Though I admittedly am a bit of a Scrooge I realize most people I know very much enjoy the holiday season. So for those of you who come into this category I wish you all the best!

Make use of Google Books!

I discovered this as a very handy tool for some of the writing projects that I have on. First of all, you have to realize that I live in Bangkok, Thailand, so I am not only remote from any major English language library but I also travel an awful lot during the year so what research that I have to do obviously has to involve searching on the web. And starting on the web is not the lazy way, it is the smart way. At the same time, we all have known the arguments about using, and worse yet, citing Wikipedia (though I would recommend using Wikipedia for ideas and background knowledge). Virtually any other site on the internet cannot give you primary sources. Google Books, though, quite often can get you information that you need if you know how to search properly. This is especially true if you are doing historical research. The resources found inside Google Books are very good for finding great autobiographies / biographies, works from the time period, copies of rare works and first run prints, etc. And quite often Google books is better than Project Gutenberg as well since the works in Google books generally are simply facsimile copies of the original source. Sometimes the Gutenberg book is not. Also, for citations the pagination is more likely to be correct on Google Books due to the formatting in Gutenberg, though the HTML versions of the Gutenberg books tend to be fairly accurate. You will also need to consider that though the Gutenberg Project is working very hard at fixing misprints, misspellings and the like, you only seem to have these in the Google Books works if the original is in bad shape. However, you can generally still make out the text.

Is this perfect? Absolutely not. Where Google Books falls down when doing research is when you come to works that are not yet in the public domain and are still on sale. Most, if not all, of these books have parts of the book or even the majority of the book blocked out so you cannot reach the entire publication online or in a reader. But this isn’t necessarily always bad though. There are times when it is better to buy the book or at least check it out of the library. And I am not a shortcut kind of guy when I research. I want the entire relevant text there so I work at having it all at my fingertips. If I can’t do this with a Google Books book then I try to purchase the book outright. (I do this because I don’t have access to a major research library, remember? You might be able to get away without purchasing these books where you live.)

Don’t get me wrong. I don’t think that doing all of your research in Google Books is a great thing. True research is much more detailed and involved than that. You have to follow up every source that is relevant to your project, and even some that turn out not to be. I do however believe that Google Books (and Project Gutenberg, for that matter) are great resources that are available on the web now that obviously weren’t there before. And I bet you non-fiction and historical fiction writers can definitely think of projects that you could use Google Books at least as a starting point before you vistit that big research library.

Let me know what you think!

Folks, we are in the twenty-first century. You don’t have to have media behind you to start out with. You don’t need to be an extrovert. You don’t need anything more than the space between your ears and WordPress (or Blogger, Typepad, Posterous or Tumblr or whatever platform you wont to use). Two perfect examples are Gary Vayerchuck and Tim Ferriss.

Let me give you some solid reasons why using your blog can be better than traditional public relations.

You can direct your message specifically to the audience you are trying to reach

I know there are loads of magazines, television, radio, and yes, other people’s blogs out there. But what are you writing about? Now think. Are there any of these outlets that fit your message to a tee exactly? And even if there is one out there with 99% overlap with your audience there could be loads of reasons they might not run your message. You could be bumped by other news. They might not think your message is timely for them. It could be they have “too much” news for their current issue. (Yes, this does happen!) When you write your own blog post none of this matters at all. Your message gets out there every time.

You can say exactly what you want

Your message can be as long or as short as it needs to be (though you should be mindful of length). And you say exactly what you want. There is no editor to cut parts of your message away. There is no interviewer to misinterpret what you had to say. There is no reporter to get your facts wrong. You say what you need to say and what you want to say. And this is gold, my friends.

Your message gets delivered when you want it to

That’s right. If you have a Christmas message then your message goes out on Christmas. If you need to get to the presses right away, well, how fast can you type? With traditional media, again, you are on their schedule. When they release the story (if they release the story) then that’s when you get heard. Not when you take charge with your blog. You never miss a deadline – unless you, yourself, miss the deadline!

The price is right!

You can put your message out there for little or no money. The only thing you really need is persistence and sweat. And name me anything out there in this great big world that is worthwhile but not worth your persistence and sweat?

And you can get “followed”

People who like what you have to say and want to hear more will always have the option to get mail and RSS follow ups as long as you make sure that can happen. This means that the more you have to say of relevance to the people you are directing your message to, the more you will actually have an audience. That’s right. If you know who you are trying to reach and you direct yourself to them long enough, you will reach them.

To me, that is more than enough reason to keep turnin’ and burnin’ at your blogging. It will make sure that the right people will hear your voice at the end of the day. I promise!

Related articles:

• TypePad, We Love You! Here’s Why…
• 6 Useful Tricks and Tips for Newbie Blogger
• Social Media: If Content Is King, Then Storytelling Is Queen. 18 Checkpoints To Consider.
• Creating and Sharing Valuable Content on Tumblr

Changes to How You Share Content in Notes

You currently automatically import content from your website or blog into your Facebook notes. Starting November 22nd, this feature will no longer be available, although you’ll still be able to write individual notes. The best way to share content from your website is to post links on your Wall. Learn more about notes.

I have read that this could be a “quality vs. quality” issue, but personally, I think it is a matter is not well enough thought out. This will definitely lead me further to the arms of Google+.

Facebook is taking away a convenience without asking (ergo, not caring) about their end users’ opinions

First of all, as a writer and a blogger, the RSS import saved incalculable amounts of time, not just in the amount of time it would take off from my having to do the updates manually, but also to the amount of time that I would have from publishing to feedback from readers is also lengthened. And I have had no complaints about the quality of the posting. In the meantime I am much less likely to spend my working time every day to make the posts – posts which I were automated before. So I have choices to make. Do I now do this manually, myself? Do I assign one of my employees to do it? Or do I simply put less posts on walls?

If you have to spend the effort, maybe Google+ is more worth it

For me, the more I experiment with Google+ the more I see that its premise is better than Facebook for marketing purposes. Of course I can target whoever is in my circles for various different postings, and I am targeted by those who are in my interest zones. If I am going to spend the time to manually update my blog, I think more and more it will be the Google product. The only drawback I can see with them compared to updating my blog posts manually on Facebook is that at the moment Facebook has a massive population in comparison. But Google+ makes up for this by that quality of the targeted audience.

When I consider the fact that Twitter is still automatically posting the updates and that if I have to do all of this blog post updating manually, then it goes without saying that Facebook will be seeing less of me and Google+ will be seeing a bit more. And that’s that.

About Gary Dale Cearley:

Gary Dale Cearley is an American author, columnist, polyglot and businessman who has lived in Asia for two decades. He is a graduate of the Defense Language Institute, the University of the State of New York (Excelsior College) and the University of Oklahoma. He works in the field of international business-to-business networking and his passions are all things language, history and libertarian politics. Gary Dale is also an avid reader and book reviewer. You can reach Gary Dale directly by clicking here.

Follow me!

Changes to How You Share Content in Notes

You currently automatically import content from your website or blog into your Facebook notes. Starting November 22nd, this feature will no longer be available, although you’ll still be able to write individual notes. The best way to share content from your website is to post links on your Wall. Learn more about notes.

I have read that this could be a “quality vs. quality” issue, but personally, I think it is a matter is not well enough thought out. This will definitely lead me further to the arms of Google+.

Facebook is taking away a convenience without asking (ergo, not caring) about their end users’ opinions

First of all, as a writer and a blogger, the RSS import saved incalculable amounts of time, not just in the amount of time it would take off from my having to do the updates manually, but also to the amount of time that I would have from publishing to feedback from readers is also lengthened. And I have had no complaints about the quality of the posting. In the meantime I am much less likely to spend my working time every day to make the posts – posts which I were automated before. So I have choices to make. Do I now do this manually, myself? Do I assign one of my employees to do it? Or do I simply put less posts on walls?

If you have to spend the effort, maybe Google+ is more worth it

For me, the more I experiment with Google+ the more I see that its premise is better than Facebook for marketing purposes. Of course I can target whoever is in my circles for various different postings, and I am targeted by those who are in my interest zones. If I am going to spend the time to manually update my blog, I think more and more it will be the Google product. The only drawback I can see with them compared to updating my blog posts manually on Facebook is that at the moment Facebook has a massive population in comparison. But Google+ makes up for this by that quality of the targeted audience.

When I consider the fact that Twitter is still automatically posting the updates and that if I have to do all of this blog post updating manually, then it goes without saying that Facebook will be seeing less of me and Google+ will be seeing a bit more. And that’s that.

About Gary Dale Cearley:

Gary Dale Cearley is an American author, columnist, polyglot and businessman who has lived in Asia for two decades. He is a graduate of the Defense Language Institute, the University of the State of New York (Excelsior College) and the University of Oklahoma. He works in the field of international business-to-business networking and his passions are all things language, history and libertarian politics. Gary Dale is also an avid reader and book reviewer. You can reach Gary Dale directly by clicking here.

Follow me!

Yesterday I had a bit of a chat with a friend of mine who I would consider quite intelligent. He has lots of neat ideas and constantly shares them with me and other people. I asked him whether he ever blogged and recommended that he do it if he didn’t. His response was interesting. Depressing and a bit harsh but still interesting. He said “I never can think of blogging. It is akin to vomiting on the web. The problem is there are too many voicing their opinions and most often they stink, or are amateurish.”

I won’t identify this friend because I don’t think he would want that. If you look at his statement about blogging then you might be able to understand why he would be against being identified. Reading between the lines it is very easy to assume that it is a privacy matter and he prefers to maintain privacy.

But that is not all there is to his short, but very harsh, critique of blogging. Taking out his first two statements, (“I never can think of blogging. It is akin to vomiting on the web.”), let’s look closely at the second two points:

1) “The problem is there are too many voicing their opinions…”: I find this assertion interesting to say the least. How can one understand, quantify or rate how many opinions are too many to be voiced? My personal belief, which just may be very American, is that anyone who has an opinion has a right to voice it. Society is much the better for voiced opinions. And with blogging you can shut out these opinions, if you prefer not to hear them, by simply choosing not to read the blog postings! Don’t want an opinion from a blog? Cool! Don’t read it.

2) “…and most often they stink, or are amateurish.”: I don’t agree. Though many blogs do stink I would not say that “most often” blogs stink. And most bloggers are amateurs when it comes to the world of writing. But that having been said, every blog is different and exists for different purposes. Some are for businesses. Some for information dissemination. Others are simply journals of the authors’ daily lives. Blogs don’t need to be elegant. They just need to be able to communicate. Some blogs might need polish, but it doesn’t take Einstein to know that 99.9999999999% of the bloggers don’t have Pulitzer prizes. No one should expect blogs to be more than what they are.

I am a little disheartened at my friend’s opinion of blogs. I find them to be great pipelines of ideas. I am more than a little disheartened in the standard he believes he has set here. The truth of the matter is that blogs do matter. They are a very grand avenue in the sharing of ideas. And though I think my friend’s idea about blogging stinks, I would love for him to start blogging about his other ideas. I think a whole world would open up to him.

About Gary Dale Cearley:

Gary Dale Cearley is an American author, columnist, polyglot and businessman who has lived in Asia for two decades. He is a graduate of the Defense Language Institute, the University of the State of New York (Excelsior College) and the University of Oklahoma. He works in the field of international business-to-business networking and his passions are all things language, history and libertarian politics. Gary Dale is also an avid reader and book reviewer. You can reach Gary Dale directly by clicking here.

Follow me!

Now I am looking at the possibility of going mainly book free and it scares me a little and excites me at the same time.

I have been pretty public about the fact that after so many years I am finally, FINALLY, starting to read ebooks. When I reluctantly switched from my Nokia C-7000 (still a damned good phone) to my iPhone late summer I tested the waters by reading a few books on iBooks. And I was hooked! Now I own my own Kindle and am hoarding (and reading) loads of books again.

Oddly enough, I am reading more books than I did before – or at least in the past few years. Why? Because I always have books with me now. Always.

I read when I am waiting on a friend. I read at lunch. I read in the bathroom. I read on the airplanes, in the airports, on the Bangkok BTS (sky train), in taxis. And in bed. The bottom line is that I have found more places to read than I ever have before. And I am enjoying it. Last year, in Johannesburg, I bought a nice computer carrying pull along bag. I used to load it with six or seven books per trip. Not anymore.

So now what to do with my books? I realize that I have still to read several of them and many I don’t want to give up. So I am very reluctant to get rid of the books that are around my house. I also worry that if I got rid of the books around the house that I would discourage the children from reading. (Is that unfounded?) I have read several blogs from people who I have followed and respected who have claimed they were going completely "bookless" now and I have been thinking whether this is a real option myself, especially as an erstwhile writer. My mind isn’t fully wrapped around this yet. Going bookless could definitely unclutter my home and office. But I have always believed that the world was just so much better with books around.

Am I a dinosaur who is struggling against the inevitable or is my reluctance from a rational perspective. I think I will feel this out as I go along. But one thing I do know is that I am enjoying the hell out of ebooks right now and I am sure that this will continue.

Let me know if you have any ideas for this!

And a little luck!

Everything else sort of falls into place.

Now I am looking for ways to get books that I already have into the Kindle. Believe me, you will be sure to hear more about this Kindle experience in the future. So stay tuned…