Jay Garmon [dot] Net: career

Showing posts with label career. Show all posts

Friday, April 01, 2011

Perfection - My first professional fiction sale

On my bio page, when discussing my futile efforts to launch a career as a science fiction author, I made the following threat:

If [such publication] ever happens, expect the first announcement to appear on JayGarmon.Net along with a copious overuse of exclamation points...

Thus...my first professional fictional sale is online !!!!!!1!!one!!!

I'm nothing if not a man of my word.

As to specifics, the story is titled "Perfection" as was purchased by the fine folks over at Redstone Science Fiction. They actually snagged the story a few months ago but I held off noting it here until the link went live in their April issue. (The irony of my first fiction sale meeting the world on April Fool's Day is not lost on me.)

As to the story itself, I'd like to think I wear my Charles Stross influences rather proudly. This is also a considerably shorter piece than I usually write, which no doubt contributed greatly to its publication. Nonetheless, I commend its content unto you, and welcome feedback -- positive or otherwise -- in the comment spaces of this post. I thank you in advance.

[squee]

Saturday, January 01, 2011

So who is this 'Jay Garmon' dork...?

I, Jared Matthew "Jay" Garmon, am a professional geek. Specifically, I am a writer, husband & father, technologist, science fiction nerd, and self-professed trivia expert. Each of these aspects is entertained at different venues around the Web, as listed below.

Technologist: First and foremost, I am the VP of Product at Finvi, where I try to build some cutting-edge SaaS fintech. I've founded and sold a startup or two in my day, run a $2 billion healthcare transaction platform, built actual factual AI solutions, and once wrote an online spoof of the Daily Show focused on the stars of the Food Network.

As sidelines and consulting work, I have advised on social media and emerging technologies for the Louisville Digital Association (for whom I have served as both president and vice president), Louisville EnterpriseCORP (for whom I was a founding member of their advisory "Justice League"), XLerateHealth (for whom I was a founding director), organized the Louisville Geek Dinner, and, as a guest instructor, helped inaugurate a Social Media marketing curriculum at the University of Louisville.

Writer: This post is hosted on Jay Garmon [dot] Net, which is my personal blog where I prattle on about whatever topics interest me with very irregular frequency. You can also find herein copies of my science fiction short stories that I have "trunked," which is a euphemism for "given up on trying to publish." Yes, I have written other sci-fi shorts, exactly one of which has been sold for professional publication (though it did make the Tangent list...barely). I haven't written any fiction since my second child was born more than a decade ago, but I hope someday to return to the practice, which is why I started the Aldebaran Roundtable writers group.

I also technically share a screenwriting credit with David Goyer, but that was for a contest, not a job. (I won.)

As to the majority of the writing work for which I've been actively paid, look no further than my LinkedIn profile, and you'll see I've made my living in whole or in part by stringing together words for CNET, CBS Interactive, Scholastic Library Publishing, TechTarget, Backupify, Talla, LinkSquares, Patlytics, Neurometric AI, Rally UXR, and Practical Assurance. But that's all non-fiction, so it doesn't count.

Husband & Father: I have the requisite Facebook page for the disseminating of pictures of my daughters, wife, friends, cats, travel, and Star Trek memes, but -- fair warning -- I also do the "talking about politics" thing there. Don't go if you're sensitive about your votes or policies.

Science Fiction Nerd: I have whittled a long career of semi-professional sci-fi fandom down to a single membership these days: running Hugo McNebula's Reading Circle for a few other book nerds. The membership of said circle has largely been collected from the pursuits below.

Until 2020, I was the Vice Chair of Marketing for ConGlomeration, Louisville's fan-run sci-fi and fantasy convention that shuttered due to COVID-19.

Many moons ago, I was the originator of and prime contributor to The Geekend, a nerd culture blog at TechRepublic, a Web community for IT professionals run by CBS Interactive (I think they call it the "After Hours" section, now). Predating the Geekend is Geek Trivia, a weekly (ahem) geek trivia column that I wrote for more than a decade. Both the Geekend and Geek Trivia have been cited by sources as diverse as author John Scalzi to the editors of Wikipedia.

I was an also an extremely irregular contributor to the Hugo-winning SF Signal blog -- usually their also Hugo-nominated podcasts -- where I performed a barely passable impression of an expert in sci-fi media and fandom.

Self-Professed Trivia Expert: As an adjunct to Geek Trivia, the kind and talented hosts of the now-defunct TechTalk radio show on WRLR 98.3 FM in Chicago had me on as a regular guest. There I snarked about movies, science fiction, technology, current events and ... eventually ... provided a geek trivia question each week.

I also occasionally wrote the Truly Trivial column here at JayGarmon.Net, wherein I threw a few hundred words at an obscure factoid that very possibly only I find fascinating. Inexplicably, other people were entertained by this.

In the unlikely event you would like to retain my services as a consultant, writer, speaker, radio guest, conference/convention panelist, or one-shot dungeon master, you can reach me at jay [at] jaygarmon [dot] net. Depending on the job, I can be be had for very free or very not. Pitch me, and we'll talk.

Friday, December 31, 2010

So you want to hire little old me?

Image by TW Collins

Because many have asked, yes, I am for hire.

I have served as a professional writer, editor, speaker, community administrator, and software product manager for over 20 years. I had a regular radio show spot, my name on a provisional patent, and citations as a source in the Wikipedia to show for it. Google "Jay Garmon" and you'll get plenty of details. (Or just check out my lengthy bio page.)

I'm a reasonably smart guy who understands technology, and I'm offering my talents in exchange for your coin. Specifically, you can hire me as a...

Writer of blogs, proposals, ads, scripts, or pithy commentary. If you need words strung together in interesting ways, I can get that done.
Speaker on a variety of subjects, including how to use social media, emerging technology and the like. I also wrote a trivia column for ten years, which means I have a knack for making even the most obscure topics interesting, and I can probably do the same for you on most any subject. Particularly as it relates to tech.
Strategist for software and interactive applications. I've overseen the development of features and functions for Web sites, including revamping a multimillion-dollar e-mail marketing system. I've launched HIPAA and PCI-compliant SaaS solutions for industry-leading healthcare software companies. If you're trying to make smarter, more effective customer-facing technology, I have a few bits of hard-earned wisdom I can bring to bear.

But before you contact me with a job inquiry, there are some things to know.

I don't work for free. If your inquiry includes any version of the phrase "we can't pay you," spare both of us the effort, as this will only end in an awkward e-mail where I explain I actually get paid for this stuff. Reasonably well, reasonably often. I occasionally amend my speaking fees for non-profits and charities, but those are handled on a case-by-case basis and I agree to them rarely. You've been warned.
I have a day job. This is not to say I am unavailable during normal business hours, but my undivided attention is not on the table (unless you're offering a great full-time gig at great full-time pay).
I am a very public geek. Look over this blog, and you'll note a pervasive interest in science, science fiction, and online media. In the current online world, you need to have a certain measure of imagination to understand how all these new tools and trends work and evolve. Moreover, as everything is now public, pervasive, and persistent, communications skills have become more important than ever. There's no better thought-leader for the current economy than a sci-fi writer. But if having a loud and proud Star Trek fan associated with your brand is a problem, it is best we stop now, because that's who you're hiring, and your customers will figure that out pretty quickly.

If I haven't scared you off with all the above caveats, we can now discuss price. My consulting rate is $250 per hour, and my per-word rate ranges from $0.25 to $0.75 based on required research for the piece.

I typically bid jobs based on how many hours I estimate they will require, and for speaking engagements this includes preparation, especially if you want a PowerPoint presentation in addition to my words and voice.

For recurring jobs -- such as an open-ended blogging assignment -- I discount my rate based on how much recurring work is required.

Finally, I am available on retainer, with the regular fee negotiated based on the expected level of time investment.

Questions, comments, or proposals should all be addressed to jay [at] jaygarmon [dot] net.

Wednesday, September 16, 2009

Goodbye Written Weird, hello Jay Garmon dot Net

Image by 1541 via Flickr

Last night, my colleague Jason Falls gave a presentation on the importance of maintaining your personal brand online. Among his key points of advice was owning your own domain name. Unfortunately, most of the valuable versions of my name as a domain have been on backorder for months or years (stupid GoDaddy auto-renew).

Rather serendipitously, JayGarmon.net finally came through this morning. As such, the Written Weird is no more -- or won't be by this weekend, when the DNS propagation is complete. (For the record, JayGarmon.com is owned by a State Farm agent in Russell Springs, KY -- no relation -- and I don't expect I'll ever get that URL.) Going forward, this site will be known as Jay Garmon [dot] Net. Yes, I totally cribbed the title styling from Wil Wheaton. The change is largely cosmetic, intended mostly for SEO and branding purposes. Blogger will auto-redirect all the old link equity, and since Google owns Blogger, I'm told that little to any PageRank damage will be incurred. We'll see.

In any case, the content of this site will remain the same. Moreover, the fact that my URL came through just before I relaunched my personal trivia column is a tasty piece of happy. With any luck, I'll have the new DNS situation squared before I appear on TechTalk radio this weekend. Sometimes, things just go right.

Monday, April 27, 2009

My 25 favorite Geekend columns of all time

X-wing fighters, with their s-foils closed, in...

Image via Wikipedia

As my previous post indicated, I have recently resigned the longest-running writing gig of my career, authoring Geek Trivia and The Geekend for CBS Interactive. As part of dealing with my separation anxiety--and also to incentivize my former Geekend readers to come check out this blog--I've list my personal Top 25 Geekend columns from my four-year run with the blog. Enjoy.

Thursday, April 23, 2009

Giving up that which defines me

Image via Wikipedia

For seven and a half years, I've written a column called Geek Trivia. On Wednesday, April 29, 2009, the last issue of that column I'll likely ever write will be publicized in its e-mail newsletter. I'm taking a full-time job with a competitor of CBS Interactive, the publisher of Geek Trivia and its host blog, The Geekend, for which I also write several times per week. I built The Geekend from the ground up, and I have come to regard my Geek Trivia readers (of which there were about 60,000) as not just fans, but in some measure friends. Saying goodbye to them is more difficult than I imagined it could be.

Google my name--Jay Garmon--and you'll find my work for the Geekend in the top two or three results. Google Geek Trivia, and you'll find my work for that column first and foremost. In some ways, Geek Trivia and The Geekend have defined me, professionally. They've opened doors for me that I never thought possible.

My role as a guest on TechTalk radio, I garnered through Geek Trivia. My connections to the wonderful bloggers at SFSignal, I made through the Geekend. John Scalzi noticed--and reacted to--my work there. (And then recalled the incident enough to sign books to that effect.) Writers and artists like Rich Lovatt, Mike Sterling, Valerie D'Orazio, David Gallaher, Lar DeSouza, Steve Ellis, Rich Ginter, Hannibal Tabu, Andrew Hackard, John Klima, Dwight MacPherson, Rich Barrett, Chris Meeks, John F. Merz and Mary Robinette Kowal follow me on Twitter because of my networking done in part through the Geekend. I've been cited as a source in Wikipedia articles because of Geek Trivia, which is a very strange notion indeed.

Ironically, I've "ended" Geek Trivia before, only to have my fans demand its return. Twice. I cannot begin to tell you how gratifying those responses were. The only compliment that comes close is that TechRepublic won't continue Geek Trivia without me, which is equally sad and humbling all at once.

For over eight years, my career and my online identity have been tied in some measure to TechRepublic in general and Geek Trivia specifically. That's a quarter of my life.

And now I'm giving all that up.

It is a strange new world I enter now, one where I have to reinvent myself online. My wife is actually glad of this, as she's looking forward to my having just one set of deadlines (that of the new day job) and me spending the rest of time either away from the keyboard, or writing what I want to write, not what I'm obligated to write. Hopefully, that means my long-neglected personal blog (this one) will get some attention and, more importantly, my long-forestalled fiction writing career will finally get underway.

It's time to move on to the next chapter, but no matter how promising or exciting my prospects may be, I cannot help but be momentarily saddened by what what I'm leaving behind. It has been good to me, and I'm the better for it. Those of you who knew me as the Trivia Geek, please look for me here. I'm not gone, I'm just different. And I look forward to seeing what is to come.

Monday, March 30, 2009

What I've learned in the last year--the hard way

Image via Wikipedia

On March 26, 2008, I was dismissed from a job I held for seven years, where I did good work with good people and had a lot of fun and earned a decent living. If I hadn't been shown the door, I'd probably still be there. Instead, I've spent the last year squarely outside my comfort zone, for good or ill, and learned a great deal about myself. These facts include:

Management is harder than it looks. During this past year, I was placed in an upper management position for around eight months. I was "the boss" in a very real sense for the first time. I'm rather introverted by nature, and my usual work flow is give me a task and let me go off alone and grind on it for a while. Being a leader required me to develop new skills that I had never touched on before. It was gratifying, but far harder than any actual "work" I've had to do before.
Entrepreneurship requires passion, which I'm not known for. GameJabs, the software start-up I helped get going, has stopped going. Our funding got held up, we missed our window in the product space (others have started building products similar to those we planned, and we can't beat the head start), and my partner who fronted the money is auctioning off the codebase to recoup some of his losses. We tried, it failed, and it sucks. I liked the product, and would have used it, but I didn't live and die by its success. None of us did, and I think that played a large part in its undoing. I'm an even keel guy, and I don't rush headlong into much, and that's not the mindset that makes for a successful entrepreneur. I'm going to think long and hard before I undertake another start-up opportunity again.
I hate sales, which makes me a lousy consultant. I've dabbled in consulting since December, when Vupal (my last day job with a different startup) folded. I've done okay, mostly on referrals from friends who had consulting work they didn't want or couldn't do. I've learned I'm lousy at chasing work, and selling myself. This, quite frankly, is the more important skill set for a consultant than actual competence at the work being done. I'm not a good consultant, and I don't like the lifestyle. I crave structure and certainty, and the freelance life offers neither. That's an important thing to know as I plan my next move.
I'm a great souce of ideas, but passion is necessary for execution. Every company, partner, or client I've worked for or with in the last year has benefitted from my ideas. That's not hubris; that's what I've been told by these other parties, and the evidence I've seen of it. I've got a knack for coming up with viable options for almost any venture. The problem is I lack the passion to push most of them past the goal line. Like my friend Michelle (another person I've come to know and appreciate in the last year) says, your work is to discover your work. That's what 2008 has been about for me. I'm done chasing things I don't care about.
I need to learn to say no. Lot's of people want me to help with lots of stuff (usually for free). I spread myself way too thin, and I don't like it. I missed evenings with my daughter, and weekends with my friends, and time at all with my wife, because I chased too many commitments and tried to please too many people. "No" needs to be an acceptable answer, even for people I know and like and want to see succeed. I can't do everything for everyone, even when I want to. This has been hard to accept.
I don't want to leave Louisville. My easiest career move would have been to relocate to New York, LA, San Francisco, Chicago, DC or Austin. The kind of Web work I've done is in high demand in those cities, though the relative cost of living would have meant a rather drastic step back in lifestyle for a year or three. That's not why I stayed. I have friends and family here. My wife and I have friends in this town we practically consider family, we've known them so long and so well. I want my daughter to grow up spending at least one evening a week with her grandparents. I'm willing to sacrifice employment opportunity--and it's a serious sacrifice, because as much as I love my hometown, it is designed against innovation in almost every way--to make sure I can keep close these friends and family, in every way possible. They've gotten me through this year.
I actually like working at home. Time was, I had trouble working from home because I had trouble separating work tasks (deadlines) from home tasks (laundry). In the last year, I've learned how to strike that balance, mostly through time management, and I've found I like--even prefer--working from home. I can get the car's oil changed and write up five blog posts in the same day if I manage my task list correctly, and I like that flexibility. If I land a day job that affords telecommuting, I plan to take extensive advantage of it.
I'm good at writing, and I miss it. In this whole mess of insanity that has been 2008, I've done almost no fiction writing. My skills have waned. My art has been optional as I've chased work. This has bothered me, more than I expected. When I finally get settled--hopefully with a new day job--I plan to carve out a lot more regular time to write.
I know what my dream job is now. When I was doing six things, chasing consulting work, trying to build a startup, helping a friend with her event-planning business, and had ten other balls in the air, I followed a whole host of people on Twitter: CEOs, social media experts, local ad agency people, technology experts, entrepreneurs, Web comic artists, and sci-fi writers. Only the last two groups ever really interested me. I relate more to the creatives, to the dreamers, to the folks that make ideas for a living. When all is said in done, that's what I want to do. I'm a writer, and I want to write. I'll need a day job for a while as I ramp up that line of income--and it may never be full time (Web work pays too well, and has benefits)--but that's what I want to do. I think I'm done with any other game.

I've been very lucky this last year, for all the jobs lost and stress endured. I've learned a great deal, and been pushed out of my comfortable niche to finally make some choices that I'd been putting off. My goals now: Get a day job, get my wife and daughter into a bigger house (as we're outgrowing this one), and get cracking on a writing career that has been stalled too long.

Friday, March 06, 2009

Depressed I'm not going to South by Southwest,

Image by cackhanded via Flickr

For most of 2008, I had plans to attend South by Southwest Interactive for the first time. Initially as an employee of CNET, then as an employee of VuPal, then as a co-founder of GameJabs. (It's been an eventful year, employment-wise.) For various business and economic reasons, all those plans fell through, and as I search for my next day-job, I have to be more conservative with my discretionary funds.

Theoretically, I could go to SXSWi on the pretense of finding a day-job, but I'm not truly convinced that any job I'd find there would be different from most of the other jobs I've already found for which I'm qualified. As to why I'm having trouble getting one of those jobs? I don't want to take a drastic hit to my standard of living. As a Web content/product/social media guy, most of the work for me is in New York, Los Angeles or San Francisco. Thus, I'd either need to telecommute from Louisville (where my wife, family, and insanely affordable 3-bedroom house are employed and/or located) or I'd need to be paid far more than anyone is willing to pay me.

Paying several hundred dollars to attend an event that help me discover jobs I can't accept is bad business, which is a shame, because I'd very much benefit from the educational and networking opportunities to be found there. I'll just live vicariously through the 15 or so friends and colleagues that are attending, and hope that if any of them find out someone is looking for a kickass, SEO-savvy writer/editor/strategist, that they think of me.

Alas.

Monday, February 09, 2009

When do I cave about relocating for work?

Image via Wikipedia

So this "worst economy for three generations" is finally starting to creep into my family's fiscal standing, and thus I have to ask myself--am I willing to leave my hometown to find work? None of my many pursuits are really bound to Louisville, KY, not even my consulting business (which is slow right now--very slow). It is certainly easier to work on GameJabs when I'm in the same city as my fellow founders, but it's not required. It's also a great deal easier to be in the same place with all my family, most of friends, and even my writers group.

But this is not an economy that accommodates easy.

My family is far from destitute, but I've been without a day job since early December, and all my immediate moves to shore up income until GameJabs becomes a paying gig have stalled or fallen through. My wife has a job that she loves here, but she could likely get a commensurate position elsewhere, though if we change states she'll likely have to recertify as a therapist.

I've got eight years of experience writing and developing features for the Web. I'm pretty good at it. But for all that I love Louisville, it is not a hotbed of online enterprise. To get a job in my chosen field--especially in a reasonable amount of time--may require my relocating to a new area code. The question is, when do I finally give up on my hometown, and at what cost?

If anybody has some guidance on the subject (or knows of a kickass telecommute position), I'd love to hear it. Thanks in advance.

Thursday, January 29, 2009

All the SF writing advice you could ever want

Image by B_Zedan via Flickr

The awesome gang over at SFSignal have put together probably their best Mind Meld column to date, offering up writing advice from over a dozen published and professional science fiction writers and editors. It has some great advice, including how to embrace hate mail, where Robert A. Heinlein was wrong, and exactly what it is that HarperCollins' new SF imprint is looking for. For the sake of example, we give you this paraphrased list from just one of the contributors, author Matt Hughes:

Leave out the passages that readers love to skip. (Those would be the ones you worked hardest on).
Never open a book by describing the weather.
Never open a book with a prologue. They are usually boring.
Never describe the physical appearance of a character with details that the reader will soon forget.
Use exclamation points sparingly.
Never use another verb instead of "said."
Never use an adverb to modify "said." The tone of the dialogue should be contained within the dialogue itself.
Never use a colon or semi-colon in dialogue.
Don't change your writing for the critics who know nothing about writing.
Tell the editor not to let the copy-editor mess with your punctuation.

Now go one, get to reading the whole thing.

Thursday, January 15, 2009

Shaping the minds of the future...who, me?

Thanks to a recommendation from my buddy Nick Huhn--who clearly has been misinforming people about my talents and personality--I'll be appearing as a guest speaker before a Social Media Marketing class at the University of Louisville. The good professor David Faulds invited me to address his class on Tuesday, Feb. 3, wherein I promise to expound upon the 90-9-1 rule of community participation. Should be good for a laugh, most likely at my expense.

To all those teachers I quarreled with who asked "Maybe you would prefer to teach this class, Mr. Garmon?"--I sense those karmic timebombs you set are about to explode in my face. Awesome.

Saturday, January 03, 2009

Warren Ellis is taunting me

Image via Wikipedia

Even though he promised not to berate the dying Big Three science fiction magazines, Warren Ellis just can't help himself--pointing out with bitter glee that the Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction had to cut its frequency in half to survive. Meanwhile, Analog and Asimov's dropped their per-issue word counts by 4000 apiece. Taken together, these are the latest death tremor of printed short-form sci-fi. Put another way, people won't be putting short-form sci-fi onto bundles of dead trees much longer.

To be narcissistic, Warren Ellis is taunting me with my own Sci-fi Magazine 2.0 concept. Because, clearly, starting two businesses isn't enough to do in 2009. I also need to wade into the publishing quagmire and try to fight not just the Big Three, but Baen's Universe, Brutarian, Cemetery Dance, Clarkesworld, Chizine, Cosmos, Dark Wisdom, Dragon, Odyssey, Orson Scott Card's InterGalactic Medicine Show, Pedestal, Realms of Fantasy, Strange Horizons, and Subterranean.

Stop badgering me, Mr. Ellis. I don't have time for this dream. Seriously. I don't.

(Maybe next year.)

Tuesday, December 23, 2008

Why I'm not a professional novelist

Image via Wikipedia

There are three reasons, actually. The first is my glaring lack of talent, though I can name probably fifty professional authors that haven't let that stop them.

The second is the appalling rate of pay. While I dream of making John Scalzi money, I'd almost certainly make something below Justine Larbalestier money--and that's no knock on Mrs. L. She is teh awesome, but clearly under-appreciated and underfunded. As are most novelists. That's why most writers have day jobs.

But the main reason Im not a professional novelist is that, to do what Charles Stross does, I'd have to average an output of 1000 words per day. And that's finished work, mind you, discounting edits, rewrites, and those days when you merely manage to vomit something onto the page which deserves nothing less that complete and total abandonment, if not outright exorcism from the memory of the universe. Oh, and if one were to get sick or take a vacation, those thousand finished words would needs be made up on another day, skewing the workday average.

I'm not sure I speak 1000 words per day--certainly not 1000 usefully repeatable words--let alone could average such an output in written form. This is why I do about 6 billion other things besides write: partly because I'm better at them than writing; partly because they pay more. But mostly because it's an output I can sustain.

More's the pity.

Thursday, December 11, 2008

On naming your company...

So, whilst trying to come up with a name for a company I'm forming, my impending partners and I momentarily considered billing ourselves as The Justice League of Social Media. We thought better of it, of course, not because it was too nerdy--the nerdy was a plus in our book--but because it was a serious case of hyperbole.

I mean, the Justice League of Social Media would have to include, like, Clay Shirky and Chris Brogan. The league is the best of the best in the DC Comics universe, boasting Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman on the roster. We're way further down the super-hero food chain. We're, like, the Doom Patrol of Social Media. (Dibs on Robotman!)

For what it's worth, we settled on Third Space Media as our name. This superkeen Wikipedia article explains why.

Details to follow, but for now, suffice it to say interesting times are ahead.

Video: The ultimate inspirational movie speech

The Written Weird has been quiet for a couple of weeks, mostly because the startup that comprises my day job is shutting down. Not to worry, contingency plans are afoot, and I expect I'll be in great shape 90 days from now. During the lean times, I might even have time to blog more. (Whoa! Crazy talk!)

In the interim, I leave you with this ingeniously amalgamated inspirational message from Overthinking It, which hacks together over 40 famous movie speeches into two minutes of pure awesome. It well bespeaks where my head is at.

Friday, November 21, 2008

Reverse Radiohead: The perfect Web 2.0 magazine...only better

Image by ocean.flynn via Flickr

Okay, so, with a deft assist from the sterling crew at SFSignal, my proposal for a Web 2.0 sci-fi magazine got worked over by some really smart folks: Lou Anders, Gabriel "SF Gospel" Mckee, Alex Irvine, Ian "SF Scope" Strock, Pete Tzinski, and Alan Baxter, among a few others.

The criticisms I received--and none were mean-spirited--helped me refine the business model I was proposing, and (hopefully) come up with something better. The advantage is that the new magazine concept is less a departure from traditional magazines than the first one. Here's how it breaks down:

Establish an editorial staff that accepts completed, queried stories from authors. Select from those stories the most promising and entertaining queries, and write a compelling synopsis of the work. Using a top-of-market word rate, place a "price" on each selected story. List the synopsis and the price on the magazine Web site, along with a Paypal account and a 30-day deadline. Readers can donate as much or as little as they wish to get the story published, but if at the end of the 30 days the minimum commission is not met, all donations revert to the readers, and the author is free to query the story elsewhere. If the commission is met by the deadline, the story appears online and is thereafter free to the reader, as is the expectation of most online content.

I've called this model a Reverse Radiohead, a slight variation on the ransom model used by other publishers.

The magazine makes money by earning 15 percent of all story commissions (this would be factored into the word-rate price). Authors get a top-market word rate--equivalent to novel work, if not better--and faster query turnarounds than most print mags can offer. Readers get a direct voice in what the magazine publishes, and they can vote with their pocketbooks.

As I said before, this readily complies with the 90-9-1 rule of online participation. The heavily invested one percent of your audience pays the freight of the 90 percent that just want to read stuff for free. I'd also extend the long tail value of the magazine catalogue by allowing readers to voluntarily donate to the author of a favorite story even after the minimum commission is met (the magazine would keep its standard 15 percent). This also gives authors an incentive not only to prefer this magazine, but to keep promoting readership on the site well beyond initial publication--because it could earn them money. It's like a radio/TV royalty check, only on the honor system.

As I mentioned in my initial pitch, I'd build in all the banners/buttons/badges necessary for fans and authors to promote a story and/or the magazine on their own sites (and Facebook, and Twitter, etc.), perhaps even donating directly through there.

Further extending the long tail, I'd co-opt some equivalent of Anthology Builder, so that readers can design and buy a customized print-on-demand physical version of the magazine, which would again pay a direct royalty percentage back to the authors (and the magazine). This brings in all the "I don't read off screens folks" but frees the magazine from all the print hassles.

Finally, since such a system will (like all systems, only moreso) favor established authors, the magazine will underwrite the word rate of at least one "newcomer" author each month, so as to encourage a flourishing of new talent into the writing fraternity.

Granted, all of this assumes you can build enough buy-in and buzz from authors and readers to get the system jump-started, and it still relies on on having a competent editorial staff to screen out the dregs and the trademark-violating fan-fic from amongst the submissions. But I think this magazine model can work because it exploits some of the central advantages that online mags have over conventional print. First, there is no printing and distribution overhead, since no physical magazine is printed (save on-demand, which is self-sustaining). This is a cost center that cripples most magazines, and we can take it right off the bottom line.

But in addition to having no physical product, the "ransom magazine" will have no physical constraints. Plenty of authors have written really great stories that have been turned down by print mags simply because the publication didn't have enough physical space to accommodate the work. An online magazine that doesn't have a set physical layout doesn't have this constraint. Even the online mags in publication today have a rather constrictive limit, simply because they either offer a PDF-printable version, which falls into the same layout trap; because they require their editors to make the final publication call, which is constrained by the time and bandwidth available to the staff; or because they have to pay for the stories on spec, which limits their publication to the number of words buyable with their cash on hand.

By offloading the cost and choice of publication directly to the readership, the magazine could theoretically pay more for stories and still offer a greater number of stories than any print competitor. Moreover, a ransom magazine could have very clear measurement of what stories, subjects and authors get the most readers and the most profit, giving them a decided business intelligence advantage over print magazines. That constantly overworked editorial staff could make smarter decisions faster by knowing what has sold in the past. And beyond the sale, what has been most read, and shared, and linked back to.

It's even conceivable that such a Web 2.0 magazine could also become a directory of record for authors, as they could create profiles on the site touting their backgrounds and bibliographies as a means to encourage fans to underwrite their submitted stories. The same business intelligence mentioned above could also document the relative popularity of each author and story, which leads to all kinds of intangible social media benefits.

Now, if only I can find some willing investors and that aforementioned team of crack editors, I'd chase this idea in a heartbeat. Feel free to volunteer for either role in the comments.

Tuesday, October 28, 2008

Why I don't miss corporate life

This was indicative of WAY too many product conference calls. Hat tip to my buddy Lizard for the video.

Friday, October 17, 2008

What kind of writer the Web thinks I should be

You Should Be a Science Fiction Writer

Your ideas are very strange, and people often wonder what planet you're from.

And while you may have some problems being "normal," you'll have no problems writing sci-fi.

Whether it's epic films, important novels, or vivid comics...

Your own little universe could leave an important mark on the world!

What Type of Writer Should You Be?

Thursday, September 25, 2008

Why you shouldn't expect to make money blogging

Image by manoellemos via Flickr

According to 2008's State of the Blogosphere, the most successful blogs are the ones that post at least five times per day. Success, in this case, being the highest Technorati Authority rankings. These rankings, by turn, are based on the number of other bloggers that link to your stuff and the authority of those bloggers.

This seems to paint a picture of a small cudgel of high-volume bloggers massively cross-linking each other, possibly because compulsive five-times-daily bloggers would theoretically always be in search of new material, and seeing what everyone else is doing (and reacting to it) is a fertile ground for blog fodder. This is mere cynical supposition, mind you, but I'd lay some money on it being at least partially true.

Whether Technorati rank translates to actual fiscal success is a muddier cause-and-effect to fathom. The majority of bloggers don't make any money at their blogs, but the average household income of most bloggers is over $75,000 a year. (Granted, this is only the subset of bloggers that have listed themselves in Technorati, but that would likely include anybody who either gets paid for blogging and/or does it at least five times daily.) This suggests most blogging is a hobby for college-educated middle-class folks, not a serious money-making venture.

What I'd really like to see is a breakdown of the Top 100, Top 1000, and Top 10,000 bloggers by authority as applies to income. Simply, does Authority convert to money? My guess is at the very high end, it might correlate, but that the correlation declines sharply and disproportionately as you drop out of the Top 100. I'm also betting the volume of posting declines as you decline the list, too. I don't have the means or the werewithal to post 25-30 blog entries per week--not without quitting my day job--and I never will.

Blogging is a hobby. Some folks can be professional hobbyists--I mean, there are guys that make their living trading baseball cards, after all--but they are rare. And most people who play the guitar never make a dime off of it. Dreaming of being a pro blogger is a lot like dreaming of being a pro musician or pro athlete--most of us just aren't going to make it. Don't stop playing, just stop expecting to get paid.

Thursday, August 21, 2008

Why you're going to fail at Internet video

The above is Gary Vaynerchuk's keynote speech from the New Media Expo, wherein he lays out how his Wine Library TV online video show became perhaps the most successful and well known Web show going.

Here's Gary's recipe for success:

Production values don't matter, just the content.
Do a show about your biggest passion, and nothing else.
Promote your show 6-10 hours per day, 6 days per week, for at least 18 months and you MIGHT get popular.
Promote your show on every platform, every service, every network.
Hypersyndicate - Don't upload to one video site, upload to every site.
Answer EVERY e-mail.
Expose every avenue of contact. Publish your IM handles, your Twitter name, and your Skype number, etc..
Court every single fan, personally, for as long as you can.
Build your brand, not someone else's.
PATIENCE!

Having helped build a (very minor) Web franchise from the ground up, I agree with every single one of these tenets. And it just shows how few people will succeed in Web video (or Web content in general). Vaynerchuck basically worked a 50 hour uncompensated workweek for a year and half to get to decent traffic, and another two and a half years at the same pace to get where he is now. He could get away with that because he was using video as a loss leader for his multimillion-dollar liquor sales business, from which he could draw income. Vaynerchuk had a unique monetization model, which the only way you can remotely make the argument that he got a return on his time investment.

Now, there are ways to hedge out some of what Vaynerchuk did with some rather pricey outsourcing services, but that still does not fundamentally change the math that Web video will almost never be a serious fiscal endeavor for anyone. The return on your time is hideously low. It's is the ultimate low margin business and--what's worse--it pays out slow. The question for most of us is earn a little money fast or a lot of money slowly. Video is the worst of both, offering very little money over a very long time. Standard ad models just make it not worthwhile.

And all that is assuming you've got your hands on a passionate subject matter expert who can convey attractive Web video content covering a subject that people care about in sufficient numbers that you can profitably monetize it. Trust me, those people don't grow on trees, and those subject areas are already being hotly contested in text, and video is coming up on it fast. I'm still writing Geek Trivia after leaving CNet because they despaired of finding someone who could write what I write the way I write it. It's not high art, but my fans like it and there's sponsorship behind it, so they made an exception and pay me to keep doing it. And believe me, back when I was on the CNet payroll, I looked for people who could blog the way I do (so I could take a break after almost seven years writing the column) and couldn't find them. Talent is scarce, and it doesn't scale. Blogging already has this problem, and video is going to have it worse.

But Web video is getting bigger every year, right? Experts are projecting 25 percent year over year growth in online video advertising over the next five years. Video consumption online may increase by 5 percent a month, according to some numbers I've seen, for the same period. What's going to give?

The ad numbers, probably. By this point, everyone was supposed to be dumping billions into social network advertising, and it just never materialized to the degree everyone expected at the height of the 2006 MySpace/Facebook boom. (Insider hint: Media companies are really good at publicizing all the predictions that benefit them, and few to none of those that don't. Never believe the self-referencing "people are going to give us money" hype.) Online video will likely have the same scaled-down reality come this time next year.

So where does that leave the content producers? Mostly, you better love what you do, because the odds of you getting paid anything approaching a fair wage for your work are pretty astronomical. It's becoming more obvious on the blogging front that your blog better be a labor of love, because even professional bloggers don't make much money at actual blogging and the odds of you outplaying a pro are pretty unlikely. Video will follow the same track.

More to the point, once the big boys from old media figure out exactly how the monetization model is going to work, they'll flood the available market with known brands and suck up the few available dollars for themselves. We all fondly revere the guy at the indie magazine who refuses to join the corporate machine, but he gets paid like a guy who refuses to join the corporate machine. Indie blogs and indie video shows will always exist, but the democritization of opportunity--the big guys no longer own the means of distribution, unlike the printing press and broadcast tower days--mean the artificially high margins that media used to enjoy are over, and the value associated with producing these media have declined.

Put simply, there ain't much money in online content. Plan your career accordingly.

Friday, April 01, 2011

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