bennesvig

I subscribe to NextDraft, which sends me a daily email with top stories. One of the few newsletters I enjoy.

http://nextdraft.com/

Heads up that you have duplicate title tags.

Yeah. I've written a few non-fiction humor books that don't make me laugh but others enjoy. It's similar to how I can't tickle myself. The only way I can enjoy my writing is if I forgot that I wrote it.

Not really with Rodney Mullen's tricks. A lot of the amazing stuff he does with a skateboard doesn't involve a vert ramp or grinding over stairs - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1U-cgn3cEGA

Make the copy more benefit focused. Take inspiration from https://agilebits.com/onepassword

A DJI Phantom 2 with the Zenmuse H3-3D and a GoPro 3+ or 4 can take amazingly smooth and high quality footage (example - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lRC-8pCCCys ). There are also drones that can fly with DSLRs.

$200-$600 a month from a book I wrote 2 years ago: http://www.amazon.com/First-World-Problems-Reasons-Terrorist...

Off the top of my head, here are 11 ways to improve your writing.

1. Vary sentence length 2. Vary sentence construction 3. Use parallel construction 4. Put emphatic words at the end 5. Read your writing out loud 6. Avoid repeating uncommon words close together 7. Write in the active voice 8. Write about what something/someone does instead of what they are 9. Appeal to the senses, mainly the visual 10. Be specific 11. Delete unnecessary words

Not sure why they show a DJI Phantom when it clearly wasn't one.

I remember being tired every day in Jr. High and High School, struggling to not fall asleep. Once the school day was over, I'd suddenly get a huge boost of energy.

And authors would be willing to pay for banner ads or sponsored recommendations on the site.

Find writing that you love and deconstruct it. What techniques do they use? How do they tell stories? How do they start/end their writing?

Reading great writing will also influence your own writing as well, especially if you read before writing. It "primes" you to write in a similar style.

I wrote 750 words a day for over 400 days and http://750words.com played a huge role in motivating me. Not wanting to break the chain kept me coming back to write on days when I didn't feel like it.

One of the deepest desires people have is to belong to a group. For the vast majority of history, isolation from a group meant death. Therefor people have a natural instinct to follow the behavior of a group even if it's something they wouldn't do on their own (like riot after their sports team wins/loses). Seeing someone do something also gives people the feeling of approval, whether valid or not.

It's bizarre that it's legal to fly a drone/quadcopter as a hobby, but not if you charge for the services. If there were laws about flying above a certain height or over people in well populated areas, that would make more sense than just banning commercial use.

There are going to be a lot of drone-based businesses soon. I got a DJI Phantom 2 last month and have been amazed at the quality of footage that it can capture with a GoPro. The learning curve is much easier than hand-held stabilizers I've used, like the Glidecam.

Rdio for music.

302 is a temporary redirect.

Listen to James Altucher's podcast with SJ Scott. He made 40k last month by continuing to publish several books to amazon.

Looks great. The one thing I'd also offer is a .mobi version so it can be read on a Kindle/Kindle app. I do a lot of highlighting in books and PDFs don't work well for that.

In this video a comedian talks about how he dealt with his daughter having cancer while appearing on the Tonight Show:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qdBJ1X33rXM

A lot of comedy comes from pain. I think Peter McGraw's benign violation theory partially explains this. According to McGraw's theory, humor comes from a "violation" or something negative that is made benign. Comedians learn to take the negative and transform it into something humorous.

People also say that many comedians have a more realistic view of the harshness of life. This reminds me of the quote from GK Chesterton, “Always be comic in a tragedy. What the deuce else can you do?"

Pick a specific audience and build them a platform or a way to connect with others looking for their services.

Some random ideas I just came up with are below. Not all of them passive, but might still interest you.

- Website with WordPress templates for real estate agents.

- WordPress multisite network that enables real estate agents to create a site quickly and then pay a monthly hosting fee. You could scale this by selling to different real estate companies, getting all of their agents a personal site.

- Mobile marketing for restaurants. Create a service that enables restaurants to send text message deals to customers.

- Pick an audience that interests you and post user generated content. Then sell ads/sponsorships to companies that want to be in front of that audience. For example, if you create a site for people to submit cute dog pictures, a company like BarkBox might pay for sponsorship.

- Teach people a skill and use Amazon affiliate links to the tools that you use (if possible).

- Marketing analytics. Build a tool that integrates with Google analytics and provides recommended actions to take to improve website performance.

- Create a stock photo site for a specific niche (doctors, lawyers, start ups, etc).

- Create a directory for a specific niche and then sell top placement on that directory.

- Create a site that allows people who don't know how to code to make an app.

Synthesize the knowledge from hundreds of books I've read into short chunks of consumable advice, similar to The Personal MBA.

That or write several fiction books.

I'd use it for writing, but then copy over the text to something like Scrivener.

I assume the same way they do with KDP Select where prime members can borrow a free book once a month. Amazon will set aside a pool of money and divide it among the books that were read each month as part of the program.

As an author with two books enrolled in KDP select, I didn't know they'd be included in Kindle Unlimited. It will be interesting to see if this has any effect on sales.

The one thing that would be great to see is a comparison of video shot with the app and the same video shot without the app.

You should watch the documentary Everything is a Remix:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=coGpmA4saEk

I like this idea.

Just reviewing my notes from that book now. Great read. "Anyone not busy learning is busy dying."