Book Learning Can Enhance On The Job Training

July 23, 2011

While working at a creative company I noticed that the employees working there who were in the marketing department usually didn’t make as much sense to me as the artistic people did.  They were definitely business people who wore suits and were concerned about money and didn’t seem to have as much of a sense of humor as the creative types. I started out in the marketing department and branched out to other departments so I get to experience all types of employees.

One of the things I liked about my job was that the company had a progressive attitude about learning.  I started working there doing a marketing project and then finally got some work as a production assistant and then I changed departments to testing.  I was a natural at it but I didn’t have much education or experience in that area.  My manager at that time gave me a budget and let me go shopping for testing books.  This was helpful and necessary because it was kind of an unusual field that most people at that time just fell into.  I was good with computers but I never expected I’d be testing video games for a living so I needed all the outside help I could get.

While I was looking at testing books I also tried to find a marketing book for an online writer.  This was because I did special projects for the company for the marketing department where I compared their products with other similar successful products from other companies.  I wanted the marketing book too because I needed to understand some of the things I was supposed to compare about the competing products.

The job was actually really fun because I got to play children’s video games from other companies as well as working on them for the company where I was employed.  I never expected I would do such a job so this was the main reason I found myself exploring bookstores trying to find a marketing book and good books about testing.  I fell into it initially because I had done writing projects in the past, a friend of mine was working for this creative company and he thought I might be a good match.  It turned out I was, and I stayed with the company for about two years.  I learned a lot on the job, because I definitely needed to and the books I bought really did help.

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Clever Marketing Ploys For A New Author

July 19, 2011

One form of free advertising around right now that can really help you to book marketing on the internet is the informal reader review on bookselling websites.  I have a couple of friends who have published books and they have gotten people they know to write reviews for them on some of these sites.  One man wrote a book about his experiences in Antarctica.  It’s a hilarious book, but I think the initial printing was small partly because it was his first book.  He utilized some of the larger online booksellers to help him market book by using their handy reader review feature.

We worked together at a creative company where we both made many friends.  He got several of these friends who were all literary people or animators to write reviews for him.  I thought about writing one myself because a mutual friend gave me a copy of the book for a gift, but I was too busy right then to sit down and read it.  I didn’t want to write a fake review of a book I hadn’t really read so I let other people help him out.  I have read the book now because it’s years later.  I don’t know if he ended up selling enough books to have a second printing because our mutual friend moved to San Francisco and it’s harder for us to stay in close touch.  I did think that it’s a clever marketing idea to try to pull in people who will want to read your book by utilizing online reader reviews.

The author of the book about Antarctica has other irons in the fire anyway.  He made a short film about his Northern experiences as well and I believe that he’s gotten some good exposure through that too.  When I first met him, he was writing homemade zines about sharks.  So I guess he grew a lot in his scope of who he would reach through his writing anyway.  I am sure he is still involved happily in creative adventures.

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The Need For A Good Knitting Book

July 15, 2011

Knitting is a popular arts and crafts activity.  I have tried it several times myself.  I learned the basics when I was a child, and then I took it up again as an adult.  It’s a meditative activity.  I used to do it sometimes in the mornings when I was still groggy as a way [...]

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How To Publish Your Own Books For Fun and Profit

July 12, 2011

When I was a child I started to write the Japanese form of poetry called haiku. My teacher had our entire class do this one day and I found that for me it was a great way to write poetry. I liked the syllable counting aspect that I had to fit my words to. My [...]

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Ways A Writer Can Get Exposure

July 8, 2011

It is a good thing for writers to get exposure.  This is my premise.  Today, if you go online and do searches on just about anything you will get to see a writer getting some exposure.  Online writers vary from lay people writing about subjects that mean a lot to them personally such as people [...]

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Make Yourself Known

July 1, 2011

If you have a good internet connection at your home and some free time you can do all kinds of fun things.  If you like to read a lot you will find that there are many online authors these days.  This includes famous authors who have either posted their writings themselves, or had a big [...]

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