“If Mr. Leavitt’s study of the press and is methods is to be measured by the amount of invective he heaped upon it, he might well be awarded a diploma as its grand censor. To crystallize his sixty or seventy minutes of speaking into a few words, he seemed to regard the newspaper press as a horrible octopus which was reaching out its arms and threatening to topple over the foundation stones of civilization and liberty. He charged the press with being unscrupulous, ever ready to publish scandalous or defamatory matter provided that money, influence, or personal spite supported it. Nobody could go to bed at night with a surety of awakening in the morning with his reputation intact and unsullied, according to Mr. Leavitt.”

– New York Times, May 13th, 1890

Tim Sheppard’s Storytelling Resources

No I have absolutely no artistic talent, this is borrowed from the wonderful Freelance Switch and N.C. Winters.

Your products are predictable. Your insights are recycled. You don’t bring surprise with you when you enter a room.

That’s why people are ignoring you.

Which used to be fine, because you could just buy attention for your brand or your company or your sales efforts. But that half-price sale on attention is now over.

- Seth Godin

Let’s face it: we have entered an era of media convergence that makes the flow of content across multiple media channels almost inevitable. The move toward digital effects in film and the improved quality of video game graphics means that it is becoming much more realistic to lower production costs by sharing assets across media. Everything about the structure of the modern entertainment industry was designed with this single idea in mind-the construction and enhancement of entertainment franchises.

- Transmedia Storytelling

This is a curious rule and it took me a long time to learn because in fact at the beginning of my practice I felt the opposite. Professionalism required that you didn’t particularly like the people that you worked for or at least maintained an arms length relationship to them, which meant that I never had lunch with a client or saw them socially. Then some years ago I realised that the opposite was true. I discovered that all the work I had done that was meaningful and significant came out of an affectionate relationship with a client. And I am not talking about professionalism; I am talking about affection. I am talking about a client and you sharing some common ground. That in fact your view of life is someway congruent with the client, otherwise it is a bitter and hopeless struggle.

- Milton Glaser: Ten Things I Have Learned

Very Hard is the extreme of hard problems. You’ll often see both words capitalised for emphasis, even in the middle of a sentence. Indexing the entire World Wide Web and providing relevant search results in millisecond response times is a Very Hard problem. Breaking commercial-grade encryption within practical hardware and time limitations is a Very Hard problem. Peace in the Middle East is a Very Hard problem.

- Understand Engineers: Feasibility

Excellent example of self-publishing from our friend Chris Guillebeau. Great topic, too! http://artmoneyguide.com/