Tag: (business) Reading

Other Cool Blogs: Magical Words 2/15/2011

Erin Penn

Image courtesy of Stuart Miles at FreeDigitalPhotos.net

One challenge as an author is you want people to leave book reviews for you, but the general advice to authors is don’t review other people’s books. How do you help your friends and follow this advice?

Well, the obvious way is leave reviews only for good books.

Me, I don’t follow this very good advice. When I first SERIOUSLY started this journey of editing and writing, I decided to review every book I read. By pulling apart other people’s work, I could figure out what went right and what went wrong – why I liked a book and why I didn’t. And I wanted to go through the process of organizing the thoughts and writing them out, thereby keeping a journal of my learning process. 

I broke 800 reviews this month on GoodReads.

And not all of them are “nice” reviews. But when I write one-star reviews, I write specifics and how I think that they could be fixed. I’m not nasty – I do my best to keep emotions out and state this is the problem with the Manuscript, not the author. If I can’t keep emotions out because the reaction creating the reason for the bad review was emotional, then I clearly state it is my emotions and someone else might react different.

Still giving low grades is a risk.

I really, really wish I could follow Misty Massey’s advice of “Saying Something Nice” at all times. Her advice back in 2011 is the easier path, and the generally accepted path for authors leaving book reviews.

Again, the blog – with quite a few comments – is on Magical Words 2/15/2011.

Do you have an opinion? Share below.

Creative Attribution

Erin Penn

Ballet Dancers by Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec

Image courtesy of the Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec Foundation
Painting entitled: Ballet Dancers
Shared under the Creative Commons attribution

Creative Attribution. Giving credit where credit is due. You may notice, I always post where I get my pictures for my blog, even if it is from the Internet Hive Mind or Facebook posts. Creative attribution is important, not only because it is the (copyright) law, but by acknowledging the hard work of others you encourage them to continue and others to attempt.

Copyright is important. Economic and sociological studies have shown that in countries where people have their property protected from confiscation, physical or intellectual property, they are more likely to create beyond bare needs. If people don’t realize any gain from the hard work of creation, planting crops or developing software for example, they aren’t going to continue doing it. They are going to pour effort into those items where they or their family has gain, or at least meets the necessities.

At the end of the day, the priorities for people are food and shelter. If their work does not gain these items, and they have no other means of gaining them, they will switch work … or die.

A no-brainer decision.

If they have food and shelter, and leftover time beyond that, they may invest it in creative activities which don’t put food on the table. But if they have a choice between creative activities with different levels of profit, so they can get luxury items like clothing, Internet, and transportation, they will choose toward the greatest profit and personal enjoyment. For some people, like painters, the personal enjoyment comes from the activity.

By always acknowledging the personal efforts of people, and following the copyright levels they choose, you are supporting them … and they will create more cool stuff. Modern life allows a lot of free time, granting people the ability to post stuff online just to give away. Wikipedia is just one of the phenomena related to modern life’s free time.

In closing, I would like to mention posting the Creative Attribution is just good manners. Like writing a thank you note. Someone took the effort to make something you can use for free. Putting their name to it is a big thank you shout out.

Needless to say, this subject is important to me … as an painter, calligrapher, editor, writer, and embroiderer. I do a lot of free stuff I share; I also do a lot of stuff just to keep a roof over my head. Thank you for recognizing my work, for buying those things I do sell, and for sharing what I give away for free. I appreciate it. Without you, I would be doing my arts a lot less.