogs to Improve Your Writing in 2010

Recently on one of the blogs I follow, A Writer's Edge, Georganna Hancock had a link to the "100 blogs to improve your writing in 2010." I like this type of list because there are many good blogs on writing that I do not know about. I recommend any writer to take a look at these blogs for writing tips and writing resources.

What blog has helped you improve your writing?