Smashwords.com is one of the three places I’m focusing my Amber Scott Project on. The other two are Amazon Kindle and Scribd.com. Smashwords has been sending me newsletters since I put my NaNoWriMo work in progress up with them. First, how cool that they support NaNoWriMo and writers in such a way. And second, they are in works to place their qualifying titles with Barnes and Noble, Sony, and (drum roll please) Amazon Kindle. WooHoo!

Why is this so exciting? For one, it demonstrates just how serious they are about the success of their writers. And for another, this will save me a huge potential headache because I won’t have to necessarily know html or DTP for Play Fling’s Kindle uploading. All I have to do is adhere to Smashwords style guide and take responsibility for marketing my books.

I’ll take it!

:}Amber Scott

Eight pieces for piano solo. Complete score.

Audiofiles available via Internet Archive.

Here’s something extremely obscure!

A few years ago I spent a lot of time in Singapore and, as always, wanted to understand their system of vehicle registration places (license plates).

The basic system is easy to understand.Wikipedia has some basic documentation here.

Here’s an illustration from Wikipedia of a current private vehicle plate design (front and rear).

It’s British heritage is obvious but the Singapore Government made an enhancement that’s unusual. Almost every license plate (apart from military and diplomatic plates) has an alphabetic character at the end. It’s not a “year letter” like the old British system but a “check character”.

The check character is calculated from the values of the other characters in the plate and serves as a validator. If you make a mistake recording the plate the check character will be wrong.

As far as I know the Singapore Government does not document the check character generation algorithm for the public. I had a big database of Singapore license plates I’d observed and back in 2002 I tried to reverse-engineer the algorithm.

My mathematics isn’t the best so I got some help from somebody on the Internet. He quickly helped me understand the system and I wrote some Microsoft Visual Basic code to calculate check characters and to validate them.

I published a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet with the code on my web site, but I closed it down in 2007 as an economy measure. When I discovered Scribd I decided to re-publish it as a service to anyone else who’s interested in the subject.

In the spirit of open-source I placed the code in the public domain under a GNU General Public License. I don’t know how many people are interested in this obscure subject but if you are, you’re welcome to the code.

After the break is an embedded form of the spreadsheet from Scribd. Don’t worry about the “VALUE” errors in the preview – Scribd rendered the preview incorrectly.

I am not a great Visual Basic coder so I’m sure many people can improve the code. I’ve tested it on hundreds of Singapore plates of all types including the new “SMB” bus plates and it works. But of course that isn’t a formal proof of correctness. As the license says – no warranty!

When I wrote the code I put lists of validated registration plates for the various classes of Singapore buses on the Singapore Buses Discussion Board on Yahoo Groups. They’re still there in the “Files” section over seven years later.

Hola a tots!

Avui descansarem d’enigmes.

A classe ens han demanat que posem una presentació que hem creat, i un text d’un treball, i publicar-lo a l’slideshare, i l’scribd.

El de l’slideshare, l’haig de tornar a a penjar, perquè hi ha hagut un error, però aquí us deixo el de l’scribd.

Fins la pròxima

In my Cert IV Web Design class at Kingscliff TAFE we are taught many different practical tools for use on the net and to get us out there testing what works.

Scribd is the largest social publishing company in the world, where tens of millions of people each month publish and discover original writings and documents. On Scribd, you can turn nearly any file into a web document and share it with the world. To view an article about how Scribd can substantially increase your viewing audience, click here

I have made some tutorials and uploaded them to my Scribd account, creating my own online library. By making the tutorials about lessons I want to remember, not only do I get practical experience re-creating the steps and have an on-line reference for the future, I am testing what information is needed by others out there on the web.

Adobe InDesign has become the industry standard for creating professional layouts and compiling content for printing and digital publishing. Last week we were taught some basics of using InDesign and I created a tutorial on Creating Hyperlinks in PDF files for on-line publishing and posted it as Blogging and Adobe InDesign Tutorial.

Yesterday I made a tutorial on Importing a PDF file into Adobe Indesign. I have embed it into this post for ease of viewing and because I can!!

Je souhaites vous partager ici ce qui selon moi devrait être l’ordre de priorités marketing de toutes entreprises en 2009 (depuis 2005 au moins, mais assurons nous que c’est le cas dès 2010!).

En assistant et participant à multiples conférences cet automne, en lisant régulièrement plus de 30 newsletter, en répondant à des questions sur LinkedIn et en suivant plus de 135 personnes et organisations sur Twitter, il me devient apparent que de plus en plus de gens on pris le virage Interactif / numérique / social. Mais il m’est tout aussi claire que c’est loin d’être le cas de tous le monde…

Voici donc ce que je crois être l’ordre prioritaire d’efforts marketing / publicitaires. SVP ne vous gênez pas de me donner votre avis, vos commentaires pour que ceci s’améliore et accepté par tous. Vous trouverez aussi des liens vers des billets passé qui élaborent sur divers points.

1. Plan  =  Dresser son plan – établir ses objectifs, définir ce qu’on a à dire et à qui.
2. Site Web  =  Bâtir sa présence web permanent
   1. présentez-vous, présentez vos produits / service, rendez la vie facile à vos visiteurs – comment communiquer avec vous, où vous trouver.
   2. identifier un calendrier “éditorial” : qu’allons-nous publier sur notre site somme mise à jour, quand, pourquoi = soyons prévoyant et prêt.
   3. optimisez le pour les moteurs de recherche
   4. Blogue  =  Intégrer un blogue sur son site = partager son opinion, démonter l’ouverture, la communication et l’interaction avec les visiteurs.
   5. Bulletin courriel (marketing direct, relations publiques)  =  en suivant notre calendrier, l’utiliser pour communiquer ce qui se passe sur le site, les spéciaux, les contenus, mise à jour du blogue… multiple liens vers notre site
   6. Mesurez et suivez la performance de votre site, de vos efforts, votre infolettre, améliorez-vous et recommencez.
3. Réseaux sociaux  =  s’intégrer corporativement sur les divers engins pour établir une présence – servez vous en pour diffuser vos contenus et teaser vos offres (bouche à oreille):
   • Facebook, MySpace, FriendFeed pour les groupes et fan pages, événements, annonces, mises à jour de votre blogue et site
   • YouTube, Vimeo et DailyMotion pour les vidéos (spots télés, matériel promotionnel, de formation, éducatif, événementiel…)
   • SlideShare, Scribd pour les présentations, documents etc…
   • LinkedIn pour les employés – communiquez ce qui se passe dans l’entreprise – répondez aux questions pertinentes à votre industrie
   • Google, Yahoo et autres environnement pour reprendre et rediffusez ce que vous faites sur les autres environnement
   • autres – sondez vos clients : quels sont les outils qu’ils se servent, quand, comment et pourquoi
   • tenez compte des dures réalités dans ces environnements.
   • gardez l’oeil sur les tendances (2) et l’évolution des réseaux sociaux pour vous y adapter
   • Mesurez et suivez la performance de vos efforts sur les réseaux sociaux, améliorez-vous et recommencez.
4. SEM  =  achetez les mots/phrases clés pertinentes à la vente de vos produits et services – dépensez autant que vous pouvez ici, chaque clic est quelqu’un de réellement intéressé à vous acheter! Faites attention aux pièges.
5. Publicité  = annoncez-vous (notoriété en premier lieu) là où se retrouve votre cible. Devinez pas. Demandez lui – sur votre sites, sur vos réseaux sociaux, faites un sondage, quels médias utilisent-ils, sont-ils beaucoup en auto ou sur l’ordi? Quelles émissions, radio, magazine, journal, site web préfèrent-ils?  Placez en fonction de leur temps consacré à chaque média, en fonction de leur engagement / attention avec chaque média. Ils sont tous bon.
   • Notoriété et les éléments marketing (appréciation, compréhension, association, attributs, intention d’achat…)  avec la publicité vous exposerez votre marque auprès de gens comme vos clients – attirez les dans votre communauté (soit votre site, newsletter ou réseaux sociaux) – accrochez les pour pouvoir leur communiquer directement par la suite.  C’est avec la publicité que vous vous créerez des nouveaux fans.
   • Réaction instantané en 2e lieu, car ceci implique que vous parlez à des gens qui soit vous connaissent, ou ont besoin de faire un achat et votre offre tombe bien. Votre communauté (soit votre site, newsletter ou réseaux sociaux) servira plus efficacement, tout comme le SEM à communiquer vos offres spéciaux.
6. Recherche : étudiez l’impact de vos campagnes publicitaires, distinguer leur impact de celle obtenu par les réseaux sociaux, votre site web et votre infolettre. Attribuez un cote ROI pour chaque tactique incluant le SEM – mais tenez compte que tous vos actions auront un impact sur la performance de votre SEM.
7. Ajustez le tire et recommencez.

Voilà. On part d’un investissement dans une fondation, à des efforts qui demande du temps (beaucoup de temps) mais qui coûtent peu, à des efforts qui requiert des budgets (faciles à justifier pour le SEM, moins évident pour la publicité).

SVP, faites-moi part de vos commentaires, changeriez vous l’ordre de priorité. Ais-je oublié quelque chose d’important?

Thought I’d better pop in with an update, let you know what I’ve been working on in my little office at the top of the stairs.

Editing, mostly, with a little bit of music and sports talk radio to help ease the pain.  Aw, it hasn’t been so bad.  I’ll admit to experiencing a lot of trepidation when I decided to give my novel So Dark the Night another run-through before I published it as a print-on-demand book next year.  I posted it on this blog two years ago and since then have received numerous requests from readers that I release a “dead tree” edition of my supernatural thriller (and I do try to please my readers).  Probably a smart idea:  between this site and Scribd, So Dark has been downloaded a couple thousand times…a situation that pleases me beyond measure.

But I was worried that the interval of two years would rub some of the lustre off the book, reveal flaws, expose slipshod writing.  Fortunately, that hasn’t been the case.  The changes I’m making are cosmetic and are mainly due to how hard I was bearing down as I completed my final edits.  I had been at work on So Dark the Night for three years and I wanted to make sure it was exactly right.  I think it seems too tight in places and I am trying to loosen it up a tad, enhance Nightstalk’s narrative voice.

I’ve given myself a some firm deadlines to have this manuscript polished up and the book released by a certain date (more on that later).  Delighted that the book is holding together very well (thus far) and that my faith in it, my love of the two central characters, is more than justified.

I’m also pleased that both my cover artists, Ado Ceric and Adrian Donoghue, have agreed to allow me to use their art when I release So Dark the Night and Of the Night in 2010 (likely through Lulu.com).  The books have each been assigned ISBNs and we’ll soon finalize cover design and jacket copy.  Feels good to be an indie publisher again–it’s been more than ten years since we released The Reality Machine and that’s too long.  Gotta make up for lost time.

Stay tuned.  2010 is gonna be a busy year.  Gotta celebrate my 25th year as a professional writer in style.

Break out the bubbly, string up a pinata…hell, folks, let’s have ourselves a party!

November 2009 Front Page

THE LATEST COPY of the council newspaper East Riding News should have dropped through your door by now. But did you know it was also available online to download on your computer? This is very useful if you want to keep a version that doesn’t take up storage space or if you want to send copies to friends, relatives and ex-pats elsewhere.

Download a copy from the Hedon Blog at East Riding News – November 2009 or directly from the East Riding Council News Archives.

It can also be viewed on Scribd (a programme like YouTube but for documents) at East Riding News – November 2009.

What do you think about the council paper? See an earlier Hedon Blog article on the subject and leave a comment with your views.

I am so excited to be a digitally published romance author in the midst of such huge, rapid progress. Check out this awesome news from Publisher’s Weekly about Harlequin’s upcoming addition. They’re on my top three list come January when I submit Play Fling while simultaneously self-publishing it withe Scribd, Smashwords and Kindle: http://www.publishersweekly.com/article/CA6707063.html

But wait, there’s more! Services aimed to help aspiring authors actually get published? Self-published? Vanity? Hmmm….Check out this, too: http://www.harlequinhorizons.com/

:}Amber

Or simply want another copy to print out or save?  Embedded below is a file posted on a website called Scribd.  It allows users to post documents online.  I am trying out this service to be able to post documents for you inthe future (I didn’t post this one, another physics teacher did and I linked to it)…

There are millions of sites out there on the net and in my Web Design course we are taught many different methods for creating a profile on the net and getting your website/business/product known.

Blogging is a tool that can be used to share your creativity with the world, network, become famous, help on-line businesses lift their rankings, make money or connect with people who share interests, activities and information. Linking to other sites is a good way to create online connections.

Some other students of Web Design have created WordPress blogs associated with their profession or business. One such student has posted a very informative article about the Therapeutic Benefits of Massage on her blog. To view Yaninayoga’s blog click here

Scribd is a very popular service that people use to share information and creating links to their sites is one method for attracting visitors. I like sharing information and I have created a tutorial on Creating a Hyperlink in PDF File Using Adobe InDesign CS4 as people have had trouble making hyperlinks work in PDF files when uploaded to Scribd.

I have embed the tutorial here so people can print or download immediately. I also have created a tutorial on How to Embed a Scribd Document into a WordPress Blog

Tis the Season to be a very busy author! I’m knee deep in NaNoWriMo and actually maintaining a respectable word count. Hooray! I have two articles with 1st Turning Point this month. One, an interview with Leah Hultenschmidt, Dorchester Publishing Editor and Website Director and two, a review of The Marshall Plan for Novel Writing software. Sweet.

Play Fling is in official editor edits, thanks to freelance editor extraordinaire Julie Murillo. The release date is still January 15th so long as things run smoothly.

I’m thrilled to be part of the line-up on Nov. 21st at the Scottsdale Civic Library for a day of workshops and featuring speaker Erin Quinn. My workshop, “Red Carpet Writing” will offer tips on how to Hollywood up your novel and the notes will also be available here.

I just realized come December it will be time to create a virtual book tour for Play Fling, get a final proof completed, format the pdf file and prepare to publish it come January with Scribd, Amazon, and Smashwords.

Then there’s…oh yeah, Thanksgiving…and Christmas…and New Year’s.

I’m the busiest, happiest little author in the whole wide world!

:}Amber

Cuando termine la lluvia.

Cuentario.

Todos los derechos reservados.

Minimalist at its finest…

There are quite a few stories in the collection having to do with a woman’s anxiety as she awaits the return of a man at war. I believe Ms. Tsetsi has some experience with that, and so it didn’t surprise me that it would be one the major themes explored in the work, but pining for the soldier lover is only one of many of the existential themes represented here: We also explore the issues of mortality, depression, desperate delusional love, jealousy, insecurity, envy, guilt …The themes are very pointed, and the writing is confident enough to deliver the emotional payload like a blow to the chest with a knife-blade.  – Cheryl Anne Gardner, POD People

Thanks to Ms. Gardner for taking the time to read and review Carol’s Aquarium.

(For the rest of the review, visit POD People. I hope you’ll visit frequently to check out this informative and interesting review blog.)

After reading Jacquie Rogers article on how to publish on Amazon Kindle, step by step, up at 1st Turning Point, I thought of a question. Does Smashwords.com require an ISBN#? I know Scribd.com does not. But I digress. Once at Smashwords.com, I found they have a NaNoWriMo feature and got completely sidetracked.

How Coooool Is That?

The feature, not the sidetrack.

I published my NaNoWriMo work in progress for readers to check it out for free. It’s under Amber Scott and called The Sweetest Fling, the second in the Millicent Match series. And their word counter likes me, padding my count by 1,000 words. Sweet. Which, though it isn’t official, makes me feel like far less a failure being a wopping 6,000 behind my daily goal.

I’m still curious about the ISBN# and mean to find out, but I couldn’t wait to share! Check out The Sweetest Fling there if you’d like. Just look out for ninjas. (That’s a little Nano joke.)

:}Amber

A few weeks ago I posted an Eggless Date & Ginger Cake recipe with spelt flour and decided to try it with gluten free flour. It didn’t turn out very well so I made a gluten free cake with eggs instead of yogurt as rising agent, and it turned out just perfect in texture and scrumptious too!

More and more people these days are recognising they are gluten intolerant and I’m one of them. We are lucky there is alot more choice in the shops and cafe’s that cater for gluten free diets, but it’s always nice to find a gluten free recipe that works and be able to share it.

So here is the Gluten Free Date & Ginger Cake recipe that I uploaded to Scribd and can be downloaded or printed straight from here.

I recently spoke at a conference where the anticipated attendance was 16,000. There were 30 laptops set up with 60 seats and then overflow seating for another 40 people. I gave 5 presentations over 2 days. I didn’t know before I got there how many people I was going to see and now that I’m home, I still don’t know. But I can tell you that at least 10 people asked me if I had a handout I could give them. There were also many attendees that commented about it. I was grateful to see this Tweet from NJ educator Brian McLaughlin.

I think sometimes as educators, we are accustomed to getting everything on paper. But what really happens to it? We stick it in a folder, we throw it away, or it gets lost in a an ever-growing pile of papers collecting on our desk.

Here are some tools that I’ve been using and have seem some other educators use to share information and resources during presentations and professional development sessions:

Google Docs
Click on Share — Publish as Webpage and Google Docs will assign you a unique public URL (link) for your document. You still will be the only one that has rights to edit your Google Doc, unless you invite Collaborators, but you can use this feature to share a digital agenda, list of links, or anything that you would have printed out in the past. Here’s a sample… http://docs.google.com/View?id=ddn2z86w_3dn2hs4fj

http://www.scribd.com/
On Scribd, you can upload a Word or PDF file and they will convert it into a web document. This way your attendees have access to it on their computers. All you have to do is share the URL  with them. Here’s a sample…http://www.scribd.com/doc/17245218/Discovery-Education-Whats-New-2009

Wikis
http://www.wikispaces.com/
http://sites.google.com
http://pbworks.com/
Wikis will allow you to embed more than one type of content on them. Like I did for my presentations at the NJEA Convention, I included links to websites, embedded videos and gadgets to PollEverywhere and Slideshare. These are pieces of information you really can’t print out. Here’s a sample… http://njea-tis-09.wikispaces.com/shoestring-did-you-say-that-was-free

Glogster
Glogster advertises itself as “a creative, dynamic, and innovative digital outlet that captures learner’s excitement for online creations, keeps learners engaged in course content, and makes teaching and learning more fun.” This is great, but to summarize, it allows us to provide our attendees (whether they are students or educators) with a digital resource rather than a printed one. Here’s a sample… http://udltechtoolkit.wikispaces.com/

Wallwisher
Wallwisher defines itself as a “web page where people actually post messages.” The great part about this is that you don’t need an account with Wallwisher in order to post a note on a Wall. So you can have the folks in your session contribute ideas or links to the wall and then save the URL to refer back to. There’s no need to print out anything during the workshop and run and go make copies as they’ll always have access to the information. Here’s a sample… http://wallwisher.com/wall/techforum09

Do you have any tools you are using with your students or in professional development to eliminate unnecessary handouts and to increase productivity? Please share them!

“There is a cooperative solution in which the strategies of the participants are coordinated so as to attain the best result for the entire group”. queste sono le ultime parole del  mio lavoro di oggi. Ho deciso di fermarmi, chiudere word e rilassarmi.

Non sono molto soddisfatta delle ultime due settimane di lavoro, in realtà non so bene dove si è aperta la crepa dell’entropia e tutto è volato in aria come fogli davanti alla finestra…tuttavia la produttività che mi ero prefissata sia in termini accademici che in “healthy” non l’ho raggiunta.

Oggi però ero ispirata, parecchio, tanto da scrivere un bel po e non solo, da mettere in sequenza una serie di pensieri e riflessioni che domani mattina saranno ripresi.

Domani mattina, mi piacerebbe alzermi presto, e scrivere, un oretta non di più aspettare che la palestra apra e provare il mio ultimo obiettivo, un ora o 5 km…già so che tornerò afflitta da un senso di fallimento e frustrazione ma tanto vale tentare:meglio frustrata nell’azione che nell’inazione.

Da quando è iniziato l’autunno mi ha preso la voglia di buttare tutto via, ripulire e rifare ordine, creare nuove discipline e abitudini, l’autunno per me è come la primavera per gli altri. Tuttavia basta poco per alterare i nuovi equilibri che costruisco a fatica e a provocare un leggero scompigli disordinato.

Sarà stata colpa del meeting per la chiusura del dottorato?nel sentire le date e nel focalizzare nella mia mente i giorni del calendario che si contraevano spasmodicamente mi sono venuti i crampi allo stomaco, tanto che quando il Prof. si è girato per dirmi: che pensi? Io gli ho risposto:devo vomitare…

So let’s pass over: ho trovato un sito interessante che devo spulciare un pò:http://www.scribd.com/ se non ho capito male si possono leggere libri riviste etc.”scribd è un sito web per la condivisione di documenti che permette agli utenti di caricare documenti di vari formati, incorporandoli in una pagina web usando il formato iPaper.”(wikipedia).

Mi riservo (quando non lo so) la possibilità di perderci un po di tempo.

Altra nota a margine da tempo libero che non ho: ho trovato pubblicato online: http://www.marxists.org/reference/subject/ethics/de-beauvoir/2nd-sex/index.htm, tutto il “secondo Sesso” di Simone de Beauvoir che da tempo volevo leggere…

…e leggendomi vien da pensare anche a me:Divertirsi??

I do not endorse ebook piracy. But all said and done, there are several sites where you could obtain free ebooks, sometimes even of recent releases. It did not surprise me to find an e-copy of Dan Brown’s “The Lost Symbol” on the net, the day it was published.

Listed below are my favourite ebook sites:

 www.scribd.com

The ultimate free ebook website. All you need is to search for the author/ title and presto… you have it. Well, not  that easily.  But it is definitely a treasure house for ebooks.

 www.4shared.com

Similar to scribd. Here is your chance to exercise your search skills. The results could surprise you.

 www.truly-free.org

My personal favourite. A literature buff’s closely guarded site. I do not reveal it to many.  Here you would find literary gems that are not available anywhere else on the net. A jewel in the crown.

I also search www.esnips.com and www.ebookee.com for ebooks. These offer links to rapidlibrary or megaupload from where you can download the ebooks.

Insatiable bibliomaniacs, please check this link for an excellent listing of 20 best free ebook web sites.

Sometimes people have problems inserting YouTube videos into a WordPress blog using the Embed code method. I have created a new WordPress Tutorial on Inserting YouTube Video into a WordPress Blog Using URL Code after learning about this method in class, and I uploaded it to Scribd. Within 24 hours it has had over 100 reads, so there definitely seems to be a need for it.

A friend in class has a great blog for her Active Body Therapies Massage and has created a document on 4 Ways Office Workers Can Benefit From Sports Massage which is very informative.
To view document and more click here

So in honor of the first week of NaNoWriMo - in which I am terribly behind by the way, I wanted to talk about scribd.com

Scribd.com is a “social publishing company” which means that you can publish just about anything you want and share it with the world.

This makes it a great resource for all sorts of different information. In relation to knitting and crochet in particular, if you search either term, you’ll see that there are more than 1000 entries for each. Everything from patterns to tutorials to sample pages of published books come up. Some e-books are also available, but for a price.

Scribd also has a community element, and you can subscribe to different groups and find people who share like interests.

I have only begun to scratch the surface of scribd.com and I think the same is true for many people.

So go on, check it out! I promise you’ll find something you like. Besides, books are the next best thing to yarn!