Squidlog.net

I had recently written a bit about Squidooing a book. The problem is that first book, Complicit Simplicity, was created by guess and by golly. It fell together, and I just kept learning as I wrote it. I like the book, but it would have been easier if I would have had a guide.

Let me be your guide, and give you a simple format that will make it easier to write your own book, and easier for your readers to follow. This is not concrete, it’s certainly not the only way to Squidoo a book, It is just what I am doing today; based on what I’ve learned.

As with most lenses, keep the intro to each lens short. Use one lens for each chapter, and don’t get carried away with extra modules. Don’t worry, if an extra module seems appropriate, add it. This book belongs to you, decide how you want each lens to look and feel. The lenses don’t have to be identical. I keep the text module with the story close to the top of the page, with a big arrow link beneath it. If the reader wants to skip the back-story support in the lens and continue with the next chapter – that’s wonderful.

Don’t let fear stop you. You’ve heard “In the kingdom of the blind the one eyed man is king.” That’s wrong.  We are all one eyed with talents we need to work on to develop. The truth: “In the kingdom of the blind, the one eyed man is stoned to death,” unless he leads. Your choice. You can live a life of quiet desperation, and quivering mediocrity – and still be resented. Or you can leave fear behind and make the doubters fear you by succeeding. As I said, your choice.

My simple lens layout for Squidooing a book is:

Sticky note

text

Big arrow

sticky note

poll

Guest book

featured lenses

and a final text module that provides some stock information, and a link back to top of page.

I play with this layout a bit, but it is simple to create and easy to read. What’s important is to create something, then keep improving it as you go along. There is no need to leave WIP status in a hurry, re-edit as often as you like. You can even prepare a few chapters in advance, and release them when you are ready. With my new book, The Shirker John Chronicles, I’m releasing a chapter a week, every Friday. If you want, twice a week would be cool, say Tuesday and Friday, it’s your book, do as you wish.

Some web fiction writers write the whole book and then release it slowly, offering an inexpensive or donation based PDF if someone has to finish it now. In fact there are many ways to monetize your readership, if you develop a decent sized following. I’m just getting some of my work out there first, I’ll worry about profit when Squidoo’s servers crash from the overload caused by my readers, or maybe a bit before that.

That leaves three things to do. Look at the introductory lenses for my two books, and decide how to synthesize the ideas into your book. Start your book and tell me about it so I can learn and maybe offer a suggestion or two. There are lots of helpful lensmasters that enjoy offering suggestions. To your three tasks:

My first Squidoo supported book; Complicit Simplicity – The Hackers’ End Game

The second book; The Chronicles of Shirker John ( just the prologue this week – you will like John)

Now start your own book on Squidoo, then tell us about it.

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• Squidoo Lensmasters Live On The Border (0)
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We are living on the border.

The world we have know is changing beneath our feet. As the lyrics proclaim in this Al Stewart video, “you never see the changes day to day, no one notices the customs slip away.”

The world we knew is gone. The nations, the relationships, the very methods of relating; all are historic endeavors pitifully played in a theater closing next week. That is the good news.

All of the evil, the lying, the looting, the false promises and ignored ignorance belongs to people using tools with which they manipulated in the past. Their tools are rusting in their hands. Their days of power are at an end. For the first time in centuries, real leaders can emerge. Today, those that claim to be able to lead us cast a long shadow, but that is only because:

“When small men cast long shadows – the sun is setting.” – Lin Yutang

The border we are on is the border between night and day. “No one is noticing the customs slip away.”

Yes border towns are dangerous, but they are also full of opportunity. Back in the middle ages, in the marches between countries, the populace frequently paid no taxes, yet benefited from the protections of two countries. Everywhere was at danger of war, but marching armies needed the good will of border people.

I use Tijuana as the Capitol of Elldee in the fourteenth chapter of my online novel, Complicit Simplicity:

Prior to the collapse of nation states, Tijuana had been known as a disreputable border town with corrupt officials. Add in Tijuana’s reputation as a place where anyone could get anything if they paid the price of admission — and Tijuana is the natural location for a political capitol.

That is how things have become, and how they will stumble to the grounds as they die. Don’t get too close as they die, they will try to take you with them. In their death throes they may kill more than the hundreds of millions they destroyed last century, all in a vain effort to maintain failing powers. Bureaucracies as we know them have only been around a few centuries at most. They will soon become the footnotes of history they deserve to be.

That was the good news, it was also the bad news. What’s left are vanishing African gnus, and I don’t think no gnus is good gnus. (Seeing if you are still here)

There is no set future I can assure you about. The past will not continue, all we can guess about tomorrow are probabilities and possibilities.

But here there is great news. YOU get to influence what comes next. I have a lens called Win-Win-Win, It reflects what’s in our new neighborhood, we can move in sooner if we try. We can leave most scarcity, war, and theft behind, if we are willing to allow abundance.

Our species has been here before. When we first domesticated animals, discovered permanent agriculture, first mined and worked metals. Individuals have led prior border crossings; inventing the wheel. stirrups, the printing press. We did not move forward in fear, but we did not move forward with knowledge of how drastic the changes would be, either.

If we are willing to look, we can see that life is not linear. Instead life is defined by huge moves that occasionally remake the entire world. We are in such an upheaval today.

As Squidoo lensmasters you have a voice in how this change will play out. Together we talk to millions of people, some of them we will change, others will have their eyes blur and they will wander away. Of those we change, some may help create the better forms of interrelating we need. You may be the one to reach them.

I’m not discounting the fact that it may be you that changes the path of the world and puts it on a more sustainable grade. You have already shown yourself to be a doer. In fact, as you would guess, I wrote the win-win-win lens and a lens on visionary leadership for someone like you. I just didn’t know who you were when I wrote it.

enjoy

Then change the world.

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