Hello Everyone,

Just a quick reminder - today is 8-8-08 - the day Tee Morris and Philippa Ballantine storm the Amazon charts.

Help the Double Trouble team make an impression, and make Philippa’s birthday a very special one!

If you enjoyed the interview with Tee and Pip, please head over to Amazon and buy your copies of The Pitcher’s Pendant and Digital Magic today!  I’ll be doing the same.

If you happened to  download the pdfs from the interview show notes and read either book, please take a few minutes when you go to Amazon to leave a review as well!

Ok, so you’ve written a book, what are you going to do with it now? You’ve done the edits, you’ve written and re-written it and you really want the world to have your story and no one wants to publish it.

This tends to be the problem writers have. They have they brilliant works that they’ve worked on for months and years and they want to share it, but the publishers just aren’t interested.

Build your own audience and show the publishers that you do have a story that will sell and people will like. It’s what Scott Sigler and Seth Harwood did.

On March 16, 2008 Seth Harwood’s novel Jack Wakes Up was released by Breakneck Books and hit Amazon.com like a thunderstorm. It raced up the Amazon charts with purchases from the fans who have already heard the story, they’ve read the pdf, and they still shelled out money for the book because it’s worth having on the shelf. Some of them even bought copies for friends and family.

On April 1, 2008 Scott Sigler’s thriller Infected came out, released by Crown Publishing, and hit bookshelves everywhere. I’ve read reports of fans being angry with the book stores because Infected wasn’t on the new release shelves; they had to hunt for it. Some fans have even raided the stores and put the books on the new release shelves themselves let alone walked out with two or three copies of it.

Not only has big publishing missed out in the past by not publishing these brilliant writers they’re now paying the price by watching people like Sigler and Harwood sell like madmen. Why? Because by not publishing them they were able to display a long finger and podcast the work, build up their fan base and rip the publishing world apart now that they have been released.

This new take in publishing has also allowed people like JC Hutchins be picked up by St. Martin’s Press. JC has close to 40,000 fans all chomping at the bit and anxious to get their hands on the 7th Son Trilogy in dead tree form and they’re not even releasing it until late next year, St. Martin’s asked him for something new to be published first. How’s that for standing up and taking notice?!

The San Francisco Chronicle has released an article about how Sigler and Harwood have blown open the doors on podcast media taking form in dead tree format. I’ve already chimed in over there, it’s nice to see people who have overcome the squishing big publishing tried to do and opened the doors for others.

What makes this all the better is that by getting creative and giving their content away for free, there are probably more LOYAL fans of these authors than there are of the well known big names.

If you enjoy all things creative then I implore you to go check out the article. Leave feedback if you’d like. And if you haven’t already, check out their works.

Have a creative weekend!

Here’s an exercise to get your thoughts moving. Pick a number (it has to be equal to or greater than 5) and write down something having to do with Computers that matches each number in quantity.

If you’d like to see an example, take a look at the Gratitude Countdown.

Almost everyone has excuses for why they’re not more creative - when they think about it all. Here are the most common excuses that I hear - and why I think they’re not valid reasons for not being creative.

#5 - I don’t know how / I’m not an artist

• You don’t have to be an artist to be creative - no matter what anyone’s told you
• There are plenty of resources - books, web sites, television shows about being creative.
• You know how to be creative - you were creative as a child. All you need to do is remember how.

#4 - I’ll mess it up

• You may not get the results you expect or want, but there’s no such thing as “messing it up” when you’re being creative. What you consider a “mess-up” may create a better result than what you had originally planned.
• If you learn something from it, the creative aspect of the effort is a success.

#3 - I don’t have the ENERGY to be creative

• Creativity inspires enthusiasm. Enthusiasm creates energy.
• By exercising your creativity, you may find less energy-intensive ways of getting things done - leaving you with more energy to be creative.

#2 - I don’t have the TIME to be creative

• Do you have 15 minutes? 10? 5?
  Then you have time to be creative. Doodle, word associate, look for commonalities and differences around you.
• How much time do you spend doing everyday tasks? Using some creative thinking, you may find more efficient ways to accomplish those tasks.

#1 - I can’t AFFORD to be creative

• You can’t afford NOT to be creative. By not exercising your creativity, you let the people who do pass you by. You work harder at things that drain your energy, time and enthusiasm.
• Being creative doesn’t cost anything more than imagination - though you certainly can spend a lot of money on it if you choose to.

Stop Making Excuses and Start Being Creative

Spend your energy and efforts in ways that benefit, rather than drain, you. Look at things differently. Do something new.

If you’re participating in Problogger’s Group Writing Project, or even just visiting the sites of bloggers who are, you’re already exercising your creative muscles. Keep it Up!

Have a Creative Day!

An inspiration tag is just a phrase or two meant to give you a jumpstart on your creative expression. So read the tag below and interpret it in a creative way. There are no limitations on the medium. In fact we’d love to see a visual or listen to an audio interpretation. Admittedly, some of the tags will lend themselves more to a written format than any other. So here it is - Tag! You’re It! Have fun!

Yes, well, unfortunately the economy is going away from anything remotely like that. Our investors would kill us.

We’re introducing a new creative concept to Your Creativity — the Five Word Story. The concept of the Five Word Story is to begin with five words, such as “On a warm December day ” and have the story continue in the comments, each person adding five words, so the first comment could be “I was walking toward the”.

As you can see, the story would grow quickly and never match what the first person had in mind. The end results can be quite comical given the twists and turns a person can add with five simple words.

New Five Word Story starts will be posted every two weeks to allow the current story to grow. End results of each five word story will be consolidated into a single post.

So, lets get started. This session’s five word start is:

One winter’s eve in the