The book’s author/compiler, George Beahm, is a successful pop culture companion book author, with titles on Stephenie Meyer, Stephen King, Ann Rice, Harry Potter, Pirates of the Caribbean, and others, at various houses big and small.
The market for this book is clear from the plenty of other “in His Own Words” books—including our author Lisa Rogak’s recent New York Times bestselling Barack Obama in His Own Words and Michelle Obama in Her Own Words.
As I’ve done several of these quote books, I can tell you various lawyers at other houses have answered the obvious copyright/permissions question for me on other books.
George is going to be within the Fair Use guidelines whenever he is quoting from published statements copyrighted by Jobs or Apple, and there are no restrictions on excerpting and reproducing quotes from interviews with third parties (Jobs) in other media outlets.
There’s no copyright/usage/permissions issue here. When it comes to quote books, less is more. So George looked at several hundred quotes by Jobs and narrowed them down to 200 that he felt cover his range of thinking on virtually every topic of interest.
Because these are impulse buys and gift book, George understands the most important elements are the right price point, these days about US$10.95, a small trim size (e.g., squarebound at 5”-6”), and the US publisher plans to use a design that highlights one and sometimes two quotations per page. This gives the quotations room to breathe, instead of crowding them all on one page. In designing the book, they plan to take a design cue from the recent bestseller Obama’s Blackberry, and have each page of this book look like a screen of an iPad or iPhone.
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George Beahm popularized the reader-friendly literary companion with the publication of The Stephen King Companion in 1989. Since then, he has published companion books on Stephenie Meyer, Michael Jordan, Pirates of the Caribbean, Patricia Cornwell, J.R.R. Tolkien, J.K. Rowling, C.S. Lewis, and Philip Pullman.
more information please visit www.mendelmedia.com
When Apple Talks: Steve Jobs in His Own Words by by George Beahm
The Innovation Secrets of Steve Jobs
What kind of genius creates a product and brand that is so strong and so powerful that:
* People will wait outside the handful of retail outlets that distribute the product, even though…
* The product has some technical features which are less desirable than the alternative?
* It has basic functions that actually cause developers and design firms to design around them?
* Hackers break into the device so that desperate customers from certain wireless providers can use it?
* It has an audience that’s so loyal they will beg and plead with their cell phone carriers for access to the exclusive device?
Yeah – I want to be that brand. If you hadn’t guessed what brand I’m talking about, then you must have been under a rock for the last decade or so. It’s Apple. And the brains and vision behind the brand belongto Steve Jobs. Jobs’ unique way of looking at the world and presenting his ideas has earned him a reputation that’s nothing short of guru status.
Wanna Be Like Steve? There’s a Book for That
When I received a review copy of The Innovation Secrets of Steve Jobs: Insanely Different Principles for Breakthrough Success, I didn’t know what to expect. It was written by Carmine Gallo (@carminegallo), author of The Presentation Secrets of Steve Jobs, so I thought it might have some useful insights about how to innovate or think innovatively.
It did. The book is rooted in the Seven Principles inspired by Steve Jobs:
1. Do What You Love: Think differently about your career.
2. Put a Dent in the Universe: Think differently about your vision.
3. Kick Start Your Brain: Think differently about how you think.
4. Sell Dreams, Not Products: Think differently about your customers.
5. Say No to 1,000 Things: Think differently about design.
6. Create Insanely Great Experiences: Think differently about your brand experience.
7. Master the Message. Think differently about your story.
Overall, it’s business motherhood and apple pie, filtered through the uniquely creative mind of Steve Jobs. It’s important to recognize, however, that each of us is our own unique person, and the only person who can think or be like Steve Jobs is …. Steve Jobs.
As I was reading the book, I really got a sense of Jobs’ unique life experiences and the way he has gone about the business of living and working. When he dropped out of college, he didn’t create Apple – in fact, he didn’t know what to do, so he took a calligraphy class. In fact, Jobs has lived his life following his passion in all things.
The book puts a lot of emphasis on how he followed his heart and that left me thinking that if I had “followed my heart” as much as he followed his, I’d be couch surfing and maybe working at a minimum wage job.
There is no doubt that Steve Jobs has something special. He lives his life in a certain way; in fact, it seems that his focus was never to build an empire, but to be and do what his heart led him to be and do. I don’t mean to sound metaphysical about this, but had he not met Steve Wozniak or had he gone to an accounting class instead of calligraphy, things could have turned out differently. Apple wouldn’t be Apple. Yet, I believe Jobs would still have the same philosophy of life. Maybe he would have opened a restaurant instead of launching Apple, but his core wouldn’t change.
Don’t Be Steve Jobs – Be YOU
I started my journey through this book thinking that it was a “How to be Steve Jobs” manual and learned that it was a “How to be your best self” manual. In between, I got confirmation on the basics of creating great customer experiences, selling dreams instead of products and all those things that pull at our heartstrings.
I’m not sure exactly what my version of Jobs’ list would be. But I’m pretty clear that this book is calling all small business owners to take a serious look at our core principles. We are all so much more than the businesses that we run.
If you’re remotely interested in CEO biographies and want additional perspective on how to transform your business, your product and how you are in the world, this is a great read. You can expect to have some lightbulb moments in the process. Maybe you’ll grab an insight about a new way to do things. Maybe you’ll decide that what you really need to do is take a dance class or go hiking on the Appalachian Trail. Regardless, you’ll come out of this book with your mind a little more open to thinking innovatively. [source]
Google Banned Autoblog and Auto Generate Content
If you think you have a blog that generate automatic content for you and you have to make adsence income on auto pilot….. I just say the one word LOL……
The fact is google search engine does not give weightage to such autoblogs.
Such as autoblog are made for adsence you will be find that ads are placed all around the content for more CTR and more focus are given to ads not on the content.
Now Google Adsence team made it official they do not allowed Adsence ads on autoblog and it’s a violation of Adsence policies to use Adsence on autoblog.
This is the official statement from Google Adsence :
Fact: We don’t allow sites with auto-generated or otherwise unoriginal content to participate in the AdSense program. This is to ensure that our users are benefiting from a unique online experience and that our advertisers are partnering with useful and relevant sites.
So if you use a autoblog and use Adsence on it remove adsence on it before you are gating banned from adsence for “violation of Adsence policies” or use some Adsence alternative.
John Wood: Left Microsoft to Change the World
This book presents John Wood’s account of how he founded Room to Read, a non-profit organization that provides books, classrooms and computer rooms in developing countries, particularly Nepal, Cambodia, Vietnam, Sri Lanka and South Africa among others. John Wood showed amazing transformational leadership in the realm of social entrepreneurship!
The life-changing 3-week vacation
It all started with a three-week trek in Nepal. John Wood was enjoying a great career at Microsoft’s Australia office. Nice house. Nice car. Demanding but rewarding career! What more could he ask for? Yet, after years of working, he had to take a three-week break to recapture his energies. He spent those three weeks trekking in Nepal.
John Wood met a headmaster named Pasupathi who told him about Nepal’s very high illiteracy rate. Pasupathi then offered to tour John Wood to the schools that he was supervising. It took several hours of walking and climbing.
Along the way, John Wood saw the dismal plight of the educational system in Nepal—the lack of desks, the dismal lack of libraries and books that students could use. He wondered how he can help them.
After that, some students and teachers asked him to come back with books!
As he went through his three-week vacation, he kept thinking about how to come back with books. He simply could not imagine a childhood without books!
Pursue your passion! Act on your dream right away!
Throughout the book Leaving Microsoft to Change the World, Wood keeps saying that if you want to change the world, don’t wait until you have it all figured out! By the time your plan is perfect, the world shall have moved and passed you by.
Right before leaving Kathmandu to return to his job, he sent an email to his friends asking for books or for donations that could be used to purchase books or cover the cost of shipping the books to Nepal.
With his initial project, he got a total of 37 books! The next year, he and his father Woody went to Nepal together to bring the books there. By this time, John Wood felt that he could do infinitely more for the cause of education in the country.
A conviction was forming in his heart that this is what he wants to do for the rest of his life!
Say goodbye to your previous life.
A series of events led John Wood to rethink his present relationship with Microsoft. He was moved to China. Some of his plans for Microsoft in China didn’t achieve the results he wanted. His live-in girlfriend did not share his passion for helping the developing world and his parents told him of the continued support for his efforts in getting books for Nepal.
Eventually, he decided to leave Microsoft for good and pursue the path of his passion! He said:
“I knew that I had to free myself from any constraints that would prevent the pursuit of these dreams.”
Those dreams were no longer for himself but for the eradication of illiteracy in the developing world. In essence, it was a bold move for him to change the world!
It was a painful decision for him to make. His immediate supervisor in China and his girlfriend felt betrayed because of his decision. But John Wood knew that the path of dreams is not easy and would require a little sacrifice from him.
Calculate the cost of pursuing your passion.
Before he left Microsoft though, he made an important calculation. He looked at the level of his savings. At the Microsoft stocks he owned and listed the adjustments he had to make.
If you want to be a transformational leader or a leader who wants to change the world, you need to calculate the cost of pursuing your passion. You don’t want to start now and then quit after six months because you realize it is a difficult road to take!
Establish the Foundation!
This means two things: you lay the foundation in which you will be working and secondly, you need to put up a non-profit organization that would be the vehicle of the change you want to accomplish.
John Wood established Books for Nepal, which was eventually renamed to Room to Read right after he realized he didn’t only want to help Nepal but other developing countries as well.
He did some research about how to put up his organization. What kind of tax classification he needed to attain and how he can raise funds for his operations. It was a one-man show at first but he eventually found a strong second-in-command and eventually, Room to Read grew to over fifty staff people in several countries.
Dream boldly. Set high goals!
Right at the start of his foray into the non-profit world, John Wood aimed for the stars. He proclaimed bold targets and, in a sense, world domination!
He said that if you proclaim bold goals and work towards them, you attract the best people and the best supporters who will help you achieve those goals.
The people who contacted John Wood to help in launching Room to Read in Vietnam, Sri Lanka and Cambodia were passionate people who saw what he was doing! They simply wanted to be part of something great and something big! They then contributed to making Room to Read expand beyond Nepal.
Get the right people.
If you get the right people, you will not have to worry about motivating them or coercing them to work! You simply define the results and let them go! In this case, you maximize their creativity while focusing on the things that need your attention.
Room to Read attracted bold people and ambitious people who truly wanted to change the world.
Give others the chance to change the world.
Not everyone can quit their jobs to follow their dreams. John Wood recognized that. Which is why, he decided to give them a chance to help in his advocacy by donating for his cause.
A lot of business people, employees and even pre-teen kids contributed their help for Room to Read! His account showed that if you do pursue your dream and let other people know, they will help you out.
A lot of times, John Wood said that the universe conspires to make your dreams come true if you only pursue them wholeheartedly!
Aim for low overhead costs.
John Wood did not take a salary for his work as CEO of Room to Read. Instead, he opted for low overhead cost so as to maximize the provision of programs and books to the countries where Room to Read operates.
This meant using his rental house as the first office. He did not hire staff as quickly as he wanted. Yet, he did not sacrifice the quality of the services delivered by Room to Read. A low overhead cost would mean that more money would go to books, classrooms and libraries.
Be transparent. Show the direct correlation between money given and results.
If there’s one thing that non-profit organizations should learn from John Wood and Room to Read, it is to be transparent and show the direct correlation between the money given and the results.
Room to Read’s model was that donors were sponsoring for one school or one library. This way, they can easily see the results through pictures and the number of children benefiting from those classrooms, libraries and computer rooms!
This principle would also attract more people to give to the cause of the organization.
Change the world one school and one library at a time.
To date, Room to Read has put up 1,129 schools and 9,196 libraries. They have published 433 books in the local languages of countries where they operate; they have distributed 7.4 million books! Sponsored 8,725 scholarships for girls and all in all, they have benefited 4.1 million children all over the world.
Who would have thought that Room to Read could grow this big! Right at the first steps of building this non-profit organization, John Wood was dead serious about reaching the world and growing big to combat illiteracy around the world!
Your turn to pursue your dream!
John Wood’s story is very touching! He let go of his personal comfort—his high paying job at Microsoft and even a romantic relationship—just to pursue his passion of helping put books in the hands of children all over the world!
I suggest you get a copy of Leaving Microsoft to Change the World. It can inspire and challenge you to do something out of the ordinary.
You may not be able to afford to leave your job for some social entrepreneurship but there are numerous opportunities for people to help in making the world a better place.
Please do check out the Room to Read website and the book of John Wood for more information and more inspiration!
Innovation Lessons from Steve Jobs
Lead, Don’t Follow
Steve Jobs has always been much more of a leader than a manager, and some might say that under him Apple has become a cult of personality. But I believe that his greatest strength is as a builder—we all know about Apple’s amazingly great products and services, but I think his most lasting legacy will be his success with building Apple into an incredible engine of innovation and profitable growth. Jim Collins of Good to Great fame would call this “clock building vs. time telling,” in other words, to build an enduring organization that will sustain itself long into the future beyond the tenure of the people that made it successful.
Leading the consumer is one of Steve Jobs’ great strengths and should be a key lesson in innovation for any company. In an interview shortly after the iPad was released in spring 2010, Jobs was asked what consumer and market research Apple did to guide the development of the iPad. He answered, “None, it’s not the job of the consumer to know what they want.”
The lesson for the rest of us mortals is “to find products, services, or new value that customers don’t know they need yet.” Some might call this the ability to see around the corner, which many people think is Steve Jobs’ real strength. Creating new offerings on the basis of emerging trends, insight into customer needs, and an instinctive understanding about what people want is at the heart of this approach to innovation. It creates the opportunity for “blue oceans” of markets without competitors and significant profitability. Just look at what Apple has accomplished in the last 10 years.
No One Size Fits All Solutions
Another thing we’ve learned from Steve Jobs about innovation is the need to build an approach to innovation that’s specific to each company. There is no “one size fits all” approach to innovation, clearly there are plenty of innovation models available to guide the way, but beware of using someone else’s approach.
The case in point at Apple relates to “Open Innovation.” Lots of academics and management writers have been enamored with open innovation since it was popularized by Henry Chesbrough in his book on the subject and the success A. G. Lafley had using it to reinvent Procter & Gamble. Open innovation holds that companies can and should use external ideas and external sources for intellectual property as well as internal ones to find new ways to grow. It makes perfect sense for many companies, but not for Steve Jobs and Apple, which are notoriously closed in their approach to innovation. But it sure works for Apple.
The Means Justify the Ends
Most of us have been led to believe the opposite. However, it’s been my experience that when companies follow their own paths to innovation that emphasize their values and strengths when designing, manufacturing, and selling innovative products, in many cases, positive results follow. This is the innovation engine approach to profitable growth and Apple is a perfect example. Most of us understand the rather nontraditional approach to innovation that Apple has taken over the years, which clearly follows the viewpoint of Steve Jobs. So here’s a quick take on the results at Apple for 2010:
* 71% revenue growth in 2010 and 60% more predicted for Q1 2011—totally amazing for a company the size of Apple
* 50% growth in markets in the Asia-Pacific region and Japan
* iTunes now generates $4B in annual sales
* iPhone sales increased 86% in Q4 2010—Apple can’t make enough, and now Verizon will begin selling iPhones in February
* Apple’s gross margin is 38.5% and has $60B in cash-on-hand
* Apple has no real competition in most of the markets it serves
Say what you will about Steve Jobs and Apple, but we can all learn a few things about innovation from them.
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Charlie Alter owns Bentbrook Advisors LLC based in Sylvania, Ohio. He specializes in Growth Strategy, Innovation, and Coaching and can be reached at calter@me.com. Visit http://bentbrookadvisors.com for more information on his business advisory practice.
Three Life Lessons From Steve Jobs
Much has already been written about Steve Jobs, and yet here comes another book, The Steve Jobs Way: iLeadership for a New Generation, by Jay Elliot, former SVP of Apple. I’m a Microsoft user myself, but as a business book junkie, I’ll take a chance on the latest management text.
If you’re an Apple fan, you’ll love the insider stories. If you’re an entrepreneur, you’ll get valuable business strategies. But if you’re neither an Apple groupie nor business owner, here are three life lessons to take away:
Prune ruthlessly. There are a lot of examples in book about how Jobs said No far more often than Yes and how he prioritized simplicity over bells and whistles. From a career perspective, this pruning could mean trimming your priorities to the critical few you can realistically manage. From a life perspective, this means pruning commitments, relationships and activities to only those that really matter. Are you running yourself ragged adding bells and whistles, rather than perfecting the things that really add value?
Stay the course. One of the most fascinating examples Elliot shared was Jobs’ investment in Pixar. It involved much more time and money than initially expected. The outcome looked grim. Yet the payoff was huge for Jobs who stayed the course long enough to reap the reward. The career corollary is obvious – it takes time to build expertise, a reputation, a network. The life corollary is in the other goals we set for ourselves – to save more, to get healthier, to improve a relationship. Often times you may be plugging away with little obvious reward. Then one day the savings account hits a milestone or the scale finally moves, and if you had given up during the lean years, you would have missed the big payoff. Do you sometimes give up too soon on a stubborn goal?
Don’t be afraid to be different. The Apple retail stores seem obvious in hindsight but were a huge risk at first. Elliot tells many stories of how Jobs saw things differently and capitalized on these differences to great success. Many jobseekers try to camouflage their career detours or non-traditional experiences, even though embracing these is often more effective. In life, we sometimes get pigeonholed by tradition or culture or the ways things have always been done. In what areas of life or career can you be different, do something differently, take that idiosyncrasy that you feel is a disadvantage and turn it around? [source: blog.forbes.com]
Steve Job's Life into Comic
Steve Jobs is nearly as iconic as his company logo. He's been called an innovator, risk-taker, a visionary and a genius. He's also been called unscrupulous, an egomaniac and a corporate pirate. Both sides of this complex personality are examined in an upcoming Bluewater Productions biography comic book tracing Jobs' life and career.
Scheduled for an August 2011 release, "Steve Jobs: Co-Founder of Apple" offers readers a unique insight into the Apple CEOs legendary drive to the top and his continuing fight to stay there.
"Admire him or hate him, Jobs' vision and business acumen revolutionized the world," said writer CW Cooke "Between he and Microsoft founder Bill Gates, you would be hard pressed to find someone with greater influence over how we communicate, interact and do business over the last 30 years."
The 32-page issue, penciled by Chris Schmidt (with cover art supplied by DC artist Joe Phillips), will be available in comic shops, bookstores and various online venues including Amazon, Barnes & Noble and Borders, for the cover price of $3.99. To make sure you get your copy, contact your local comic book store. To find a comic book store near you go to www.comicshoplocator.com or to pre-order it on Amazon click here: http://amzn.to/ieP4Nm
"His innovations command front page news, speculation of his health affects the stock market. Not bad for a college dropout," said Bluewater president Darren Davis. "His story, and that of Apple, is epic. I'm surprised it took us this long to publish a proper, balanced biography of him."
According to Bluewater, the impetus to publish the Jobs biography was based on the demand and success of Bluewater's biography comic featuring Mark Zuckerberg, the founder of Facebook. A graphic novel of the sold out Zuckerberg comic book will be in stores in September and retail for $10.99. To pre-order it on Amazon click here: http://amzn.to/kHobXS
"There are definitely some similarities between Zuckerberg and Jobs. It takes a certain kind of drive and a certain kind of genius to move society the way they have, added Cooke. "The idea behind both efforts is to show the person behind the personality and that it is never what you'd expect."
Such mainstream media outlets as the Washington Post, The Today Show, Wall Street Journal, New York Times and Forbes Magazine have covered Bluewater's biography comics. By covering such celebrities and political leaders as Lady Gaga, Angelina Jolie, Sarah Palin
source: http://www.bluewaterprod.com/news/stevejobs_announce.php
Self-published novelist Amanda Hocking makes millions from eBook sales
The monstrous success of 26-year-old self-published novelist Amanda Hocking challenges the economics of traditional book publishing.
Common knowledge says that, in order for an author to be successful, he or she needs a major book deal from a big-time publisher. But if the story of 26-year-old novelist Amanda Hocking is any indication, that could all be changing with the modern magic of e-books and self-publishing.
Hocking is the best-selling “indie” novelist on the Kindle store, reports Novelr, with around 100,000 copies of her 10 e-books selling each month. Unlike traditional book deals, however, Hocking keeps a whopping 70 percent of revenue earned from her books, which sell for $0.99 to $2.99 apiece. (Amazon keeps the other 30 percent.)
If you do the math, this means Hocking is earning somewhere in the neighborhood of $2 million per year — a staggering amount. In fact, according to Novelr, “there is no traditional publisher in the world right now that can offer Amanda Hocking terms that are better than what she’s currently getting, right now on the Kindle store, all on her own.”
The theory goes: If one author can earn major cash without the help of a traditional publisher, then it’s possible for others to do so. (As Business Insider points out, other authors, like J.A. Konrath, have done well selling e-books, but it was previously assumed that this was because those authors had already made a name for themselves through their old-timey printed works.) And if others can do so, then it changes the entire landscape of the book publishing world.
So what kind of books does Hocking write to have gained such an avid following? “Young adult urban fantasy and paranormal romance,” according to her Amazon biography. And by that she means books about vampires and zombies, with “a hint of romance.” That might sound a bit too much like Twilight for some of you. But something tells us Amanda Hocking isn’t too worried about that.
Zac Johnson: How I Made $860,538.38 in 4 Months!
First off, I would like to make it clear that this post is NOT to impress you, but to impress upon you what’s possible! This is a quick review on how Zac Johnson went from one of his worst years of making money online to his best year, and all it took was one big idea, one web site and several hundred hours of effort along with many sleepless nights.
Twitter Vs Facebook Vs Linkedin
This infographic designed by Ad Age shows a complete breakdown of who uses the most popular social networks. Unsurprisingly Facebook came out on top with the most users male or female. Worldwide, the U.S. held the top position for most Facebook and LinkedIn users by an overwhelming number. Aside from LinkedIn, most users across all the social networks were between the ages of 18-24 and 35-54. The 18-24 age range is one of the largest groups of social media users; however, they’re also one of the smallest populations in the country. In a more surprising number, less than 10 percent of the population uses Twitter.
