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Tag: Guy Kawasaki

  • Guy Kawasaki On The Benefits Of Self-Publishing

    Guy Kawasaki, the former Apple evangelist, who is now advising Google’s Motorola group on product design, recently co-authored a book with Shawn Welch, called APE: Author, Publisher, Entrepreneur–How to Publish a Book, aimed at helping people understand the self-publishing process. Kawasaki offered WebProNews some additional thoughts on the subject, so if you’ve written a book, or are planning to, pay attention.

    According to Kawasaki, there are three main benefits to self-publishing versus traditional publishing.

    “Creative control, shorter time to market, and greater royalty per copy,” he says, noting that these benefits do, however, come with “greater responsibility for the quality of your book.”

    “There’s no such thing as a free lunch,” he adds.

    When it comes to marketing and distribution, Kawasaki notes, “First, an author has to realize that whether her publisher does these things or she does them herself, the same things have to happen. Many self-published authors don’t realize this. Then the most powerful method is to use social media such as Google+, Twitter, and Facebook to develop a fan base that you own. This applies to traditionally published authors too.”

    In 2011 the publisher of Kawasaki’s book Enchantment couldn’t fill an order for 500 ebook copies, he tells us. For that reason, he self-published his next book, What the Plus! (which we discussed with him here). He says that this experience helped him learn first hand that self-publishing is a “complex, confusing, and idiosyncratic process.”

    Though the book was self-published, it’s now available from McGraw Hill.

    “I met an editor and one thing led to another, and I pitched her on the idea,” says Kawasaki of how the publisher came to pick up the book. “The book had been out about six months by then. I learned two things from this experience: first, a good publicist can get press that simply social-media contacts cannot. Second, non-fiction books need to be available in both electronic and paper format.”

    According to Kawasaki, the ease of self-publishing means that the 99.9% of authors that publishers reject have an alternative. “It also means that the .1 percent of authors who use traditional publishing also have an alternative,” he adds. “If they can bring themselves to view this positively, it means that they can cherry pick books that are successfully self-published and turn them into even bigger sellers. That’s a huge ‘if,’ however.”

    Those self-publishing books inevitably have to figure out how much they’re going to charge for them. You don’t want to set the price too high, where nobody will buy it, but you also don’t want to short change yourself. How do you know how to price it?

    Kawasaki says, “My theory for ebooks is this: $.99 for a novice novelist, and $2.99 for an established but emerging novelist. When you’re proven, then you should go to $9.99. For non-fiction, you should start at $4.99 to ensure that people take your book seriously. Then you should go to $9.99 when you’re proven too.”

    Obviously people are reading ebooks more these days thanks to ereaders and tablets. Tablet is Kawasaki’s preferred medium for books, “by far.”

    “I’ve bought about 200 Kindle books so far,” he says. “I read five times the books I used to read before because of the convenience of Kindle books.”

    Last year, we spoke with fiction writer Joe Lansdale, who told us that paperbacks (the smaller ones, at least) will soon be gone. When we asked Kawasaki for his thoughts on this, he said, “It depends on what he means by ‘soon.’ I’d say this is probably the first genre to go because people read this kind of books in large quantities so the frictionless buying of ebooks is compelling. Also, no one can see the cover of what you’re reading on a tablet, so you don’t have to hide Fabio’s picture. Finally, it seems like this is the genre where novice writers often emerge.”

    Lansdale also said ebooks are too easy to copy, which can potentially cut into a writer’s sales.

    “My logic on DRM is that it inconveniences legitimate customers and doesn’t hinder crooks, so you shouldn’t worry about it,” says Kawasaki. “I doubt that an author can sue or copy-protect her way to success.”

    APE started off as a Kindle ebook, but is now also available in paperback.

  • Guy Kawasaki Wants You To Love Google+ As Much As He Does

    If you follow the social media industry, you probably know who Guy Kawasaki is. Just in case you’re not familiar with him, he used to be the chief evangelist of Apple. He’s the co-founder of Alltop.com and Holy Kaw, and the author of APE, What the Plus!, Enchantment, and nine other books. What the Plus! (Google+ for the Rest of Us) version 2.0 was recently released by McGraw Hill, and after reading the book, we decided to pick Kawasaki’s brain about some of the points he makes in it, and about social media in general.

    To listen to Kawasaki talk, you would think Google+ is the best social media experience one can have on the Internet. I’m guessing some of you have a different opinion. Let us know what you think in the comments.

    The Steve Jobs Google+ Analogy

    In the Book, Kawasaki says that Google brings power to Google+ “roughly equal” to Apple having Steve Jobs as CEO. When we attended BlogWorld last year, we sat in on a discussion between Kawasaki and Chris Brogan, in which he expressed similar sentiments. At that time, he said, “I think Google+ is to Facebook what Mac is to Windows.”

    We asked him about the general response he gets from people when he makes such an analogy, whether or not people agree, and if those who are not on Google+ actually believe it.

    “I haven’t much response to this comment at all,” he tells us. “I think the analogy is flattering to both parties. To think that one person could equal the force of all of Google. And to think that Google could equal the force of Steve Jobs. No one picked up on the cleverness of my analogy.”

    In the afterword of the book, Kawasaki says he wants people to love Google+ as much as he wanted people to love the Macintosh. When asked why he cares so much, he says, “This is because of my Apple DNA: I want people to use the best tool for the job so that they can become more creative and productive. I can’t stand sub-optimization. To this day, when I see someone firing up a black, plastic, thick, ugly laptop, a little piece of me dies.”

    Can Google Reach Twitter’s Level For Real Time?

    Kawasaki says in the book that “Twitter is for real-time perceptions”. It seems that Google is really lacking access to this kind of info since it lost the Twitter firehose for realtime search results. The company has even indicated in the past that it could bring back the feature with Google+ data (along with data from other sources). So far, it doesn’t seem like Google has done a great job on that front.

    We asked Kawasaki if he thinks Google+ can get to where Twitter is for “real-time perceptions”.

    “I don’t see it happening soon nor is it clear to me that this is Google’s goal,” he tells us. “The sweet spot of Google+ is posts that are more cogent than ‘My cat rolled over’ or ‘Obama sucks.’ Real-time perceptions and thoughtful composition are inherent opposites. A social-media site can’t be both. If I just wanted to blast out 140-character messages without embedded photos or video, I already know where to go.”

    Yet, that’s kind of what I’m getting at. You go to Twitter, and it’s hard for Google to accomplish its mission of organizing the world’s information and making it universally accessible when it can’t provide real-time updates when they’re at their most relevant. Google risks pushing people away to Twitter.

    Pictures, Pinterest And Google+

    In the book, Kawasaki also says that “Pinterest is for pictures.” Google has been, without a doubt, pushing Google+ for photography, and photographers have certainly flocked to it.

    Kawasaki says, “Pinterest is the Twitter of pictures since Twitter doesn’t display pictures well. In that sense, Pinterest is about real-time perceptions such as ‘This dress is cool.’ There’s not the expectation that a Pinterest post is ‘crafted,’ and there’s not much discussion of a pin. Also, most pictures on Pinterest are not pictures that a person took. Google+ is where photographers post their own pictures and hope for a discussion. There’s no right or wrong in this—the two sites serve different purposes.”

    Posting For The Public

    Kawasaki says, in the book, that he uses the public option 99.9% of the time when sharing posts on Google+. This is interesting, considering that the Circles concept of sharing (choosing easily with whom you share any given post) has always been one of the main selling points for Google+. In fact, it even inspired a similar feature from chief rival Facebook soon after Google+ was launched.

    “You have to understand that I approach social media as a means to an end,” Kawaski tells WebProNews. “The end is building a platform. Not everyone is interested in building a platform, so public posts 99.9 percent of the time isn’t relevant for everyone. Literally the only time I don’t post to the public is when I post to a circle of just me. I do this to mark articles that I will come back to and post publicly.”

    Inspiration for Curation

    There’s an interesting section in Kawasaki’s book about content curation. Where to look for good content to share. He names: people you follow, StumbleUpon, SmartBrief, Pinterest, Alltop and Holy Kaw (he’s the co-founder of both), The Big Picture and In Focus, NPR, TED, Futurity and specialized search engines. We asked specifically about StumbleUpon, which it turns out he doesn’t find all that useful for his own purposes (though there is clearly plenty there for others).

    “I primarily use Alltop.com to find things to post,” he says. “Specifically, Autos.alltop, NPR.alltop, Science.alltop, and my customized page. StumbleUpon is a good source, but I scan hundreds of stories every day to find five to ten to post. The one-at-a-time nature of StumbleUpon isn’t well suited to my methodology.”

    Google+ Integration Into Search Results

    With Search Plus Your World, Google began heavily integrating Google+ into its search results. Many find this integration to be bothersome, while others find it extremely useful. It stands to reason that if you have a lot of social connections (and meaningful ones in particular), the results are likely to be better.

    “I do believe it’s made the search results better for many people because it brings in the factor of what people you know have said about a subject,” Kawasaki tells us. “However, the nature of my searches is totally factual because when I search, I’m usually fact-finding or fact-checking for my writing.”

    Would People Really Find A Facebook Search Engine Useful?

    In the book, Kawasaki says it’s going to be a long time before people use Twitter or Facebook as a search engine. Personally, I already use Twitter as a search engine fairly frequently, though my job calls for it, so I’m not a good example of the average person in that regard. Still, Twitter is certainly not my primary search engine by any stretch of the imagination. Facebook has indicated recently that it is working on a search offering of some kind. We asked Kawasaki if he thinks Facebook can put together a significant search offering.

    His response was: “One never knows, but in my fact-checking and fact-finding behavior, I can’t imagine going to Facebook to find out the phone number for the market in Menlo Park where I need to order a turkey or the number of Spanish speaking people in the world for my research about whether it’s worth translating a book into other languages.”

    Quanity vs. Quality In Social Media Followers

    in What the Plus!, Kawasaki recomends that people ignore the experts who say quality is more important than quantity.

    “Again, I have a specific goal for using social media: building a platform,” he tells WebProNews. “Not everyone has this goal although there are only two kinds of people who use social media: those who want more followers and those who are lying. So for me, the more followers the better.”

    “I also believe that when you ask your followers for help, the more followers the better,” he adds. “For example, I needed an example of an author who wrote a book purely for the challenge, not to make money, express himself, etc, etc. Someone pointed out Gadsby, a novel that contains no words with the letter E. If I had 500 followers, I doubt that someone would have pointed Gadsby out to me.”

    So, can you follow too many people?

    “Sure you can,” he says. “I hear about people following 5,000 people. I have no idea how that would work.”

    The Google+ Share Button Vs. The +1 Button

    In the book, he talks about both the Google+ share button and the +1 button. When asked about advantages of the share button over the +1 button, and if there is any reason to use both, Kawasaki tells us, “The +1 button is a little bit of voodoo to me. I don’t really understand the impact of a +1. There’s no doubt, however, that I would love people to share my content more than the vague value of a +1. This is because when people share one of your pages or posts, you know you’ll get more readers. It’s not clear what a +1 will do.”

    +1s have been around longer than Google+ itself. They’ve always been a way to tell Google (the search engine) that you find a piece of content to be good enough to be considered a worthy search result, whether you’re actually on the search results page or on the content page itself. While, there are social search-related ramifications of having +1s on your content, Google’s Matt Cutts recently indicated that they have no direct effect on rankings. Of course, that could change one day.

    Either way, the +1 button does come with the built in ability to share a post to Google+. However, the call to action of the share button might resonate with audiences more when they simply want to share your content, and aren’t even thinking about search results. Let’s be honest. People are not sitting around thinking about recommending your content in search. They’re thinking about recommending it to their friends or followers (provided you’ve given them something worth sharing).

    Sharing To Google+ From Facebook And Twitter

    Towards the end of What the Plus!, Kawasaki notes that there isn’t a way for most people to share from Facebook or Twitter to Google+ because Google has not opened up Google+ to accept cross-posts from other services. This seems to conflict with the “open” attitude Google ordinarily tries to convey with its products.

    When asked about it, Kawasaki says, “If God said to me, ‘Guy, you can have three wishes,’ one wish would be for the ability to post to Google+ from outside Google+.”

    This guy really loves Google+.

    “The closest thing to this right now is a Chrome extension called Do Share,” he adds. “But it requires that Chrome is running at the time of a scheduled post.”

    “I think that Google is being cautious about spammers using external apps to overwhelm people,” he says. “Do you see how good Google is at killing spam right now? If they can figure out how to do this, they can figure out how to prevent abuse of external posting.”

    The Social Spine

    Google has, on more than one occasion, referenced Google+ as two separate parts: the social destination (plus.google.com, where you see your circles, stream, etc.) and the social spine (the social layer that is spread across Google’s various products).

    Google has, of course, been integrating the social spine into many of its products in numerous ways. There’s no sign that the rate at which this is happening will decrease. For example, they just added some new social features to Google Shopping.

    We asked Kawasaki if there are any particular integrations that have not happened yet that he would like to see.

    “It’s more than enough integrated for my purposes,” he says. “Other than the external posting issue, I’m essentially completely happy with Google+.”

    Like I said, this guy really loves Google+.

    Do you agree with Guy’s analyses of all of these different elements of the social web as we know it? Feel free to chime in with your own response to any of the questions we asked in this article.

  • Vic Gundotra Talks Google+ At SXSW, Draws Some Criticism

    Vic Gundotra, Google’s Senior Vice President, Engineering, talked about Google+ at SXSW in a conversation with Guy Kawasaki, now immortalized in a hip hop song.

    Much of the conversation was a rehash of things we already knew about – Google’s new privacy policy, Google+ growth, etc. However, Gundotra did shed a little light on what many already suspected. Google’s not counting Google+ users simply as just those who are spending a lot of time using Google+ itself. It counts users who sign into Google+, and use another Google product within a month. Presumably, this includes Gmail, YouTube, a signed in Google search (complete with Search Plus Your World), Google Reader, etc. Under this philosophy, he said Google+ has 100 million “30-day active” users.

    It’s not hard to see why people would criticize Google’s user counts for Google+, because the easy thing to do is compare it to Facebook and its 800 million+ users, but it actually makes sense if you look at Google’s strategy, which includes the integration of Google+ into its various products and the consolidation of privacy policies. Google has had the “Google+ is Google” mentality from the start. Google+ was always described as a “social layer” as much as people want to compare plus.google.com to Facebook, Twitter, etc.

    Like Gundotra said at SXSW, it’s more like comparing it just to people looking at Facebook’s news feed or “liking” content”. Google – the Google account – is what it’s all about. Google’s “features” are spread out across products, though they’re working to tie them more together. Facebook has Facebook videos. It’s just part of Facebook. Google has YouTube. Likewise, photos are just part of Facebook. Google has Picasa web albums (and Google+ photos together). And so on.

    Kawasaki asked him why Google+ still feels like a ghost town, and Gundotra is quoted as saying, “Make sure you’re using it correctly.”

    It’s worth noting that Kawasaki was hyping up Google+ as much as anybody at BlogWorld in November. “I think Google+ is to Facebook what Mac is to Windows. Think about that for a second,” he said at the time.

    Gundotra also said he wants to make sure the developer environment for Google+ is just right before opening it up. CNN quotes him: “I’m going to release that (programming interface) when I know we’re not going to screw over developers. We hold ourselves to a higher standard. Sometimes that means restraint.”

    Here’s what some people are saying on Google+ itself:

    Thom Kennon says, “Gundotra sez G+ not dead yet http://goo.gl/5IdCv 50mil daily users yet still, 4 me, last 2+ weeks utterly crickets. Work w/ me people…”

    Kosso K writes:

    In order to not make a mistake, +Vic Gundotra is deciding to do nothing at all.

    Back in October at the web20summit, he said they want to be “cautious” and they don’t want to make the same “mistakes that others have made” where they had to offend and upset developers by having to roll back access to certain things over time.

    Where I come from, that’s gutless behaviour. Grow some balls.

    You won’t learn a thing by doing nothing and making no mistakes.
    It’s pathetic.

    Kam Rafique writes:

    “Make sure you are using it correctly” says Vic Gundotra about Google+ to an audience hosted by Guy Kawasaki.

    William Edward Deming taught the Japanese about design in the 50’s and one of his 14 points was that to reduce defects (errors) in manufacturing, it is not the fault of the user but the fault of the process.

    Google+ should not blame the users for mistakes.

    #sxsw #google+ #ghosttown

    Amit Agarwal says:

    +Vic Gundotra says that +Google+ doesn’t have an API yet as stories from third-party apps could “overwhelm” your stream. I will probably use Google Plus more if they made it easy for publishers to cross-publish stuff. Let the users decide.

    Vincent Leeuw says:

    This is pretty much a problem for most of my non-G+ friends as well. Some are actually interested in +Google+ yet without any way to easily share readily available data it becomes rather annoying.

    Lead image courtesy: Hitomi Kumasaka via Google+

  • Google+ “It’s already good for rankings”

    Google+ “It’s already good for rankings”

    Google+ hasn’t even been around 6 months yet, and it’s considered a major player in the social media realm. It regularly draws comparisons to both Facebook and Twitter. But, Google+ does have one thing going for it that currently Facebook and Twitter doesn’t: it’s good for rankings… in Google. Imagine that.

    At the BlogWorld Expo in L.A., Alltops, Guy Kawasaki and Human Business Works President Chris Brogan had a very interesting discussion about all things Google+.

    During the session, a question was raised “Is there now connections between google plus and search rankings?” Brogan stated that:

    “Google doesn’t index all of Facebook right now. It’s a lost cause for SEO, they’re also no longer indexing Twitter. Google does index anything publicly for Google+“

    It should be noted that Facebook doesn’t allow it. Kawasaki chimed in that this is probably a direct result of the relationship between Facebook and Bing.

    If you Google Chris Brogan’s name, you’ll see his Google+ stuff shooting up the rankings. The same holds true for anyone. When you post something publicly it’ll begin working for you, he states “It’s a Google thing”.

    Brogan would go on to say:

    “Google has such advantages, I don’t see how they can’t be a success with Google+ … I’m amazed that people are so skeptical, especially those in the tech press”.

    It’ll be interesting to follow this and see if Google+ does reach the level that both Brogan and Kawasaki think it can.

    For 5 years, WebProNews has partnered with BlogWorld and New Media Expo, the world’s first and largest new media conference, in an effort to broadcast how new media can grow your business, brand, and audience. Stay tuned to WebProNews for much more exclusive coverage.

  • Does Google+ Threaten Twitter More Than Facebook?

    Since Google+ appeared on the social media stage, it has suffered comparisons to the already-well-established giants of the game: Twitter and Facebook. And in a way, these comparisons are justified. Google+ definitely takes elements of both Facebook and Twitter, but it puts its own spin on them.

    Some people’s first impulse was to compare Google+ to Facebook and ask whether or not the burgeoning social network could compete with the big guy on the block.

    But should Twitter worry about the impact of Google+ more than Facebook should?

    At the BlogWorld Expo in L.A., Alltop’s Guy Kawasaki and Human Business Works President Chris Brogan sat down to talk about Google+‘s future impact on business, and how the new social network could change everything.

    During that session, Kawasaki said that he would “be more worried about [Google+]” as the CEO of Twitter as opposed to Facebook.

    “Twitter is much more threatened by Google+ than Facebook.”

    “I think Google+ is to Facebook what Mac is to Windows. Think about that for a second.”

    What can we take from that? Google+ and Facebook = different strokes for different folks? Can the two peacefully coexist and each serve their purpose?

    Kawasaki went on to describe the difference between Google+ and Facebook:

    All my friends and family are on facebook, and Google+ is a ghost town for a lot of people. For me, Facebook is for friends/family, and Google+ is for people who share your passions, who you don’t know yet.

    It’s true that many detractors of Google+ have mentioned that nobody they know has made the jump, therefore it doesn’t serve them a purpose. If everyone you know is already on Facebook, why bother with another social network?

    According to Kawasaki, it’s for the “common passions” that Google+ allows you to connect with others.

    As far as the connections with strangers aspect, that is where Google+ steps onto Twitter’s turf. Google+, with it’s system of circles, allows users to follow people in a way similar to Twitter. If Facebook is for family and friends and Google+/Twitter is more the rest – you see how the battle then shifts to Google+ vs. Twitter.

    For Kawasaki, Google+ has replaced Twitter when it comes to “manual engagement.”

    “As soon as I discovered Google+, I have so much less manual engagement with Twitter. I have almost no human engagement on Twitter – every single post on Google+ is manual and “only me” – no ghost writing on Google+.”

    When asked why, he said:

    “System notifications are so much better [on Google+]. On Twitter, if I do an @ mention, I doubt they’re going to see it. When someone @ mentions me on Twitter, I most likely won’t see it. On Google+, I’m notified every time anyone mentions me and shares with me. I get hundreds of emails a day, and I follow through on all of those.”

    Just systematically, [Google+] leads towards much greater engagement. If I’m making the effort to do something, I want to know someone is getting it.”

    Do you think that Google+ challenges Facebook or Twitter? Let us know in the comments.

    For 5 years, WebProNews has partnered with BlogWorld and New Media Expo, the world’s first and largest new media conference, in an effort to broadcast how new media can grow your business, brand, and audience. Stay tuned to WebProNews for much more exclusive coverage.