A memorable conversation I had with a co-worker, many years ago:

Co-worker: he keeps using made up words!

Me: all words are made up, David.

Co-worker: Yeah, but he’s got the grammar of a 3rd-grader. How did this guy become CEO?

Me: Good grammar doesn’t correlate with intelligence; it just means you took time to learn a set of rules. Like knitting.

Co-worker: I think grammar’s more important than knitting.

Me: Depends on how cold you are.

In the self-publishing world, John Locke is a million-selling e-book author (with hundreds of glowing Amazon reviews) who claims that it’s simple to repeat his success, if you work hard and follow his formula. A few days ago, I learned something new about John Locke’s “success” formula:

David Streitfeld – writing about a man named Todd Rutherford who built a cottage industry out of accepting money to write reviews – got mega-seller John Locke to admit to paying for over three hundred reviews of his books.  Locke pointed out that he paid for honest reviews by “verified purchasers,” trying to make the distinction that paying for reviews is not dishonest unless the reviews themselves are dishonest.

For readers of the acerbic Joe Konrath, here’s his take on Locke’s success story:

One thing that strikes me, and strikes me hard, is how outside-the-box Locke’s approach has been. He didn’t even bother with the query-go-round. He marched boldly into self-publishing, recognizing it for the potential goldmine it could be, and wound up hitting it big.

Have to agree–Locke went outside the box. But–if Locke claims what he did was honest, why did he leave this key strategy out of his book “How I Sold 1 Million Ebooks in 5 Months”?

If you’re a typical writer, you likely spend a lot of time in front of a computer—a desktop, a laptop, a tablet, whatever. I admit it—some days I’m at the computer for 8 or 9 hours straight, even eating my lunch at my desk. If you’re like me, you’ve probably done the same, and felt the knots in your neck, the tired eyes, the sore wrist.

The problem is, the human body wasn’t built for sitting at a desk or in front of a computer. We compensate for these with specially designed furniture and technology, but over time we do permanent damage to your eyes, joints, ligaments, and skeleton. The health risks of computer use are real, whether it’s a tablet, desktop, or smartphone.

There’s an epidemic of health problems in the US right now, with thousands having permanent damage to their eyes, joints, and backs. Carpal tunnel syndrome and eyesight problems are exploding, and even people in their 20s and 30s are discovering that they’ve damaged themselves—permanently.

If you’re a writer—and I assume you are—you probably hope to write for a long time. I know—routine is boring, and sometimes you get in a writing groove and forget the clock; like exercise, it’s hard to be consistently disciplined. So, I’ve distilled the key parts of ergonomic and general health recommendations down to seven essential areas. Doing all of these is critical for your health, but they don’t take a lot of time, and several (like adjusting your mouse) you’ll only have to do once in a while.

IMPORTANT: I’m not a doctor, not responsible for your health, and not giving professional medical advice. You should always talk to a doctor if you’re unsure of what to do about your health.

1: Move and stretch every hour

Sitting still at a computer, no matter how well-adjusted your posture and furniture are, is bad for you. After long periods of sitting, you increase the risk of serious problems like deep vein thrombosis (DVT), general circulation problems, eyesight damage, and musculoskeletal injury.

Fortunately, you can reduce these risks greatly by simply getting up from your chair and moving about. Here’s a general rule of thumb:

At least once an hour, stand up, stretch, and walk around for a few minutes.

Here are six basic stretches that I try to do several times each day.

• Neck: Slowly tilt your head forward, backward, left and right, then look left and right. Don’t “roll” your head—you could injure your neck—instead, tilt it in each direction.
• Shoulders: Roll your shoulders forward 10 times, then 10 times backward.
• Wrists and ankles: Roll each wrist and ankle 10 times clockwise, then 10 times counterclockwise.
• Chest: Stand in a doorway with your upper arms parallel with the floor. Place your elbows on each side of the doorway and slowly stretch forward, expanding your chest.
• Abdomen: Contract your abdominals and butt, hold for 3-5 seconds, then release. I do this often while sitting at the computer, for three repetitions.
• Calves: Stand in front of a doorway and place your hands on each side. Slowly lean forward while keeping your feet in place, stretching the calf muscle. Stretching your calves helps prevent blood clots and other circulation problems.

Stretching software
Can’t seem to remember to stretch or move? Here are three popular tools that help you remember (and show you how to do it). I’m a fan of Stretchware, but I recommend trying all three.

• Stretchware
• Stretch Break
• DeskActive

2: Take breaks

If you’re like me, you won’t remember to take breaks. Luckily, there’s software for that. I use a freeware program called Time Out, but there are several good options out there. The key is: take at least two breaks an hour, for several minutes. Why? Because sitting still for long periods can lead to problems with circulation, skeletal alignment, and eyesight (see #s 6 and 7 below).

Other free, simple software options for helping you take breaks:

• EyeLeo: EyeLeo is focused on eye health, but it also helps force you to take a break (for Windows).
• Workrave: Simple, thoughtfully designed software to help prevent repetitive strain injury (for Linux and Windows).
• Evo: Web browser-based tool, with helpful hints for specific exercises. Like Time Out, Evo will even black out the screen if you wish.

3: Adjust your monitor

The key factors for healthy use of a monitor are height and distance. If the screen’s too far away, it can cause you to lean forward, stressing both the eyes and the torso. If the screen’s too close, it can make your eyes work harder to focus and result in awkward (and eventually painful) sitting postures. Too low or high? You tilt your head forward or backward, eventually leading to neck, back, and eye strain.

Here are the recommended measurements:

Height: Adjust the monitor so that the top of the viewable screen is about the same height as (or just slightly below) your eyes. Tilt the monitor slightly backward (about 10-15 degrees). Your configuration should look something like this:

Distance: About 20-40 inches. A good rule of thumb is to place the screen at least the same distance away as its diagonal measurement, but no closer than 20 inches—for example, a 21” monitor should be at least 21” away from your eyes. NOTE: monitors sizes are typically expressed in diagonal measurements.

4: Sit right, in the right chair

Sitting right is the foundation of all of these seven areas. Getting your body properly aligned—“neutral body posture”, in ergonomics language—minimizes stress on your body and allows you to sit comfortably for longer periods of time.

Sit right

Make sure you’re sitting like this:

• Hands, wrists, and forearms approximately parallel to the floor
• Head level or slightly tilted, but in line with your torso
• Shoulders relaxed (not hunched or stretched)
• Elbows close to the body
• Feet resting comfortably on the floor (or a foot rest)
• Knees about the same height as your hips.
• Upper legs parallel to the floor or angled slightly upward (never downward).

The right chair

Choose a chair that adequately supports your back, arms, buttocks, and legs. The ideal chair should have the following qualities:

• An adjustable back rest that fits the natural curve of your lower spine and provides lumbar support
• Allows your feet to rest flat on the floor (or, if that’s not possible, with a footrest)
• Armrests that allow your elbows to stay close to your body and your shoulders to relax (instead of hunched upward or stretched downward)
• A strong base that allow easy movement

Obviously, you won’t always have access to the right chair, especially if you write on the go. If that’s the case, focus on posture—sit up straight, upper legs about parallel to the floor, arms and legs and shoulders resting comfortably, and your viewing angle no more than about  10-15 degrees downward.

5: Adjust your mouse

If you use a mouse or other pointing device, make sure that your lower arm is roughly parallel to the floor, and position the mouse so that you can reach and operate it without leaning forward, back, or to the side. Use a mouse that fits your hand—I have large hands, so I find some mice work better for me than others, and can’t stand small “travel” mice.
If you use a trackball device (or touchscreen, tablet, or touchpad), the same rules apply—try to sit and operate the pointing device with your lower arm as parallel to the floor as possible, and keep your shoulders at the same height.

If you find that you’ve got a sore hand or wrist at the end of the day, try using a soft, padded (or gel) wrist rest.

6: Adjust your keyboard

Like the mouse, keyboard position depends on having a proper posture and chair adjustment.

Once you’ve got the proper posture, place the keyboard where you can use it without bending forward or bending your wrists upward. In other words, you should be able to slide your chair forward to the keyboard and begin using it without adjusting your body or raising your arms or wrists. Tilting the keyboard is fine, as long as you can still maintain neutral wrist alignment (not tilted up or down).

7: Take care of your eyes

The keys to taking care of your eyesight are distance and motion. One of the worst things you can do for your eyesight is to focus on things at the same distance away for long periods of time—which is exactly what we do when using a computer screen. This can lead to something called Computer Vision Syndrome (CVS). CVS is more than just tired eyes—it’s  an indication that you’re doing real (and possibly permanent) damage to your eyes. Check out this list of symptoms:

• Blurred vision
• Dry eyes
• Eye strain
• Glare sensitivity
• Headaches
• Neck and shoulder pain

If you’re experiencing one or more of these, you’re a likely candidate for CVS. Don’t panic! CVS isn’t a disease, it’s simply a label for symptoms that you need to take seriously, before things get worse. To address potential problems, focus on two things: eyesight, and ergonomics.

For eyesight, I use the 20-20-20 Rule, which goes like this:

Every 20 minutes, take a break for at least 20 seconds and look at objects 20 feet away from you.

It’s a simple but effective way to take care of your eyes and preserve your eyesight.

But first, a bit about how Google works

Google is by far the most popular search engine on the Web today, and it’s free. Why is Google free? Simple: Google makes nearly all of their revenue from advertisements.

It works like this: Google is constantly building a vast database about you: your web surfing habits, what you search for, where you live, work, and play, where you log on—almost all by inference, by connecting the dots between the breadcrumbs you leave behind in your online habits. This information is invaluable to advertisers, and they’ll pay good money to display ads that are closely targeted to you. If you’ve used Google much, you’ve probably had the “holy cow, how did they know to display that ad?” feeling from time to time.

In other words—Google’s product isn’t a search engine or ads. Google’s product is you. Google sells you to advertisers. In exchange for all this free information you unwittingly provide about yourself, Google offers you powerful search tools.

The top 5 Google shortcuts

1. Filetype: To find specific types of files. For example, publishing filetype:pdf will return links to documents about “publishing” that are in PDF format.
2. Intitle: To search for documents that have a specific word in the title. For example, intitle:publishing (the colon is required) will return pages that have the word “publishing” in their title the colon is required.
3. Author: To search for an author by name. For example, author: “john grisham” (be sure to include the quotes) will return pages about the author John Grisham.
4. Define (quick dictionary search): For example, define publishing will return the definition of the word “publishing”.
5. Site: For example, publishing site:techsavvywriter.com will return all pages about publishing, but only from the site techsavvywriter.com.

Search scholarly works

Google Scholar is a version of Google that helps you search scholarly works (journals, papers, etc.) for specific information.
http://scholar.google.com/

Search the news

Google provides an easy way to search the latest global news for specific information.
http://news.google.com/

Search public data

A powerful database of publicly available data like censuses, World Health Organization data, and more.
http://www.google.com/publicdata/directory

Search Web trends

Google Trends is a little-known (and powerful) tool that displays details and a graphical plot of how often a specific search term was used in a specified time period.
http://www.google.com/trends/

Search Blogs

To use Google to search only blogs, just enter http://www.google.com/blogsearch.

Search for Books

Of course, there’s a Google method for searching for books (and magazines): http://books.google.com/. The bad news: the book search feature will often steer you towards books on Google Play, Google’s self-proclaimed “world’s largest e-Bookstore”.

Track shipments

Enter the tracking number of your FedEx, UPS or USPS package, and Google will show you the latest information on its whereabouts.

Sunrise, sunset

To see when the sun’s rising or setting in any city, just enter “sunrise” or sunset” followed by the name of the city. For example: sunrise Pittsburgh.

The master shortcut

If you don’t want to remember all of these, many of them are part of Google’s Search Features page at http://www.google.com/help/features.html. If you’re in a hurry, I recommend you start there.

If you’re a self-employed writer—or even just trying to manage your writing life—that’s doubly true.
Running a business means keeping track of time, income and expenses, contact information, writing projects, account information, and a dozen other things.

Below are five great tools for tasks you might encounter in your own work. Instead of giving you detailed instructions for how to use each tool, I’ll instead encourage you to try each of them out. You can be up and running with each tool in a matter of minutes, and that’s one of the reasons I chose them. You shouldn’t have to spend hours poring over instructions—you should just be able to start working.

These aren’t the only ways to tackle the problems, of course, but they’re the best I’ve found—and I use them every day. Whenever possible, I try to use and recommend web-based tools, because (a) they’re usually cheaper (or free), and (b) they’re easy to access anywhere, from almost any device.

About free tools

There are many free (or nearly free) tools available to help you automate and simplify many of these tasks. I’m a big fan of free tools. If you’re just getting started, I highly recommend using free (or very inexpensive) tools; many of these are good enough to grow with you, and after a while you’ll have a much better idea of what you need and want in productivity tools.

1: Track submissions and publishing markets

The Luminary Writer’s Database is a free, web-based manuscript submission and tracking tool that’s easy to use. You can track multiple submissions, of course, but also things like word counts. You can also research and track markets, submission deadlines, and more. Not the flashiest website around, but user-friendly and free.

2: Manage your writing/book marketing/publishing projects

37Signals is a fantastic company, and they make some of the best web-based productivity tools around. Best of all, they almost always have a free or inexpensive version, and their tools scale with your needs.

For managing projects, try 37Signals’ Basecamp. Basecamp has a host of features, including the ability to share files, make to-do lists, track milestones and time, create calendars—basically, almost anything you’d do for a project. It’s a great tool for writers, because it gives you a one-page, at-a-glance summary of each project. I make every writing project I do a separate project, but also have a master calendar and list to track everything I’m working on. You can also use it to collaborate with others, or even a client.

3: Track contacts

Highrise is another 37Signals tool, and I use it daily. It’s a full-fledged contact manager; you can track up to 250 contacts for free, and thousands more for a graduated fee. I use it to track writing proposals and key business and audience contacts, but the power of Highrise lies in its ability to search contacts by specific criteria. And, for the more savvy, Highrise also integrates with MailChimp, Gmail, Windows, Mac, and iOS address books, and several other tools for mailing list promotion tasks.

4: Track your time

Time tracking is a strange thing. One person might want to track every minute of their day; another just wants to know how long it took to write a chapter. I have yet to find a perfect tool that does everything I want, but Toggl comes close.

Toggl (yes, without an “e” but pronounced like “toggle”) has a free option, is web-based, and supports Windows, Mac, and mobile devices—you can track time in a web browser on the desktop or device, and share data amongst different devices. Toggl offers time (and cost) budgeting features, visual reporting, Google account integration, and currently supports 18 different languages. I was up and running in less than five minutes.

5: Track all those user names and passwords

The best option is 1Password. 1Password is a popular, highly secure, easy to use tool for storing all the passwords you use for different accounts, allowing you to use just one password to access everything. If you’re like me, you can’t possibly remember every user name and password, and this make your memory task as simple as possible.

The Web is awash in information—too much, maybe, and you won’t be interested in most of it. But you can leverage that information to track useful topics, blogs, newsfeeds, social media discussions—even information about your book sales and people visiting your website. Wouldn’t it be nice to have all that information in one place, where you could easily monitor it and scan for critical information? I’m going to show you how to do that, for free, using iGoogle.

iGoogle is a free web “home page” provided by Google. iGoogle uses “gadgets” to display useful information on your iGoogle page, like weather, news, quotations, and hundreds of other subjects. But the real power of iGoogle is in creating your own gadgets, and it’s easy to do. That’s what we’re going to do here—create a basic “dashboard” of these gadgets to track and collect useful information.

I’m going to show you a recommended setup that includes basic information—but there are hundreds of other options and configurations. Afterward, you can choose a visual theme, add different gadgets and custom pages, and more. After you’ve tried it out, visit the iGoogle help page here to learn how to do even more.

1: Get a Google account (if you don’t have one)

If you’ve already got a Google account you’d like to use for your dashboard, you can skip this step.

https://accounts.google.com/NewAccount

2: Log in (if necessary)

Visit http://www.igoogle.com and log in.

3. Delete any default gadgets you don’t want on your start page

If you want the weather and news, fine; otherwise, delete them. You can re-add these (and other) gadgets at any time.

4: Add Alerts

Google Alerts are a simple, powerful way to track who’s looking for information about you and your writing. At a minimum, I recommend you create alerts for your author name, book titles, and website.

1. Visit http://www.google.com/alerts, and log in (if you aren’t already).
2. Enter a keyword or phrase in the Search Query box. As you type, Google displays sample results on the right side of the screen.
3. Leave the Result type, How often, and How many fields unchanged.
4. Click the drop-down list arrow next to Deliver to, and select Feed.
5. Click Create Alert.
6. You’ll now see a list of alerts you’ve created (only one if this is your first use). Right-click the feed icon in the Deliver to column, and copy the link.
7. Return to you iGoogle page, and click the Add Gadgets button at the upper left.
8. Click the Add Feed or Gadget link at the lower left, replace what’s in the box with the link you just copied, then click Add.

Your new alert is now displayed on your iGoogle start page as a gadget. You can repeat this process for any other alerts you want to add; each alert will appear as a separate gadget on your start page.

5: Add Gmail

To add your Gmail inbox alerts to iGoogle, visit this link and click the Add Gmail to iGoogle button.

6: Add your RSS feeds

• If you manage your RSS feeds via Google Reader, visit this link and then click Add it Now button below the gadget description.
• To add any RSS feed to your iGoogle start page: visit your iGoogle page, click Add Gadgets in the upper right, then click Add Feed or Gadget in the lower left, then enter a feed URL (for example, http://www.techsavvywriter.com/feed), then click Add.

7: Add your Twitter feed

You’ll find several popular, ready to use gadgets for Twitter. I like TwitterGadget, because of its customizability. To add it, just click Add Gadget, search for TwitterGadget, then click Add. Be sure to customize the gadget on the start page to suit your preferences.

8: Add Google Analytics

To add Google Analytics, visit this link and click Add. If you want to create a new Google Analytics account, visit this link. If you don’t know what Google Analytics is, visit this link. If you have an author website, I strongly recommend learning to use this tool.

9: Experiment!

I’ve just shown you the tip of the iGoogle iceberg. Here are a few next steps you might want to try:

• Create tabs: create additional “tabs” to organize things by topic or task. Each tab is really a separate, customizable page. To create a new one, click the drop-down arrow next to the Home tab on the left, and select Add a Tab. Your new tab will appear in the list below Home, and you can drag and drop gadgets to the new tab (just click and hold the title bar of a gadget, then drag it to the tab name).
• Organize your gadgets: To move gadgets around on the page is easy: just click and hold the title bar of a gadget, and drag it to a new location.
• Try a different layout: I use a three-column layout, but you might prefer something different. To try other layouts, click the setting icon in the far upper right (next to your user name) and select iGoogle Settings. Scroll down a bit and look at the Layout options—you can choose from zero to 4 columns. Try at least one or two new ones to see how they work for you.
• Try a different theme: Click the Change Theme button in the upper right of the iGoogle page. There are hundreds of visual themes to choose from, or you can create your own.
• BONUS: Make a custom Twitter search an RSS feed: Want to see only tweets that contain certain key words? Following Step 6 above, just enter the following feed URL, replacing the “self+publishing” part with whatever you want to monitor on Twitter: http://search.twitter.com/search.rss?q=self+publishing. Be sure to put a plus sign (+) between multiple words.

*********

Was this post useful? It’s an excerpt from my new little book titled The Tech-Savvy Writer: 10 Strategies to Start Making Technology Work for You, available on Amazon for all of $2.99.

I wrote this especially for beginning writers and self-publishers, but I think the more tech-savvy will find it useful, too. It’s not “everything you need to know about technology”, but 10 (13, counting the bonus tips) concepts and strategies I think will help writers leverage technology to write and market their work. To become more “tech-savvy writers”, if you will.

Please check it out. As always, I’m interested to know what you think–and grateful for reviews (of any kind) from folks who purchase it.

More details about how to self-publish at Powell’s are here.

Want to turn Twitter into a powerful monitoring tool, without using an app–or even having a Twitter account?

You can create a custom search of Twitter, then make it an RSS feed that’s delivered right to your preferred feed reader. It’s a one step process. Ready?

Enter the following URL in a web browser, replacing “self+publishing” with whatever you want to monitor on Twitter:

http://search.twitter.com/search.rss?q=self+publishing

When you see the results, just add it to your preferred RSS reader. Done!

NOTE: Be sure to put a plus sign (+) between multiple words. You can’t use hash marks (#), but you can use “at” signs (@).

A downloaded digital song, that is.

I think I understand what Coelho’s doing. If you’ve published or marketed your own work, you might too. There’s an uncomfortable feeling about prices that lurks around the edges of self-publishing: are they going up? Down? To free? Is my writing worth 99 cents? Ten dollars?

I know I’ve had those feelings. I’ve experimented with the price of my recent nonfiction book, and it didn’t take long to discover the strong downward pressure on prices, regardless of the work and cost involved in creating my book.

So how should we think about e-book prices, then?

What we think they are…

Large publishers and even small presses have upfront costs: salaries, pre-production costs, marketing costs, a dozen other things. Those costs exist whether they’re producing an e-book or a print book.

So–understandably–they attempt to recoup those costs in the e-book’s price. Chuck Wendig has some advice for them:

…The “what should e-books cost?” question often takes into cost the actual cost of producing the e-book when, in reality, it needs to look at perceived value, instead.

What others think they are…

Self-publishers have a lot of those same costs, but on a smaller scale. They have sweat equity, though, and so can say “no problem! I can make and sell these things cheap–at least, much cheaper than those Big Publishers!”. Wendig agrees, but:

Further cognitive dissonance is born of the fact that smaller producers (smaller publishers or individual authors) can produce a digital version of a book far more cheaply and easily than they can a hardcopy.

…And what they really are

So–larger publishers want e-book prices to be fairly fixed, to reflect true costs. Self-publishers see e-book prices as arbitrary, but want to (and can) price e-books low–at least lower than the big boys.

But what about consumers? Chuck Wendig nails many of my recent thoughts about it:

An e-book is a digital good. Ephemeral and intangible. Sometimes we don’t even have access to the e-book itself in the form of a file — in the case of Amazon, we’re just “renting” the e-book the same way you rent Taco Bell food. You bought it. It’s inside your device. But if Amazon decides you don’t need it anymore, one snap of the wizard’s fingers and the e-books are poof, gone, siphoned from your reader like gas from a gas-tank. E-books have no supply — if I buy one, it doesn’t reduce how many remain, because theoretically infinite copies remain. No cost to reprint. No cost to remake. It just… sits out there, attempting to be the very embodiment of the Long Tail.

This is what the audience sees and believes.

It matters little what the e-book actually costs.

It only matters what the audience thinks they should cost.

That’s more or less what I said here and here awhile back. There really is a perception of digital goods as “cheap”. Humans really do often perceive the tangible (which, interestingly, can include the visual) as having more worth.

Your book for a song

If consumers see digital goods this way–ephemeral, intangible and limitless–then they’re going to want them for cheap. Or free. Paulo Coelho thinks so, and many self-publishers think so. That’s how it works in almost every other industry:

1. A product becomes easier and easier to produce cheaply and in mass quantities.
2. Producers sell these commoditized products everywhere, cheap, in quantity.
3. Consumers see limitless quantities and low prices and get used to cheap.
4. Consumers start demanding cheaper.
5. Producers eventually give it to them.
6. Return to step 2.

That’s what happened with personal computers, for example. It’s a downward spiral, most of the time, with consumers demanding lower price points each time until scarcity, replacement, or boredom kick in.

Any of that sound familiar to self-publishers?

I have no idea where e-book prices are going. I wish I did. Wendig’s got it right, though–perceived value is everything in the e-book world, just like it is elsewhere. A small percentage of “products” will command a premium, but it’s always only a small percentage. Self-publishers might carve out a living in the spaces between, akin to what used to be called the “mid-list”–but only a handful are going to hit it “big”.

What do you think?