The reason I mention Atwood’s piece is because Rands in Repose had a very nice reaction post titled “Please Learn to Write“. Maybe it’s because I am a writer, but the suggestion—Hey, if you want to improve yourself, communicate better.—rings true to me.

In the post, Berkun distinguishes between three aspects of writing a book:

• Anyone can write a book (i.e., you can write one right now, without needing anything else)
• Getting published (which is a separate issue from writing a book)
• Becoming famous and wealthy

I know there are some people that would like to write a book as an experience, or as a way of sharing what they’ve learned. And some others like the imagined prestige and riches that come with writing a book. I’ve done quite well over the past decade, having written 22 books and sold over 350,000 copies, but I can verify that the prestige and riches aren’t all that you might imagine (I recently discussed the economics in a newsletter). That being said, I’m quite happy that I’m making a decent living doing something that I always dreamed of doing. I’ve been working for myself for 13 years now, which is something.

In any case, if you’re interested in the topic, check out Berkun’s post. It’s short, and well written. At the bottom, you’ll find links to more good articles on writing, if you’re not too discouraged by that point! His “Why You Fail at Writing” is pretty good for helping you accomplish that goal of writing a book.

If you have any questions you’d like to ask me about what it means to be a writer, just let me know!

99designs, in case you’re not familiar with it, is perhaps the most popular of the “crowd sourcing” line of Web sites. There’s a good video on the home page that explains the concept, but I’ll give a quick overview, too. People who need design work done—logos, business cards, t-shirts, posters, brochures, Websites, icons, etc.—choose a category in which to start a contest. There are minimum prices, which vary by the project. For example, a Web site starts at $599 and a logo starts at $299. This is the minimum amount you can price your job at; you’re free to pay whatever price more than that. You then provide as many details as possible about what you’re looking for and begin the contest.

Once a contest is opened, designers can start uploading designs. This is a key benefit for the clients: you get to see the possible results. As the client, you’re not trying to hire a designer and hope s/he can do the work to your satisfaction, you’re buying the actual finished product. From the designer’s perspective, you get access to more jobs and clients than you otherwise would, and you’re guaranteed to be paid. (I’ll discuss the pros and cons and ethics of all this later in the post).

As designers are submitting work, you can provide feedback in a couple of ways. First, you can rank the work, which is a simple 1-5 stars. I didn’t really care for the terms assigned to these rankings, though, because one star meant “Has potential”, and there were clearly submissions that did not have potential (but I didn’t want to outright eliminate them either). You can also provide written feedback on a single design, to a specific designer, or provide notes to the public at large. For example, a designer might submit a handful of designs and I could say that I liked the font in this one, the colors in the other, etc. If several designers were submitting things that were off, I’d clarify the needs in a global message. Hopefully the designers will watch your feedback and customize their work accordingly. You can outright cut a design, which I did more aggressively towards the end, or outright cut a designer (which I think I only did twice).

At some point, the client can guarantee the job, which says that the overall quality is good enough for you to commit to paying someone. At another point (four days, in my case), you choose just the finalists (up to six). Over the following three days, in my case, you provide feedback to the finalists and can only receive more submissions from them. Once the contest is over, you can choose a winner. You indicate to the winner any final change requests, and what format you want the materials to be in. The designer does all that and uploads the final materials. You then sign off on it and the designer is paid. That’s the general formula, here’s how it played out for me…

I wanted both a logo and a business card. I thought I was going to create two separate contests, but it’s an option to tie them together, which is smart. So I created a logo and business card contest. I could have added in stationary or whatever, but I don’t have that need.

The minimum price is $299 for the logo, I believe, plus $99 or $149 for the business card (I forget). That put my minimum somewhere in the $400-$450 range. People that don’t like the concept of 99designs often focus on this idea of getting something of quality for relatively little money. Of course, experience would suggest, that almost never happens, regardless of the situation. What many people don’t know, or it just doesn’t get discussed as often, is that 99designs strongly encourages clients to spend more money. 99designs explains how you’ll get more and better submissions the more you’re willing to spend. They even have packages and enhancements to draw attention to your contest, much like eBay. In the end, my contest had a fixed price of $644 (USD), plus it cost me about $50 in fees that went to 99designs (much of that for running a private contest). Clearly, you could spend a lot more money for a business card and a logo, but I don’t feel that $644 is an unreasonably cheap price to pay. I could be wrong. What do you think?

As part of the contest particulars, you set the timeline. I had the contest run for a week, but I could have made it shorter (which I think means you have to spend more money). I also provided the requirements and suggestions for what I like. This was tough, because while I know what I like, I also like to be surprised. The downside to this public system is that once I started indicating that I liked a certain style, all of the designs started coming in along those lines. One designer near the end really came up with something different, and borderline brilliant, but there wasn’t time for that designer to really put something together that was entirely right.

Fairly quickly on the first day I started seeing designs, but they were generally poor. I would hasten to say that those designers with the greatest need and least experience were probably the ones to initially submit. And that makes sense. But there were several initial designs that I could have created, which isn’t good. This continued into the second day, with generally so-so designs. I think I eliminated one designer early on, as her work just wasn’t to my taste at all.

But by the third day, I reached a point where I had maybe 50 designs from about 15 designers, and I was seeing decent enough work to go ahead and guarantee the contest. I also read elsewhere that guaranteeing the contest is how you really get the best submissions, which turned out to be completely true. Within the next two days, I went from around 50 designs from 15 designers to 327 designs from 90 designers! It’s also at that point in time that the better quality submissions came in. I believe two of my finalists were there on day 2, with the other two coming in after that, including the winner.

Over the next two days, I continued providing feedback as the submissions came in. All told, I provided 222 comments! I was not prepared for that amount of work. And it was tough, because I often couldn’t provide suggestions for improvement, just comments along the lines of “Doesn’t quite work for me”. On the other hand, I would think designers would be used to that kind of feedback by now. Clients can be, um, difficult, no?

I was also surprised that designers would occasionally pull their submissions. Sometimes I think this was because the designer later thought twice about it. It was kind of annoying, though, as it would prevent me from seeing the progression of a designer’s work, which I found to be useful information. One designer outright pulled all of his designs. I suspect it’s because he knew he wasn’t going to make it to the finals, but it struck me as a tad unprofessional. There also seems to be a air of protecting one’s work as a reason to pull a submission. I don’t agree with that theory but…

After four days, I had to select the finalists. You can select up to six, I think, but I selected four. One designer created a single look which was my favorite. A second designer created a couple of looks that I really liked, but those didn’t resonate as well for the other people I got advice from. A third designer had two looks that were both good, but neither was as strong as the others. I included that designer in the finals because I liked the variety and thought he could put something interesting and different together. And the fourth designer was doing totally different things that really intrigued me (as already mentioned).

At this point I had less feedback to offer, which was particularly hard for Designer B, who was my initial favorite but eventually overtaken by Designer A. In short, all I had for Designer B was “I really like it, but I like Designer A’s thing better, and I don’t know what else to tell you.” On the other hand, if I could put design needs into words, perhaps I would actually have design skills!

During the final period, the designers also worked on the business card aspect of the contest (if they hadn’t already). A couple of designers even went ahead and mocked up the logo as a favicon/avatar and showed what the logo would look like as part of a Web site. Neither was an obligation of the job, but going that extra mile was a smart move. Plus it allowed me to see how a design would work in different formats, which was important in making the final decision. Doing more than you have to is always a good way to work!

With the contest over, it was time to make a decision. In the end, I had a total of 397 entries to consider! I ran a couple of polls on my favorite designs to get some more input, and I spoke with my wife about it a lot.

Once I chose the winner, I asked the designer to make a couple of minor changes (especially with the business card), and then indicated what actual files I’d need to receive. She provided those, we both signed off, and she got her $644. Again, you can see the final choice here.

I’ve since paid another designer I know some money to customize the CSS for my new template in order to adopt the logo and colors to it. I hope to put that online soon.

Overall, I’m very pleased with my experience. I was able to get a professional logo and business card at a price that I could afford. More than the price, though, I really benefited from seeing a lot of ideas. (I even came close to anointing two designers the winners, but that would have cost me twice as much and I knew I’d never use the second design.) But one of the reasons why I choose the finalists that I did was because they gave me the best range of designs, both among the group of them and individually (i.e., the winning designer had a great range in her portfolio). The whole experience was like visual brainstorming, and I imagine I’ll use 99designs again.

Now as for the ethics of it…

Before using 99designs, I had read some posts about it and saw some discussions of the ethics of such sites. Ethics are always personal, so I would never presume to suggest how anyone else should feel about these types of sites. However, I did think about it considerably, and decided that I didn’t have a problem with it. The main reason I feel it’s okay is this: both sides know exactly what the deal is going into it. The rules are clearly established, adhered to, and fair. Yes, it sucks for the 98 designers that put in some time but didn’t make any money, but that was their choice to participate. And even the winning designer, who seems to be quite good and has won 19 other contests, has also lost in 180 others.

Yes, sites like these could be described as taking advantage of people that badly need work, but the counter argument is that it gives people more avenues to get work. How else will a new designer living in an obscure part of whatever country find work and experience? And that’s another thing: experience. Those designers who didn’t win are able to get a lot of experience in terms of seeing what clients want, how to interact, and what professional quality work looks like. To me, that’s quite something. When I first started out, I would have been thrilled to have those kinds of opportunities. Where do you stand?

First, a little history… My in-laws created a consulting company about 16 years ago for my father-in-law’s work. I started working for them full-time in 1999, doing my own thing under the umbrella company, Com-Insights, short for Communication Insights. Here’s my first logo and business card, which I designed myself. Pretty impressive, no? Believe me when I say I have no design skills.

Years later, the company’s name was changed to DMC Insights, Inc., short for Digital Media and Communications Insights. This long name was supposed to represent the two sides of the business: what I did and what my father-in-law did. I hired a designer to create a new version of the Web site, and used a logo based upon that:

I also used that in a business card, which was somewhat better than the above. For years, I worked under DMC Insights, with that logo.

Eventually, my father-in-law retired and it was just me. I also realized that NO ONE cared about DMC Insights. Most of my work is related to my books, and people know “Larry Ullman”, not “DMC Insights”. At best. Many people don’t even remember a writer’s name, but no one remembered my company’s name. Fortunately, in 2010 I was able to purchase www.LarryUllman.com, allowing me to start doing all business just under my name.

With the new domain name, I created a new Web site, which is mostly a slightly modified WordPress theme. Using that theme’s colors, I came up with a new favicon/avatar:

Better than the work I’ve done in the past, sure, but not something to be proud of.

Here, then, is my new logo, created by a designer at 99designs (again, I’ll write more about that process later):

And you can see the new avatar and favicon in the address bar. Later this month I hope to update this site’s look using the new logo and colors. Here’s the business card that goes with it:

It’s not amazing or revolutionary, but it’s nice and professional. And it’s not embarrassing, which is a HUGE step up from what I’ve had in the past. As I said, my logo and business card aren’t that important to me, but they shouldn’t be, um, pathetic, which is what my designs were. It’s almost always best to stick to what you know!

What do you think?

[NOTE: One person, whose opinion I value highly, took this post to be critical of 99designs and to be very specific to that experience. That's not the intention of this post at all, and certainly not reflective of the overall 99designs experience that I had. I do use 99designs examples frequently because they are:

• Fresh in my mind
• Timely (i.e., reflective of the type of environments and work that's available today)
• More generally applicable than, say, publishing examples

Still, the 99designs examples of what not to do are not particular to 99designs and are not common to what I saw from 99designs participants as a whole. I want to clearly state that I believe the advice put forth is applicable everywhere.]

A lot of qualities and behaviors go into getting work, but a few obvious and simple hiccups can make you lose work. These are the things you should not do!

1. Fail to Meet the Specs of the Proposal.

I’m speaking here of the process of trying to win or get a job, not actually do the job (although in the case of 99designs, these two steps are the same). As an example, people will write to me asking how to get published, perhaps thinking there’s some sort of trick to it. There are absolutely no tricks to getting published, but the most common cause of failure is bringing the wrong idea to the wrong publisher. Clearly, I’m not going to sell O’Reilly on a house painting book, but I’m also unlikely to convince  Macworld to publish my PostreSQL article unless I can orient the subject to the common Mac user.

Furthermore, publishers have very specific requirements as to how proposals should be submitted. Some people don’t bother to try to meet those requirements, or simply never take the time to review them, but they matter. If you can’t comprehend and follow the guidelines for submitting ideas, it’s unlikely that you’ll be able to follow the guideline for writing an entire book, no? The same theory applies to any other type of project…

If you can’t meet the specs of the proposal, you’re indicating to the potential client that you probably won’t be able to understand and meet the specs of the job itself.

If the client says they want a two-page proposal with a detailed estimate, list of requirements, and references, then you really need to give them that. If you don’t, then you’ve given the client an easy and quick reason to cross you off the list of potential hires.

In my 99designs contest, with 100 designers, I had a hard time telling people “No, thanks” (that’s generally hard for me to do). So when designers failed to adhere to the clearly explained requirements, it was a snap for me to cut those designs or designers.

2. Make Careless Mistakes

This problem can overlap the first one, but I’m more specifically talking about editing and similar problems here. As a writer, I obviously value communication skills, but you don’t have to be Hemingway, you just have to be literate and demonstrate general competence. As an example of what I mean, one designer in my 99designs contest misspelled my first name in his or her submission! If a designer can’t spell “Larry” correctly (on my business card!)…

You should always take one more look at what you’re about to submit, say, propose, email, etc. Not taking an extra five minutes to proofread something one more time is a terrible reason not to get a job. If you can, having a second set of eyes review the thing is even better.

3. Don’t Make an Effort

Careless mistakes, in my opinion, normally show a lack of effort (in that the person didn’t put in the time to review the work one more time). Worse, careless mistakes may indicate a lack of competency, but it’s hard to distinguish between the two possibilities given a limited sample size. In any case, this may be more of a pet peeve of mine, but I’m not going to reward people who aren’t trying, and I think most potential clients feel this way to. For example, in my support forums, I’m happy to provide free help to those that need it, but I do want to see a modicum of effort on the part of the person needing the help.

Turning back to the 99designs contest, I was surprised by the percentage of designers that failed to do any amount of research about me. I’m not a hard person to find online; those people that quickly looked me up and used that information put themselves well ahead of those that didn’t. Every designer that asked a question like “What kinds of work do you do?” went to the bottom of the pile.

Never try to get a project without having done a reasonable amount of research about who the client is, what the client’s values are, and so forth.

You don’t have to go to the Library of Congress or find out the name of the client’s pet when they were a child, but try. Do a little bit of something. The hour you spend looking at a person’s Web site may make all the difference.

As a counter example, I’ll be giving a speech at an e-commerce expo in Istanbul. I have a couple of goals for the speech, starting with giving a speech that the audience will be glad they attended. Secondarily, it’d be nice if more work could come from the experience. In order to achieve both goals, I’m spending some time researching the audience, the environment, and so forth, in order to better customize my speech to the actual attendees. Sure, I’m being paid for the speech no matter how good it is, but it’s in everyone’s best interest if I put forth the effort to make it great for them.

4. Be Unprofessional

This is an obvious one and yet, all too common of a mistake. I suspect these types of issues come up due to careless mistakes or moments of frustration, but you really can’t behave in an unprofessional manner and expect to get a job. Whether it’s the words you use, the tone you take, your physical or line appearance, or your responsiveness, be professional at all times, regardless of the situation. I’ll provide a specific example in the next paragraph.

5. Lose Poorly

The final way you can lose work may not be on many people’s radar: lose poorly. Losing poorly partly comes from being unprofessional and partly from being short sighted. For example, in my 99designs contest, there was one designer who was an early favorite and made it into the final round. Unfortunately for that designer, another designer came along later and provided what I thought was a superior design. In the end, it was a close judgement call, but the second designer’s work was just better. The first designer was frustrated, I know, but responded poorly. He was both accusatory and dismissive of the winning designer. It was petty, inappropriate, and unattractive.

Besides being unprofessional, here’s why that’s a huge mistake: clearly, this is not the only design work I’ll ever farm out. I had felt bad about this particular designer not winning in the end and would have certainly put that designer on my short list for all future work. Now, however, I won’t. This designer, in losing the one job poorly, ruled himself out of contention for all future work from me. Ouch. Conversely, another finalist in the competition sent me a very graceful message saying that he had agreed with my final choice and wished me the best. That designer will be on my short list for future work.

Think long term. A job you lost today may also mean that you “won” some experience (silver lining, I know), and, more importantly a potential client down the road.

This particular piece of advice applies everywhere across the board. If I have a book idea rejected by a publisher, at least I’m on the publisher’s radar. That initial “no” is likely to turn into another project if I handle the rejection appropriately. Even if you never work with that client that didn’t hire you, it’s possible the you can learn something to improve your odds of getting the next job with another client.

Conclusion

At the end of the day, remember that trying to get work is a contest between you and others, whether it’s a formal contest like at 99designs or not. I know that it’s hard to win these contests and I’m so sympathetic to anyone out there trying to make a living. Winning takes talent, hard work, professionalism, and sometimes luck or good timing. Losing is easy, especially when you make any of these five mistakes. But it’s also easy to avoid these mistakes. By doing so, hopefully you can improve your odds of winning or, in situations where you still didn’t win, perhaps you’ll find that this time you just failed to win, rather than lost. There’s a difference.

If you have any other suggestions, experiences, or thoughts, please share them!

I’ve obviously been aware of Twitter for years now, but have avoided all forms of “social media”, despite the fact that many readers, and even my publisher, have kept suggesting that I create an account. Well, I finally accepted that “I don’t wanna” isn’t really a good reason for not having a Twitter account. And, I reminded myself that I could use Twitter the way I want, that it doesn’t have to be a stereotypical (and inane) series of “I am eating a sandwich.” tweets.

So I’m now officially @LarryUllman (clever handle, no?), although I have yet to actually tweet. Surprisingly, in the couple of weeks since I created an account, I’ve found myself to be quite popular with attractive young women and various service providers. They must all really be interested in what I have to say! If you’re interested, you can now follow me on Twitter:

Follow @LarryUllman

And there was much rejoicing.

I started this blog a couple of years ago as a way to support my books and to connect with readers more directly. I hadn’t put much thought or planning into the blog, and have been mostly winging it thus far. Eventually I noticed that the blog was the only part of my site being updated within any regularity, and so I moved the blog to the forefront. When I did that, I also added the Amazon carousel widget as a way to promote my books (it just about covers the cost of hosting, which is a start). The blog had picked up significant viewership because of the popularity of my series on the Yii framework, and I wanted to tap into that (i.e., if you like my writing with this series, you may like one of my books). And now, about a year and half later, I thought it time to put a bit more thought into it.

I’ve been reading many good pieces of advice in the Technical Blogging book, and one that I’ve started implementing already is a harder blogging schedule. Historically, I’ve posted three days a week: Tuesday, Thursday, and the weekend, hopefully not skipping more than one of those days every two weeks (i.e., my goal was to do at least 5 posts in a two-week period). The book makes a good argument for posting on weekdays and for being consistent in the time of day. So as of this month, I’ve started trying to consistently post Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, around 10:30AM (EST). Mostly this means that I’m still writing a blog post on Tuesday, Thursday, and the weekend, but those don’t go live until Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. Same requirement to me, but a consistent end result this way.

Another concept take from the book that I’ve started implementing is a schedule as to the types of posts being made. Almost all of the posts I write fall into one of three categories:

• About me (book updates, newsletters, and the like)
• How-to’s (technical instruction)
• Sharing links and resources

Starting this month, Mondays are for the first type of post, Wednesdays, the second, and Fridays, the third. The thinking is that on Monday morning, you, the lovely reader, will find out what I’m up to, without taking too much time from your other Monday-morning duties. On Friday, you’ll be introduced to something useful, while your work week is winding down. And on Wednesday, in the middle of the week, you’ll see some actual code and perhaps learn how to do something new. That’s the thinking, anyway. This intended schedule also forces me to write more How-to’s, which are more time consuming than the other two types but arguably more useful to readers.

I’m thinking about adding guest posts, book reviews, and other new types of posts. Once I do those, they’ll probably be “one-off” postings that go on Tuesdays and Thursdays.

Through these and other planned changes, I hope to fulfill the two goals that I’ve finally identified for the site:

1. Say something useful (such as my Yii series)
2. Sell a few more books

I do get many specific requests for things people would like to see me write about. If you have any comments or suggestions, I’d love to hear them!

Please use the poll below to vote. If you have any specific comments, please post them using the comments form. Thanks for your input and for your interest in what I do!

In a recent newsletter, I answered a question about how I spend my time between projects. For me, the biggest projects I have, in terms of stress and time consumption, are the books I write. The client projects–Web development and such, no matter how big or complicated, never seem to be that much of a burden. Mostly this is because I find programming to be much easier than writing about programming, and because it’s fun to make things happen, to implement new concepts. Over the course of a year, I’ll work on any number of projects, ranging from consulting a couple of hours here or there (i.e., helping to steer the actual developers) to doing all of the development myself. When these bigger projects are done, I’m pleased to have them off of my list, but there’s never the huge sigh of relief that I have when I’ve finished a book. And that sigh says: now I can do these other 20 things that have been waiting for me!

With the completion of the JavaScript book on the horizon, I’ve been making my January to-do list, and salivating over all the things I’ll be getting done. Certainly, what I will actually do won’t be nearly as long as this list, but one can dream, no? My next deadline isn’t until this summer, which is when I have to turn in the third edition of my PHP 5 Advanced: Visual QuickPro Guide book. Although I’d like to, for a change, get that book done well in advance! Still, I have a bit of time to really put a dent in my “someday” to-do list.

First on my list is to exercise more often. I feel like I’ve gained five pounds for every book I’ve written (all that sitting), and while I’ve exercised more than never over the past few months, I’d like to do much, much better. We could all probably use more exercise!

After exercise, which is a daily and on-going goal, I’ve grouped my dream tasks into four categories:

• Things to work on
• Books to read
• Work things I really should get done
• Personal things I really should get done

The last category is of little interest to you, I imagine, or wouldn’t mean much regardless (mostly construction projects around the house). The work things I really should get done are those things that don’t get done during my books and big projects. For January, this primarily means creating an HTML5 version of this site’s design, plus a corresponding version for my forum. Before I redid this site in October of 2010, the site had become woefully outdated and I want to insure that doesn’t happen again. If time allows, I’ll do a mobile version, too, and make sure everything is performing as well as can be.

The books to read are both personal and work related. I want to read one or two parenting books, a novel, and some work-related books. I’m specifically looking to read The Pragmatic Programmer by Hunt and Thomas first. I’ve heard good things about it. Then, coincidentally, I have a couple of ebooks from The Pragmatic Bookshelf on my computer awaiting a few moments of time. As I read these, I’ll no doubt be posting my thoughts about them here.

Finally, there’s my “things to work on” category, which is a broad category of topics without definitive targets or concrete tasks. Normally these items are a matter of improving my skills in specific areas. Right now I’m thinking honing my abilities and knowledge with respect to Launchbar and TextMate, two Mac apps I use all the time. I know for a fact that I’m underutilizing both. The time I spend improving my skills with them now will pay dividends over the rest of the year. As time allows, I also plan on continuing to write my Yii book, although I’ll probably do that as blog posts, too.

So there are my January 2012 non-resolutions. Which will likely also be my February 2012 non-resolutions. Sadly, at least a quarter of them will end up on my September 2012 resolutions, too!

UPDATE: I just literally finished all the work on the Modern JavaScript: Develop and Design book yesterday, so thus far, I’ve done pretty much none of the things on my list, including exercise more. Ugh. But how about that February list…