We Blog The World

Oktoberfest in South Africa

Susan McKee — Fri, 03 Sep 2010 20:05:44 +0000

It may be spring in the Southern Hemisphere, but you can’t keep a German from celebrating Oktoberfest. Road Trips Foodies heading to South Africa in October might consider a stop in the Nelson Mandela Bay area between October 28 and 31, 2010, for the Bavarian-themed event.

There’ll be a wide range of both local and imported beers plus music, entertainment and, oh, yes, food! The sponsor is (no surprise here) the German Club of Port Elizabeth.

10 Reasons You Shouldn’t Blog

Yvonne DiVita — Fri, 03 Sep 2010 18:05:57 +0000

10. Everyone already knows you. You’re a diva of the highest order known the world over.A blog would just drag you down.

9. You’re too busy. You work round the clock. A blog would just complicate an already busy work week. Never mind that it could take the place of your newsletter or half of your marketing.

8. Blogs and bloggers are just crowding the Internet with useless chatter. You don’t have time for gossip. Or sharing your newest product development…your latest greatest hire…your key points relevant to your industry…your insight into thought leadership…your views on the economy…or anything else.

7. None of your clients, customers, or associates blog. Really, they don’t. No one in your industry blogs. No one. (Obviously you live on another planet – I bet I can find a blog in your industry.)

6. Your website’s contact page says it all. I mean, what else is there? Contact me… that’s successful engagement.

5. You prefer chat rooms where you can be “anonymous”… in case you say something stupid. Because you would never say anything stupid in real life – just online. You’re too smart to speak out IRL.

4. You know your opinion isn’t worth anything. Nobody ever listens to you. (Maybe that’s why you’re struggling to get clients?)

3. Blogs have nothing to teach you, so why would you start one? To teach other people? Hey, you’re a business professional, not a teacher, right?

2. Blogs are dangerous! People say mean things on blogs. People criticize brands on blogs. People speak their minds. If you start a blog, they might criticize you! (On your blog… or on theirs… which is better? Where will you be able to engage better – on their blog or yours? Or mine?)

1. And the number one reason you shouldn’t be blogging today – you prefer to be reactive instead of pro-active. Fix it when it’s broken instead of before it gets broken.

Classic! If you see yourself here – lock the door, stay home, and be careful turning on the TV – it could corrupt you with all that reality programming.

Best Frites in Brussels

Sherry Ott — Fri, 03 Sep 2010 16:05:26 +0000

Best Frites in Brussels?

I was on a mission. A mission for potatoes. Not just any potatoes, but the specially fried potato known as frites. You might think that they are the same as simple french fries, but don’t be fooled into thinking that. They are more than french fries, they are special. And in Belgium, they are king. Belgians consume on average 75 kg (165 lbs) of fried potatoes per person each year, a third more than Americans.

Belgium is known for a few things; the EU, waffles, beer, mussels, chocolate, and frites. When I arrived in Brussels and saw people carrying around paper cones full of steaming frites I knew I wanted to find the best the city had to offer. I had read in a recent Reuter’s article:

“there are more than 5,000 frites vendors in the country of 10 million people, which means there are 11 times as many stands per capita as there McDonald’s per American.”

Chocolate Frites…the best of both worlds?

So how do you find the ‘best’ out of those 5,000? Where do you start? If you go to the touristy part of Brussels, around the Grand Place, you’ll find plenty of friteries, but pass them all up. Don’t waste your grease quotient for the day on the tourist joints. Instead you need to go where the locals go. I decided to do some research on this so I first started with the tourist office. I went inside and asked the woman for a map and where the best place to eat frites was. But before she could answer, I quickly corrected my question “Where do you go to eat frites in Brussels?” She quickly circled a place on the map called Place Jourdan outside of the main city center and near the EU buildings. “You’ll find the best frites here.” She said.

For a second opinion I looked at my Use It Brussels map (cool free map with tips from locals) and it had sarcastically listed 6 places as the ‘best frites’ in Brussels. So clearly there was some debate on this. However the Place Jourdan friterie was on their list.

I also asked other locals where they ate their frites. My friend Alison (an expat blogger in Brussels) said that she used to eat them in Place Saint Josse, but recently the man there who ran the friterie retired from frite making. “Really? Retired from frites?!” I said thinking it weird that making frites was looked at as a profession to retire from as well as sad he had no one to pass on his friterie to. Alison now goes to Place Jourdan to Antoine.

Place Jourdan seemed to be coming up again and again as I talked to locals, so that was my answer. I would go have the frites fried up by Antoine at Place Jourdan.

I made the walk past all of the modern EU buildings which loomed over the old Brussels’ homes. Here in the middle of an old Brussels neighborhood stood the EU headquarters, as if they had plopped the White House in the middle of Brooklyn across the street from family homes and restaurants.. The walk was worth it just to see the old and new mixed together, plus it worked up an appetite for frites!

Old meets New thanks to the EU

Where all the EU magic happens

Finally I arrived in Place Jourdan. At the far corner there was a stand-alone octagonal building with exhaust spewing out of it. The fumes of grease beckoned me nearer. Like any good Belgian friterie it had a long line snaking around it.

I got in line and started to read through the large list of choices. No, there weren’t different choices of frites, just petite and grande; the myriad of choices was for sauce! Curry, mustard, ketchup, pickle, pita, Chinese, Bicky (??), and of course Mayonnaise. I decided to stick with the traditional way to eat them, with mayonnaise. Sounds weird – but it’s strangely tasty.

The house of Antoine!

What make potatoes frites? And more importantly, what makes the ones from Belgium so damn good? There’s an art to Belgium frites. First it starts with fresh Bintje potatoes and next you have to do a double cooking process in vegetable oil, sometimes with beef or duck fat added. Frites are fried once, allowed to cool, and then fried again before serving.

Double Frying

Would you like salt with that?

After Antoine shook a healthy amount of salt on the twice-fried frites, he handed over my cone of petite frites with a side of mayo complete with a little plastic fork. I now needed to find the other half of the Belgium couple – beer; a marriage made in Flemish heaven.

I held my cone of hot frites like it were ice cream and wandered around the square to see if there were any bars. I didn’t have to walk far to find a little bar with a sign in the window reading “Frites Aceptees” I deduced that this meant it was ok to eat my frites at their bar…perfect! I found a great seat outside where I could watch the square, and had a beer at Chez Bernard while eating my frites from Chez Antoine.

I took the hot salty frite out of its little cone using my plastic mini frite fork, dipped it in the side of mayo, and sampled Chez Antoine’s recipe. When I bit into the first frite, it was perfectly crispy on the outside and mushy in the middle!

Mission accomplished.

Half the fun was the journey which lead me to meet locals and explore new neighborhoods. I don’t know if they were the best frites in town – but they were clearly the best frites I had ever had!

Where do you think the best frites in Brussels are?

That’s So Gay…Politcal Correctness 1, Kookaburra 0

Kathy Drasky — Fri, 03 Sep 2010 14:05:00 +0000

Australians love a good controversy – so one should not be surprised that a favorite children’s song, sung in English-speaking countries ’round the world, has come under fire for the use of the word “gay.”

The 75-year old song, “Kookaburra Sits in the Old Gum Tree” was penned back when gay meant happy, but that’s no longer always the case. And now a primary school in Victoria has insisted on changing the line “Gay your life must be” to “Fun your life must be.”

According to the Sun Herald, the school principal was listening to an old tape of the song when the word “gay” suddenly sounded shocking in this day and age.

“…I just suggested to kids, ‘Nowadays that [gay] can mean different things, so let’s just sing a fun old time’,” he said. According to the principal “some children use the word ‘gay’ to bully others without knowing the meaning of the expression.”

The principal has inserted the word “fun” where the word “gay” used to be, but the controversy does not end there. Again, according to the Sun Herald, Crusader Hillis, from the gay and lesbian advocacy group the Also Foundation, said the ban was absurd.

“Kids in schoolgrounds say ‘That’s so gay’ and that’s all fine. That’s just the way that language is,” he said.

Mr Hillis said that banning words because they had multiple meanings was wrong.

“I don’t think that’s a very good message for kids to have, particularly when they’ve been working really hard to bring in respect and diversity into schools,” he said.

“They’re drawing attention to it and being a bit stupid”.

Ouch. That’s another name we shouldn’t call people on the playground.

Meanwhile, just to stir up a little more controversy, it’s been pointed out that the principal’s changing of the lyrics is a copyright breach. At this point, however, Larrikin Music, which holds the copyright, is not going to sue. This might be because the company is currently still in court with rock band Men at Work, who the company claims infringed the copyright of the Kookaburra song by including a riff in the early ’80s hit “Down Under”.

Source: Sun Herald, “School Changes Words in Song Kookaburra Sits in the Old Gum Tree.”

Restoring Biodiversity to Improve Food Security

Danielle Nierenberg — Fri, 03 Sep 2010 12:05:08 +0000

By Matt Styslinger

The new report, Toward Sustainable Agricultural Systems in the 21^st Century, published by The National Research Council’s (NRC) Committee on Twenty-first Century Systems Agriculture evaluates “alternative” agricultural approaches that could improve the sustainability of small-scale agricultural systems in less developed countries.

Biodiversity in farming systems is increasingly recognized as essential for sustainable agriculture and food security. (Photo credit: Bernard Pollack)

Biodiversity in farming systems is increasingly recognized as essential for sustainable agriculture and food security. The NRC report highlights several innovations that improve biodiversity on farms by integrating them with the larger local ecosystem, and utilizing ecosystem services that improve yields and cut costs.

The inclusion of non-crop vegetation on farmland provides valuable ecosystem services. Filter strips, hedgerows, woodlots, and other areas of native plants help to reduce soil erosion, buffer wetlands from direct pesticide and nutrient runoff, and increase plant and animal diversity. Filter strips host wintering bird populations and butterfly species, hedgerows provide habitats for beetles and spiders, and grassy strips in the margins of fields increase the biodiversity of soil microfauna within fields and across farms. This diversity can help to naturally control some crop pests. Birds, beetles and spiders consume large quantities of pest insects like aphids and lygus bugs. For example, including sweet alyssum in the margins of lettuce fields helps to attract natural predators of aphids, a lettuce crop pest.

Restored or constructed wetlands can be used to remove a variety of water quality contaminants, like erosion sediments and nitrogen and phosphorous from fertilizer and manure runoff. They can also help mitigate pesticide contaminants. In Ireland, a constructed wetland used to treat dirty water from a dairy farm was shown to have 94 percent removal efficiency for suspended solids, 99 percent for ammonia-nitrogen and 92 percent for molybdate reactive phosphorous. A restored wetland in Pennsylvania was shown to remove 65 percent of the nitrate load.

Although, according to the NRC report, there is ample evidence that enhancing and integrating biodiversity in agriculture contributes to the resilience of farming systems, biodiversity in many parts of the world has been degraded due to commodity policies that support monocultural production and a heavy reliance on agrochemicals. By recognizing that farming systems exist within an ecosystem, farmers can manage ecosystems to support crop production, reducing the need for expensive, unnatural inputs and restoring lost biodiversity.

To read more on the National Resource Council’s report, see: Instead of One Size Fits All, Many Innovations for Improving Small-Scale Agriculture.

Matt Styslinger is a research intern with the Nourishing the Planet project.

Introducing the eBay Reusable Box

Katherine Hui — Fri, 03 Sep 2010 10:05:02 +0000

eBay will soon be launching reusable boxes. This is one of those ideas that probably should have been introduced ages ago, least not for the impact they’ll have on minimising waste and packaging, but also for the convenience factor. Part of the beauty about eBay is that anyone can can buy or sell items- but with so many buyers and sellers around the world, that’s a lot of individuals and companies packaging stuff. This new service will in theory standardise the sending and receiving process making it easier and better for the environment. The pilot stage kicks off in October and eBay will see how the process works before rolling it out.

(Spotted on FastCompany)

Ingredient in the Spotlight: Kanten

Naomi Kuwabara — Fri, 03 Sep 2010 08:05:26 +0000

Kanten (agar) is a natural gelatinous ingredient used most commonly to make desserts. It's a great alternative to gelatin, particularly for vegetarians. The texture isn't as gelatinous as gelatin so people who like the consistency of jello may not like kanten, but I think it has an interesting texture and I actually like it a lot.

Also see Wagashi Maniac's webpage on Kanten. There is an in depth explanation of kanten in all it's forms. The website has a google translation button that translates the text to English. There are also a lot of nice photos of the different types of kanten.

Kanten for Dieters
Several years ago it was almost impossible to find kanten in grocery stores in Japan due to a kanten diet frenzy. I think there was a tv show that discussed the weight loss benefits of kanten which led to a huge spike in demand. My aunt was somehow able to secure a few boxes through a supplier to get all the kanten she needed to run the course of the phase, but my mom caught on a little late and complained about not being able to find any kanten during this time. The reason kanten was so popular for weight loss is because it is full of fiber and triples in volume after ingested, both giving one the sensation of being full.* The idea is that you eat some kanten before you have your regular meal so that you don't eat as much because you will get full faster. Other people also incorporated kanten into their regular meals such as adding it into soups or noodle dishes. You can add it to virtually anything since kanten doesn't have much flavor and you'll add volume to the dish and eat less of what you would normally eat. If you want to participate in the kanten diet, try incorporating it into your everyday meals. I found this video on youtube about a women who lost 11kg in 29 days mixing kanten into her soba, soups and mabodofu. YouTube. I'll be using it in a dessert in my next post but feel free to get creative.

*Source: Wikipedia

Unprocessed natural Kanten often comes in rectangular bars like this. It looks like plastic wrap.

umamitopia.com: Authentic Japanese, CA fusion, French & Italian influenced recepies.

Want a Job with a Non-Profit? Performance Wins Over Passion

Amanda Ponzar — Fri, 03 Sep 2010 06:05:36 +0000

I just read a story in the New York Times about young lawyers choosing public interest work rather than making the big bucks.

With the economy taking a trip to Hades in a hand basket, why on earth do people choose to make less money to work for charity? Everyone I’ve asked has said the same thing, “I want to make a difference.”

Although cliché, I felt the exact same way before I broke into the seemingly impenetrable nonprofit world. Who needs Prince Charming?

I fantasized that I would ride in on a white horse, saving people every day, all the while getting paid for it. I was a zealous do-gooder on wheels, volunteering all over the place, so who wouldn’t want to hire me?

Well, despite the fact that nonprofits are proliferating like rabbits and a new one seems to pop up every day, only 6.29% of Americans actually worked for a nonprofit in 2009, according to unpublished data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

So, how can YOU be one of these lucky 6%?

Let’s start with a tip from a friend of mine, Lisa Hamilton, VP of Public Relations at UPS and former head of the UPS Foundation. Lisa started as an attorney, then served as program director in the tax department, and then made the case that her unique skills and experience would benefit the UPS Foundation.

“The lesson here is that when people pursue foundation jobs, they often talk to hiring managers about their interest in the work or their experience as a committed volunteer,” said Lisa. “They fail to appreciate that foundations are businesses and need staff who can bring excellent management skills (financial, legal, IT, HR, performance measurement, etc.) to the table.” Lisa’s advice? “Stand out from the crowd” by emphasizing what you contribute. “As in any organization,” said Lisa, “you will be hired and evaluated based on your PERFORMANCE, not your passion!”

I thought about the last time I interviewed someone. I didn’t ask how passionate she was about the cause, I asked about her experience managing complicated projects and demonstrating return on investment.

Ladies, let’s help ourselves out. And no matter where we work, prove our worth with top-notch performance that gets results. That’s an asset anywhere.

Hanging with Yahoo! Mother Board and Yahoo! Shine

Beth Blecherman — Fri, 03 Sep 2010 04:05:31 +0000

Years ago when I realized I could not use my work email for personal use, I set up a Yahoo email address. I still to this day use Yahoo Mail and view my RSS feeds via my My Yahoo page. So when Yahoo created a Mother Board program for outreach to mom bloggers, I was excited to participate.

The first Mother Board Summit was mid-July. I was excited to see the fellow Mother Board members, meet the engaging Yahoo team and connect with a brand that I am already a power user of – to learn more about their applications and properties.

As I de-brief from my trip to BlogHer10 in NYC August 6-7, I can’t help but think of the fun I also had connecting with my fellow Mother Board members at the conference and spending time at the Yahoo Shine booth. The theme of the Yahoo Shine booth at BlogHer was “re-invention”: there were videos with stories of how women re-invented themselves displayed with live video interview filming to hear more re-invention stories. I even had a chance to do an interview. Lucky for me, they had a makeup section and artist to help touch up my makeup before I went on. I had been in a hurry that morning at BlogHer10 and did not put my contacts in – so I needed some makeup “re-invention”!

I was happy to recieve the make-up “intervention” so I could be free to discuss my career intervention. Jumping off the career train as a Senior Manager at Deloitte to become a mom was a hard choice (even though becoming a mom was the right choice). I began blogging as a career 2.0 and online social networking to build a new professional network, then did lots of hard work to build an new online brand (TechMama) – all of which helped me re-invent myself professionally. Here is my Yahoo Shine reinvention video:

Back to the Yahoo Mother Board Summit details:

A good summary was posted about the Mother Board Summit on the Yahoo! Yodeling Mamas Blog. But here are some of the areas we discussed at the Yahoo Mother Board Summit in July:

1. Yahoo Mail Apps & Social Functions:

During one of the sessions, I learned that status updates from apps such as Facebook, Twitter and Flickr can now be displayed within Yahoo Mail accounts: http://overview.mail.yahoo.com/connectmore/updates. Twitter updates will be available real time on Yahoo properties. Facebook users can also send and view updates from Yahoo sites or upload Flickr photos on Facebook. To share updates, users can set up a profile in Yahoo! Pulse – then add the contacts and applications you want updates from. The Yahoo website has as section that explained Managing updates and Manage linked accounts. The Twitter and Facebook integration is part of Yahoo! social participation – but there are also privacy controls and prompts to see where info is going. This is part of the Yahoo! Social Platform which includes integration in Yahoo! Properties (news etc), Y!updates (mail, messenger, home page) and open ecosystem (share&open sign in).

2. Flickr:

I already use Flickr.com to store and share my public pictures, but I also learned that I can watermark photos in Flickr via Picnik . Flickr users can use Picnik for photo editing.

Flickr offers users the feature of storing video (can be up to 90 seconds long). My current account only has public photos, but I learned during the session that a good idea for parents wanting extra privacy is to create a separate Flickr.com account that is just for family. A full list of Yahoo apps can be found at http://overview.mail.yahoo.com/apps.

3. Other Yahoo properties:

Yahoo Shine http://shine.yahoo.com/ is an online destination for women with sections on Managing Your Life, Fashion + Beauty, Healthy Living, Parenting, Love + Sex, Food and even Astrology.

Yahoo! has a Green site: http://green.yahoo.com/

Yahoo! Good focuses on empowering people to make an impact: http://forgood.yahoo.com/

Yahoo Social Properties: http://developer.yahoo.com/

Yahoo Accessibility Lab : We met some of the team working in the Yahoo Accessibilty lab- that makes sure Yahoo properties are available for people with disabilities. I saw some of the accessiblity accessories and asked where people can buy then. They said at enablemart.com.

3. Kids and Internet safety:
kids.yahoo.com is a starting point for internet access. Each of the sites listed has been vetted for age appropriate content. There is also a property focused on safety called “Yahoo Safely“.

One of the most compelling topics was on Internet Safety. We had the honor of watching a video made by the family whose daughter committed suicide-after an inappropriate picture of her got passed around school. My Lawyer friend Glennia, who was also at the Summit, posted with what happened next “He passed it around to his friends, and the girl, overcome by shame, ended her own life. The boys were charged with possession of child pornography under the California Penal Code for possessing and distributing the picture.”

The lesson the brave parents of this young girl wanted to share was to talk to your kids about Internet Safety (including email and texting etiquette). It is also important to set up a communication system with your kids so they have a safe place to discuss internet safety issues. Taking that point into action, the next day I sat my 11 year old son down (who had just received his new cellphone) and told him that story. My son was surprised that it happened but he learned a good lesson about the dangers of email/texting. The topic lead to an honest discussion with my tween about social pressures, what is appropriate behavior and how to be a good digital citizen. After my talk, I wish I could have personally thanked those brave parents for sharing their story.

Following the video there was an Internet Safety panel that discussed how parents need to educate themselves – then educate their kids about online safety while at the same time setting up a good communication process to keep the door open for regular discussion. One of the panelists was a police officer who visits with schools to discuss safety issues. Yahoo supports Internet Safety efforts as well as inviting Educators to a “Internet Safety” day at Yahoo.

4. Yahoo Editorial:

The last topic was Yahoo Editorial. That session offered great tips including writing tips, blogging style, grammar/punctuation and SEO. Yahoo has a book out that covers these tips: Yahoo Style Guide.

Photo credits TeachMama.Thank you to Robin Zucker, Amy Heinz, Jeanne Moeschler, the Yodeling Mamas as well as Stacy Libby and Nicole Rodrigues.

Disclosure: I do not receive compenstaion for being on the Yahoo Motherboard – I participate to be a part of a fun community of mom bloggers. I did receive a free cupcake (and some lunch) at the Summit – all of which was Y!ummy.

How Authors Make Money. No, Really.

Rebecca Lacko — Fri, 03 Sep 2010 02:05:55 +0000

Writing your first book (or second, third…) is no small undertaking. In the best of times, getting an agent and finding your book one day in a book store was a long, arduous journey. The task facing today’s aspiring authors can often seem insurmountable, but the truth remains: a writer must write. One’s story must be told—the show must go on.

In his excellent blog post, How Authors Really Make Money: The Rebirth of Seth Godin and Death of Traditional Publishing, Tim Ferriss, enormously successful author of The 4-Hour Workweek (number one New York Times, Wall Street and Business Week bestseller!) lays out the financial potential for would-be authors seeking to quit their day jobs.

What are the economics of publishing? (Photo: thinkpanama)

Print is dead!

This has become a popular headline, and a great way to get quoted, as Nicholas Negroponte has shown. Iconic author Seth Godin, after 12 bestsellers, just announced that he will no longer pursue traditional publishing, and the writing seems to be on the wall: the e-book is the future, plain and simple.

But what are the real concrete numbers? How are established authors actually making money, and what should new authors do? Go straight to e-book?

In this post, I’ll look at real-world numbers to discuss some hard truths of publishing, explain economics and pay-offs, and provide a few suggestions for aspiring authors.

To start, some contrasting numbers…

- The 4-Hour Workweek is one of the top-10 most highlighted Kindle books of all time.

- The 4-Hour Workweek was the #1 business book when Kindle first shipped after November 2007, and is currently around #116 in the Kindle store.

- In my last royalty statement, December 2009, digital book sales (all formats, including Kindle) totaled…. ready?… a mere 1.6% of total units sold.

My own book has been on the bestseller lists for more than three years, and I’ve tracked most multi-month bestsellers for all of those 36+ months using Nielsen Bookscan (among other tools) which covers about 75% of all retail book sales since 2001, including Amazon but excluding discount clubs such as Sam’s Club. Titlez has also been useful for looking at detailed trending on Amazon.

This all gives me a good pool of data, and I feel like I have a good grasp of what authors are selling and realistically earning directly from books. If you’d like to get a basic idea, just subscribe to Publishers Lunch to see what authors are getting paid as advances. Enjoy.

We’ll come back to the Kindle numbers, but first, here’s a sketch of book economics, incentives and options:

For a hardcover book, authors typically receive a 10-15% royalty on cover price. This means that for a $20 cover price, the author will receive $2-3. If you have a $50,000 advance, a $20 cover price, and a 10% royalty, you therefore need to sell 25,000 copies (“earn out” the advance) before you receive your first dollar beyond the advance. This is the basic rule, but several quietly aggressive outfits — both Barnes and Noble’s in-house imprint (Sterling, acquired in 2003) and Amazon’s in-house print arms, AmazonEncore and AmazonCrossing — could prove to offer more attractive terms. Then there are the fascinating rogues like Andrew “The Jackal” Wylie.

For a trade paperback book, authors typically receive around half the royalty of a hard cover. If you are making 15% on your hardcover, you might get 7.5% when it goes to paperback. Guess what? This means you now need to sell twice as many books to break even. I think going to paperback is a bad idea for almost all authors, unless you want to double your work for the same income. Do you really need the people who won’t buy a $20 book hardcover that’s already discounted to $12-14 dollars through Amazon or Barnes and Noble? I don’t think so, yet most authors follow the hardcover-to-paperback progression without question.

Electronic books, including Kindle, do not count towards the most famous bestseller lists, such as The New York Times bestseller list. I suspect this will change within the next two years, but for now print is what will make you famous in the mainstream.

If you choose to self-publish but stick with print format and retail distribution, you might double your royalty earnings. This is based on conversations with friends who own their own boutique publishing houses, all of which have distribution in large chains like Barnes and Noble. It’s fun to imagine that you could print a book with a $20 cover price and pocket $15, but that isn’t how the math works out. Once you factor in retailer discounts and distributor percentages, you might end up netting 30% of cover price vs. 15%, if you’re lucky and have a print run of 20,000+ units (Can you afford the upfront cost, especially if retailers are paying net-30, net-60, or beyond?). Keep in mind you also need to manage things as a publisher, which could make your dollars-per-hour earnings less than with a traditional publisher. There are a few promising companies, like Author Solutions, trying to solve this problem for authors.

If you choose to go digital only as an e-book, this is where profit rules and amazing numbers can be achieved. How amazing? I know one man who nets between $5,000,000 and $10,000,000 per month with a single e-book and affiliate cross-selling to his customer lists. I’m not kidding. The downside is that you need to be a world-class marketer and understand affiliate and CPA advertising better than anyone else in your niche (since there is little barrier to entry, and therefore plenty of competition). Prepare to be an uber-competent CEO or fail if you choose this option.

The Kindle Phenomenon — How Press Releases Are Misread

Amazon is incredible and I expect nothing but more innovation from them. Putting aside their coming bloodbath with Apple, though…

What of this announcement that Kindle sales have now passed hardcover sales on Amazon? I believe this to be true, but there are a few things I suggest we keep in mind:

1) Kindle books selling well does not mean that print books are selling poorly. In fact, it appears quite the opposite. From the Wall Street Journal coverage of the announcement:

Still, the hardback comparison figure doesn’t necessarily mean the end is near for paper books. Amazon said its hardback book unit sales also continued to increase.

It will be fun to see more precise Kindle sales when they are shown as a separate line item in Nielsen Bookscan, which should happen in the next year.

2) The top-five Kindle selling authors of all-time, over 500,000 copies each, are all fiction writers (including Stieg Larsson, Stephanie Meyer, and others). In the top-50 Kindle bestsellers right now, I counted just three (3!) non-fiction books. If you’re a non-fiction author, I’d think carefully before jumping the gun to all digital. Remember that comment about print being dead? What if we ask a high-level exec at one of the “Big Six” (explained later) about how print sales are declining?

Hardcover trend is mixed and dependent on hot books. If you are wondering about ebooks, commercial fiction is where you’re seeing the erosion. Paperbacks are ok. Mass markets are taking a hit.

What are “mass market” books? The NY Times describes them thus:

Mass-market books are designed to fit into the racks set near the checkout counter at supermarkets, drugstores, hospital gift shops and airport newsstands. They are priced affordably so they can be bought on impulse. There are other production differences in binding and paper quality (historically, paperbacks were printed on “pulp” and could fit in the consumer’s pocket). The format is often used for genre fiction, science fiction, romance, thrillers and mysteries.

Is it a coincidence that print impulse purchases are also the biggest sellers on Kindle? I don’t think so.

3) I believe (conjecture, yes) that the figure we are missing is Books-Per-Person. If you have a Kindle, as I do, how many books did you buy in the first week or two? How many unread books do you have on your Kindle? Unlike with print books, you don’t have to look at a stack of unread material like undone homework. Ergo, you purchase more digital books than you would ever purchase in print. If Amazon is selling 180 Kindle books for every 100 print books, I wouldn’t be surprised if 10-20 people are responsible for the former, whereas 80-100 people are responsible for the latter. This reflects that Kindle owners are buying more books per capita, not that paper purchasers are buying fewer.

Now, don’t get me wrong. There has to be some cannibalization of sales, and much of print will die eventually, but it will take a long time. Print is far from dead… and far from unprofitable. Despite the industry-encouraged myth that print has no margins, a hardcover book sold for $20, assuming no graphics or color, can often be produced for less than $2 a copy. With the proper economies of scale (unavailable to most individuals), the publishing biz can be quite a little cash cow.

Let’s cover some basics of traditional publishing next.

What “Traditional” Publishing Looks Like

Traditional publishing looks something like the following for non-fiction authors. (For fiction authors, you need to write the entire manuscript first.) Here are the five steps:

Step 1. Get an agent (best done through a referral from one of their authors).

Step 2. Put together a book proposal, which is like a business plan. It will contain marketing plans, your existing “platform” (who you can sell to or reach without publisher help), an executive summary of the book concept, and 1-3 sample chapters, among other things.

Step 3. Pitch to specific editors at different publishers through the agent and schedule meetings.

Step 4. Sell the book. The editor will probably have signing authority up to a certain advance amount, but higher ups will need to sign off on larger advances. If you don’t have a great platform for selling books without publisher help, don’t expect anything more than $50,000, and that’s being optimistic. The $50,000 will not be paid all at once, but in several installments, something like this: 1/4 upon signing the deal, 1/4 upon publisher acceptance of manuscript, 1/4 upon publication, and 1/4 upon paperback publication (assuming you start with hardcover).

Step 5. Write the book. Keep in mind, you’re not getting paid the advance all upfront, and writing a good book will probably take at least a year if you’re hoping to have good word-of-mouth and some longevity. I’ve been working on my new book for more than three years. I’ve spent this time because I want it to sell like mad for no fewer than five years after publication, preferably more than a decade if I update it on an annual or semi-annual basis.

For more detail and recommended books, which I used as guides, read “How to Sell a Book to the World’s Largest Publisher,” which explains exactly what I did.

Below are the “Big Six” publishers — most of the bestsellers you see come out of one of their divisions (called “imprints”). In no particular order:

Lagardere (owns Hachette)
Harper Collins
Macmillan (owns St. Martin’s)
Penguin Group
Random House (the largest, and where my book lives within the “Crown Publishing” imprint)
Simon and Schuster

All of these publishers have iBook agreements with Apple except for one… Random House. Why? Is Random House just unable to see the obvious future? Nah, I don’t think that’s true. There are plenty of smart people working at Random House, and that includes their legal department.

The paragraph that follows is all hypothetical:

What might happen if the iBooks agreements of the other Big Five all have suspiciously similar terms? If there were a federal investigation, might that lead to charges of collusion among the publishers and have terrible financial consequences for an already fragile industry? It certainly would. By distancing themselves and coming in late to the game, Random House — again, hypothetically — would be playing a very smart hand, indeed.

For those of you who are devoted to your iPads (I do like mine), you can always use the Kindle app to read Random House books on them pretty screens.

So What Should Authors Do?

First off, writing books is a terrible revenue model for authors.

Precious few books sell more than 25,000 copies, so it’s unlikely you’ll make even $75,000 a year from book royalties. In rare cases, you might have a perennial bestseller, but this is less than 1% of all books sold and not a good bet to make.

There are still a few reasons you might consider writing a book and going through traditional channels:

- Speaking: Particularly in the business category, if you target your Fortune 500 audience well enough, you can stair-step your way into $20,000 per 60-minute keynote without needing a miracle. Hundreds, if not thousands, of authors earn this kind of money. The higher echelon can make $80,000 or more per speaking engagement. Needless to say, this adds up fast.

- Reputation and audience: Money is a means to something else. Not unlike wampum, income is traded for either a possession or an experience. If you use your book to build a reputation as a thought leader, and if you can establish a direct line of communication to intelligent readers (through a blog, for instance), it is possible to bypass income and get almost any experience for free or next-to-free. The middleman of currency is removed, and you also have access to things money can’t buy, whether it’s interesting people or unusual resources.

Though I have done high-level speaking and enjoy it with the right audience, I typically do fewer than a dozen engagements a year. I prefer to focus on connecting with my readers and having fun with cashless adventures.

How do you build a base of fans or supporters and build a high-traffic blog? Here are two detailed closely related case studies:

How Does a Bestseller Happen? A Case Study in Hitting #1 on the New York Times
How to Create a Global Phenomenon for Less Than $10,000

So what of self-publishing versus the more traditional route?

Reputation, at least in the mainstream and for the next few years, is difficult to build if you self-publish. In the below five-minute discussion, NY Times bestselling author Ramit Sethi and I discuss the pros and cons of self-publishing vs. getting a “real” publisher:

In Closing

For established and successful authors, like Seth Godin or Jim Collins, self-publishing in print or digital is a supremely viable option. Jim Collins self-published his last print book, How the Mighty Fall, and was featured on the cover of BusinessWeek magazine to help push it up the bestseller ranks. Seth could do the same.

Why is this possible? Because they have incredible reputations that were built, in part, on top of the traditional publishing machine. The Big Six and their close cousins are in real trouble. Some of them might adapt (which will include massive lay-offs), but most will not. In the next few short years, there will also be many interesting publishing alternatives for aspiring authors.

But, all that said, there is still real value in having the rare stamp of approval that a “traditional” publisher provides. I don’t think this will change much in the next 12 months, perhaps even 24 months. Now, if a handful of first-time, self-published authors hit the New York Times list, that’s an entirely different story…

###

Recommended reading – Below are the three books I’ve suggested to a dozen or so aspiring-author friends. Almost half of them later hit the New York Times bestseller list. Reading these doesn’t guarantee that outcome, of course, but it will help:

The 22 Immutable Laws of Marketing (to help you craft the right message and themes)
Bird by Bird (to help you write the damn thing and not shoot yourself)
Author 101: Bestselling Book Publicity (to help you reach and excite big media)

Australia’s First Woman PM Hangs in There

Kathy Drasky — Fri, 03 Sep 2010 00:05:00 +0000

When I arrived in Australia at the beginning of August the country was in the throes of a federal election for Prime Minister. The campaign had all the elements of a sensational American slugfest for the nation’s top spot, including a left-leaning single woman who lived with her hairdresser boyfriend vs. a conservative in the George W. Bush mold, a Catholic who talked about family values and sending unwanted immigrants back to where they came from.

Julia Gillard vs. Tony Abbott, Labor vs. Liberal. To debate or not to debate. Should tomato sauce be free with your meat pie? Red budgie smugglers. Rooty Hill. Mark Latham ambushing each candidate for a 60 Minutes ratings scheme. Greens and Independents and the “above the line” option.

I took it all in on the evening news and talk shows – and watched as Australians dutifully went to the polls on August 21 to cast their compulsory votes. From that I thought, Americans could learn a thing or two.

But then, as the returns came in, I got the feeling I had been here before. There was not going to be a decision in this race on election night. Neither party was winning the needed majority of Parliament seats to put it in the driver’s seat for the next three years. Just like in America in 2000, when the decision came down to counting hanging chads, the word “hang” hung over this election in an eerily similar way. By the next morning it was clear – Australia had a “hung” Parliament. (“Well-hung Parliament” went around the Twitterverse a time or two, until it was determined that it wasn’t really funny.)

What Australia has going on two weeks later is its first female “caretaker” prime minister, Ms. Gillard, who negotiates daily with four Independents who could sway either way to side with her and Labor or Mr. Abbott (who also negotiates daily) and the coalition. As of this evening, the 73-73 tie, has swung in favor to Labor, with one of the four Independents now backing Gillard, bringing the tally to 74-73. No one wins until one side has 76 supporters – but with three rural Independents still trying to decide who to back, a 75-75 is entirely possible.

And then what? More should be known next week.

Source: The Ottowa Citizen.

David Hanson: Machine Versus Human

Renee Blodgett — Thu, 02 Sep 2010 22:05:00 +0000

I had a chance to talk to David Hanson of Hanson Robotics in-depth at the Singularity Summit in San Francisco on August 14. He holds the view that humans do want robots to look, feel and sound human – after all, asking humans to think otherwise would be asking humans to re-wire the way they think.

The conversation that unfortunately didn’t make it into the video was around robot(ic) behavior – robots versus humans, more specifically robots versus actors. We were talking about how some of the best actors actually ARE the character, they don’t go INTO character. My examples specifically are both women: Meryl Streep and Glenn Close. Both of them have a way of drawing you into their character and make you believe nothing else exists. They ARE that character and nothing else; the character is in fact their DNA, not who they are in their off-stage life.

I could imagine a world where you could actually buy a ‘program’ that is set to a particular character. In the future, I’d love an ‘open source’ robot like the PR2s that Willow Garage is building, and I’d like to separately buy a program, just like I buy a DVD movie today. I insert it into the robot and he/she becomes the character he/she has just been programmed until I change the program. Something you can imagine in our lifetime? What about other human aspects? Listen to David’s thoughts about these topics.

7 Attractions in 7 Hours – Turbo Tourism in Amsterdam

Sherry Ott — Thu, 02 Sep 2010 20:05:21 +0000

The best form of transportation…complete with storage.

It was 11:30AM and the man at the ticket counter looked at me anxiously and said “Are you ready?” I took a deep breath, tightened my backpack straps, got a good grip on my camera and said “Yes” confidently.

The machine let out a long BEEEEEP! My I Amsterdam card was now officially ticking.

I was off to the turbo tourist races armed with my camera, map, comfortable shoes, backpack, and my I Amsterdam card. The card was my ticket to get into numerous museums and events for free around Amsterdam in addition to discounts at tourist attractions and restaurants. What’s the catch? It’s only good for 24 hours and it costs 38 Euro. In a previous post I told you all about how to use the I Amsterdam card strategically to get the maximum value out of the card, I was now ready to put all of it to the test.

After plotting my route out on the map, figuring out closing times, and renting my Mac Bike with my discount, I was ready to go. I normally try not to travel like a tourist if I can help it. I don’t like to go where everyone else goes; instead I like to find unique travel experiences. However, I thought I could do the traditional tourist things for a day and it wouldn’t kill me. But I couldn’t just dive into the tourist pool headfirst – I had to do it my way; a little quirky…sort of a belly flop into the pool I guess. I had chosen some of the more small, off-beat museums as well as attractions that were a little different.

Canal Homes

Van Loon House
I started my tourism overload at Museum Van Loon, a historic old canal house of the prosperous Van Loon family. Willem van Loon was one of the founders of the Dutch East India Company. The museum is housed in a double canal house that dates back to 1672. Most of the interior has remained intact throughout the centuries.

The rooms, furniture, and art were amazing, transporting you back in time to the decadence. It made me want to strap on a corset and attend a glorious party. Actually, in the month of August they have opera performances in the garden – no corset required.

Foam Photography Museum
My second stop was the Foam Photography Museum. No surprise….I like photography – so I was quite excited to see the exhibit. The photography duo of Inez van Lamsweerde and Vinoodh Matadin put on an exhibit titled Pretty Much Everything. They successfully intertwined art, fashion, and portrait photography works next to each other. It was some crazy, mind expanding, work – and of course I loved the quirkiness of it all!

Museum of Bags and Purses

When I saw this on the list of potential museums for the I Amsterdam card, I had to go. Considering my prior corporate career and current freelance career is all about handbags, I had to see this. I was pleasantly surprised to learn about the entire history of the handbag, learn about how and why they were made and the evolution of materials and uses. I found it all quite fascinating and the displays were gorgeous. It made me dream of owning a vintage purse!

Houseboat with a Green thumb

Houseboat Museum
I knew this would be a quick stop, but it was on my way to another site, so I thought I could swing it. Plus who hasn’t walked the canals of Amsterdam and wondered what the insides of those houseboats looked like? This was my chance to get a better feel for what living on water would be like. It was a quick and informative stop, and yes, it did seem bigger than most NYC apartments!

Lunch break Everyone needs a break…so I parked at a cute little café and had a late afternoon coffee and sandwich enjoying my downtime simply sitting still and breathing.

Old Church

Oude Kerk
Next stop was the red light district and the Old Church; strangely this church sits in the heart of the notorious district where anything goes. Perhaps this is why the inscription above the bridal chamber is “Marry in haste, mourn at leisure”. It was 4 PM and I had to keep moving as museums closed at 5 PM. I had time for a quick look through the church and it’s magnificent organ and then had to move on.

Museum Our Lord in the Attic
A block away from Oude Kerk was the small, hidden museum Our Lord in the Attic. Yes, it’s just exactly what it says – an old canal house with a church in the attic. It was hidden in the ‘attic’ due to the Reformation, when Catholics were forbidden to hold public services. I thought this was the perfect alternative to the Anne Frank house since there were notoriously long lines to see that hidden home. I walked in 15 minutes before the hidden church closed and told the desk clerk that I would be fast. This little house was like a maze, but when you finally did get to the top floor it completely opened up into a long narrow church – quite a site. Unfortunately it was under renovation when I visited, but I was still able to get a feel for the layout.

It was now 5PM and my museum and church visits had officially ended, so it was time to go to the later night attraction – the canal cruise.

Holland International Canal Cruise
They stayed open until 7PM and the starting point of the cruise was near the Red Light District so I had positioned myself perfectly, thanks to my planning strategy. Even though I had been doing touristy things all day, once I set foot on the boat this was the first time I felt like a tourist. The pre-recorded tour blasted out in 3 different languages and we went cruising around the canals that I had been biking around all day. I really didn’t like the cruise as I felt like I really got nothing from it, I would have much rather been on my bike looking around. However I did use the time to relax and take some notes

A quick look at the stats – 7 locations in 7 hours…whew…I needed a beer.

Day Two:
Van Gogh Museum
I still had 1 ½ hours left on my card officially, so when I found myself near the Van Gogh Museum the next morning, I decided to make the most of my card and hop in the Van Gogh museum before my 24 hours were up. This was the best decision I had made yet as the museum was big and I definitely needed more time in it so using it as my last stop was perfect!

I felt like I had squeezed everything out of the I Amsterdam card that I possibly could in 24 hours – it was successful. I was also relieved to end my role as turbo tourist – I happily handed in my map and went back to wandering aimlessly and slowly trying to fit in with the locals.

Loren Feldman, the Jester in the Court of Web 2.0

Tom Foremski — Thu, 02 Sep 2010 19:05:47 +0000

[From left to right: Loren Feldman with Mike Arrington, Loic LeMeur, Robert Scoble during happier times - photo from Loic LeMeur]

Loren Feldman is the New York City based publisher of 1938Media.com, a fascinating, irreverent and funny critic of the West Coast tech scene.

Loren used to be an insider, a close friend of the princes of the Web 2.0 world: Michael Arrington, Robert Scoble, Loic LeMeur, and others. But Loren has managed to upset all those people, and more; and so have I simply by retweeting some of his comic puppetry.

(I've been blocked and called names because of my re-tweets of Loren's material but that won't stop me. It's a guy with a sock (puppet) on his hand — people need to lighten up.)

Loren's puppets are hilarious. He has puppets representing Robert Scoble, Loic LeMeur, Shel Israel, Peter Cashmore, Dave Winer, Mark Zuckerberg, Gary Vee, Larry Page and Sergey Brin, Steve Ballmer, and more.

Here is an example of Loren Feldman's puppetry: Steve Ballmer's iPad review.

Loren often hits the nail on the head and says things that I hear others saying privately. When he talks about how the West Coast tech scene is so fixated on incremental additions to operating systems; the obsession with the iPhone, iPad; the fact that we have enough technology and not enough useful applications of technology; and the overbearing shouting of some of our leading Web 2.0 evangelists.

The things he says are things that many would love to say but they have to live here, and they don't have a sock puppet to say things for them. Many of the things he says are funny and true.

Truth can be uncomfortable, which is why I get into trouble retweeting his work, and I know people who have gotten in trouble simply for retweeting my retweets of Loren's material (wow).

Court jester…

In my opinion, Loren is playing a key role, the role of the court jester. It's a vital role that keeps influential people humble, honest, and a reminder not to smoke too much of their own stash, drink their own koolaid, etc.

From: Fooling Around the World: The History of the Jester, an excerpt from Beatrice Otto’s book Fools are Everywhere.

Irreverent, libertine, self-indulgent, witty, clever, roguish, he is the fool as court jester, the fool as companion, the fool as goad to the wise and challenge to the virtuous, the fool as critic of the world.

The court jester is a universal phenomenon. He crops up in every court worth its salt in medieval and Renaissance Europe, in China, India, Japan, Russia, America and Africa.

Instead of getting mad at Loren we should be seeking out more like him. People get surrounded by minions who agree with everything they say — that's not a good thing. We get caught up in our own echo chamber and it takes a court jester to pop our balloons, wake us up, slap us in the face metaphorically.

Jesters used to be prized by royalty and they would compete for the best jesters. Queen Elizabeth I of England once threatened her jester because he wasn't harsh enough with her.

Loren can seem to be pretty harsh but that's a subjective reaction; his nature is that he keeps it real. And that used to be a key quality of bloggers — keeping it real, keeping things authentic. These days such qualities are rare and becoming rarer as commercial interests can take precedence over authenticity.

Loren Feldman is a big critic of many of the things the Web 2.0 crowd finds dear, such as Twitter, which he says is one long river of advertisements as people promote their own work time and again (true – I do it all the time).

Harsh truths aren't pleasant but truth is not harsh it is simply the truth.

The point is not to kill the jester but to celebrate the jester. That's why we need Loren Feldman and 1938media, imho.

The Future We’ll Make: TEDxChange Flickr Photo Campaign

Sloane Berrent — Thu, 02 Sep 2010 16:05:51 +0000

TEDxChange: The Future We Make

September 20, 2010 is TEDxChange, an event co-hosted by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and TED. TEDxChange marks the anniversary of the Millennium Development Goals.

Ten years in, the question remains where do we stand in the work to save and improve lives around the world? And what will the future hold?

The future isn’t fixed. We can all have a hand in making a better world. To coincide with TEDxChange and the tenth anniversary of the Millennium Development Goals, the Gates Foundation is asking you the following question: What is the future we will make?

They want you to help put a personal face to some of the world’s most pressing issues and envision a future where every person has the opportunity to live a healthy and productive life.

To participate, follow these four steps:

Download and print the sign

Personalize the sign with your own message. (Remember: Your sign must relate to one of the Millennium Development Goals to be included.)

Upload your photo to the foundation’s Flickr group.

Join the conversation on our Community Page.

Passion and purpose are important in looking forward and I also believe the role of education for girls globally will continue to impact how developing countries grow and seek to eradicate poverty. That being said, here’s my photo!

What are The Millennium Development Goals (MDGs)? They are eight international development targets set forth by the United Nations. Adopted by world leaders in the year 2000 and set to be achieved by 2015, the MDGs seek to spur development by improving social and economic conditions in the world’s poorest countries.

The information and graphical content below are used in cooperation with the United Nations Development Programme.

Goal 1: Eradicate extreme hunger and poverty.

Goal 2: Achieve universal primary education.

Goal 3: Promote gender equality and empower women.

Goal 4: Reduce child mortality.

Goal 5: Improve maternal health.

Goal 6: Combat HIV/AIDS, malaria and other diseases.

Goal 7: Ensure environmental sustainability.

Goal 8: Develop a global partnership for development.

City Wall

Christian Carollo — Thu, 02 Sep 2010 14:05:50 +0000

15th and Carlton Streets.

We Want It! – Toronto Recycling Video

Katherine Hui — Thu, 02 Sep 2010 12:05:30 +0000

This is brilliant! It’s like the 118 guys and the ‘We buy any car crew’ all smacked into one ridiculous commercial about electronic waste recycling. What’s not to like?! It’s a silly and seemlingly effective campaign to get local residents in the Toronto area thinking about how to adequately dispose of ewaste.

To watch some of the other equally amusing videos, visit the City of Toronto’s website to see more (Yes, this is a city council funded film ).

(Spotted on Unconsumption)

An Interview with Jessica Mah

Haegwan Kim — Thu, 02 Sep 2010 10:05:00 +0000

Haegwan Kim: What is your definition of success?

Jessica Mah: Building a product that people, including myself, love to use. Making money is a byproduct of making something people want.

HK: Could you give me your opinion on the key element to be a successful entrepreneur?

JM: I’d say it comes down to passion. I love building inDinero — I have so much fun designing the website, designing the product, writing code, talking to customers, watching users play with the product, and figuring out how to make it better. Entrepreneurs who focus on their customers will have no problem getting them to pay money.

HK: What are the advantages and disadvantages of being young as an entrepreneur?

JM: Advantage: You don’t know what you don’t know. Disadvantage: You don’t know what you don’t know. It’s great because you don’t realize how difficult it’s going to be to run your company. You don’t realize how difficult it will be to make real money, and if wealth was your primary motivator, you’d be greatly disappointed. It’s also a disadvantage because young entrepreneurs often get ahead of themselves, think they know far more than they actually do. In the world of entrepreneurship, even the best world-class CEOs are still learning from each other.

HK: Do you think young people are focusing more on making a social impact rather than earning money or being famous compared to a generation ago? I mean, are their values about “success” is changing?

JM: I think it depends on the industry. For example, in the software industry, the focus is on making products people want instead of building personal wealth. I’m sure that there’s a similar trend in other industries, but I couldn’t comment. I think this trend is also society-dependent. In the U.S., it’s acceptable to be an entrepreneur if only because you love what you’re doing. In foreign cultures, the primary focus might be on getting a stable job with a big company. So it all depends.

HK: What would be your advice be to be successful in a general sense?

JM: Try to learn what you don’t know. Read a lot! I keep a long Amazon wish list of books to read, and I usually read at least a few books a week.

Bishop’s Palace Gardens in Chichester, England

Ellen Park — Thu, 02 Sep 2010 08:05:24 +0000

Headed across the pond sometime, Road Trips Gardeners? Put the Bishop’s Palace Gardens in the center of Chichester, England, on your itinerary.

This hidden treasure within the city walls (not surprisingly, next to the cathedral) is now open to the public. Over the past three years, the Friends of Bishop’s Palace Garden have worked closely with the Chichester District Council to develop the project, which was previously private.

The garden includes rare and champion specimen trees plus thousands of new shrubs, trees, roses, climbers and herbaceous plants. Due to the historical value of the area, archaeologists were brought in to oversee the works carried out. The history of the area can be found on new information boards located in the garden, which provide access to the City Walls. The gardens date back to 1147-48 when the cathedral was moved from Selsey to Chichester.

They’re open from 8 a.m. until dusk. The Bishop’s Palace itself lies north of the eastern end of the garden and can be viewed through the gateway

Apple Fair in Kelowna

Susan McKee — Thu, 02 Sep 2010 06:05:42 +0000

Fall is the season for apple fests, Road Trips Foodies. One of ‘em takes place October 23, 2010, in Kelowna, British Columbia. It’s the 22nd year for the annual fest held by the British Columbia Orchard Industry’s Museum. Not surprisingly, it celebrates the apple harvest and gives visitors the chance to sample over two dozen locally-grown apple varieties.

The Apple Fair is traditionally held in the Laurel Packinghouse at 1304 Ellis Street, Kelowna. However, due to renovations at the Laurel Packinghouse, this year’s Apple Fair will be held at Orchard Park Shopping Centre, 2271 Harvey Avenue, Kelowna. Hours are 10 a.m. to 3 p.m., and admission is free.