Freelance Writing

Scott Rosenberg, one of Salon.Com founders, "Says Everything" (About Web Media)

noreply@blogger.com (David Herron) — Thu, 22 Mar 2012 21:45:50 PDT

Scott Rosenberg, author of the blogging history "Say Everything," founder of mediabugs.org and executive editor of Grist, skyped in with my Pace University Blogging a Better Planet class last fall. If you're interested in Web communication, it's worth a half hour!Rosenberg's book: http://www.sayeverything.comhttp:www.Grist.orgDot Earth blog:http://dotearth.blogs.nytimes.com

Writing the news we want to be true, or writing the news that is

noreply@blogger.com (David Herron) — Sun, 04 Dec 2011 20:01:20 PST

Many of us are concerned about Tibet, China's control over that country, the many Tibetans killed by the Chinese government, the exile of Tibets government, the usurpation of Tibetan Buddhism by China and so forth. So when a friend pointed me at a News article titled "China agrees to give Tibet back to the Tibetans" which started off by saying that "In an unprecedented announcement, President

Illegitimate download sites and digital books and seeing my book available for free download

noreply@blogger.com (David Herron) — Thu, 01 Dec 2011 10:15:20 PST

I have written a book, Node Web Development (available through the publisher, or amazon.com), and have a blog http://nodejs.davidherron.com/ that's in part meant to promote the book as well as write about Node.js and thereby get some attention to myself and indirectly the book. One strategy I'm following is to look for people who've written reviews of the book, and promote their book review.

Interesting conversation on the future of publishing in by Mark Glaser, MediaShift on 5across

noreply@blogger.com (David Herron) — Tue, 01 Nov 2011 07:25:25 PDT

Printed books have been with us since the time of the Pharoah's, and our friend Gutenberg made it practical to publish printed books in large quantity. Despite the coming of electrification of "media" printed books are still widely sold and used, and there are bookstore chains around the world still selling printed books. But will this always be the case? This month's 5across (PBS's MediaShift

Is Amazon eating the lunch of book publishers?

noreply@blogger.com (David Herron) — Tue, 01 Nov 2011 07:19:21 PDT

The online retail giant, Amazon, isn't sitting still. Like the massive river basin the company is named after, the company is continually developing new product lines. Lately, with the Kindle marketplace, they are now eating into the business territory currently occupied by traditional publishing houses. The Kindle electronic book reader has opened the doors to a whoever new power structure in

Spamazon? Spammers filling electronic book marketplaces with junk?

noreply@blogger.com (David Herron) — Mon, 12 Sep 2011 21:11:02 PDT

A recent article by a Salon.com co-founder Laura Miller about the proliferation of cheap junky books in the Kindle marketplace. She's blaming spammers doing algorithmic manipulation of texts to spin off low quality books and in some individuals have posted thousands of books on Kindle. The fear is that the Kindle marketplace will be so full of junky that Kindle

Pandoc: a universal document converter, ePub creator, etc

noreply@blogger.com (David Herron) — Mon, 12 Sep 2011 21:11:02 PDT

Pandoc is called "a universal document converter". It "can read markdown and (subsets of) reStructuredText, textile, HTML, and LaTeX" and it "can write plain text, markdown, reStructuredText, HTML, LaTeX, ConTeXt, PDF, RTF, DocBook XML, OpenDocument XML, ODT, GNU Texinfo, MediaWiki markup, textile, groff man pages, Emacs org-mode, EPUB ebooks, and S5 and Slidy

What to do when you're screaming "SOMEONE ON BLOGSPOT HAS STOLEN MY ARTICLE!"

noreply@blogger.com (David Herron) — Sat, 24 Dec 2011 21:55:11 PST

Say you've written an article that's getting a lot of attention. Say that someone running a blog on blogspot.com has copied the content of your article, word for word, posting it on their blog. It's a case of outright theft of your work. Maybe you spent the weekend traveling and staying in a hotel to get the information for that article, and they're directly

Publishing ebooks for Kindle using free tools?

noreply@blogger.com (David Herron) — Mon, 12 Sep 2011 21:11:01 PDT

The Kindle is one of the online stores for selling eBooks. I haven't looked into it yet but an article on LinuxJournal indicates the preferred Kindle eBook format is not straight ePub but includes NCX files (whatever that is) to "enliven the table of contents". Supposedly it's not easy to create a great Kindle book except that a template for Open Office shows you

Lulu makes it easy to publish e-books and printed books

noreply@blogger.com (David Herron) — Mon, 12 Sep 2011 21:11:00 PDT

I've been looking at e-book publishing and am turning my attention to lulu.com. They've been in business quite awhile and the first I'd heard of them was as a service to help authors put together print books for sale through amazon.com. However they've grown quite a bit and for example now sell books directly on their own website. Their publisher services include

Disclosure of blog or forum sponsorship - the quest for transparency

noreply@blogger.com (David Herron) — Sat, 24 Dec 2011 21:55:10 PST

I run several blogs and a forum, and have been taking sponsorship for a long time. Blogging is a time consuming thing and it's therefore necessary to seek income to support one in doing this. But as in all things when a company dangles money in front of you there is the possibility of enticement to sell your soul for filthy lucre. In other words it's plausible

Review: Building a WordPress Blog People Want to Read

noreply@blogger.com (David Herron) — Sat, 24 Dec 2011 21:55:10 PST

Wordpress is one of the more popular platforms for blogging. I obviously prefer to use Drupal but I'm always curious whether the other platforms are any good. I had evaluated Wordpress five years or so ago and instead choose Drupal because of its flexibility. Building a WordPress Blog People Want to Read covers all aspects of Wordpress operation and goes beyond

Podango dies, ack! The risk of not owning your own infrastructure

noreply@blogger.com (David Herron) — Sat, 24 Dec 2011 21:55:09 PST

There are many services out there to help you get started with blogging and podcasting. A few clicks and you can have a blogspot account etc, and in the podcasting world there are similar services which offer podcast hosting services. While this is temptingly easy and simple to get started, there are risks. What if, for example, your service provider goes belly

Why get into blogging?

noreply@blogger.com (David Herron) — Sat, 24 Dec 2011 21:55:09 PST

I'm reading through a book named ProBlogger: Secrets for Blogging Your Way to a Six-Figure Income and found the first chapter to be an interesting exploration in the question: WHY? It's not enough to want to do something, it's also necessary to know why. Of course sometimes the real why isn't apparent until after you've done the thing you set out to do, still I

Blogging using Drupal

noreply@blogger.com (David Herron) — Sat, 24 Dec 2011 21:55:08 PST

Drupal is a very feature-rich and comprehensive content management system. While Drupal is very flexible and can be used for nearly any kind of web site, one of its main core competencies is as a blogging platform. The common wisdom says that Wordpress is the best blogging platform. Why, then, should you consider using Drupal? Drupal is far more flexible than

Keyword research tools to help you optimize your page ranking

noreply@blogger.com (David Herron) — Sat, 24 Dec 2011 22:00:46 PST

Getting organic traffic is an excellent way to build traffic to your site. Organic traffic are visitors coming through search engines, where they are querying looking for something, the search engine lists your site as a possible result, and they get to your site. Getting good organic traffic means matching the keywords in your site content, with the phrases your

How to Start Earn Money from Amazon

noreply@blogger.com (David Herron) — Sat, 24 Dec 2011 21:57:49 PST

Amazon.com offers an affiliate program through which you can list any product carried by amazon.com. It is a typical affiliate marketing program and one can earn a tidy side income this way. If you put enough effort in, you can even earn enough to support your family with this. The goal is to get sales commissions for things people buy from an online merchant

Blogging for fun and profit

noreply@blogger.com (David Herron) — Sat, 24 Dec 2011 21:55:07 PST

Blogging is a new phenomenon that's growing quickly. It's really just a web site, and everything I've written so far about web site design and promotion applies to blogging. However there are unique features to blogging which I will cover in this section. Generally a blog is a series of web pages or posts, where the newest post is put at the top. That's it. Nothing

Make Money Online: 100+ Tools and Resources

noreply@blogger.com (David Herron) — Sat, 24 Dec 2011 21:57:48 PST

A resource listing of 100+ methods of earning income over the Web. link: Make Money Online: 100+ Tools and Resources extvideo:

Self-publishing made easy online

noreply@blogger.com (David Herron) — Sun, 23 Oct 2011 09:13:49 PDT

Self-publishing made easy online is about a service from blurb.com that lets people easily write and publish their own books. The books can be just for your own use, or sold through the blurb.com online bookstore. The books in question can't be sold through regular stores .. because they do not currently offer ISBN's. They are in competition between lulu.com and the Book Creation portion of