Branding! Writing: the Author as Factor!

Don't ask me why it took me this long to figure out that I needed a website branded to me. My only excuse, and it is an excuse, is that I was taught in the corporate world, especially in software start-ups, you should never brand the founder of a company. Because, when you want to sell that company, you will have to sell the founders with it. Or when you go public, your IPO, the founders will have to go public, too. Remember, the CEO and CFO are not always founders. Rather what you should do is brand the product and let it stand on it's own two feet. The Hailey twins, Shawn and Kim, branded the Meta-Software to them. They were the gold standard, not HSpice. The Hailey twins were the factory, not Meta-Software.

Look what happened with Apple. Founder Steve Jobs is the classic example. While Steve was alive, Apple could do not wrong. It could miss two quarters and still climb to $705. But without him, Apple lost 33% of its market cap. Why? Because Steve Jobs == Apple. That didn't happen with the Woz. Woz who? Exactly. Nor has that happened with Bill Gates. We tried to do that at BrightStreet, an online promotions company I helped found.

That is exactly how we run our inn. Unlike the previous owners, Eliot and Tish, we try not to associate ourselves closely with our brand. No, rather we try to make the painting school, the inn, the art quit and fiber art school, the chocolate factory and retail store stand on its own two legs. These three brands, Hudson River Valley Art Workshops, The Greenville Arms 1889 Inn, Life By Chocolate, are what we push. Those are our brands. We are just executives at Woodchuck Ventures, Inc., our company. So, even though we will be here forever, we wont live forever.

When it came to getting a website and branding me, I didn't make the connection. But it is obvious, after a ten ton epiphany fell on my wooly headed, dense, numb skull that the writer and the artist is the product. Or at least, the write or artist is the factory and company all combined into one. Here I was thinking only about branding my work! But who produces the work? I do. And that's probably why writers of all stripes complain when people ask them about their process, where they get their ideas from, why they did this vs. that. Many will say gruffly, "Read the book; it's all in there." Or they might say, "I don't like to talk about my work. Anything I have to say is in there," pointing to his or her newly minted novel.

But if the writer is the factory, then those questions are nothing more than QA, quality control. What the writer does in rewrite then is QE or quality engineering. But the customer, the reader, wants to know about the internals. The customer needs to connect with the factory, or factor, to get a warm and fuzzy about the product. And that is why I am going to get a website ASAP!

Is it no wonder that my first novel was about Silicon Valley?

Websites: Whoa Nelly! Blogs: OMG, I'm a dunce!

Here I am debating with myself about self publishing and guess what? I have no website. I have been sending out queries and synopsis and even whole manuscripts to publishers and I have included the Life By Chocolate website. I did this thinking to myself, "OK, they want a website, I have one handy." Holy moly. I would have done better to send them my Publisher's Marketplace website. Me pongo rojo. =%-}

And writing experience. I have included not only my scientific and technological writings, all well and good, but also my small press and literary journal publications. The short stories and poems I have written. All of these, while cool, are not recent and are pretty moldy by now. I forgot to mention my blogs:

Life By Chocolate Blog

The Art Workshop Blog

And most damning of all, I did not mention that I was a featured publisher and writer for FoodBuzz. Sure, that might not help me with fiction directly. If I had been writing that cookbook everyone wants and I haven't done yet because I'm too involved writing novels that aren't yet selling, it would be a big selling point. Even for my fiction writing, it's a selling point because it shows that other publishers have wanted my writing.

Kim has suggested that I get another blog for my book writing and I think she is right. I'll get a website and power it with blog software. I'll also get Chip, my brother-in-law to pretty it up.

This doesn't mean that I will cancel the debate on self-publishing but it does mean I am taking the first steps to create the framework for self-publishing and marketing any book that I do publish. I am a dunce! You heard it hear first, folks. But I am correcting that glaring bit of ignorance. Painful but true.

ChocoVision Marketing, just like their Product, the wheel has turned

O ChocoVision, why am I on this list of pain? When will it end? Why did it begin? Is that marketeer still working there?

Here's something interesting. I received almost 100 emails saying remove me from this list and one person suggesting a class action suit. All in the name of tempered chocolate. Why? ChocoVision sent out a promotion to a list of people who were not asked to be on the list. And because people replied to the list, asking to be taken off the list and because the sales and promotions list weren't properly constructed to be a no reply list, every time someone replied, and to my knowledge replies, we all get it.

What will ChocoVision do? I emailed Ian, the CEO of ChocoVision, directly and told him to shut down the list. ChocoVision has remained silent during this fiasco. It sort of reminds me of the Delta release. I still wont touch that machine. Last time I used one, it tried to kill me. Christine, my Revolation Delta, is safely, I hope, back in ChocoVision hands. And I equally hope that man-eater is locked up in chains. My Rev X, after a few iterations, is still working reasonably though I am going through baffles like popcorn. I don't think a baffle should be a consumable. I think it should last.

I would have to conclude that their marketing has finally caught up with their engineering. Now the marketing is as hit and miss(guided) as the engineering. And here I was finally getting over the scares of the Rev Delta. Now those scars have been reopened, twice. First, I ordered the wrong baffle, returned them and still have not been credited and now I've been emailed to death. Some of the people on the list have had their mboxes flooded. One person is suggesting a class action suit. O! Joy. More ChocoVision fun and games.

Ian, O! Ian, where is thy management? Discipline. Goals. Basic bidness. Your (ex-)customer long for some courtesy and respect and products that work as spec'ed.

And to all you people who have replied to the list, I have saved all of your replies. Let's get together for a party this Christmas. Who wants to host? I'll bring the chocolates.