Motorcycle Misadventures

The Miss Adventuring / Motorcycle Misadventures News

Don't miss the very occasional Miss Adventuring & Motorcycle Misadventures Newsletters I'll be sending soon. Please sign up here. Here's what you'll find:

Miss Adventuring Q&A: How do I get paid to write about my adventure travels?

Coming Events: Horizons Unlimited Travellers Meeting, Overland Rally in Hollister, Self-Publishing Boot Camp on the Stanford Campus.

Ride Report: Ted Simon's Jupiter's Travellers Foundation Ride in the Redwoods.

Social Media Highlights: From Facebook, Twitter, Scribd, and LinkedIn.

The China Road Motorcycle Diaries: Get an excerpt from the story included in the new Travelers' Tales: Best Travel Writing 2011

Highlights from Side Stand Up Motorcycle Radio

I'll be in Hawaii soon, too, so we'll see what else happens! Please sign up here.

Float iPhone app for one-stop on/offline reading, customized screen, sync, social sharing

Here's a new free iPhone app called Float by Scribd, a social publishing site I've long admired. Basically, the Float app aims to solve the problem of digital reading fragmentation -- that pesky necessity to visit different sites and tolerate many different formats to read what you want to read. Float organizes the docs you want to read in a personalized feed - news, blogs, websites, documents - and does an amazing thing. It strips out all the clutter and presents it in plain text that you can customize (background, font sizes). That's right. No ads, no headers and footers, no website naviagation. Just the text, images, and hyperlinks. Yay!

I think it's a great idea and that readers and publishers are both going to be clamoring for more. They're floating a lot of content now, and adding stuff all the time, maybe even your site, book, blog... stay tuned. 

Download Float from the iPhone app store and visit Float.com for more info. And here's the official press release.

 

Self-Publishing Your Adventures... or Any Book: An Online Conference

This past couple of years I've been writing and teaching about self-publishing, which is now easy enough for anyone who wants to share their adventures, their novel, their business tips -- anything -- in ebook or print book form. 

I wanted to let you know that next month I'll be teaching, along with a LOT of other experts, at the Self-Publishers Online Conference. My segment is on May 11 but the conference is held on May 10, 11, and 12th with 4 speakers a day and Q&A roundtable sessions.

You can buy the entire conference or just particular segments. Register before May 1 and get an earlybird discount. Also, use my coupon code to get a 10% discount.

COUPON CODE: Carla11

My topic is YOUR BOOK EVERYWHERE: Distribution Options in 2011. My friend Joel Friedlander is speaking on Book Design, Mark Coker on Smashwords, Joshua Tallent on Ebook Formats, and there are more.

If you haven't been able to physically get to a conference, here's your chance to attend one from the comfort of your own home.

Sign up here: http://www.selfpublishersonlineconference.com/

And don't forget to use COUPON CODE: Carla11

I'm teaching in an "online success" seminar, deadline for enrollment is midnight

I was honored to be asked to teach the publishing segment of Be The Media's BOSS webinar series Blockbuster Online Success System. The webinar is designed for media creators, entrepreneurs,and other  professionals looking to earn or supplement a livable income without giving your time, money, and intellectual rights to a major corporation, label, publisher, or any other gatekeeper.

Through 16 virtual sessions, you'll learn how to build a successful online presence and income-earning business. It's a serious series, and costs $1499.00. Sign up here.

Experts include Wired's Kevin Kelly, Chicken Soup for the Soul's Janet Switzer, HARO's Peter Shankman and a bunch of other successful online businesspeople.

The deadline for enrollment is midnight tonight to join BOSS’s 16 virtual sessions on online success. ENROLL HERE

Topics are:

• 1000 true fans
• Builsing a responsive customer list
• Self-Publishing
• Teleseminars
• Video and film
• Twitter
• Publicity
• Facebook
• Outsourcing: Get the job done with VA's
• Packaging your product
• Planning out your website
• The indy media renaissance
• Repurposing: How experts build empires
• Money-making websites and blogs
• Audio and Music
• Licensing
• Linked-In

ENROLL

And here's the list of experts:

• Kevin Kelly
• Janet Switzer
• Bob Baker
• Dan Beck
• Peter Broderick
• Elizabeth Bryan
• Christopher Buttner
• Jaci Clement
• Joel Comm
• Jason Deitch
• Bernadette Doyle
• Charles Fisher
• Kathleen Gage
• Susan Harrow
• Christina Hills
• Lewis Howes
• Mickey Huff
• Jeanne Hurlbert
• Dan Janal
• Nancy Juetten
• Carla King
• Mike Koenigs
• Robert Laughlin
• Alan Levy
• Lisa Manyon
• Jennifer Rai
• Tara Reed
• Laura Robinson
• Peter Shankman
• Derek Sivers
• Joan Stewart
• Warren Whitlock

ENROLL HERE

It's an interactive webinar, and there's a 60-day money back guarantee.

I hope to meet you there.

Carla

"By any means necessary" Diane Di Prima on writing and self-publishing

I'm listening to a DVD set my friend Mark gave me called First Thought Best Thought, Essential Insights for Writers and Poets. There's a lot of good, inspiring stuff here, of course, because the lectures are by William S. Burroughs, Diane Di Prima, Allen Ginsbert, Anne Waldman. And they talk about the process of writing and publishing, which was, is not easy, not even for those famous, infamous writers.

Was just listening to Diane Di Prima talking about using whatever means necessary to get your work out. She says that a lot of things go wrong if you don't get your writing into circulation - one is that you get depressed. Which is so true. I see so many writers with bodies of work who can't get it out there. It's heartening to hear  diPrima talk about her forays into self-publishing, using IBM Selectrics and mimeograph machines.

We have it so much easier. But I think we forget how important it is to consolidate and present a coherent body of work. I have so many friends, brilliant people, writers, whose works are scattered all over the web, in anthologies, magazines, everywhere. I keep saying, put it in a book, consolidate it, gather it up and get it out. It's so easy now, of course, if you have the desire and the discipline. And then it takes on its own life.

Here's an audio excerpt from the DVD set, Diane Di Prima.

Byanymeans

 

 

 

 

American Borders available as an ebook online with Scribd, Smashwords, Amazon

It was almost too easy. I uploaded my book American Borders: Breakdowns in Small Towns All Around the USA online to be downloaded from Scribd for $6.99, to view in PDF format. Readers can also buy it direct from Amazon in Kindle format, and  in text only format that reflows for easy reading on devices, even on mobile phones, buy it from Smashwords. I'd recommend the same process for any indie author.

For those of you who already have the book - you'll notice the cover has changed on the ebook edition, but the words inside are the same.