Lassal's Blog

Focussing – I find it incredibly difficult. Like probably most creative people I have a mind that never ceases to associate and create new ideas. And some of them are really good. They grab me by the throat and demand to be executed (and yes, that is a conscious choice of words).

There is never enough time in the day for all of my ideas – not even the ones already on the to-do list.

Look at the menu on top of this page, and you will see what I mean.

 

I knew I needed to concentrate on a few selected tasks if I wanted to achieve any of my goals at all; but this knowledge did not make my life easier. In fact, I totally agonized over the selection process because I did not know which tasks I should choose to focuss on. I wanted all of them. They were all dear to me. They all seemed important for one reason or the other.

And that is why I have not written in this blog for such a long time: I crossed it from my immediate to do list.

In fact, the Salon category that I had announced was the last subconscious tentative to find an umbrella that would allow me to fool myself into keeping all of my topics in place. Well. I caught myself in time on that one: it never went beyond the announcement.

So, then, why I am witing this post now?

Because this blog is going to become important to me again in a year or so. That is why I am slowly starting to dust it off. I will take my time to look at the content and decide what I might do with it – or not. A lot has changed in my life in the last months (to the better) and I will pass on whatever is helping me on this journey. Because maybe, just maybe, this information is going to be helpful to you, too.

Next week, I will tell you the method I found to help me decide on what to pursue.

See you soon.

 

Visitors of my old site might remember the cartoon (image above) I doodled about Hunter, my dog. It relaxed me. It also had one great feature: I was not dependent on anyone else to draw it – no clients, no research, no input or approval from others, no special software … Hell, I could do it with pencil in my notebook if I wanted (and I did most of the time).

A week ago I reactivated the “Daily” images on Facebook.

On top of that, I’ll be preparing quarterly graphic novels that will come out as eBooks via LegendaryMedia. I’ll post a link as soon as I announce the first book next month.

I am looking forward to share Little Hunterman with you. And I hope you will let me know what you think.

(This is going to be an experiment in storytelling, all right!)

 

It looks like we might schedule another speech for those who did not make it to the Frankfurt Bookfair a week ago.

Also I want to apologize for not staying for the Q&A. I was told I just had 45 min and so wanted to clear the stage for the next speaker. Only later was I told that they had actually reserved 60 min for me!

Anyway, I sat next to the stage for another 2 hours answering to questions. But I fear I did not have time for everyone.

If you happen to read this and still have a question related to the content of my speech, please leave a comment or drop me a line. I’d be glad to answer.

In addition, I’ll be rehashing parts of the speech here and going more into detail – because obviously I had to leave out a lot. I also did not want to get too technical, because others had already covered the technical part on wednesday. My speech was more about the new possibilities (and the riscs) of this new publishing market.

Freedom always comes with a price-tag.

For some this price might be overwhealming, for others it is a no-brainer. I am somewhere in between, I guess. While I might find our new freedom awesome and would not trade it for anything, I am overwhealmed by all the things I need to do to actually get things done. I do not know about you, but when I started out, I really wanted to know everything (!) and did not know anybody who could help me sort it out. I ended up wasting a lot of time trying to tackle everything, learn everything, being informed about everything … Until I finally knew enough to start to prioritize and decide, on where to invest my time.

It was not easy.

And my decisions might not be your decisions. Every company is different because every product is different.

The most important things you need to know are:

Who you are doing this for? Who are the people you are trying to help?

How can you best help them? How can you be part of the solution?

Once you can answer this, all the rest will eventually fall into place.

Try it!

By the way, this (long) report from Porter Anderson for Publishing Perspectives made for an interesting read.

In general, they talk about “writers” when they talk about self-publishing. But most of it does not need to be about text – we could be talking about illustrated books or photography books as well. Even though, granted, publishing (e)books with images as main content right now gives you more limited choices. We’ll get there eventually.

The only way to get what you’re worth is to stand out, to exert emotional labor, to be seen as indispensable, and to produce interactions that organizations and people care deeply about.

If the twentieth-century career was a ladder that we climbed from one predictable rung to the next, the twenty-first-century career is more like a broad rock face that we are all free-climbing. There’s no defined route, and we must use our own ingenuity, training, and strength to rise to the top. We must make our own luck.

 

In the last post I commented that I was mulling over how to repurpose this blog.

 

The world around us is changing rapidly. It is hard to keep up even if you are focussing on one thing only. It was eating up my days and leaving me no time to spare.

Given that I am setting up a pro bono project and a publishing company with more than one imprint, apart from financing all of this via my work for commercial agencies – I started to feel quite a bit overwhelmed with all the research and information I should be taking in to keep up to date in all the different segments.

I found it was not possible. Information overflow. HELP!

So I started to contact friends and acquaintances, each of them either an expert in his respective field, or an innovative adventurer seeking new continents in the ocean ahead of us that is changing every day.

Mostly these turned out to be informal chats. But there are some conversations that are rather more interview-like, too. It depends a bit on the medium and on my hardware (and if I have time to do a transcript or not).

Anyway, if my conversation partners agree, I’ll share the conversation with you. I’ll also post links to he resources we talk about. There are amazing tools out there that can really make a difference. We all just have 24 hours a day after all. How do you want to spend yours?

Considering that I am working on several fields and interested in even more of them (I always have a couple of potential projects in mind), most people will not find all of the conversations I’ll have and possibly share equally interesting. Still …

A lot of the conversations will revolve around the new publishing technology (digital & print on demand) and innovative ways of tapping into it with image heavy content. You have to keep in mind that a successful path being used by the author of a graphic novel, can possibly be adapted to suit the needs of a photographer, painter or musician.

Right now the rules are being rewritten almost daily. Not all but a great deal of them. This means you should try to keep informed and on the move. Those of us who like change and constant tweaking are in the advantage, because something that is righ today, might turn out to be wrong tomorrow.

So, if you want to and think you’ll enjoy it, I invite you to follow me along here. It is not going to be on a regular basis and there’s no fixed set of rules. It will evolve and hopefully fall into place eventually.

 

 

Right now I am working and setting up a couple of speeches, includig the one I will be giving at the Frankfurt Bookfair in 4 weeks. After that I’ll get this salon going.

 

In the last post I commented that I was mulling over how to repurpose this blog.

 

The world around us is changing rapidly. It is hard to keep up even if you are focussing on one thing only. It was eating up my days and leaving me no time to spare.

Given that I am setting up a pro bono project and a publishing company with more than one imprint, apart from financing all of this via my work for commercial agencies – I started to feel quite a bit overwhelmed with all the research and information I should be taking in to keep up to date in all the different segments.

I found it was not possible. Information overflow. HELP!

So I started to contact friends and acquaintances, each of them either an expert in his respective field, or an innovative adventurer seeking new continents in the ocean ahead of us that is changing every day.

Mostly these turned out to be informal chats. But there are some conversations that are rather more interview-like, too. It depends a bit on the medium and on my hardware (and if I have time to do a transcript or not).

Anyway, if my conversation partners agree, I’ll share the conversation with you. I’ll also post links to he resources we talk about. There are amazing tools out there that can really make a difference. We all just have 24 hours a day after all. How do you want to spend yours?

Considering that I am working on several fields and interested in even more of them (I always have a couple of potential projects in mind), most people will not find all of the conversations I’ll have and possibly share equally interesting. Still …

A lot of the conversations will revolve around the new publishing technology (digital & print on demand) and innovative ways of tapping into it with image heavy content. You have to keep in mind that a successful path being used by the author of a graphic novel, can possibly be adapted to suit the needs of a photographer, painter or musician.

Right now the rules are being rewritten almost daily. Not all but a great deal of them. This means you should try to keep informed and on the move. Those of us who like change and constant tweaking are in the advantage, because something that is righ today, might turn out to be wrong tomorrow.

So, if you want to and think you’ll enjoy it, I invite you to follow me along here. It is not going to be on a regular basis and there’s no fixed set of rules. It will evolve and hopefully fall into place eventually.

 

 

Right now I am working and setting up a couple of speeches, includig the one I will be giving at the Frankfurt Bookfair in 4 weeks. After that I’ll get this salon going.

At present my charitable work is taking precedence. I just published the American version of the sign language alphabet and am preparing the layouts for download. The Ghanaian version will probably be next, and a handful additional layouts are in line to follow. The sequence always depends on the feedback I get, so it is not set in stone. But it is more work than it seems to be. And I am not making money from these.

I am preparing an additional illustrated series especially for children, the coolKIDS series of fingeralphabets. They will be published via LegendaryMedia Publishing and I should already be much further down the road with them than I actually am. These illustrations take a while to prepare, but having illustrations gives me more control and a cristal clear copyright situation. Which will give me less headaches in the long run, or so I expect.

My commitment to Fingeralphabet.org is why I am not here right now.

And this is why it will stay this way a bit longer. At least until I finish setting up the distribution and some other details.

A shame, indeed, because not only do I have much to share, but I have a speech coming up on the Frankfurt Bookfair this October, an I would just love to start giving you some resources on it.

Brainstorming right now on how to possibly achieve this little extra task.

Brainstorming is something that I love to do and something I am really good at. My What-Ifs are driving my partner crazy, who is more of a “facts”-person. So he is absolutely not suitable as a sounding board, which gives little Hunter (my dog) a much bigger role in this game. I know it sounds crazy, but it actually helps to talk aloud. And it is still easier to talk to a dog than to talk to myself.

Speaking of Hunter, one of the ideas involve him directly: The Little Hunterman Cartoon.

There are several reasons why I stopped it a while ago and not all of them have been resolved. But some. And maybe that’ll be enough.

So that would be one possibility of about 6 very different ones that I am mulling over right now.

I’ll keep you informed.