The Long Tail – What We Like About Indie Publishing

Posted on May 14, 2013 by Administrator

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Stuff happens. A broken wrist. A trip to Paris. A quirky computer. Too much work. All this when the e-book version of In Search of the Fun-Forever Job is being released. Just when we should be promoting like crazy, we can’t. But that’s when we have to remind ourselves and our authors that the beauty of indie publishing is what we’ve learned is called The Long Tail.

Meaning we’ve got time to roll out the book, time to build a following. It almost goes counter to what the Internet is all about. That sense of immediacy in a world where a tweet has a 6-minute lifespan. A blog post can survive maybe a week. But a book is still a book, no matter how it’s published, and it’s still meant to last for years.

When authors list the reasons to go indie, they usually talk about control – creative, financial, editorial. Or else freedom. Or, with any luck, profit. But right up there is the idea that indie authors don’t face the same time constraints they’d have with traditional publishing. No one is fighting for shelf space, taking up warehouse space. There’s more than enough room for everyone. And if readers don’t discover this book until August, that’s fine. It’ll still be there. Still be just as good three months from now as it is today. And we’re betting there will still be people looking for career advice well into the future.

Twitt
Posted in career, career advice, career consultant, indie publishing, job search, job search. employment, negotiating, networking | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

What if there’s a smarter way to look for work?

Posted on May 6, 2013 by Administrator

FFJcover_KindleThe latest job report says things are improving. Maybe this is the time to change careers? Find work you really enjoy? Maybe your prospects after graduation aren’t so bad?

Now you can get good advice on how to search smarter and more effectively.As one reviewer put it, you can “learn how to do a top-notch job search in an afternoon.”  Who wouldn’t want that?

Check out In Search of the Fun-Forever Job: Career Strategies that Work by Ellis Chase. Read the reviews. Get a copy for yourself and one for a friend. It’s a great investment in your future.

Twitt
Posted in career, career advice, career consultant, job search, job search. employment | Tagged , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Forever jobless?

Posted on April 22, 2013 by Administrator

Maybe you’ve seen the stories in the news — if you haven’t found a job in six months, you might as well give up.  Makes a job hunter feel just a little discouraged. But there really is hope. That’s why we wanted to reprint here a post from Ask Ellis.

Question

Dear Ellis

I keep reading how the longer you’re out of work, the more likely you are to never find a job. Paul Krugman has an article in the NY Times today (“The Jobless Trap”) where he says that employers tend to see workers who have been unemployed for a long time as unemployable. I’m too young to be out of work for the rest of my life. But frankly, I’m worried. I’ve been looking for a new job for five months with no luck. I’d hate to think I’ll never find anything but I’m starting to feel like I should just give up. Should I? Feeling Hopeless

Answer

Dear Feeling Hopeless,

Sometimes, the media, even Paul Krugman (whom I respect enormously) are wrong about these issues. Or misinterpret data. Or don’t understand how a career transition should be executed. The real issue is that people on job search might be marketing themselves poorly. For example, announcing “I’ve been out for 8 months,” or “I’ve really had a terrible time since I graduated,” or “It’s really tough out there; no jobs to be found,” is like announcing “I really am terrible at job search,” which casts the applicant in a negative light, no matter what the reason.  

The way I see things, it’s always about how you present. One way to tackle this, when asked (and only when asked), is to say you knew it would take some time to find something, but it is critical for you to find a great fit (one of my favorite words in all of career transition). And. . . if it takes time, then it takes time. You’ve found a number of reasonable opportunities during the search, but did not take them because you are determined not to take a position just for the sake of taking a position. You’re more interested in making intelligent career choices, and realize it will take time.  

Or, if asked more persistently about what you’ve been doing, if you have worked at anything remotely relevant to your search, talk about it. Even if it was a two-day consulting assignment for a friend, you say you’ve done some consulting; for example. . . If you’ve done anything else to build skills, including taking courses, talk about that as a major objective you had for this time, and discuss what you’ve learned. Or, if there’s been a major family illness or issue, then you have had to take off time to help resolve it, you’re happy you had that opportunity, and it’s now over.  

I’ve met very few clients or students over the years who couldn’t come up with something to explain the gap. It’s a matter of how you present it, how positive you are about the process, and how you avoid any of the negative perceptions that are created by talking about the terrible time you’ve had.  

Ellis

 Read more from Ellis Chase in In Search of the Fun-Forever Job: Career Strategies that Work just out on Amazon.

 

Twitt
Posted in career, career advice, career consultant, interviewing, job search, job search. employment, negotiating, networking, transition | Tagged , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Great Titles Can Come From Just About Anywhere

Posted on April 18, 2013 by Administrator

Ask most writers and they’ll tell you that one of the first responses they get when they send out a manuscript is: Would you consider changing your title? It’s a bit of a predictable reaction. For some reason people just want to disagree with what an author wants to call his/her book.

At Bacon Press Books, we’re familiar with the title game. When we first approached Ellis Chase to write a book about his irreverent approach to job search, the working title was: There Are No Rules or First, Break All the Rules. Ok, we agree, it was pretty lame. And weren’t there all those books on rules that had to do with dating?

The next time we asked Ellis to do a book that would let him share his expertise beyond his clients and students, the working title was: Would You Please Remove Your Blouse? Call us a bunch of snickering adolescents, we loved that title. It was the title of an article Ellis wrote for the The National Business Employment Weekly/Wall Street Journal, outlining his advice on how to prepare for the five most common job interview questions. We thought it was a great title for an article, for a book and for a chapter heading. Which is exactly how it’s used in In Search of the Fun-Forever Job.

But Ellis just wasn’t getting any traction with that provocative title. So he changed it again. This time he took his inspiration from a “book” his daughter wrote when she was eight. She wasn’t sure yet what she wanted to be when she grew up, but she knew whatever it was, she wanted it to be a fun-forever job, where she could do whatever she wanted.

As Ellis explains in the preface to In Search of the Fun-Forever Job, many of his clients and students are looking for the very same thing. Even if they know it’s impossible. All good inspiration deserves to be acknowledged. Below is an illustrated excerpt from the “book” that gave Ellis his real title. Don’t even think about asking him to change it.

Copyright: H. Chase

 

Twitt
Posted in career, career advice, career consultant, indie publishing, interviewing, job search, job search. employment, networking | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Job Hunting Just Got Easier

Posted on April 17, 2013 by Administrator

Just released. In Search of the Fun-Forever Job: Career Strategies that Work by Ellis Chase is now available in paperback on Amazon. Of course we’re prejudiced, but even so, Ellis is one of the smartest, most insightful career management consultants out there. His advice is always on target. That’s why we’ve been asking hm for years to write this book.

Chances are good that if you’re not looking for work or thinking of changing careers, you probably know someone who is. Do them a favor and tell them about this great new resources. FunForeverJob_Cover3

Twitt
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Pub Week Countdown – What we’ve learned so far

Posted on April 15, 2013 by Administrator

Any day now In Search of the Fun-Forever Job: Career Strategies that Work by Ellis Chase is going to be available in paperback on Amazon. It’s our first attempt at POD and we’re discovering it’s almost as exciting to be the publisher of a new book as it is to be the author. Especially since we have none of those doubts authors harbor. We know it’s a good book. We know it’s full of good advice to help people find jobs or change careers. We know once readers discover it, they’ll like it. Much easier to be confident when you’ve got some distance.

We’ve read all the books and blogs and articles and forum discussions until we’re dizzy from too much information. And we’ve decided to go with Createspace for the POD and KDP Select for the ebook. We’ve got a timeline and a marketing plan. But since we already blew our first deadline, we know both of them are fluid.

Our hope is to release In Search of the Fun-Forever Job on April 17th; release the ebook on May 10th. The marketing plan consists of trying everything we’ve read about. All at once. For as long as possible. We’ll let you know if it works and when we have more time, we hope to list and thank all the people who’ve shared their advice.

But here’s the main thing we’ve learned so far: writing calls for solitude; publishing doesn’t. We went into this thinking we’d have to go it alone and then were lucky enough to find a great editor, Lorraine Fico-White of Magnifico Manuscripts and two talented designers, Stephanie Smith and Allie Tucker of 143 Creative. That made all the difference in turning out a really quality book.

If indie/self-publishers are ever going to really compete with traditional publishers, we need to be a little less independent. We need an editorial team, a design team, and, if possible, a marketing team — all working together on each book. Right now it’s very much an a la carte experience for an indie author, but that can be exhausting. In this increasingly over-crowded marketplace, authors need all the help and support they can get.

Twitt
Posted in career, indie publishing, job search, job search. employment, transition | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Ever dashed to the store in your pajamas?

Posted on April 4, 2013 by Administrator

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Maybe you were low on milk? Or out of coffee? It was early so you just threw a coat on over the t-shirt and sweatpants you slept in. Wore the Uggs without socks. Didn’t even bother to comb your hair. You figured no one would see you anyway. Who goes to the 7-11 at 6 am?

That’s kind of what we’ve been doing with this blog. We figured no one was looking. You can’t blame us for feeling like we’re all alone here. Our blog count for two months shows the kind of numbers serious bloggers get on a bad morning. Most of our comments are from spammers. Half the time the discussions we try to start on LinkedIn don’t even get posted. Our actual friends on Facebook still don’t know what Bacon Press Books is. Our likes are too pitiful to mention. Our Google Plus circles are more like triangles. And our Twitter followers are busy talking about themselves.

But now it’s time to dress up just in case we get company. We owe it to our current authors and their excellent books. We owe it to the authors we hope will sign on with us and let us help them finish, publish and sell their books.

What does that mean exactly? It means we updated our website and we’re going to learn how to get those widgets we’ve been fighting with to line up down the side of this page. We’re going to figure out what linkbacks are. We’re putting together a press release and an announcement and maybe a media kit for In Search of the Fun-Forever Job before it’s launched in a week or two. We’re getting professional help on a book trailer. We’re even going to try a few free days once it’s up on Kindle next month.

We’re going to really try to understand Pinterest and Tumblr.

Now that we’re working with an exceptional editor, Lorraine Fico-White, Magnifico Manuscripts and two terrific book designers, Stephanie Smith and Allie Tucker, 143 Creative, we’re even going to start looking for new authors.

And we’re going to remember to ask for comments.

Any comments?

 

Twitt
Posted in indie publishing, job search, job search. employment | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment