What is not to love about this story? The levers of power in the world of popular culture are mostly held by the very few elite Watchmen who control the bottle neck of distribution. They are The Man and politically they are mostly not on America’s side or ours. Take that power away and they are nothing. I’d tell you to look at the music business as an example but no one can find it.
Here you have a young woman who used all the tools the Digital Revolution has to offer and created her very own success. You mix in some hard work with a genuine talent and no one can stop you. It’s like Twitter, this amazing digital forum that allows us to have a conversation amongst ourselves, to exchange ideas and information, without the malicious filter of the mainstream media telling us what is and isn’t important, proper, or worthy. Power to the People used to be a slogan shouted by socialists who meant just the opposite, but now it’s something coming truer every day in this amazing age we’re privileged to live in.
Fed up with attempts to find a traditional publisher for her young-adult paranormal novels, Hocking self-published last March and began selling her novels on online bookstores like Amazon and Barnesandnoble.com.
By May she was selling hundreds; by June, thousands. She sold 164,000 books in 2010. Most were low-priced (99 cents to $2.99) digital downloads.
More astounding: This January she sold more than 450,000 copies of her nine titles. More than 99% were e-books. …
In fact, Hocking is selling so well that on Thursday, the three titles in her Trylle Trilogy (Switched, Torn and Ascend, the latest) will make their debuts in the top 50 of USA TODAY’s Best-Selling Books list.
A recent survey shows 20 million people read e-books last year, and more self-published authors are taking advantage of the trend.
(Self-publishing is done without the involvement or vetting of an established publisher and uses a publishing system such as Lulu, Smashwords, Amazon’s Kindle Direct Publishing or Barnes & Noble’s PubIt! Many traditional media outlets do not review self-published books.) …
Hocking credits her success to aggressive self-promotion on her blog, Facebook and Twitter, word of mouth and writing in a popular genre — her books star trolls, vampires and zombies.
And she’s making money.
Stories like this, Twitter, Netflix Streaming, blogs – this stuff terrorizes our Pop Culture and Media Overlords. And for my money, you just can’t stick it to The Man enough.
Silicon Prairie News gives its start-up community a voice
You’ve heard of Silicon Valley, and likely Silicon Alley, but have you heard of Silicon Prairie?
Silicon Prairie is geographically hard to define but it’s there– somewhere between Chicago and Colorado, Dallas and the Dakotas–and it’s getting noticed because of one local news source The Silicon Prairie News.
And the Prairie’s entrepreneurs can thank one man, a native Nebraskan named Jeff Slobotski, who decided he wanted to write about the tech sector. After a few days of writing about California’s burgeoning scene, he decided to refocus his efforts on his own community. Recalling the words of my college professor, if you’re going to be a writer, write about what you know.
Slobotski decided to give his community a voice and that voice goes by the name of Silicon Prairie News. He called on the skills of his then friend, now CTO and co-founder Dusty Davidson, who runs BrightMix, a small, local software company. In July 2008, Slobotski started blogging as a hobby, interviewing local entrepreneurs on his lunch breaks and publishing stories at night.
In June 2009, Slobotski took on Danny Schreiber full time as SPN’s Managing Editor. Schreiber’s favorite players in the SP scene? Dwolla, a mobile payments service that is giving PayPal a run for its money and RockDex, a start up that is capturing the social metrics of plays on YouTube, LastFM and MySpace for musicians.
The boys had a lot to write about, they just needed people to listen. Slobotski, Davidson and Schreiber decided to throw an event to grab the world’s attention; they called it Big Omaha.
Last year’s Big Omaha was a success with over 550 people from 20 states including Foursquare’s Dennis Crowley, Charity: Water‘s Scott Harrison and Zappo’s Tony Hsieh. SPN was suddenly profitable, making money off of sponsorships and ticket sales from the event. Soon they had local businesses and Omaha’s Chamber of Commerce knocking on their door, asking if they could advertise on SPN. The readers came.
SPN currently has 4 full-time employees, 12 freelance writers and 3600 RSS feed email subscribers. At the end of November, the site averaged 25,000 unique visitors, 45,000 page views, and was growing at 10% a month.
“If it weren’t for Silicon Prairie News, there wouldn’t be a start-up scene in the mid-west. They are our voice. Their existence reinforces our culture.” says Ben Milne, the CEO of Dwolla.
Monday through Friday, expect fresh, daily content focusing on Silicon Prairie entrepreneurs like Dwolla and Hudl, an online coaching application, recently named by Inc. magazine’s 30 under 30. On the weekends, to keep traffic flowing, they’ll repurpose TED Talks or big interviews from other more well-known tech blogs.
“Our first goal is to highlight the story, the angel investors and the entrepreneurs. Our second goal is to tighten, build and connect the community and ecosystem here,” says Slobotski. “There’s value in what we’re doing by reporting on it but our events build communities that get people talking and brainstorming ideas together.”
The overall scene in Silicon Prairie is comprised of a lot of consumer related tech starts up. With the large amount of capital potentially available (read: Berkshire Hathaway and everyone else who is connected to Warren Buffet by one string or another), the scene could be well funded with the right connections.
This coming week, they will launch Silicon Prairie News’ Kansas City bureau, of which Kansan Royce Haynes will be involved. Haynes, like many SPN readers found the site through hearing about Big Omaha on Twitter. “I didn’t expect something of this caliber to take place in Omaha, Nebraska,” he says, “It’s going to be great to now be a part of it and to able to highlight all of the entrepreneurial activity going on in Kansas City.”
Interested in getting in on the Silicon Prairie fun? Save the date for a sweet SPN party Sunday night at SXSWi in March and a Big Omaha style event in Des Moines, Iowa this fall.
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CBS <b>News</b>' Lara Logan assaulted in Egypt | Show Tracker | Los <b>...</b>
While reporting from Egypt for a "60 Minutes" story, CBS News correspondant Lara Logan was sexually assaulted and beaten. According to a statement issued by CBS on Tuesday, Logan was attacked on Feb. 11, the day Egyptian President Hosni ...
Weekly Search & Social <b>News</b>: 02/15/2011 | Search Engine Journal
Hello and welcome back to '7 Days of Search and Social'. Another week, another drama. While I've not looked historically to past years, one does have to wonder.
Michelle Malkin » CBS <b>News</b> reporter Lara Logan sexually assaulted <b>...</b>
CBS News reporter Lara Logan sexually assaulted, beaten in Cairo; Update: Unhinged NYU fellow attacks Logan as “war-monger”
bench craft company me
CBS <b>News</b>' Lara Logan assaulted in Egypt | Show Tracker | Los <b>...</b>
While reporting from Egypt for a "60 Minutes" story, CBS News correspondant Lara Logan was sexually assaulted and beaten. According to a statement issued by CBS on Tuesday, Logan was attacked on Feb. 11, the day Egyptian President Hosni ...
Weekly Search & Social <b>News</b>: 02/15/2011 | Search Engine Journal
Hello and welcome back to '7 Days of Search and Social'. Another week, another drama. While I've not looked historically to past years, one does have to wonder.
Michelle Malkin » CBS <b>News</b> reporter Lara Logan sexually assaulted <b>...</b>
CBS News reporter Lara Logan sexually assaulted, beaten in Cairo; Update: Unhinged NYU fellow attacks Logan as “war-monger”
bench craft company me
CBS <b>News</b>' Lara Logan assaulted in Egypt | Show Tracker | Los <b>...</b>
While reporting from Egypt for a "60 Minutes" story, CBS News correspondant Lara Logan was sexually assaulted and beaten. According to a statement issued by CBS on Tuesday, Logan was attacked on Feb. 11, the day Egyptian President Hosni ...
Weekly Search & Social <b>News</b>: 02/15/2011 | Search Engine Journal
Hello and welcome back to '7 Days of Search and Social'. Another week, another drama. While I've not looked historically to past years, one does have to wonder.
Michelle Malkin » CBS <b>News</b> reporter Lara Logan sexually assaulted <b>...</b>
CBS News reporter Lara Logan sexually assaulted, beaten in Cairo; Update: Unhinged NYU fellow attacks Logan as “war-monger”
bench craft company me
CBS <b>News</b>' Lara Logan assaulted in Egypt | Show Tracker | Los <b>...</b>
While reporting from Egypt for a "60 Minutes" story, CBS News correspondant Lara Logan was sexually assaulted and beaten. According to a statement issued by CBS on Tuesday, Logan was attacked on Feb. 11, the day Egyptian President Hosni ...
Weekly Search & Social <b>News</b>: 02/15/2011 | Search Engine Journal
Hello and welcome back to '7 Days of Search and Social'. Another week, another drama. While I've not looked historically to past years, one does have to wonder.
Michelle Malkin » CBS <b>News</b> reporter Lara Logan sexually assaulted <b>...</b>
CBS News reporter Lara Logan sexually assaulted, beaten in Cairo; Update: Unhinged NYU fellow attacks Logan as “war-monger”
bench craft company me
CBS <b>News</b>' Lara Logan assaulted in Egypt | Show Tracker | Los <b>...</b>
While reporting from Egypt for a "60 Minutes" story, CBS News correspondant Lara Logan was sexually assaulted and beaten. According to a statement issued by CBS on Tuesday, Logan was attacked on Feb. 11, the day Egyptian President Hosni ...
Weekly Search & Social <b>News</b>: 02/15/2011 | Search Engine Journal
Hello and welcome back to '7 Days of Search and Social'. Another week, another drama. While I've not looked historically to past years, one does have to wonder.
Michelle Malkin » CBS <b>News</b> reporter Lara Logan sexually assaulted <b>...</b>
CBS News reporter Lara Logan sexually assaulted, beaten in Cairo; Update: Unhinged NYU fellow attacks Logan as “war-monger”
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CBS <b>News</b>' Lara Logan assaulted in Egypt | Show Tracker | Los <b>...</b>
While reporting from Egypt for a "60 Minutes" story, CBS News correspondant Lara Logan was sexually assaulted and beaten. According to a statement issued by CBS on Tuesday, Logan was attacked on Feb. 11, the day Egyptian President Hosni ...
Weekly Search & Social <b>News</b>: 02/15/2011 | Search Engine Journal
Hello and welcome back to '7 Days of Search and Social'. Another week, another drama. While I've not looked historically to past years, one does have to wonder.
Michelle Malkin » CBS <b>News</b> reporter Lara Logan sexually assaulted <b>...</b>
CBS News reporter Lara Logan sexually assaulted, beaten in Cairo; Update: Unhinged NYU fellow attacks Logan as “war-monger”
bench craft company me
CBS <b>News</b>' Lara Logan assaulted in Egypt | Show Tracker | Los <b>...</b>
While reporting from Egypt for a "60 Minutes" story, CBS News correspondant Lara Logan was sexually assaulted and beaten. According to a statement issued by CBS on Tuesday, Logan was attacked on Feb. 11, the day Egyptian President Hosni ...
Weekly Search & Social <b>News</b>: 02/15/2011 | Search Engine Journal
Hello and welcome back to '7 Days of Search and Social'. Another week, another drama. While I've not looked historically to past years, one does have to wonder.
Michelle Malkin » CBS <b>News</b> reporter Lara Logan sexually assaulted <b>...</b>
CBS News reporter Lara Logan sexually assaulted, beaten in Cairo; Update: Unhinged NYU fellow attacks Logan as “war-monger”
bench craft company credit card
CBS <b>News</b>' Lara Logan assaulted in Egypt | Show Tracker | Los <b>...</b>
While reporting from Egypt for a "60 Minutes" story, CBS News correspondant Lara Logan was sexually assaulted and beaten. According to a statement issued by CBS on Tuesday, Logan was attacked on Feb. 11, the day Egyptian President Hosni ...
Weekly Search & Social <b>News</b>: 02/15/2011 | Search Engine Journal
Hello and welcome back to '7 Days of Search and Social'. Another week, another drama. While I've not looked historically to past years, one does have to wonder.
Michelle Malkin » CBS <b>News</b> reporter Lara Logan sexually assaulted <b>...</b>
CBS News reporter Lara Logan sexually assaulted, beaten in Cairo; Update: Unhinged NYU fellow attacks Logan as “war-monger”
bench craft company reviews
CBS <b>News</b>' Lara Logan assaulted in Egypt | Show Tracker | Los <b>...</b>
While reporting from Egypt for a "60 Minutes" story, CBS News correspondant Lara Logan was sexually assaulted and beaten. According to a statement issued by CBS on Tuesday, Logan was attacked on Feb. 11, the day Egyptian President Hosni ...
Weekly Search & Social <b>News</b>: 02/15/2011 | Search Engine Journal
Hello and welcome back to '7 Days of Search and Social'. Another week, another drama. While I've not looked historically to past years, one does have to wonder.
Michelle Malkin » CBS <b>News</b> reporter Lara Logan sexually assaulted <b>...</b>
CBS News reporter Lara Logan sexually assaulted, beaten in Cairo; Update: Unhinged NYU fellow attacks Logan as “war-monger”
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