Fire By Sea

Self-indulgence and attention seems to matematically prevent people from truly succeeding.

I finally got around to finishing Linchpin, blogging a review, fully engulfing the TRE#11 talk with notes and repetition, then crafting a thoughtful email to Seth Godin about my publishing ambitions. Within less than 3 minutes he responded, saying “this is very cool, Charles. Go make it happen!”

Few words but enough to give things some juice. If I work hard enough and actually produce something, I might actually be able to run it by him for direct feedback. Hopefully he’ll like it and he’ll pass it on.

It’s hard to imagine how much energy it takes to manifest so much attention, then to leverage that attention to do wonderful things and influence people for the better. This is what Seth is doing, far better than anyone in the marketing space.

I do know that Seth’s success strategy is totally based on giving: he gives so freely and is humble, and it all comes back to him. He is the ultimate Linchpin.

I know when I started this blog it was all about greatness, action and independence. Now that I’m a few months into it, I’d have to say it’s very hard to feel great when life just wears you down every day.

By no means am I complaining about my plight. Somehow — I don’t know how — I’ve managed to hang in there. But hanging in there is not the idea. I need money to take care of the little things, which would create enough time so I can focus on the big things.

But not so fast on being petty: it’s not about the money, actually. I have trouble making it because I consider myself a purist of ideas. My creations are not created to make money but rather have people enjoy and be influenced by.

Today I was looking at my other blog stats and found out that by far the average time people spend on the site is a little over a minute. Which means nobody is reading it. Which means I’m writing into thin air.

And so I make a decision that blogging is not my business but my hobby. The real business is going to come from this publishing model which the more I think about, will be part-technology and part human connectivity.

This publishing thing is more and more looking like an app, wherein people can purchase titles I procure, share their thoughts on their book and author and join other readers in on a movement.

Does this just sound like a cross between Facebook and Vook — Facevook? I’m not sure, but I need singular focus on it everyday. Even if for just an hour, the idea must be pushed and developed.

So this is how you go about writing a sentence that sends your word count just above 300.

• Reading Linchpin on a Kindle
• Blogging about life on a private blog
• Drafting a letter to borrow $50K from a friend
• Tending to your plants with love and water
• Talking to your kids about everything and anything
• Surfing, for sure
• Having drinks at a bar with your wife
• Planning your own personal revolution
• Stalking the President on the beach
• Figuring out how to revolutionize commercial publishing
• Create art to gift to others
• Not back down to people who threated your family
• Meditate even for just a minute
• Think about the future
• Go running and try to enjoy it, even though it likely won’t happen
• Attend a Galaxy Forum
• Create a blog and then make an iPhone app for that blog
• Play with your youngest child during your lunch break when the other kids aren’t around
• Stretch out your legs
• Ride a bike on a sunny day up a hill for a little exercise
• Get disgusted by walking in on your creepy female office landlord looking at porno
• Drive 100 miles round trip to meet with potential clients who might have work you find somewhat boring
• Read a certain popular blogger who shares your initials, who kind of bugs you but has good ideas anyway
• See how long you can last not eating anything
• Try to translate a song you know by heart into a language you were once fluent in but not anymore
• Call the cable company to stop your cable service
• Go hiking with your family somewhere high up surrounded by trees
• Go seashell gathering after a large winter swell hits a beach near you
• Watch a good film instead
• Hope to god your friends who let you house sit for them make their home available the next time school gets out
• Check out the kind of art your kids are doing
• Get a vasectomy and enjoy a new lease on your love wife with your spouse, especially if you have too many kids to handle

Yep you heard it right, money is gone.

Yes, I do, but it’s still in bits and pieces. It’s a collection of ideas I’ve been following that in near time culminate into an “ideavirus.”

Here’s what it involves, in absolutely no particular order:

• Money is an effect, not a goal.
• New publishing means affordable, accessible reading that connects publishers directly with readers.
• Publishers are now brands.
• Technology enables sharing, communication and collaboration between readers.
• Time is running out as iPad creeps into content market space.
• There is room for several new publishers.
• Good writers are more abundant thanks to the ease of self-publishing.
• This idea needs to evolve from the POV of the reader, and so I need to constantly interact with them to gather their ideas.
• Seth Godin knows what he’s talking about.
• Books are still valued, but they can be enhanced by video and social media sharing.
• Vook is a good start, but they’re not doing everything I envision.
• The trick here is to extract the value of the ebook for the reader, something nobody is doing yet.
• Paper as far as I’m concerned is totally not necessary. It needs to stop being used. Period. No more paper.
• It’s more than sharing notes, though. There has to be real value. The value of Facebook is that you can easily share your life with your friends (and promote your business). The value of Wordful is ________. ?
• Platform is the medium (Kindle, iPad, Vook, etc.). Channel is the niche. Content is the show. How much of this is Wordful responsible for? Likely all 3 if I want to make money.

I want Wordful to facilitate conversations about books between readers and possibly even the writer. Is Wordful a publisher? I suppose it is. What would the homepage say? “Read and talk about your favorite books. Get started now.”

How would Wordful make money? Selling titles? If so, that would mean my platform would need to enable that.

Today someone turns XX years old in the family. I’d like to honor him.

It doesn’t seem long ago that I was there in the hospital, scared and nervous to the life altering course ahead of me. It was the crux of my youth coming to a glorious end.

Then there he was, tiny and strong and precious, and beautiful.

It’s been XX years and so far a good ride. He’s turned out just about a great as I could have imagined, and then some.

Being a father is wonderful, I wish more people felt that way.

No excuses, no regreats. Only the need for me to start writing this thing earlier in the day.

‘Cause I’m tired.”

After all, I see the light. Whatever it takes to get there, right?

There are a few layers I see here:

• Minimal cash flow: taking what I can get to pay the bills.
• Blog income: establishing in the niche of proper blogging. Somehow monetizing.
• Publishing: the app, the business, the glory.

Perhaps this could really happen?

Cash flow is SO important, isn’t it? Get cash flow and you’ve got stability. After cash flow comes some startup money, cash to build my pillars of support in various channels.

Then what I really need is the ability to raise capital. I need the social support, awareness to pull this off. Can it be done?

Time is of the essence, because people are stepping forward. People who can crush me in a second.

The real challenge is that all three tiers have to relate to my grand vision of publishing…

Sometimes I think I’m crazy, but maybe I have a chance. I don’t really know.

Faith, fate and reality.

I always think there’s a really good, fated future ahead, but lately I don’t know. Seems like I’m stuck in the mud to the bitter end.

The issue is I think I feel something within. It’s what keeps me going every day. But jeez, I don’t know. The pressure is mounting, time is passing, opportunities are slipping, the world is moving, life is just plain going by.

What I dream of versus what is real are two totally different things. How to make dreams reality?