Becca and I love you guys. We want to see you break barriers, build careers, and enjoy success after writing success. Supporting you is what we’re about and what we do. We enjoy helping however possible, encouraging each of you to grow and be awesome as only you can.

To do this well, sometimes we have to nudge. Push a little, even. But our hearts are in the right place, because there’s no point candy coating the work it takes to be a successful writer. It will require every drop of strength and persistence you have to keep moving forward in the face of obstacles, rejection and doubt. You will have to grow thick skin, thicker than you ever thought possible. You will have to wear the hat of a learner, because you will never know it all or reach a point of ‘good enough’ when it comes to writing. There will always be more craft to absorb, more skills to hone, more marketing and business challenges to overcome, more work needed to expand your career, year after year.

So in our tough-love yet encouraging fashion, Becca and I are starting the year with a challenge for you: steer your own ship. Make a plan. Treat your writing like the business it is.

And this isn’t hot air, I promise–we live what we preach. Since organizing ourselves and adopting a yearly business plan in 2012, we have accelerated our careers. Not only have we built multiple businesses, published books in 5 languages, created a one-of-a-kind writing library and grown Writers Helping Writers into a learning hub with a loyal following, we teach and speak professionally as writing coaches. It didn’t happen overnight, and it didn’t happen easily, but it happened.

And guess what? Neither one of us is special. We don’t have a magic 8-ball, or pet hamsters that shoot lasers out of their eyes while predicting the future. We’re just Angela and Becca, two writers who met in an online critique group.

What’s I’m saying is…if we can do this, you can too. So let’s get started.

Organize The Chaos

Most say writers write, but I think writers actually juggle. Yes, they do write, edit, and learn. But they also research the industry and their audience, build a brand, create a platform, handle marketing, promote, and run a business. And that, my friend, is juggling.

Trying to master all these aspects of a writing career is chaotic. There are countless books and articles to read on various subjects of writing, publishing and marketing, experts to heed, social media platforms to navigate, people to connect to and opportunities to take advantage of. And often what happens is the writer is pulled into so many directions at once, no real headway is made on bigger goals. Instead writing time is spent on a million mini tasks that seem valid at the time, but may not be.

In 2012, Becca and I found our time was being eaten by all the little things that come with running a larger site like Writers Helping Writers. Our days were spent neck deep in email, social networking, blog comments, and guest posting. And guess what wasn’t getting done? Writing. And well, that’s sort of the point, wouldn’t you say?

We knew we needed to organize ourselves and prioritize better. We wanted a way to measure each opportunity that came our way and make better decisions with our time. Luckily, my husband is a business management consultant, and he led us through the process of creating a business plan. The start was to assess where we were at, and define where we still needed to grow.

Ask Yourself The Tough Questions

In the business world, assessments are common. People are brought in to examine departments and processes, do risk assessments, and conduct 360° reviews on employees. A company needs to be efficient and functional to prosper, and a writer’s career is no different. So take a step back and look at where you are at. What areas did you focus on this past year, and what was your progress toward big goals? If you could do it all over, would you do it the same way, or organize your time differently?

Taking stock of where you are, and where you want to go is a great way to hone in on what to focus on in the coming year. If you can be honest about areas you are weaker in and what you must strengthen to position yourself better, you’ll save yourself heartache. For example, if your writing is really strong, you have a book you feel is marketable but you have no online presence whatsoever, spending more energy honing your craft isn’t the best use of your time. Instead, you might want to make getting yourself online, learning how to network and find ways to build relationships with your potential audience a primary focus. Yes, this might seem scary, but pushing out of your comfort zone will help you grow.

Likewise, if you are a Social Media queen but your writing skills are less-than-adequate, start boning up on your writing craft. Read, take classes and practice technique. A great platform will not sell a poorly written book.

Be a Planner, Not a Pantser

Lots of writers like to “pants” it. A little, a lot, maybe the whole book is written on the fly, a joy ride from start to finish. What will the main character do? Where will he go? How will the book end? Who knows—that’s all part of the fun.

And pantsing might work great…in fiction. But in business, pantsing will hurt you, or perhaps better said, will hurt your potential. Because while you’re flying along, researching weather patterns for a new story idea you have here, increasing your twitter following there, and flirting with a group promotion or two when invites roll in…you are missing the forest for the trees. Rather than take confident strides toward achieving specific goals to help you leap forward, you’re taking half-steps in too many directions and hardly getting anywhere.

Like Becca and I did, you might need some structure. A road map, a way to determine what areas are the most important to work on, what goals should be the focus, and the timeline needed for each. You won’t believe how well this will help keep you on track, and just how much more you’ll get done in a year.

I realize for many, the words, “business plan” probably sounds intimidating, but it really is so simple—7 steps will get you there. In fact, I wrote a post about the process at Jane Friedman’s blog, so please, check it out. Everything you need is there—the steps, a template, and even an example of one of our old business plans. (Take advantage of some free professional business consulting!)

You love what you do, and you work hard every day, I know it. You are capable of so much, so challenge yourself! Make 2016 your year.

Happy writing and business-planning,

Angela

Image1: geralt @ Pixabay

Image2:McLac2000 @ Pixabay

Image3: JosephKah @pixabay

Image4: Alexas_fotos@pixabay

The post Is 2016 Your Year? Make A Writing Plan And Take Out The Guesswork appeared first on WRITERS HELPING WRITERS™.

It is hard to believe, but One Stop For Writers is only a month away from release! As such, I thought I’d tackle the team aspect of getting a giant project off the ground, seeing as we had a great post recently on how authors can collaborate on writing a novel. Many of the same factors are at work, regardless of the project.

Understanding and respecting each person’s skill set, communication style and expertise is really critical for working together, because no one person can do it all when it comes to a big project. (Or if they can, quality and efficiency is sacrificed.) So for us, we needed to suss out who was good at what, and learn to trust judgement, let go of ownership, and support one another as we all took on different roles.

COMMUNICATION

Becca and I already work together well, which is a real blessing. But it also created some challenges, because we are used to communicating and doing things a certain way. When you add a third to the mix, some of these methods and styles don’t fit, and so a person has to be willing to adapt. Case in point: Becca and I communicate a lot, discussing everything upfront so we problem solve and make sure we’re on the same page. However, too much communication creates a lot of extra reading for Lee, who is task-focused. So we needed to learn how to be more economical so we didn’t drown him in email.

LEARNING FLEXIBILITY

Because Becca and I plan extensively, once we decide on a path, we usually stick to it. This has worked very well with our books and joint business planning, but with software, we quickly saw adaptability is just as important, especially when you are working with a creative-focused developer. Lee would come up with functionality ideas that would trigger more content ideas from us, and we would have to adjust the plan. This led to some great new implementations.

However it created the challenge of sticking to our timeline and core tasks. Eventually we had to turn off the idea tap and stick to what we had in the works, saving other ideas for later updates. As a result, we also had to push out our timeline (a good thing, as the first one was far too optimistic, and impossible to meet).

BATTLE PLANS: ASSIGNING GENERALS

Dividing and conquering became ultra important. Lee, naturally, took on everything technical, both from a software build perspective as well as a technical operations standpoint. He researched and set up our commerce system, interfaced with the site designer and set up the communication system within One Stop. He also is working with the beta testers to test and fix everything that comes up, another huge part of any software build. (And speaking of, thank you beta testers–we love you so much!)

Becca (bless her) took on the business end of things, namely getting all the paperwork in order to form a new company where the parties all lived in different countries (not easy!), working with a lawyer to create contracts and file for trademarks, she set up bank accounts, and handles our accounting. All this in addition to creating new entries, adapting and formatting old ones, and doing the final pass editing for the site (a HUGE job).

I focused on new content generation, building most of the tools and generators, helped to expand old content and write page content, create auto communications, and handled anything marketing and promotion that wasn’t technical in nature, including building and managing social media platforms, newsletters, launch planning and crowd sourcing.

WORKING TOGETHER ON A SCHEDULE

We filled in to help one another as well so we could meet individual deadlines or assist during busier times. Becca took on managing the explainer video we’re having built, and Lee is taking on the tutorial video, two very important pieces of the puzzle. And we all collaborated to get our branding in place.

One of the big challenges for our collaboration is time zones. Becca (in Florida USA), is two hours ahead of me (in Alberta, Canada) which isn’t too bad, but Lee (in Sydney, Australia) is a whopping sixteen hours ahead. When we needed to all discuss something using Skype, we only had a small window to do so. Sometimes decisions and feedback would suffer delays. Becca and I both tried to adjust our working hours a bit to include evenings so we could work though things in real time with Lee.

FINDING A HUB: HAVE YOU HEARD OF FREEDCAMP?

Luckily as well, Lee set us up with a site called Freedcamp, which became our hub for communication, file sharing and collaboration. It’s a great site for projects like these, allowing for you to set milestones and tasks with due dates assigned to specific people. I highly recommend it if you need a home base for group projects!

All in all, I am thrilled at how well we work together. Our personality traits seem to bring out the best in each other, and create a check and balance system. Once again, I feel like the universe seems to be on our side, and the synergy between Lee, Becca and I makes us all very excited for whatever the future holds.

If you have any questions about how to collaborate with your own team, I am happy to answer them!

Image #2: 742680 @ Pixabay

Image #3 Geralt @ Pixabay

The post One Stop Adventures: Learning To Collaborate As A Team appeared first on WRITERS HELPING WRITERS™.

You want to start a home or small business. Or, maybe you want to take an existing business to the next level.  But, but, but. You’re just not sure you can. You think about and think about it. Do you have the drive? Do you have the money? Do you the skills and/or knowledge? Do you have a business plan? The questions can go on and on. You know what this is called, don't you?

"It's not about ideas. It's about making ideas happen." ~Scott Belsky We’ve just entered a brand new year. This is the time to think about where you’ve been and where you’re heading. It’s time for ideas. According to Business Dictionary, an idea is “a thought or collection of thoughts that generate in the mind.” They’re usually derived from intent, but they can also be unintentional.

President Obama at the White House Easter Egg roll, improving your business. Yes, YOUR business.

Less than half of children under five years of age in the US are read to everyday.  That more than anything helps cement a love of reading and prepare kids for school.  Even babies and toddler benefit from being read to.  Studies show that two year olds that are read to everyday have larger vocabularies, more developed cognitive skills, and better language comprehension skills than those that are not read to.  And that’s in kids that are only semi-verbal!

And the problems pile up over the years, resulting in kids falling farther behind with each grade.  These problems persist for a lifetime and cost the government (and taxpayers) trillions of dollars.  In some states they use the third grade reading proficiency scores to estimate future prison need.  Why?  85% of prison inmates cannot read proficiently. Simply increasing the graduation rate by 5% would save the US $5 BILLION annually in prison related costs.

Every 26 seconds, a kid drops out of school in the US.  Over their lifetime, each high school drop out costs the US government roughly$260,000.   In adults, 43% of people that are not proficient readers live in poverty.  Of those that are proficient readers, a mere 4% live in poverty.  Over the course of their lives, those with lowest literacy rates cost the government four times as much in health care costs as the most proficient readers. Annually an additional $73 BILLION is spent on health care for those with low reading proficiency due to low literacy skills in the form of longer hospital stays, emergency room visits, more doctor visits, medication errors, and increased medication. US businesses spend $60 billion annually on remedial training, mostly on reading skills.

One in seven adults in the US can not read this post, let alone anything complicated like list of side effects on medication or the fine print on a loan application.

What does all this have to do with bookstores?  The key to literacy is access to books.   In low income areas, 80% of preschool and afterschool programs have NO age appropriate books for kids!  In middle class neighborhoods, there’s roughly one age appropriate book per 13 kids between the library and private holdings.  In low income neighborhoods, the ratios is 300 to 1.

A bookstore by its mere existence improves access to books for all people in a community.  Even more than actually selling books,  a used bookstore is a major book distributor to those that cannot afford to buy books.  If you operate a used bookstore, you probably receive multiple calls per week about “will you just TAKE my books? I don’t want to throw them out!”  A used bookstore serves as a collection and redistribution point for books of all types.  Books that would never sell in the store and sell for pennies online often make it into boxes destined for prisons, schools, homeless shelters, literacy programs, and other places in desperate need of books. Even if you make faces at having a box of Reader’s Digest Condensed Books left on your doorstep, once they’re sent off to a new home at a school or prison, they can be a godsend.

Additionally, having various programs at the store can help boost literacy.  Story hour helps kids learn to love reading.  Even if they buy nothing that day, that can help boost literacy in your community which saves your business money (in the form of lower property taxes) in the long term and increases the market for books.

Obviously making kids books affordable and available has the biggest impact because of the ripple effect over time.  Yet many used bookstores don’t accept children’s books.  This is because they’re often hard to shelve, often are in terrible condition when the arrive, and often don’t fit the focus of the store.  (and that totally ignores the issue of CPSIA, another major problem) Where do those books go?  Some do get donated to places that need them, but even more end up thrown out.  If you have a store, take them.  Even if you give no credit or pay nothing for them, even if you don’t have space to put them on the shelves, many people just want to pass them on to someone.  You can find them a good home with a group that truly will put them to good use… and remember your largesse. (and may be tax deductable too!)

While giving away books does not seem like it really helps your bottom line,  that is because it has little to no visible impact when you focus on monthly or quarterly sales.  However, over years or decades, it ensures there’s an ever growing market for your product.  If you’re writing a ten year business plan, donations of books, services, or just plain money to local programs that increase the literacy rate should be part of that plan.  Even if you allocate no money to it, as you are simply redistibuting overstock, simply making the committment to give away X number of books per year and hold Y number of story hours, it will make a huge difference in the long term viability of your business.

Now obviously this applies most directly to brick and mortar stores, but online only places can play their part as well.  When you’re scouting books, consider buying some collections at a flat rate to take it ALL, even what you consider junk.  You may well be able to get a better price by agreeing to take it ALL than picking and choosing the few volumes you want.  Bundle up the rest and donate.

Schools and literacy focused programs are the obvious place to start, but adults need books too!  Improving adult literacy improves the outcome for their kids too.  Places like the local social services office, prisons, hospitals, rehab facilities, homeless shelters, and domestic violence shelters can all make use of these.  In many cases, these are places with captive audiences that would never read for pleasure on their own (or could never afford to spend money on books)… but give them a book to read while waiting and they just may find it’s fun.  Or may spend that hour in line sitting and reading to their kids.

If you’re willing to pay for postage and want to do something beyond the local area, sending books to military bases overseas is also an excellent option. A box of books can make a soldier’s day. They’ll be shared around, passed from person to person and unit to unit. Some units in low-conflict areas may also hand out children’s books to the local kids. When eventually the unit moves out, they leave the majority of the books behind.  That dogeared, highlighted copy of a classic may be worth pennies stateside, but when left in a fa away land it may take an honored place in the local library’s English-language collection.

And all that eventually comes full circle.  While book people consider books a neccessity, in many places they are a luxury.  By providing the books necessary to build an education upon, it increases the demand overall, worldwide.  Increased literacy decreases poverty… and so there’s money available to spend on books.  And lower taxes from increased literacy rates means more disposable income locally to spend on books…  And higher literacy rates translate to more kids learning to love to read and consider books a necessity, not a luxury… And on and on…

Make the committment to give books, money, or time to the cause of building literacy locally and worldwide and help ensure a better business climate for yourself for years and decades to come.

So my win of the $15,000 PowerUp! Award for my bookstore business plan got written up in the Daily News yesterday, complete with photo of me with a goofy grin on my face (high on endorphins, as John T. surmised). I know the word got passed around at Winter Institute in Louisville, too.

Thank you so, so much to all of your for your congratulations and your support. Got ideas, suggestions, thoughts? Email me, for goodness' sake -- I'd love to hear from you! (Forgive me if it's mercenary to mention it again, but the one thing still standing between me and opening the bookstore doors is capital -- I'm looking for grants, loans, or any other creative means of pulling it all together, so if you have any suggestions in that regard, I'll probably be interested.)

Anyway, the congratulations keep coming -- from friends and strangers, many of whom think I should open the bookstore in their Brooklyn neighborhood! It's fantastic to know there are so many folks longing for a bookstore out there.

I was curious about how everyone was hearing about the news, and so I admit, I did that vaguely shameful thing authors often resort to -- I Googled myself. And here's who's writing about it (forgive the self-absorption -- it's kind of just for my records):

Chad Post (formerly of Dalkey Archive) in Three Percent, his new blog for Open Letter at University of Rochester...

Bookselling This Week had a nice mention, and Karen Schechner is writing up a more in-depth piece to run later this week...

Levi at Litkicks includes it in his roundup...

Shelf Awareness featured it front and center...

P.J. at Books in Northport gave me a bookseller-to-bookseller shoutout...

And Bud Parr at Chekhov's Mistress has a great post about what kind of bookseller he would be (a bit of a cranky one), along with his congratulations about the win...

Which leads me to another great post at BookNinja about George's dream bookstore (Lisa Loeb is involved)...

Inspired by this piece in the Guardian, about Lee Rourke's dream bookstore...

Which is really about two entrepreneurs (like me!) working toward opening The Big Green Bookshop in London, and writing a blog about the process (they've also apparently been bowled over by the publicity from the article). Warning: the blog opens to the tune of "Pleasant Valley Sunday," which I love but you might want to be aware of if you're in a quiet place.

I love reading all of the literary folks whose dream bookstore resembles that of Bernard Black in Black's Books, a hilarious cancelled BBC sitcom I've been obsessed with lately. Bernard loves drinking wine, reading books, and being left alone, and hates cleaning, anything new, and customers. Obviously he's a terrible bookseller. And as they admit, many of those who dream of the bookstore life aren't really cut out for it. But as my very first bookstore boss used to say, "that's why there are so many books [or jobs] in the world -- so not everyone has to like the same ones." And it doesn't hurt to dream, does it?

Happy Wednesday!

Um, I won.

I actually had a very productive day at work yesterday -- I finished writing up descriptions of upcoming events for February, posted author photos on the website, responded to a number of event requests to tame my overflowing inbox, worked the cash register and answered some customer questions, and even pulled some returns from the interior design section. A good day in the life of a bookseller. I felt content in my life as it is, not filled with longing or anxiety, and just a little excited that at 5:15 I was going to put on my good shoes and go down to the Central Branch of the Brooklyn Library for a swanky awards ceremony and some snacks. Everyone at the bookstore knew I was going to the business plan awards ceremony, and I got lots of "good luck"s as I went out the door.

The ALP was waiting for me in the reading room -- we spend half of our Saturdays at the Central Library anyway so it wasn't hard to find him. The awards ceremony was held downstairs in the newly renovated Dweck Center -- I'd never had a reason to explore that part of the library before, and it was cool to see. On the way in the gifts started to flow: a free totebag from Citibank (the sponsor of the award), a business card case from PowerUp. Arcola, one of the Business Library librarians, handed me back my original plan, and I was told to sit in the first three rows reserved for finalists and judges. (We took this too literally at first and the ALP sat in the fourth row, but it later dawned on us that there was room for spouses of finalists in the reserved seating as well.)

I saw some of the staff from my BEDC class in the audience, and the judges before whom I made my presentation back in November, and the owners of Bogota Bistro, the first winners of the award (conveniently located about half a block from our apartment). Maud Andrews, my favorite librarian (because it seems to me she's found her calling too), asked me about the correct pronunciation of my new last name -- they were confirming with all the finalists, she said. It felt so good to be sitting there next to the ALP, the work all done, the prayers for blessings all said, and I felt I would honestly be content whatever the outcome.

There were, of course, lots of speeches preceding the awards: Dionne Mack-Harvin, the BPL's executive director, was the MC (I know her name and title because they're printed on the giant check on my kitchen table), and we heard from the Deputy Borough President (not Marty, sadly, but woman with a lovely Jamaican accent) and a City Councilwoman and representatives from Citibank, congratulating the library and the contestants on the increasing success of the contest. Previous winners also said a few words; the owners of Bogota (who were also the evening's caterers) talked about what an affirmation it had been to receive the award, and how many no's it took before they heard yes, and how well they're doing now -- they grossed over a million last year. Another previous winner, a two-woman toddler t-shirt company, brought up their own kids to showcase their wares -- the tots stole the show, in typical Brooklyn fashion. Then, suddenly, it was time for the awards.

The presenters would read a description of the business plan, then announce the entrepreneur's name and have them come forward for the award and photographs. As they announced the first honorable mentions ($500), I thought how that would be a nice chunk of change to start an account with. But I wasn't with the honorable mentions. Then the $750 honorable mentions were presented, and I thought how great nearly a thousand bucks free and clear would be. But I wasn't with those either. Then they announced the two second place winners, and I thought, five grand would be perfect, wonderful, not too much pressure. But the awards went to a woman with a line of aromatic soaps and cosmetics (who couldn't stop crying and saying "I have labels to buy!" - she knew exactly how she was going to spend her money), and another woman who wanted to open a healthy soul food restaurant (I hope she caters next year).

Well, it's all or nothing now, I thought. Probably nothing. And that's fine. I wrote the plan because of this deadline, which I might never have done otherwise, and I learned so much, and I met such great resources in the Brooklyn business community. Blessings on the winner, whoever they are.

And then the presenter announced that the winning plan was a business that would benefit the readers and writers of Brooklyn. The ALP and I looked at each other, oddly worried expressions on our faces. The presenter described someone who had worked for seven years in the book industry, made lots of contacts, who wrote a bookselling blog. I started to cry. The ALP told me not to cry, so I started to laugh instead. They called my name, pronouncing the difficult hyphenated last name correctly but getting my first name wrong. I somehow made it up to the stage. They handed me a gigantic posterboard check with my name (spelled right) and the words FIFTEEN THOUSAND DOLLARS. The Daily News photographer took pictures. All I could hear was my own ragged, laughing/crying breath.

The MC apologized for asking me to say a few words. I hadn't thought seriously about having to speak (okay, it had occurred to me, but I shoved the thought away with an eye-roll at myself and didn't prepare anything), but I found I wasn't afraid. Here's what I remember of what I said -- a bit paraphrased, and minus the stutters and repetitions.

"Luckily I host events at the bookstore four or five nights a week, so I'm used to being in front of a microphone... but it's not usually this important. I love what the guys from Bogota said -- one of my favorite restaurants -- about what an affirmation this was for them. I know there's a perception out there that independent bookstores are a dying breed, a bad bet. I know that's not true, because I've seen the ones that are working, that are doing vibrant wonderful things in their communities. And I've gotten so much support from people in my industry -- from publishers, from our trade organization, from other booksellers -- especially from other booksellers, who are such a great community to each other. But I wasn't sure what the response would be when I took this plan to people outside that community, to business people. Would they think I was crazy? And it's so wonderful that you thought this was worthwhile. I honestly was thinking there at the end it's all or nothing, and it's probably nothing, and that would have been okay, because I have gotten so much already out of PowerUp, I've learned so much, and the librarians have been so wonderful. But this money is going to be the seed that I can use to make this dream happen. So... thank you. So. Much."

And then about fifteen thousand more pictures, and I could see the ALP still standing there in our row while everyone went out for the reception, and I just wanted to go and hug him, but it was great to be up there with the other laughing/crying winners and their own big posterboard checks. And then I did get to hug him, and we went out and had empanadas and champagne, and I handed out about fifteen business cards and got fifteen more, and heard from a dozen people why I should open my bookstore in their neighborhood, and talked about collaborating with half a dozen other entrepreneurs, and met people who read my blog, and gradually came down to a less ragged high. Then the ALP and I left the library, which was already closed (we showed the check to the security guards at the door, who pulled out pens to joke about having me sign it over to them), and picked up a bottle of champagne at a Park Slope wine shop on the way home. I called my mom, we watched the Muppet Show on DVD, we talked about having the check made into a coffee table. Then we went to bed.

There will be a lot of details to work through -- where and how to receive and deposit the money, how to use this as leverage to get additional grants and loans. To be fair, it's less than a tenth of what I've calculated I'll need. But it's fifteen thousand dollars more than I had before, not to mention the $5,000 in in-kind gifts: consulting services, marketing services, a Chamber of Commerce membership, even a gift certificate to Bogota. And perhaps more importantly, the experts of the Brooklyn Business Library think my plan is viable -- is the MOST viable, out of all the ones they've seen. Kathleen, the Citibank rep responsible for creating the contest and the head judge, told me that it was my presentation that made the difference -- that the judges were skeptical about the wisdom of opening an independent bookstore given all they'd heard, but I sold them on the idea with my data and my passion.

If I can do that -- and I guess I did -- maybe I can do anything. Maybe I can make this dream happen, after all.

Thank you to all of you who have also given your affirmation. Thank you for saying yes in a world of no's.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm going to bask in the glow for a little while longer.

P.S. They tell me I'll be in the Daily News on Tuesday, in the Brooklyn section or the business section, if you want to take a look.

So much going on there's just not enough time for everything!

I'm working some extra hours at the bookstore this week because some of our staff will be gone at the ABA Winter Institute. It looks like a fantastic program this year -- I'll be thinking of all of you who are there! (And if you're going and feel like writing up your experiences, I'd love to have some guest bloggers about WI3 on Written Nerd -- send me an email if you're interested.)

Wednesday evening is the awards ceremony for the Brooklyn Public Library's PowerUp! business plan competition -- the ALP and I will be there to hear the winners announced. I'm looking forward to seeing what great businesses are being planned in Brooklyn, and getting some feedback on my bookstore plan... so send some good vibes my way if you think about it.

I've got some new writing assignments lately -- I'll let you know when there's something to read, but I don't want to jinx myself by promising too much. Right now I'm feeling a bit too sleepy to imagine writing. I spent part of the morning at Old First with an incredible project for fighting homelessness in New York -- the staff and volunteers of Common Ground work 24/7, and the people they're helping don't always have the luxuries of hot showers and naps. It's good to put things in perspective, and better to try to help -- I don't know how much good my presence did, but I was there, and I'm hoping I can go again.

Hope you're having a good Tuesday, too.

I read this article online while I was away and it looked good to me though I have to agree with Rochelle that not including URLs was sort of silly. Here are my full unedited answers and the URLs to everyone’s blogs. Nicole added hers as well. I do tend to go on a bit.

• Blake Carver, LISNews
• Nicole Engard, What I Learned Today
• Rochelle Hartman, Tinfoil+Raccoon
• Sarah Houghton-Jan, Librarian in Black
• Jenny Levine, The Shifted Librarian
• Kathleen de la Pena McCook, Librarian at the Kitchen Table
• Mary Minow, Library Law
• Joshua Neff, Goblin in the Library
• Jack Stephens, Conservator
• Jessamyn West, Librarian.net

What does it take for a blog to have an impact on the biblioblogosphere?

I’m not sure if you mean “have an impact in the blog world” or if you really mean “have an impact in the non-blog world” because they are very different. It’s easier to have a bloggish impact. You can read and thoughtfully comment on other blogs. You can write your own well-considered and well-linked posts and interact with the comments of others. You can send a lot of link-love to your favorite bloggers who may add you to their blogrolls and send link love back to you. Alternately, you can post a lot of naked pictures of yourself or others, pick fights with people, take controversial and poorly supported stances on hot button topics or just parrot the opinions of other more popular bloggers. It really depends what you’re after. I think most of us would argue that we want to have an impact outside the biblioblogosphere — as well as with in it — and to do that you often have to have good ideas combines with good presentation and an interested and effective audience. It’s a trick, to be certain.

What do the readers of your blog value about your posts?

I think I provide a perspective that people don’t see as often in the library blogosphere. I work in a rural community with small libraries and people without much tech savviness. For most people who live in cities or suburbs, they never see these people. I also have the time to read big articles, papers and presentations and synthesize them down for people who may not have that sort of time. I’m never afraid to call things the way I see them, but I try hard to refrain from gratuitous insults.

I also have a sense of humor and read widely, not just within library circles. My agenda is fairly clear and I’m pretty approachable. I also travel a great deal and so readers of my blog get insights into other locations, library associations and libraries by reading what I have to say. Lastly, a lot of library school students or potential students read my blog and ask me questions along the lines of “how do I find a library school to go to if I’m interested in the things you’re interested in?” and so I do a lot of mentoring as well.

How do you decide when to post—inspiration, obligation to keep the blog fresh and readers engaged, or what?

I post when I have something to say, usually about something I’ve read. I don’t keep any sort of timetable and as much as I love my readers, I don’t worry they’re going to go elsewhere if I’m not continually amazing. Librarians are steady folks by and large and I feel like once you reach some sort of equilibrium, you’re likely to keep it if you don’t piss people off.

How do you determine what the right length is for a given post?

I have an Alice in Wonderland approach to this, paraphrased “Start at the beginning, write through to the end, then stop.”

What has surprised you most about the process of blogging?

Two things. First, how many amazing people I’ve met who have enriched my professional and personal life to a degree I never would have considered possible. Second, a surprising amount of work has come my way as a result of me having a public professional presence. Certainly some of this is the result of what I say and how I say it in person as well, but a lot of the public speaking I currently do has come about as a result of my blogging.

What lessons can libraries learn from your experiences as an individual blogger?

I’m not sure if there is a lesson for libraries per se. I think generally writing for public consumption is a great way to find your own voice and interact with other people finding theirs. I hope that my blogging and others’ blogging has somewhat removed the “riskiness” factor of writing in public and made it seem like a more commonplace thing for people to be doing with their time and efforts. Everyone, and I mean everyone, has something to say and how nice is it that blogging is a tool that enables more people to talk to each other?

What’s missing from the LIS blogosphere that you’d like to see someone take on?

Better meta tools. I have been impressed by ArchivesBlogs, the aggregator for archive-related blog postings and I’d like to be able to do more fine tuning to get custom feeds of library blogs as groups and not just as individual rss feeds. I like LISNews very much but I’d like to see an even bigger and more robust library news reporting service that wasn’t just the voice of one professional organization or one vendor. Also, I’d like to see us using our online powers for good and spend more time being public presences of tech savvy librarians the way some librarians are doing in SecondLife, or Ask MetaFilter or even individual bloggers like Ask Tangognat.

How will the blogs of today be regarded a decade from now? Should digital libraries collect them?

I’ve just finished writing an article about this for Library Journal :) Yes, I think if you have a mission to collect the personal voices of a community or time period or event, you’re not going to be able to do it using just email or letters or memos, blogs are becoming part of the public record of how we know ourselves and need to be taken into account when we write our histories.