Telling True Stories: A Nonfiction Writers' Guide from the Nieman Foundation at Harvard University

Inspiring stories and practical advice from America?s most respected journalists

The country?s most prominent journalists and nonfiction authors gather each year at Harvard?s Nieman Conference on Narrative Journalism. Telling True Stories presents their best advice?covering everything from finding a good topic, to structuring narrative stories, to writing and selling your first book. More than fifty well-known writers offer their most powerful tips, including:
? Tom Wolfe on the emotional core of the story
? Gay Talese on writing about private lives
? Malcolm Gladwell on the limits of profiles
? Nora Ephron on narrative writing and screenwriters
? Alma Guillermoprieto on telling the story and telling the truth
? Dozens of Pulitzer Prize?winning journalists from the Atlantic Monthly, New Yorker, New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Washington Post and more . . .

The essays contain important counsel for new and career journalists, as well as for freelance writers, radio producers, and memoirists. Packed with refreshingly candid and insightful recommendations, Telling True Stories will show anyone fascinated by the art of writing nonfiction how to bring people, scenes, and ideas to life on the page.

Price: $16.00

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Cooperation is the key to blogging success?

This guest post is by Onibalusi YoungPrePro.com's.

I was looking to the sky a few days ago and what I saw made me see how organized even animals can be. I saw about 50 birds flying from a tree to another and by the time they returned, each had a stick in her mouth — they worked on building a House.

This taught me a very important lesson about blogging, and made me realize that every thing around us us to be a better blogger can learn.

If those birds could just work in groups to build their home, then what about our bloggers? Why can't we effectively use the power of collaboration to build of our blogs?

The truth is that the number of new bloggers are trying to build a successful blog single-handedly nowadays is breathtaking. We know that there are more than 152 million blogs in the blogosphere, but we just can't figure out how many successes — as far as we are concerned, the majority of online blogs are failures.

How we then stand out as bloggers? What can we do to encourage our blogs success rates, and our blogs to distinguish it from the 152 million other blogs in the blogosphere? The truth is that we are the answer to this puzzle that a gazillion times have heard, but we've really never considered it as that important.

The key is cooperation.

You've probably heard that you should work together to build a successful blog at least once, but why on earth would you even try? After all, you can praise for building a great blog only claim!

That power could be speed, power, or anything that involved. If you have a look at the case of the 50 birds that I talked about, you'll notice how easy these birds can build what House they want to build in a much shorter timeframe than if the work was done by one of them alone.

It would be difficult for you to kick start your blog, but the strength, cooperation and wisdom of 50 extra bloggers can not be compared. I know that it is almost impossible to get that many bloggers to you, to support, especially if you are very new. But the truth is that you don't need 50 bloggers to support you to build a successful blog — three bloggers work with you to the success of your blog will be a whole lot of difference.

A lot of people will have told you, it takes a lifetime to build a reputation, but do you know that you can build a great reputation in a matter of years with the right tactics?

By linking to the appropriate groups bloggers at the right time, you can easily build a successful blog without moving an inch. Sometimes all you need just the adoption of a successful blogger in your niche. Even if you're not the approval of an A-list blogger, get the approval of two or three bloggers on the same level if you have a whole lot of difference it will make.

The funny thing about getting people to support you is that you don't need a hundred people to support you before you succeed. You only need one or two targeted people.

We human beings are created in such a way that we can easily be influenced by things and people around us, and this to your advantage can use. If you can get the support and approval of two to three other bloggers in your niche, you can easily use that if social proof to get more bloggers to support you, and that approval of these two bloggers can mean the difference between readers think you're cool, or that you don't know what you're talking

When people hear about collaborating with other bloggers in their niche, is the first thing that they try to send an e-mail to a few bloggers asking them as friends or ask the blogger to establish a regular link exchange campaign with them. If that is what you are about to do, then you might as well forget it. Below are a few ways that you with other bloggers in your niche can work together.

We bloggers are one of the smartest people (okay, I'm a blogger and I'm baised — but my point is that we also have common sense), so we take note, when people do something for us.

If you send me a link to tell you today, and you tell me to tweet your post tomorrow, and you tell me to review your product next week, but I have not seen that you share my messages or do me a favor in the past two months, do you think I will do that for you? The next thing I will tell you is, "no, thanks, that is a great offer but I don't think it will work with my audience" — even if it will. But when you are "always" spreading the word about me and to tell people how great I am, even if I have a million followers and you only have one, I will like to spread the word to my followers about you.

When was the last time you sent an email to a blogger to thank them for their blog post? Just try to do it once or twice, and you'll notice that you will be able to request the assistance of that favorite blogger of yours.

We bloggers like it when people say good things about us. We like to be appreciated, and some of us even like to be flattered. Give us what we want will only bring you on our radars.

I'm not trying to say that you must email a blogger and tell him or her that they start your god — that will only increase of an additional flag and put you on the "Beware of list" for that blogger. The best thing to do is a simple and polite email, maybe Mark interesting points in one of their articles to Show the blogger that you really read their messages to send.

Although there are media such as Twitter and Facebook, I still think the best medium to use for this kind of contact is email. I know that Twitter might be the easiest way to get in touch with your favorite blogger, but that is also its weakness. A lot of people, but very few people use email thank you to send messages to bloggers (or at least little in comparison with Twitter). The end result is that sometimes before the blogger can take to your e-mail address, but because you don't really need a response, it's okay. And it's enough to make the blogger to notice you.

Which birds were helping each other.

We must do the same as a blogger.

You won't go far by trying to exploit your fellow bloggers for attention, or links, or anything else, so don't even try to go that route. It might work in the beginning, but it will end up biting you.

The best way to succeed in your efforts as a blogger does everything that you really do. When you make your efforts not only to contribute value to your readers, but also to your fellow bloggers focus, you will eventually get great results for it.

Onibalusi Bamidele is the founder of YoungPrePro.com, a blog where he teaches people How to write for traffic and money. Get his free eCourse 7 series on how to write a successful Online company to build

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"They Say / I Say": The Moves That Matter in Academic Writing with Readings

"They Say / I Say" shows that writing well means mastering some key rhetorical moves, the most important of which involves summarizing what others have said ("they say") to set up one???s own argument ("I say").

In addition to explaining the basic moves, this book provides writing templates that show students explicitly how to make these moves in their own writing. Now available in two versions, with and without an anthology of 32 readings.

Price:

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You should write about making money blogging on Make Money blogging [misconceptions new Bloggers have # 3]

This post is the third in a series of studies of misconceptions and myths about blogging, that many new (and some experienced) bloggers about blogging.

We have already discussed the misconceptions that blogging superhuman effort takes (or is simple!) and that you daily on your blog should books.

Contemporary misconception is all about money. It is one that I hear every day when I observe what people are saying about making money from blogging.

Only people who sell make money blogging resources, make money blogging.The most profitable topics to blog about his blogging tips of making money blogging.It is impossible to make money blogging on "normal" everyday topics.

The reality is that most people who talk about making money blogging those trying to create a name for himself in that very niche. I think part of the creation of authority and credibility is to show what you are doing, so that bloggers in this niche are often not Wars of their revenue share.

On the other hand, many bloggers who are making a living from blogging in other niches don't have an avenue through which to talk about it, or don't want to (for privacy reasons or because they don't want to warn the competition to their success).

As a result, is the impression that new bloggers often get that nobody is making money blogging with the exception of a letter about writing.

Let's see some of the realities of working in this niche.

You good money blogging about blogging. It is true — there is money to be made in this space. Teaching others blog and that a life of it can be profitable. I make enough to live (and some) from ProBlogger every month, and know of at least five or six other bloggers in your niche that on a comparable level would be. As with any subject that has nothing to do with money, this can be a lucrative niche.It's been a busy niche when it comes to finding readers. As a result of the success of a number of (and the public service broadcaster of results), many others joined the hunt for market share in this space. I have not seen figures on it, but I suspect that the result is that it is one of the more crowded niches. As a result, can break into the niche and making a name for yourself can be tough.It's been a busy niche when it comes to products. If you want to make money in the niche Make Money blogging by releasing a product, there are not only a lot of other blogs, but a lot of products that you will have to compete with. Not a day goes by when I'm not approached by another blogger like me to their e-book, course or tool ... Again, it is difficult to distinguish, and I suspect that many bloggers already have bought just enough products, and are not so interested in buying more.There's a lot of suspicion about the topic. Thanks to the nature of the subject has a lot of suspicion about it. Unfortunately, over the years, this niche has attracted its fair share of dubious characters and those less-than-ethical and transparent tactics have used to make a name for itself. This has a lot of suspicion among the public about the niche. I'm kind of glad about this suspicion, I like a lot of people who've seen scammed, but it makes this a tricky area to work in. My recent ban on (and then reinstatement) of YouTube seems to have occurred because many in the niche were tarred with the same brush (most of the accounts had made an end of videos including the words "make money online").Bloggers are perhaps more reluctant to spend money than other target groups. Let us be clear: I'm not calling you cheap! But one of the factors to consider in this area is that the barriers to entry for the blogosphere (unlike other hobby) are very low. You can setup a blog for free, there are thousands of blogging themes, tools, and how-to instructions there for free, and there is plenty of free help within the niche. As a result, many bloggers don't come to their blogs with the expectation of having to spend a lot of money. This can affect the bottom line for those who try to operate in this niche (I will touch on this more below).

I'm not going to pretend that all other lucrative niches. I know a lot of bloggers with decent readerships that are struggling to make money, because their subjects do not lend themselves for monetization. However, my experience teaches me that there is definitely a lot of opportunities in other niches, and that in many ways they can make it easier to make money than the niche blogging tips.

Personally, I have found it a lot easier to build significantly larger audience and higher profits in other niches. My photography blog has about five to six times the readership of ProBlogger, and is more than five to six times as profitable.

The niche photography is very competitive, but there are some other so quickly including:

The market is larger: There are a lot more people around who own cameras than blogs.The audience is more of a public expenditure: I mentioned above that since blogging has low barriers to entry, bloggers are often less likely to spend money. Photography is a little different. People increasingly spend thousands of dollars on cameras, they buy photography magazines and books, they enroll in courses ... There is just more of a willingness to bring in that niche.The audience is not as suspicious: While people still a healthy suspicion of online marketers in this space, there are fewer barriers on this front.

This assessment is not only relevant to the photography space — plenty of other niches are also bigger and his audience that more be used for expenditure.

This is probably not the place for a full exploration of how a niche for your blog (I will also be some links below for more information about that). My general opinion is, however, to choose a topic on which there is a healthy demand for content (it's hard to have a successful blog about a topic that nobody but you bought) and that you know something about (and preferably have a passion or interest).

My co-author on the ProBlogger book, Chris Garrett, last year on the day of the training ProBlogger presented in Melbourne, and used a slide which I think is a great Visual at this point:

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Qualitative Reading Inventory (5th Edition)

This easy-to-use, best-selling collection of reading materials effectively assesses reading ability at emergent though high school levels. Qualitative Reading Inventory-5 includes both narrative and expository passages at each grade level, questions to assess prior knowledge, and word lists. Instructors can measure comprehension by retelling passages, implicit and explicit questions, and other devices. Based on the latest reading research, this comprehensive inventory focuses assessment on specific questions regarding word identification, fluency, and comprehension. It also provides suggestions for intervention instruction, procedures for assessment of strategic reading, and inclusion of results in classroom portfolios.

What's new to this edition...

• Presents new narrative texts even easier than the pre-kindergarten passages previously included, as well as a updated narrative for all primary grade level
• Includes passages at pre-kindergarten through second grade levels with and without pictures
• Offers maps and illustrations as part of expository selections for Grades 4-12Features new content on DVD , including:
• Examples of students reading orally
• Scored protocols to accompany readings
• Directions for administering each segment of the QRI
• Tables/Charts that increase consistency of administration’s coring and interpretation
• All student and instructor copies
• Outlines the full research-base and includes the various pilot studies conducted with various classrooms in the appendix

Price: $66.99

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Tactical Tips for building an Online community

This guest post is by Jim Nelson Tripawds.comor.

With all the wonderful feedback on my guest post about how we utilize WordPress multisite and discussion forums to build community for our rather niche market, I thought I might offer some detail about specific tactics and network plugins we use to keep members informed, active and increasing in number.

Here are just a few social media nuts and bolts that keep the Tripawds Blogs community together. These methods work for us, as proven by growing membership and increased traffic to featured blogs and archived content.

My recommendations are by no means the only solutions for generating measurable success, though. Please do comment below with your own recommendations for encouraging social interaction on membership sites.

The freemium model: Make it free, with perks for paid members. Offer free blogs and use a Supporter plugin to enable enhanced features, or set membership levels for accessing premium content.Create featured blogs: Post regularly to a set of sites targeting specific topics. Example: Tripawds followers will find weekly posts in separate blogs for Gear, Gifts, Nutrition, downloads, and Amazon Reviews.Install Recent Global Posts widgets: Display recent posts from all blogs across your network, and bump your featured blog posts to pin them throughout the day.Update topics for featured blogs: Create specific forum topics for each of your sites and reply whenever your blog posts get kicked out of recent posts widgets. Encourage subscribing to topics for notification of new blog posts.Include member and blog directories: Provide searchable directories of all users and blogs. Edit directory pages to include descriptions and avatars or featured blogs and site administrators.Provide global site search: The WordPress admin bar only allows searching of the blog being viewed. Use a plugin that enables searching of all blogs and provide instructions for searching discussion forums and member or blog directories.Create a blog ring: Show network-wide global content in the headers and footers of all blogs across your network. Include links to your forums and directories or featured blogs. Here's how we did it.Create a New default Blog template: Install a plugin that lets you activate a default theme for all new blogs complete with with settings, blogroll links, and text widgets, and use a Supporter plugin that lets you enable premium themes for paid subscribers.Welcome all new bloggers: In addition to customizing the default first "Hello World" comment from your WordPress settings, reply to the first real post published on new blogs. Also create a forum discussion for welcoming new bloggers, and update the topic after first posts get published. Encourage members to subscribe to topic for notification of new blogs.Thank paying members: If you offer paid premium accounts, create a forum topic for announcing all new Supporter blogs.Encourage commenting on blogs: Create global RSS feeds for all blogs and comments to facilitate the following or member activities.Display recent posts in the dashboard: Use the Multi site dashboard Feed Widget to show recent posts from all blogs in every user dashboard.Create a custom menu: Use a theme that supports custom menus and link to specific featured blogs and forums to make network navigation easy.Foster friendships: A Friends plugin can be used to help members connect and show their support or others with widgets on their blogs.Provide technical support: Create a forum dedicated to answering tech support questions, and have a featured blog for posting announcements of new features and how to videos.Use a discreet popup: Direct new visitors from external sites to valuable content or welcome them with encouragment to join using a Popover plugin.Branch out: Offering podcasts of interviews with community members or discussions about pertinent topics with the tools available at Blog Talk Radio. Direct traffic to a dedicated forum or featured blog for all show archives and the upcoming program schedule.Keep it fun: Start an "Anything Goes" forum for allowing members to rant and rave about whatever they wish. And consider creating a fun blog offering some sort of comic relief. Tripawds has the KillBarney blog which follows the travels of our dog Jerry's favorite toy as it visits members and their dogs.Teach members to help: Encouage members to engage in all aspects of the community by showing them how to post in forums or publish a blog. Provide information about RSS feeds and how to use a reader, tell them how to subscribe or watch forum topics, and provide them with links to popular posts that should be shared with all new members.

Most importantly, engage with your community. Maintaining a multisite network for any cause can be time consuming. The more passionate you are about your work the easier it will be. Lack of passion is easily identified by members — especially paying ones — and can result in quick burnout. I have certain boilerplate comments with links to our most frequently recommended content, but I rarely use them and always edit them when I do to avoid appearing disingenuous.

Examples for all of the above tactics in use can be seen at my blog. The BuddyPress plugin is also available for building community among WordPress multisite members, complete with groups, forums and activity streams.

For those like me who have never played around with BuddyPress, however, I hope the tips above help you make the most of your multisite network. The vast majority of plugins I use to accomplish everything I've discussed come from WPMU Dev. If others have suggestions for different plugins or arguments for using BuddyPress, please share them in the comments.

Jim Nelson is co-founder of the Tripawds Blogs community and an active member of the WPMU Dev discussion forums. He and his wife Rene were featured in "Nature, Why We love Cats and Dogs" on PBS with their three-legged dog Jerry.

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Top 10 Web sites for recruiting expert WordPress

With no doubt WordPress is the biggest, best and most popular blogging platform around. Top blogs (BloggingTips too!) using WordPress as their core publishing platform, because WordPress offers what no other blogging platforms flexibility.:

Powerful engine of WordPress enables you to perform a simple personal weblog, or even build a completely custom box to run your website. Lets not forget about the hundreds of thousands of plugins and themes that allow you to customize your blog just the way you want them to.

Now, if you run a blog, finally comes to Tune with a custom theme, or to modify the current template to get the result you are looking for? or, perhaps you would like to implement advanced features. Regardless of which of these fits your requirements, you will have to hire a WordPress expert, a designer or developer who lives on WordPress, and 100% to get the job done.

Hire a wordpress experts will remove the racket and the large number of wasted hours dealing with amateurs. Following your view of labour councils are Top 10 continuously from browsing wordpress experts looking for freelance projects:

Jobs.WordPress.NET is the official boat for the work of WordPress. The job Board is updated daily and has a huge wordpress experts audience.

Although I hate outsourcing Web sites, is an area of Freelancer.com where you can find great wordpress designers and developers. Quick hint: attention to the feedback rating and reviews, and always ask for a full portfolio.

Smashing jobs is Smashing Magazine work ship. The jobs listed here are either in the Smahsing magazine rss feeds, publications and newsletters, so it is definitely worth a job posting from here.

The name speaks for itself. FreelanceSwitch is proud of having one of the best free communities around. Note: freelancers who must pay a small fee to view jobs.

WP is a leased lots better work, dedicated exclusively to wordpress.

WooThemes is a website themes premium principle. Even if they sell premium themes, WOO ninjas was quite cool to create a free to use Job Board.

DigitalPoint Forums is one of the largest web forums around. With an Alexa traffic rank of 434, this is definitely a place where you want to post your ad to. Note: must be a member for over two weeks and have at least 25 posts, to be able to post in the section services.

Krop is the best place to find technology wordpress professionals for your high-budget projects. $ 199 for 60 days.

Authentic jobs is where companies and creative professionalsmeet to make a better web. Companies like Skype, Apple or even facebook can use this table for jobs to find professionals. $ 99 for 30 days.

Impressive jobs is a Labour Council, which has raises premium largely to promote job postings on twitter, social networks and e-mail alerts. $ 60 for 60 days.

There you have it!  The Top 10 best jobs boards around to post up an advertising your research to find a wordpress expert to receive either a custom theme or adjustments have been made. If you want to avoid job posting in the Councils of public works, there is always the possibility to ask fellow webmasters to refer you to an excellent wordpress experts.

Reminder – always check background designer or developer who is about to hire. Search for reports, requesting a full portfolio.

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Writer's Digest Handbook of Magazine Article Writing

This highly anticipated update of the Writer's Digest Handbook of Magazine Article Writing builds on the excellent reputation the first edition enjoys with more of the great information readers have come to expect. With original material as well as articles taken from the pages of Writer's Digest, the leading authority in the field, this book is the only resource readers need for all of their questions on how to: Brainstorm creative article ideas magazine editors will find irresistible; Find the right magazine for their work; Compose a professional, sophisticated query letter that catches the editor's eye; Keep editors coming back for more/get repeat assignments from magazines; This book is the writer's treasure map to the lucrative field of magazine writing!

Price: $16.99

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Writing for Social Scientists: How to Start and Finish Your Thesis, Book, or Article: Second Edition (Chicago Guides to Writing, Editing, and Publishing)

Students and researchers all write under pressure, and those pressures—most lamentably, the desire to impress your audience rather than to communicate with them—often lead to pretentious prose, academic posturing, and, not infrequently, writer’s block.  

Sociologist Howard S. Becker has written the classic book on how to conquer these pressures and simply write. First published nearly twenty years ago, Writing for Social Scientists has become a lifesaver for writers in all fields, from beginning students to published authors. Becker’s message is clear: in order to learn how to write, take a deep breath and then begin writing. Revise. Repeat.

It is not always an easy process, as Becker wryly relates. Decades of teaching, researching, and writing have given him plenty of material, and Becker neatly exposes the foibles of academia and its “publish or perish” atmosphere. Wordiness, the passive voice, inserting a “the way in which” when a simple “how” will do—all these mechanisms are a part of the social structure of academic writing. By shrugging off such impediments—or at the very least, putting them aside for a few hours—we can reform our work habits and start writing lucidly without worrying about grades, peer approval, or the “literature.”

In this new edition, Becker takes account of major changes in the computer tools available to writers today, and also substantially expands his analysis of how academic institutions create problems for them. As competition in academia grows increasingly heated, Writing for Social Scientists will provide solace to a new generation of frazzled, would-be writers.

Price: $12.00

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Writing Measurable IEP Goals and Objectives

A guide to quick and effective writing of accurate and measurable IEP goals and objectives. IEPs are necessary, required by law and when done properly can be extremely helpful in guiding the student's educational trajectory. This book, written by two of the foremost special educators and IEP legal experts is designed to bring you up to speed whether you're just entering the field or have worked in it for years.

Price: $25.00

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Klipfolio dashboard – the, which lists all your Business data

Most companies and blog owners love to keep pace with their data as Analytics, marketing/sales/revenue, Adsense earnings, etc. Unfortunately, it's a pain to have to sign and from these data sources on the Web, in addition, it is rather time consuming, if you do this several times a day. Klipfolio dashboard aims to be a solution for this and allows you to organize all these data in a single dashboard Web site.

On the site support, says that Klipfolio dashboard "is software that you can use to stay on top of things and things that are the smallest and most versatile Board of the world". You can add to your dashboard, Klips are basically widgets (even if they say that it is smaller and faster than the regular widgets) that keep you updated with all kinds of news, statistics and data. You can create and customize your Klips so that is just how you like them. Klips may even posted on your website or blog and you can also buy individual dashboards for your desktop.

Today, we will look at Klipfolio dashboard running on the Web and is now in beta stage "Trial". Used to create your own Klips and share with friends or colleagues.

You can change the layout for your dashboard Klips. There are 5 layouts to choose from? by default it is configured in a single column.

I already have a tab on your dashboard called "Examples", which you can click to see example Klips. These samples include:

Revenues YTDCurrent RatioQTD RepRegional sales StatusOpportunity QTDBookings – distribution by MonthTweetsStock promotions

You can start adding your first Klip by clicking "add to Klip" in the upper-left corner of the dashboard. Here you can select a premade Klips (such as those mentioned above), or create your own. Building a Klip starts easy, but when I go to edit, this section Gets a bit intimidating depending on the type of the Klip that you create. Let's take a look.

First select which styles of Klip that you would like to start with. You can choose from:

Value – i.e. margin, rations, ROITable – i.e. sales, network condition, pipelineSparkline – i.e. as regards the use of the sites, budget YTD performance chart, trendingPie – survey results, opportunity – breakdownGauge, benchmarksNews – i.e. the RSS feed, Twitter updatesImage – that is, graphs, images, maps, webcams

I decided to go with news in order to keep up with one of my favorite blogs via RSS.

Then you must pick your Klip's data source. This can be a source of shared or stored (such as demos from the library or those shared by colleagues), a new source (such as an Excel file, or XML) or no source at all (if the content is static).

I chose "new source", since I want to get data from an RSS feed. From here you can choose to upload a file (Excel, CSV, JSON, XML) or point to a URL to access the web.

Now is the time to add the source file. After the URL, I was able to add the URL, select the data format and select a refresh rate (from every 30 seconds for each 24 hours). Then, you will need to verify that this is indeed the source you want, and then you can add a name and description for this.

Here is the difficult part. You should go and edit every part of you Klip as the main content, link, author, etc. This is done through data and clicking individual items. You can also enter formulas and text here. Frankly, this section is a bit confusing (and where it should stop), and probably will get some play to tell. You can click on a question mark next to a specific area in order to get help -how to use formulas.

Once here, you must enter a name and a description of your actual Klip and then will appear on your dashboard.

If all this seems a little tedious or difficult to you, then I would recommend using a premade Klip or buying an entire Tableau to meet your needs. While this is certainly a useful tool, actually editing a Klip is something that will not come easily to everyone, and I think this could ever really escape some users.

What are your thoughts?

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