by Joseph T. Sinclair Anyone who is an independent business person providing services to others knows that you spend about half your time marketing your services. Thus, only half of your time is actually spent providing services, and from that half-time, you have to earn your entire income. This is true for writers too. The question is, how are you going to handle it? A … [Read more...] about Cheap Labor
A Short History of Digital Multimedia
The first popular capability for digital multimedia was in the early 1990s. Widespread ownership of color monitors had come about. CD ROM players became reasonably priced. And sound cards for PCs also became available at reasonable prices. The first digital multimedia information products were on CDs and sold in places such as Radio Shack, movie rental stores, some bookstores, … [Read more...] about A Short History of Digital Multimedia
A Legal Nightmare
by Joseph T. Sinclair Remember the good old days when we could buy a digital typeface (font) or collection for a reasonable price and didn’t have to worry about anything? Going back 25 years I shelled out $50 here and $50 there (typically for a collection of 20 to 30 fonts), even $200 once, for a impressive collection of fonts which I have used routinely for printing books, … [Read more...] about A Legal Nightmare
New Digital Book Definitions
by Joseph T. Sinclair First, we had PDFs and then ebooks. But now we have some additional digital book formats that have gained traction in the marketplace. Let's take a look at all to see how they compare. PDF This is an old Adobe format originally designed to transform paper into a digital format. However, Adobe updated it long ago into a diverse media platform that … [Read more...] about New Digital Book Definitions
App Authoring Software
by Joseph T. Sinclair Just as web work and the internet were too important to leave to programmers, apps are also too important to leave to programmers. Apps have been in the programmers' realm for the first decade of mobile computing, but the inevitable app authoring software has now become widely available to enable the rest of us to easily make apps. A multitude of app … [Read more...] about App Authoring Software
The Astounding New Market
by Joseph T. Sinclair How many English readers are there in the world? No telling. But there are estimates of how many people can speak English as either a first or second language. David Crystal, a British linguist, estimates that non-native English speakers outnumber native speakers 3 to 1. With estimates of native speakers at over 400 million, non-native speakers, … [Read more...] about The Astounding New Market