Category Archives: Books

Books, Introspection

I’m Committed to Commitment

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Last year I read Wrecked: When a Broken World Slams into Your Comfortable Life by Jeff Goins and found the section on commitment curious. Jeff was challenging our commitment-averse generation to stick it out when things got tough. When a job becomes difficult or challenging or boring, instead of quitting and moving on to the next thing, Jeff challenged his readers to make a commitment and see it through. His point was that only by sticking through the difficult times would we make it to the rewarding times.

It’s a good lesson, especially these days when it seems like no one can commit to anything. Nobody works for a single employer their entire life anymore, let alone for more than a handful of years. People can’t commit to each other, as our divorce rate shows. We can’t commit in politics, getting tired of our candidates before they’ve even run (how many front runners did the GOP have before the 2012 primaries? Expect more of the same from both parties in 2016). Our athletes can’t commit to a team and our teams can’t commit to a city (unless we build them a shiny new stadium).

I think Jeff makes a good point. But I think I have the opposite problem. Instead of being commitment-averse, I love commitment. I want to marry commitment (and that is just a Barney Stinson line to score a one night stand, I think it fits).

  • I’ve been doing the same job for nearly 10 years. OK, I’m self-employed so that doesn’t really count. But as a freelancer, I’m all about commitment.
  • I’ve been the editor of Church Marketing Sucks since 2004.
  • I’ve been working with iThemes since 2008.
  • Come to think of it, most of my best clients I’ve been working with since the beginning.
  • I’ve been going to the same church since 2001.
  • I’ve been married since 2000.
  • I’ve been blogging since 1998.
  • I’ve been living in the Twin Cities since 1997.

I like commitment. What this probably means is that I like things to stay the same. I like comfort and safety (though not too much—we do have kids after all).

The danger for me, as opposed to bouncing around and never sticking with anything long enough to reap the rewards, is that I’ve got a lot of inertia. I’m wary of new things. I don’t exactly like change. I’m too likely to sit back and get comfortable instead of pushing ahead to forge new ground.

Hopefully I’m combating that the best I can, trying new things and not getting too stuck in my ways.

What about you? How do you feel about commitment?

Books

My New Book: 137 Books in One Year

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137 Books in One Year: How to Fall in Love With ReadingI read a lot of books last year. A lot of books. 137 to be exact.

So I put together a little booklet sharing some tips and ideas for how to read a lot. It’s called 137 Books in One Year: How to Fall in Love With Reading. You can go ahead and buy it for the Kindle or the print version, but when I officially launch it on Feb. 5 the digital version is going to be free for a few days. So you might want to wait.

The booklet includes 10 tips for how to read more, with practical ideas like taking a book with you everywhere you go and reclaiming idle moments. It’s basically examining my reading in 2012 and trying to figure out how I read so many books. I’m sharing what works for me and it might work for you.

While the title feels like a lot of bragging, the booklet also includes an interview with someone who read even more books than me.

I hope you’ll check it out on Feb. 5 and help me spread the word.

Books

2012 Reading List

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Every year I like to catalog my reading, look back on what I’ve read and what I’ve learned. This year was a bonanza.

For some reason the reading clicked in 2012 and I read more than any previous year. Way more. Like double my previous high. I’m not sure what happened, but I fell into a rhythm and just became addicted to reading. How addicted? 137 books.

I know, right? I’m not sure how I did it either.

OK, that’s a big lie. I have some ideas about how I managed to read so many books (and no they don’t involved ignoring my loved ones or giving up TV) and I’m currently forming them into an ebook that I hope to release in the next month (yes, a book about books—deal with it).

But until that’s ready, let’s take a look at what I managed to read in 2012.

Favorites in 2012? I’m still trying to compile a top 10 list, but my top favorites would probably be Ready Player One, The Fault In Our Stars and Born to Run. You can also check out my Goodreads page to see rankings on all these books and what I’m reading now.

Finally, check out my previous reading lists: 2011, 2010, 2009, 2008, 2007, 2006, 2005, 2004, 2003, 2002 and 2001.

Continue reading 2012 Reading List →

Books

Sharing The Stephanies

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Since The Stephanies came out last month, Lexi and I have been having fun sharing the book with as many people as we can. Here are three great examples:

Letter from Denver
One of the incredible backers of our Kickstarter campaign turned out to be a teacher at Metz Elementary in Denver. She shared the book with her third grade class and then sent Lexi a letter. Lexi has fan mail! She included a letter from one of her students. Beverly writes, “I think that your story is very awesome.” Lexi was pretty excited to get the letter and now we’ll be writing back to Beverly and the third grade class at Metz Elementary.

Here’s Beverly’s letter:

Lexi’s letter from Beverly.

South St. Paul Reading
Last week Abby had Lexi come to her second grade class and read The Stephanies. I was a little unsure how this would go. I thought second graders would be put off at being read to by a first grader. I thought Lexi would clam up and be too shy. Good thing it wasn’t my plan. It went great. The class loved Lexi. She did an amazing job reading the story and answering questions. While she’s often shy in situations like that, she figured out how to rise to the situation and shine. We’re pretty proud of her.

Here are a few pics from the reading:

Lexi reading to Abby’s class.
Lexi with Abby’s class.

Nigerian Reading
Then on Sunday we did a Skype call with another incredible backer of our Kickstarter campaign. These were friends living in Nigeria, so it was a great chance to connect, be goofy and read The Stephanies. Perhaps the best part of this international reading was that our friends in Nigeria had literally spent the day on the beach while we were bunkered down in the midst of a 10-inch snowfall.

Here’s a glimpse of that reading:

Skyping with friends in Nigeria.

You Can Make It Happen
All of which is pretty awesome. It kind of sums up what a recent review had to say about The Stephanies: “I love it because they made it happen.” That’s the cool thing about The Stephanies. We didn’t do anything outrageous or nearly impossible. New technologies have put this stuff in reach of the common person, and we just pulled it together to tell a fun story. You could do it too!

If you haven’t picked up your own copy of The Stephanies yet, you can get all the details and versions available here.

Books, Society

Donate to Clean Water, Get a Free Book

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Clean Water for EliroseClean Water for Elirose is a great little children’s book explaining the problem of dirty water around the world. I plugged the book before when it was a Kickstarter project and now the author, Twin Citizen Ariah Fine, is working hard to fund a clean water well. He’s trying to raise $5,000 through charity: water, a task I know well, and he’s offering to give a copy of Clean Water for Elirose for donating any amount to his charity: water project.

That’s a great deal: Give clean water, get a free book.

If you already have a copy (like me!) or don’t need one, Ariah will give your free copy to a classroom.

You can check out the book and read the entire thing online.

Consider making a donation. charity: water does amazing work and it’s always worthwhile supporting them. Plus: good book. Book projects like this definitely need to be supported and generous souls like Ariah who put so much sweat and tears into a project and then give it all away deserve your support.

Here’s a great video of Ariah’s kids getting ready to give away some books:

Books

Stephanies & First Book Update

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Screenshot of donation confirmation page on First Book's site.We launched The Stephanies last month and promised to share half our profits for the month of November with First Book. November is done and gone (and with it all those great Movember mustaches!) so it’s time to tally our sales and make a donation.

We sold a whopping 7 print copies and 8 digital copies, for a grand total of $30.38 in royalties. So we’ll make a donation to First Book for $15.19. Doesn’t sound like much, but it will provide six new books to kids in need. That’s pretty cool. Thanks to everyone who bought a copy!

Those sales can be combined with the 36-some odd sales from our Kickstarter campaign and that’s pretty great for a self-published book written by a 6-year-old. How many books did you sell as a first grader? I’ve got a big ol’ nothing in that count. Creating this book, sharing it with the world and giving back in a tiny little way has been pretty awesome. The numbers don’t sound like much, but we weren’t in it for the numbers.

More than anything I had a blast doing it with Lexi. I now owe Milo a book project of his own. And this is a great test case for how kids can make their own books (not to mention how to use Kickstarter).

While we’re no longer donating our profits (we’ll now siphon the cash straight to Lexi’s college fund), you’re welcome to grab your own copy of The Stephanies. We’ve got the original paperback, a “Color-Your-Own” paperback, and digital versions for the Kindle, iBook & Nook, and the standard PDF version. It’s a great little gift for the kid in your life, no matter how old they are.

Books

The Stephanies & First Book

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I Support First BookTomorrow is your last chance to grab a copy of The Stephanies and support First Book. We’re sharing half our profits from the month of November with First Book, and with tomorrow being the last day of the month, it’s your last chance.

First Book is an organization that gives kids in need access to books. What’s so great about books? Aside from being awesome, literacy is the best predictor of a child’s future success. If they can read, they’re more likely to do better in life. The biggest barrier to literacy is not having access to books. It’s kind of a simple—if a kid can’t get easy access to a book, they’re not going to learn how to read.

So First Book is about giving kids that first book, giving them access to books so they can learn how to read so they can do better in life. It’s simple, but it’s awesome.

For $10 they can donate four new books, so hopefully we’ll be able to give a few books. It’s kind of cool to not only write a book, but to help others learn how to read books.

The idea of not having books is kind of unfathomable to me. We have literally thousands of books in our house. The kids both have at least a hundred books in their rooms. We like books. I hope in some small way we can pass on that love.

So if you haven’t done it yet, grab a copy of The Stephanies. We’ve got the original paperback, a “Color-Your-Own” version, and digital versions for the Kindle, iBook & Nook, and the standard PDF version. We’ll donate 50% of the profits to First Book.

Thanks.

Books

How Kids Can Create Their Own Books

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Working on the StephaniesThis summer my 6-year-old daughter, Lexi, and I wrote a book: The Stephanies. It was a much-needed summer project and this fall we raised money through Kickstarter to publish it and released it on November 6. A lot of kind folks have applauded this daddy-daughter project, but anyone could do it.

First of all, writing stories is awesome. Kids should have that opportunity to create stories and tell wacky, funny, unique tales. Every kid has these stories and turning them into a published book is just a process.

Old School Publishing
I did this myself as a first grader with my epic masterpiece known as Mike, The Cat. In 1986 we didn’t have print-on-demand publishing technology, so they just handed us a blank book and told us to get to work. That means there’s only one print copy of Mike, The Cat, but it still has a cherished place on my shelf.

That’s one way of making a book. Another way is to simply get crafty, print out your story and create a construction paper cover. In fourth grade I “published” another epic story, Fred and I the Spies, using one of those three-tab folders. You can also go up a notch and take it to a copy place for one of those spiral plastic jobs.

Print-on-Demand Publishing
But today we have new technology that makes it even easier and cheaper to print (and sell!) your book. It’s called print-on-demand publishing and it basically means that they don’t print your book until someone orders a copy. It’s more expensive per copy, but it saves you from having a basement full of books you can’t sell (as awesome as your book is, 79% of books don’t sell more than 100 copies).

We used CreateSpace for The Stephanies, a service of Amazon that I’ve used before. They have reasonable royalty rates, you don’t have to pay up front (this is big; you shouldn’t have to pay to publish your book—you should only pay for the copies you buy) and best of all the book goes on Amazon, which is really the only place you need to be.

The process was pretty easy: Lexi drew the pictures and I scanned them, doing some basic resizing and very minor photo-retouching in Photoshop. Then I did the layout in Microsoft Word and created the cover in Photoshop. I uploaded both files to CreateSpace and that’s about it. They have an online proofing option and you can also order a proof copy (highly recommended). Keeping the design simple helped. The more complicated you get, the more things can go wrong.

Digital Publishing
So far The Stephanies has sold more digital copies than print copies. Creating a digital version is even easier.  I used Pages to create an epub file, uploaded that along with a cover to Amazon’s digital publishing site and it’s available on the Kindle. Digital is a little more complicated than print since the text size and screen size can vary wildly depending on the device. Basically it means you lose a lot of control for how the final product looks and that can be hard with a picture book. But it seems to work well enough.

An Easier Way?
If that all sounds a little complicated, don’t worry. You can also check out Scribble Press. It’s a fun way to create and publish your own books online or using an iPad (though you can’t sell them—you can just share them and order print copies). They also have fun templates and fill-in-the-blank stories if you need help getting started.

Do you have a book you want to publish?

Books

Reaction to The Stephanies

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Earlier this week we officially released The Stephanies, the book my 6-year-old daughter and I wrote together. We’ve been having fun spreading the word, adding new options (you can now download PDF & ePub files) and seeing the reaction the book is getting.

Here’s a sample:

  • “The kids and I were walking around saying, ‘My name is Stephanie! No MY name is Stephanie! Grrr….’ the rest of the afternoon. It’s a really cute book—made me LOL more than once.” -Victoria VanZile
    Victoria reads The Stephanies to her kids.
  • Ariah Fine says this photo was taken 10 minutes after the book arrived: “They loved it and are inspired to write their own.”
    Ariah reads The Stephanies to his kids.
  • Video review by 5-year-old Aryn:
  • “Imagine my delighted surprise to find myself laughing out loud with sheer joy. Out loud. Laughing. Really!” –Meredith Gould
  • “Telling other children that ‘this book was written by a girl just like you’ can be empowering.” –Bookwi.se
  • “Great reading for a great cause.” –Christa Banister

http://twitter.com/jwenell/status/265861981515436032

Books, Business & Marketing

How to Make the Most of Kickstarter

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I did a Kickstarter campaign last month to publish a book my daughter and I wrote together (now available!). I think platforms like Kickstarter are awesome, but only if you know how to use them. There are a lot of amazing stories about creative projects being, well, kickstarted with huge piles of funding thanks to Kickstarter. But you don’t hear the stories of all the failed projects that didn’t quite get there.

I’ve done both, a failed project about Como Park and a successful campaign for The Stephanies. Here’s what I learned about Kickstarter:

What’s the Project?
You need to have a clear, simple description of the project you’re going to do. Give us details: Who are you, why are you the person to create this, why is it worth doing, why do you need Kickstarter, etc. I’m shocked at how many people just throw up an idea and expect money to pour in. Doesn’t work that way. Show me what you’re going to do and how you’re going to get there. You should put enough sweat into the project before Kickstarter that I can see it coming to life. I’m investing in an idea. I’m not investing in you coming up with an idea.

Goals
Keep your goal realistic. If you don’t hit your goal you get nothing. But you can always go over your goal. What’s the bare minimum you’d do this project for? That’s your goal. Don’t put in lots of extra cushion room. Keep that goal attainable. The goal for The Stephanies was $300 in 30 days. Easy. Also, keep that time frame short. 30 days should be the max. We hit our goal for The Stephanies in three days.

Rewards
Rewards are huge, but easy to do wrong. Keep the rewards simple and don’t offer too many. Don’t make me choose rewards because one has the format I want and one doesn’t. Also, make sure they’re packed with value—these are your early supporters, willing to back you when no one else will. So treat them like insiders, not donors to milk. It kills me when I see Kickstarter projects I’d love to back but they’re asking $25 for an ebook. Seriously? I promised my backers they were getting the cheapest possible price. Be sure to offer something awesome for $1. My most popular reward was the digital copy for $1. It brought in the least amount of money but the most people (build your audience!). It builds a buzz and lowers the cost of entry. Also offer some cool high-end prizes. Well over half our income came from the $50 and up rewards. This is a way to reward your uber-fans with some cool stuff.

Video
Your video is important. Everybody talks about this, but I think it’s over-rated. Do a good job with the video, make it professional and tell your story. But if that’s you sitting in front of the camera, don’t sweat it.

Kickstarter is awesome. If you do it right. Do you have a project needing a kickstart?