Why Upgrading Evernote May Be Worth the Expense

I use Evernote so much that I’ve written an ebook about my process. But it just seems to become a deeper and deeper part of my life of late. A few months ago, I paid for a premium account on Evernote. I’d been meaning to do so for awhile: I’m a big believer in supporting [...]

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TextExpander: A Useful Tool for Writers

There’s a benefit to finding a niche, especially as a writer: you can make sure that you know the topics you work with inside and out. You know exactly where to look when you need a particular piece of data for a project. You can be an expert, to the point where people beyond your [...]

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A Little Bit of Markdown Makes a World of Difference

Over the past few months, I’ve made the switch to writing just about everything in Markdown. It’s a bit like writing in HTML — but much easier! I’ve reached a point that it would be hard for anyone to convince me to go back to my previous approach. I’m becoming a bit of an evangelist [...]

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The Money It Takes to Start a New Business

When you start reading about the options you have to start a new business, you’ll almost certainly come across discussions of what it takes to get a business loan — particularly if you approach the whole thing from a broad level. But that mindset is fairly dated. There are still plenty of people who need [...]

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Complicated Books Require Complicated Reviews

I generally prefer to only post reviews of books and other resources that I’m completely enthusiastic about. I don’t want to waste your time or mine on something that isn’t worth the effort; at the very least, I don’t want to have to read a crappy book all the way through, just for the sake [...]

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Back in Intermediate Algebra After All These Years; Or, Why I Love Online Courses

I’m very bad at not being enrolled in classes. Until I graduated with my Master’s degree last May, the longest that I hadn’t been enrolled at some school or another since I was three was a full semester. Yep, I’m a nerd. I’m even really tempted to go back and get a doctorate. I’d really [...]

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Advertising is Seriously Broken

Publishing online is a huge business. But it doesn’t work quite the way a lot of people seem to think it does. Whether you’re publishing software, content or something else entirely, you can’t just slap a bunch of ads in and expect to make your fortune. It’s true that audience and attention are incredibly valuable [...]

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The Fear of Pushing Publish

I wrote a post last week that was not exactly well-received. While there were some very supportive responses, I was also told that I didn’t know what the heck I’m talking about. I certainly expected the criticism — I’ve written online long enough that negative responses aren’t exactly a surprise. But that post was the [...]

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Seth Godin Takes Flight with the Icarus Deception

When Seth Godin launched a Kickstarter campaign to fund the publication of his latest book, I signed up. There’s just something about reading one of Godin’s books that makes me want to go work for a while. It’s not that they’re exactly inspirational, because Godin makes a point in each of his books that each [...]

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WordPress, the GPL and a Business Nightmare

I use WordPress on every site I own. I ask clients to use WordPress on their sites (and I tend to avoid even high-paying clients who don’t). I even speak at WordCamps — I’m the one yelling about content strategy to a room full of non-writers every few months. But last week, I found myself [...]

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