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admirxation · 1 year ago

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Broken Locks | Part 1

𓆩♡𓆪┆ links to other parts: part two | part three | part four | part five

𓆩♡𓆪┆ pairing: las plagas! yandere! re4! leon s. kennedy x fem!reader (afab)

𓆩♡𓆪┆ summary: the reader is leon’s neighbour, she’s always had a crush on him, but has disappeared for a few days to leave the reader to wonder where he has gone. leon’s arrival is quiet and unknown to many, but is connected to the anxiety the reader has felt with the recent attempted break-ins to her apartment.

𓆩♡𓆪┆word count: 2.3k

𓆩♡𓆪┆ disclaimer: this is a work of fiction! i do not condone everything i write, my writing doesn’t reflect all my morals. if any of the following warnings trigger or make you feel uncomfortable, scroll away; you are in charge of what content you’re consuming. this is 18+ only, minors are strongly advised not to interact.

𓆩♡𓆪┆ warnings: NSFW 18+ content, mdni. female anatomy and she/her pronouns used for reader. DEAD DOVE DO NOT EAT. stalking, breaking in, masturbation (m receiving), watching someone sleep, pantie sniffing, and kidnapping. (these will be updated along the way)

Chapter one: strange feeling

Dear Y/N,

I am writing to inform you that your apartment is safe to re-enter after continuous checks. New locks have been installed and keys will be given upon arrival. I want to apologise for any inconvenience this has caused you and encourage you to write if anything peculiar, like this, ever happens again. The police are aware of this and will take further action when more information can be found and given.

Kind regards,

Derek.

You looked at the email, sitting in the hotel room that you had retreated to for the past week. You released a sigh of relief when you finally heard word from Derek — your landlord — knowing that your apartment was now safe gave you some peace of mind.

While packing up your things you couldn’t help but think about all the peculiar things you had found near and on your apartment door; it was only a week ago when you found the peephole on your door had been drilled through, as well as markings on the side which made it look like someone tried to break-in with a crowbar. You remembered how you felt that afternoon when you found them, you had come back from work, absolutely exhausted and needing to get into something comfortable until you saw the evidence that made your heart race and feel watched from every angle. Thankfully you had alerted Derek about it all, he took you seriously and gave you the address of somewhere you could safely retreat to, helping with the finances of it all.

For the past week, trepidation was engraved in your mentality from the image of the scratches on the door, your psyche now full of paranoia and fear. You were grateful that things were sorted but still alarmed at not knowing who was behind all of it. You called your best friend Jill — explaining everything you were going through — and she told you if you had stopped messaging for a long time, she would call the police, so you had some security in safety with Derek’s apartment checks.

Why did this happen to me? You couldn’t help but have this question constantly haunt your mind, you knew you shouldn’t blame yourself — it wasn’t your fault — but having the stalking be anonymous made you think about who it was and why they were harassing you, was it someone you knew? When Derek looked at the camera footage, it was broken, just showing glitched lines on the computer screen; this only made you feel even more uneasy since you couldn’t get instant justice. At first, you and Derek theorised that it was probably the kid at the end of the hall wanting to cause trouble — as he did previously to other tenants — but Derek had spoken to their mother and found out he was with his father so he couldn’t have done it.

Derek met you at the front desk, he could tell you were still shaken up about things, and he had a warm smile with the keys in his hand. You smiled back at him, trying to fit the keys to loop around your index finger as you struggled with your suitcase and handbag.

“You okay?” of course, he knew you weren’t okay, but he didn’t know what else to say.

“I’m still a bit… You know… But I should be okay,” you paused for a bit, “Did you find anything in the apartment?” you couldn’t help but ask these questions; you knew he would have checked properly but you also had that little voice in your head that kept taunting you to ask the question.

“Nothing out of the ordinary, don’t worry okay? New locks have been put in, also the police know about this… Nothing should happen,” this put you at ease.

You nodded, giving a farewell as you went into the elevator to your floor; you gripped your suitcase tightly as you saw the buttons light up and signify you were getting closer to your apartment. When you finally reached it, you hesitated until the last minute when the doors were about to close, looking at your door that had been painted over and a new peephole installed; taking a deep breath you entered. Nothing had changed and it was the place you loved, after looking around you finally locked the door behind you and placed your suitcase in your room. You folded your arms, rubbing them to keep warm in an apartment that hadn’t been heated for over a week; you looked around and saw nothing had changed and everything looked the same and was untouched, but you couldn’t help but feel watched with every movement. You tried to ignore the feeling of paranoia, thinking that you were shaken up about things, but you couldn’t keep relieving your fears and needed to get unpacked.

─── ⋅ ∙ ∘ ☽ ༓ ☾ ∘ ⋅ ⋅ ───

Later on — when it was getting darker outside — you had finished your unpacking as well as managing to relax with a bath and skin care, you then went into the kitchen and made some dinner, not being able to stop thinking about Leon.

You had lived opposite his apartment for over a year, and still remembered seeing him move in and looking at that handsome face; you were too scared to ask him on a date so you played it off by knocking on his door and offering “leftovers”. You always made a bigger portion of food to give you an excuse to talk to him and recently it became a routine to eat dinner with him. But this routine had come to an end; Leon had been gone for a while and you had no idea where he was, you asked Derek if he moved out which he denied and told you he was still a tenant.

You theorised about where he could have gone: did he go visit family or friends? Go on holiday? Or was he visiting a girlfriend? You thought for a moment, saddened at the thought that Leon would never go for you and that your crush was just pathetic with an inevitable end but for now all you wanted to do was finally eat some good food. You had gotten fed up with the constant instant ramen at the hotel and takeaways were eating at your bank account, you needed something homemade. Looking through your peephole you looked over at Leon’s door — knowing he wasn’t back — you would always hear him this time of night when walking back from work. You never knew what he did but knew the routine he had made around it.

It was lonely to eat alone, adding to your anxiety as you couldn’t have anybody to talk to; you knew Leon worked out and took care of himself, if he was around you would probably feel safer. But of course, you didn’t know where he had gone.

When you were finally getting sleepy, you pushed a chair in front of the door, placing a glass cup on the door handle so you could hear if someone tried to jiggle it; you took no chances and had stuck a box around the peephole, a cover wouldn’t be enough if it was drilled through, but Derek had told you if you stuck it on the door it would come off when you wanted and wouldn’t be moved if the unspeakable happened again. You kept your warm-toned light on as you slept and had the tv play in the back quietly, enough so you could still hear the glass.; total silence and darkness would make it more difficult to sleep. You tried your best to keep your eyes closed and sleep through any fears you were going through.

─── ⋅ ∙ ∘ ☽ ༓ ☾ ∘ ⋅ ⋅ ───

You slept, hugging your favourite plushie, restless with nightmares but not wanting to stay up all night; you had work in the morning, which couldn’t be ignored. When you finally started to calm down, lost in a trance of slumber…

Leon finally came from under the bed.

He watched you momentarily, your face visible with the warm tones from your lamp; he watched you and stared at how beautiful and vulnerable you were in your sleep, getting harder as the thought of grabbing and making you his was starting to engulf his mind, but he couldn’t do that… yet. He walked over to the bathroom; you had foolishly kept the bedroom door open, making it easy for him to get around the place. He looked at his surroundings — the place you called your own little sanctuary — sliding his fingers on the books you were currently reading, picking up the blanket you slept in on the sofa, starting to smell it and loving how your scent was lingering on the fabric. You were so near, but so far; Leon wanted to do whatever he could while you were asleep.

He had been waiting for your arrival.

Leon had come back from Spain two weeks ago, he had finished his mission successfully but had to sacrifice himself for it; the parasite was slowly taking over him, and the dark veins across his skin started to take over the being he was. Unlike the other victims, he managed to maintain his memories and some of his characteristics, only his humanity and morals were exchanged and surrendered to the virus. He remembered his life before going to Spain: how sweet you were every time you came over to his place, how beautiful you were every time you walked past him, and how delicious you looked in your most vulnerable state.

Derek managed to maintain checks on the apartment, only he was stupid enough to install locks that were easy to pick without any evidence. The original locks were too challenging to get into, making it obvious he was trying to enter, the markings on the door being a last resort of desperation which held him back with you being gone for a week. When the new ones were put in, Derek was lazy and cheap; Leon managed to keep the camera covered and made his return unknown to everyone and every time he pressed himself toward the door to look through the peephole, seeing the hallway was clear, it was easy to get in. Thanks to Derek’s instalment of faulty, broken locks.

Leon knew that Derek would contact you the day the locks were put in, so he stayed in your room, hiding under your bed whenever he heard the sound of the key turning in the door. He remembered when he saw Derek looking around — completing an idle search — and Leon couldn’t help but think how simple-minded he was and what a huge mistake he made in the choices of locks and search methods.

The parasite made Leon think the most profound and darkest of thoughts, he couldn’t help but stare at Derek and think about how easy it would be to just… Kill him; he was out in the open like prey. But he wasn’t what Leon wanted; you were the prize he wanted to steal.

He sat in the bathroom, looking at all the products you used that were left on the side of the sink, but he didn’t care about that; he looked at your laundry basket, not taking a second to waste and rummage through your dirty clothes, looking for something particular.

He found it.

A black lacy thong was sitting at the bottom. Leon loved it when you wore this; you never knew but sometimes when you wore this with a skirt, he would sometimes see it when he accidentally dropped something and you were too kind to pick it up for him, bending over and exposing yourself in front of him. He couldn’t do it too often, but when he could, he would always feel how hard it made him, palming his erection under the table — which you were oblivious to.

He sat on the cold tile, unbuckling the belt on his jeans, allowing his hard cock to be surrounded by the cold air and Leon’s calloused hand, having his free hand press the lacy fabric against his nose. He inhaled your scent, his cock throbbing as he caressed his hard member, precum leaking over his fingertips as he got lost in the scent and thought of you.

He needed you. He needed to make you his, and he didn’t want to wait any longer.

Tonight was the night he was going through with the plan.

The more he thought about his sinful plans, he quickened his movements, trying not to be too loud in his moans: he thought about how you would feel, how it would feel to have those warm walls surround his cock and yearn for his tip to kiss your cervix, how beautiful you would look with his hand around your neck, wanting to know what it would be like to see you cry at his length, and how he would feel when you screamed his name and beg for him to stop.

That was it.

That was the thought that made him release warm ropes, using your panties to clean himself off, throwing it back on top of the basket without a care in the world.

Every time you made a sound, whether it was a whimper or you shuffling in bed, Leon darted his eyes in your direction, making sure you didn’t wake up and ruin his plans — he waited too long for this.

He finally moved to the kitchen, picking up any rag he could find, inching his way closer to the doorframe and covering the rag with the liquid that was a part of his plan. He stood over you, waiting and waiting for you to wake up.

When the sun peaked through, your eyes slowly opened, your vision blurry until you saw a dark figure.

“What the —”

Your eyes widened as the mysterious figure pressed the rag, covering your mouth and nose, making you slowly drift back into another deep slumber; your attempts to fight back failed, and Leon watched as your body became lifeless and easy to take.

════ ⋆★⋆ ════

a/n: i hope you enjoyed this part, please like and reblog (it rlly helps and i appreciate every single one). i just wanted to say that i didn’t do a tag list for this part since i wanted people to know what they were getting themselves into, i will also not be doing separate tag list posts; just comment on the post or message me if you want to be tagged (and maybe mention if you want to be tagged in every part of you want). have a lovely day/evening, ily 🫶

update on the authors note: i won’t be doing tag lists at all for this series it’s hard to keep up with, im sorry 🫶

#leon kennedy #leon s kennedy #leon kennedy x reader #leon kennedy x fem reader #leon kennedy smut #yandere!leon kennedy x reader #yandere!leon kennedy #plagas!leon kennedy x reader #plagas!leon kennedy #resident evil 4 #resident evil x reader #resident evil #fanfiction #leon kennedy x you #leon s kennedy x reader #admirxation #admirxation broken locks

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darkficsyouneveraskedfor · 4 years ago

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Looking for a Place to Happen 2

Warnings: non-consent sex and rape (series), age gap, general stupidity, some violence and threats

This is dark!biker!Sam Wilson x reader and explicit. 18+ only. Your media consumption is your own responsibility. Warnings have been given. DO NOT PROCEED if these matters upset you.

Series Synopsis: There’s lots happening in Birch and you find it all too amusing.

Sister series to Smalltown Bringdown, When the Weight Comes Down, Little Bones, and Fully Completely

Note: Here’s chapter two. Think I’ll probably slow down writing. Appreciate y’all.

Thanks to everyone for their patience and feedback. :)

I really hope you enjoy. 💋

<3 Let me know what you think with a like or reblog or reply or an ask! Love ya!

Chapter 2: I follow every little whiff

💀💀💀

You gave yourself a day off that week. Rather, the desolation of Birch allowed you an excuse to get away from your desk. An internet outage across the town had you up and wandering the main road just after noon. Your grandmother refused to join you so she was left to her true crime novel and the weekday droning of talk show hosts.

After a peek in the book shop where you picked out some used thrillers for your nan and a guilty splurge on one of Babs' pies to add to the surprise, you stopped by the diner and had some soup to warm up from the unrelenting cold. You played around on your phone as you blindly slurped from your spoon. With no available connection, you swapped candies to achieve a score high enough to get to the next round.

After another loss, you put your screen down and added some pepper to the tomato soup. You leaned your chin in your hand and peered across the road. The Asp was just diagonal from The Chipped Saucer and from your seat by the window you could see the comings and goings of the dingy bar.

You chuckled to yourself as you remembered the hundreds of comments on your video. You weren't entirely surprised that the internet cheered at the sight of a woman beating up a man in broad daylight, you'd seen much worse on the web. But many were curious and asked about how it started and about the small town alluded to in the caption.

You picked up your phone and flipped open the camera. You pointed it through the glass as one of the many bikers strutted out of the bar and down the street. You knew him, like most in town, he was the leader's right hand man. Steve Rogers. He had an odd gait, rigid with long strides, and you remember Kelly used to make fun of him when you walked home from school. That felt like forever ago.

You ended the video and dropped your phone again. You'd send it to Kelly when the outage was over. It would be a good laugh. Plus, you hadn't heard from her much since she moved to the city.

You finished your soup and paid. You went out into the street and cut around to the backstreets. You made your way back to your nans and found Pippin scratching at the front door. You stopped and scooped him up before you let yourself in.

"Don't like the snow, do ya?" You set him down and he whipped his tail before skittering off, "hey nan, I got you some stuff."

"You spend too much," she grumbled as you hung your coat and grabbed her treats.

"Only on you," you sang as you entered the front room, "sugarless blueberry pie, your fave, and some books about murder and all that freaky stuff you love."

"Hmm," she watched you put the pie and books down on the coffee table, "suppose the pie will go good with tea."

"Ah, and I suppose I'll be making that tea?" You returned.

"My arthritis…" she pouted but her grin came through.

"Yeah, yeah," you snickered as you went to the kitchen to put on the kettle, "we going black today or something lighter?"

"Put on some of the pekoe," she called back, "make a whole pot."

"Will do, ma'am," you trilled and basked in her annoyed mutter.

💀

When the internet came back, you sent of an email to inform the agency of the interruption and promised to meet your deadlines. Then you puttered around and added a caption to the video before you sent it off to Kelly; 'why he walk like that tho'. She sent a series of crying emojis back and told you to post it.

'Nah, it's a dumb joke.' You typed back.

'Saw ur last vid, ppl will eat it up,' she insisted.

'Well, got nothing else to put up. The account’s dying since no one cares about my writing.'

'DO IT.' Her words sealed your resolve and you uploaded the video with some dramatic music in the background.

The response was almost instantaneous. Several comments saying they were happy to see more and others being for another video. 'We all wanna see inside this fucked up town' one added and several latched on. Ignoring the questions of where this was, you gave a thin promise of future small town thug content.

You turned back to your work email and opened up your draft for your next gig. You couldn't help but smile as you went over your work. You might have just found your niche.

💀

You knew your nan would lose it if she knew you were snooping around the club, so you didn’t tell her. You went down, made her breakfast, went back upstairs to do your work, then tiptoed out in the late afternoon to poke around town for something to upload. Birch was so dull when you lived there but to those outside, it was a novelty you were all too eager to provide.

You got more videos of the bikers; some revving their bikes, others arguing, but there was nothing overly usable. You were getting bored of it until the man himself walked out of the bar. You record the man’s glower expression as he marched down the sidewalk and turned off just down the way.

‘His name is Bucket… wtf?!’ you keyed in and snorted as you waited for it to load to your account.

Still, there was nothing special going on, like always in Birch, and your grandmother was bound to get suspicious if you kept sneaking around. You went back and hid your phone before she could bitch about it. You cooked her dinner and sat with her as your thoughts swung between work and your TikTok.

You went to bed but couldn’t sleep. You ended up watching YouTube on your phone as the windows shook with the night winds. It wasn’t until the darkness began to glow that you were roused from the cocoon of your comforter. You looked out and saw smoke coming from the main road.

You didn’t think before you pulled on your jeans and shoved your feet into your slipper, unconcerned about them soaking through as you barreled down the stairs, the sleeves of your hoodie only half on. The back door bounced behind you and you crunched down into the snow and clamored past the row of lifeless houses.

You were out of breath as you got to the end of the path and rounded the diner to gape over at the burning garage. You got closer as the line of bikers stood in their leather with breath puffing before them in the frigid night. You stepped back into the shadow of the brick façade of the realty office and swiped your camera open.

Your hands shook and you struggled to steady the image on the screen as the mechanic woman raged in only her tee shirt. You didn’t quite understand what was going on; only that her garage was up in smoke and then men were doing nothing to smother it. She swung at the dark haired man and spat at several others; “cowards”... “fuck all of you!”

You gulped and held your breath as she was dragged away by the large redheaded henchman of the slender outsider. She fought for a moment before she was flung over his shoulder and the biker followed their leader back to The Asp. You sidled in between the building and hid until the voices faded into the wind.

Well, that would be a hell of a video. It might even go viral.

💀

Your phone did not stop. You almost felt bad as you saw the screen limn the edges of your cell as you left it face down on the little table beside the couch. Your nan sat in her rocking chair talking away on her corded phone to Linette from down the road. You suspected that every other person in town was gossiping about the same thing; the fire.

You finished your coffee and rubbed your eyes as you checked the time and ignored the pulsing notifications. It was too much to keep up with.

Your grandmother hung up and sighed, “can’t believe it. You hear?”

“Hear what?” you pretended ignorance.

“That old garage burned down. The one with the lady,” she said, “pity. When I was a girl, that place was a salon. Ma used to take us there to get our hair cut. The barber would give us wrapped candies and pretend to cut himself with his scissors.”

“Oh? It burned down?” you weren’t sure you were very convincing but you also could just say you saw it happen.

“Yep, no one really can say. You know, maybe she was welding or some rag caught, but I bet my money on those bikers,” she sneered.

“Good thing you’re poor,” you kidded, “and why the bikers?”

“Oh, well, you know Kimmy, Linette’s girl, works down at the diner and she saw that mechanic arguing with one of those strangers, the ones dealing with the club men. Well, it’s no coincidence that trouble follows those leather jackets around,” she rocked as she nodded knowingly, “oh, one of the boys I knew back in the day, he was found burnt up with his bike. They said the tank blew… well, I saw it and that tank was pristine.”

“Nan,” you gasped, “you… Jesus.”

“Well, things don’t change in Birch, we just get older,” she continued, “when you’re young, everything seems new but then you age and it’s all just the same.”

“Wow, how… inspiring,” you said dryly.

“Girlie, you gotta be careful,” she intoned, “that fire, that’s a lesson to all the women in this town. To everyone. You don’t cross the Commandos.”

“I don’t think anyone--”

“That’s another thing, there has never been a shortage of stupid people, not now not then,” she girded, “those women who get tied up in that club, their lives are already done.”

You frowned and hid your phone in your pocket as you stood. You rubbed your neck and picked up your empty mug, “I should get started.”

“Mmm,” she said as she dialed the phone again, “I wonder if Fran knows yet.”

💀

You were being really fucking stupid but peer pressure was not a logical thing. Even through a screen, you found it hard to resist the goads. So there you were, your phone in your hand as you live-streamed your walk down to The Asp. The data costs alone would make you regret it but you were caught up in the hype of you fifteen second of internet fame.

“Alright,” you stopped across the street and gave a view of the moniker with Cleopatra sultrily looking down at you, “this is it… I just gotta play it cool…” you turned the lens towards you and smiled nervously, “hopefully that dude at the front doesn’t stop me.”

Comments flicked up the bottom of the screen so fast and smilies and hearts floated up the side around your face. You crossed the screen as you turned your phone against your coat and approached the bar door. The large biker butted out his smoke and you bared your teeth nervously. He didn’t stop you as he rolled his shoulders and coughed.

You entered to the noise of classic rock and low voices, the clink of glasses and tap of chalk on marble. You glanced around and quickly swept your phone around to give a view of the patrons. You hurried over to the bar and climbed up on a stool.

“You need a drink?” the woman behind the bar scowled. She looked worn out even with her lips painted bright pink and her eyes clouded with blue shadow.

“Uh, sure, can I… can I get one pint of everything you have on tap?” you asked as you set your phone down and shrugged out of your coat. You draped it over the next stool and reposition your phone as you flipped the cam and used the built in stand on the case to angle yourself onto the screen.

“Sure,” she narrowed her eyes and glanced past you.

You swung your feet as you waited for her to pour the five pints; some with too much foam and the others with no head at all. You took the first and held it up for the camera.

“A classic, BudLight,” you held it up to the light, “no head and…” you sipped, “flat.” You plunked it down and coughed as you grabbed the next, “this is a raddler?” you looked at the tap for confirmation, “grapefruit… smells like piss…” you had a sip, “tastes like it too.”

You chuckled to yourself and asked for a water. You made a show of swishing it around in your mouth before you moved onto the third beer.

“Had to cleanse the palate,” you joked, “now… lots of foam on this one, dark. You know, I’m pretty surprised they have Guinness here but let’s see…” you tasted it and crinkled your nose, “that’s it. Exactly like toilet water!”

You read some of the comments telling you to check the bottles for bugs and laughed. Suddenly you were yanked off the stool by the back of your shirt and your phone was swiped up by another man as the first restrained you. You struggled against his thick arm as it hooked around your neck and the leader of their crew stared at the screen of your cell.

“What the fuck are you doing?” he snarled as he hit the screen with his thumb but the stream kept going. He dropped the phone to the floor and stomped it instead.

“This is the bitch posting about us online,” the man at your back growled. It was Steve, the one with the weird walk.

“I doubt either of you know how to use a computer,” you scoffed, “hey, let me go.”

“And why would we do that when you’re snitching to the whole world, sweetheart?” Bucky kicked your phone away as he crossed his arms.

“Actually, I’m--” you grasped Steve’s arm as it threatened to get tighter, “--promoting your trash business. I was just having a tasting, if you had just asked--”

“Shut up!” Bucky stepped closer and brought your legs up and stopped him as you planted your feet against his stomach.

“Hey,” a woman’s voice came from behind the bar as the waitress shoved aside her empty tray, “hey, she’s just a kid.”

“Bullshit,” Bucky huffed, “she looks full-grown to me.”

“So what are you gonna do?” she said, “she’s young. You can’t--”

“Don’t tell me what I can’t do,” he snapped.

“She’s right,” another voice intoned and that man, Sam, came up beside them with a pool cue in hand, “she’s just goofing around.”

“She’s a rat,” Steve insisted.

“You’re being dramatic. It’s called a meme and you do walk a little strange,” he chuckled, “no one’s gonna follow her breadcrumbs back to this shithole anyway.”

Bucky considered Sam and then looked at Steve. He poked his cheek with his tongue and sucked his teeth.

“So… you vouching for her?” Bucky asked.

“She won’t cause any more trouble, promise,” Sam said, “I’ll make sure of it.”

“You better,” Bucky snapped his fingers and you were released, “get her out of here.”

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skanda-shastry · 5 years ago

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Problem Solving from First Principle!

On one side tech entrepreneur like Jack Ma advocating for 9-9-6 work culture & other side people fight for 40 hours equality! But, there are some global leaders like Narendra Modi, Warren Buffett, Marissa Mayer, Elon Musk who work more than 100+ hours to accomplish their goals.

In this diverse argument, At the age of 46, Elon Musk has innovated and built four revolutionary multibillion-dollar companies in completely different fields — Paypal (Financial Services), Tesla Motors (Automotive) and SpaceX (Aerospace), Boring (Transportation).

How these people achieve so much within a short span of time??

How did he able to manage all these things ??

What is the secret behind there success??

The answer is simple:

Read, Read & More Read!!!

No doubt Reading plays an important role in unlocking your inner creative genius and becoming the best at what you do — but there’s more to this —

Reading new things continuously over a period of time. (power of compounding) will change the way you think!!

Learning is the single best investment of our time that we can make. Or as Benjamin Franklin said, “An investment in knowledge pays the best interest.”

Thinking from the First Principle gives many Out of box & innovative solutions to hard problems.

Your brain encourages you to think in analogies, as this is the most efficient and safest way of thinking. So how do you break this programming, take a step back and start thinking in basic principles?

First Principle: The Building Blocks of True Knowledge!!

First-principles thinking is one of the best ways to reverse-engineer complicated problems. the idea is to break down complicated problems into basic elements and then reassemble them from the ground up. It’s one of the best ways to learn to think for yourself, unlock your creative potential, and move from linear to non-linear results.

When Elon Musk’s started development of the TESLA electric car, many experts felt that electric vehicles could not be popular because of battery costs. The $600/kW is the market price, The battery has always been so expensive. Which increased in 2/3rd of production cost.

Why it's $600/kW ??

“That’s just the way they will always be because that’s the way they have been in the past”.

However, Elon Musk does not agree!! He needs to understand the root cause of the Problem, He applied First-principles methodology!!

What are the material constituents of the batteries?

What is the spot market value of the material constituents?

When he dig dipper into the ground, basic things like cobalt, nickel, aluminum, carbon, and some polymers for separation, and steel can enough to produce a battery pack;

Next, If we bought that on a London Metal Exchange, what would each of these things cost? Oh, god, it’s … $80 per kilowatt-hour. So, clearly, you just need to think of clever ways to take those materials and combine them into the shape of a battery cell, and you can have batteries that are much, much cheaper than anyone realizes.

youtube

Through these “basic facts”, Elon Musk and the team will further analyze and experiment each part of the raw materials and re-engineer each work process.

Finally, he and the team will optimize the original parts and add a comprehensive improvement of the production method, which significantly reduces the Cost-of electric vehicles.

Musk used first principles thinking not only for making inexpensive battery packs for his Tesla cars but also for building cheaper rockets for his other space exploration company SpaceX.

The result of such thinking was astonishing!!

The Basic: Analogy vs Axioms

“I think it is important to reason from first principles rather than by analogy.” — Elon Musk

In our day to day life, we tend to use what is known as Comparison Thinking, this is when we do what comes naturally and normally to us and reason through analogy. What this means is that we make decisions and judgment calls based on what we’ve seen, heard or done from our experiences or from others. Knowing the outcome due to past experiences, we either repeat or iterate slightly to suit the current situation. This is an easy mode of thinking, and for the most part effective, but also offers no innovation or large changes.

Thinking from First Principles. In this, you take a problem and break it down into its fundamental parts and truths, until you get to the bare bones as it were. Once you’ve eliminated everything down to its constituent parts then you start reasoning up from there. This is a harder mode of thinking, but does offer better results, is far more effective and creates recognizable change.

Analogy thinking: Cook vs Chef ?? He compares people and how they behave to cooks and chefs. With a chef, he means a person who invents their own recipe, while a cook is someone who follows an already existing recipe.

Some people usually behave like cooks and follow recipes from a cookbook, while others prefer to come up with their own. A cook takes some ingredients and goes through a series of steps to come up with a standard dish. On the other hand, a chef might use those same ingredients, but mix them up in new and original ways and come up with a new dish. For both of these guys, the ingredients were the first principles, but the way they used them was different.

🔸Iteration: doing the same things again.

🔸Innovation: doing new things.

🔸Disruption: doing new things that make old things obsolete.

Examples of First Principles in ActionSpaceX:

Problem: Elon musk childhood dream is to send the First Rocket to Mars.🚀

Reasoning from analogy: Build Vs Hire? As a startup, It's difficult to understand the new rocket technology & build from scratch. so purchase the unused rocket from existing companies/Govt agencies like NASA/ISRO but the cost of purchasing a rocket was astronomical — up to $65 million.

Reasoning from first principles: let’s look at the first principles. What is a rocket made of? Aerospace-grade aluminum alloys, plus some titanium, copper, carbon fiber. Then I asked, what is the value of those materials on the commodity market? It turned out that the materials cost of a rocket was around two percent of the typical price.

Within a few years, SpaceX had cut the price of launching a rocket by nearly 10x while still making a profit. Musk used first principles thinking to break the situation down to the fundamentals, bypass the high prices of the aerospace industry, and create a more effective solution.

Minimal Product Design:

Problem: Create a login system for a web/mobile app.

Reasoning from analogy: Most apps require a user to provide a username, email address and password, with the password confirmed twice!! That seems to be the best practice, so I’ll do the same.

Reasoning from first principles: What’s the least information I need to collect from the user to make the app functional? The app creates a page for each user that is their online identity hub. I want their full name to be displayed at the top of the page, so I need to collect that. I won’t display a username anywhere in the app, so Do I really need that?

But if two users have the same name, how will I create a unique URL slug for each? I guess I could add a randomized number to the slug, and do a check before saving that ensures the number is unique. I’ll then need to collect the user’s email in-case they forget their password. I probably don’t need to verify their password twice, since the app will allow them to easily reset it as long as they have access to their email account.

Artists thinking:

Problem: Even after 500 years, we are unable to produce one more world-class painting like Mona-lisa??

Reasoning from analogy: This generation artist learns drawing & painting. Mostly they expertise in one specific area. they unable to visualize depth & authenticity of the image. (not a polymath).

Reasoning from first principles: It’s hard to talk about the First principle thinking without mentioning the impressive genius of Leonardo da Vinci. Before writes in the world famous Mona Lisa, he knows the art, anatomy, engineer, science, biology, optics & experimenter which makes him a renaissance!! With all these basics principle, da Vinci will draw the picture of the millennium.

Neem Coated Urea

Problem: The urea was subsidized for agriculture use but it was being diverted to non-agricultural purposes, chemical factories.This lead to a shortage of urea to the farmer.

How to solve this ??

How it reaches to the Farmers or beneficiaries??

Reasoning from analogy: Think to avoid the middlemen & directly distribute to the farmers. But It's a challenging job to distribute proper fertilizers, seeds to the 110 million farmers across India. Either we need to * Produce excess adequate amount of the Urea. * Create a task force which monitors the distributions on various level.

Reasoning from first principles: The GoI has mandated neem coating of urea while producing it in the Factories!! Expect Agriculture, coated urea is not good for any other commercial usage.

Why ??

🔸Urea is highly subsidized in India for agricultural usage. However, people were using the subsidized urea for other industrial applications due to its high nitrogen content. Hence Neem coating was adopted to prevent usage of Urea for any other application than farming as Neem coating doesn’t affect agriculture but does so for industrial usage.

🔸Urea is very volatile in nature. If it is applied directly on the crops, it is released very rapidly. This results in high usage of urea by farmers on the crop thereby hampering the quality crop and soil. Neem coating slow downs the release of urea to crops. Also, Neem is an excellent ingredient for farming which improves plant and soil quality.

What Are You?

Who we are ??

How This Universe Created??

How can something appear without nothing??

The best way to understand the Universe, Physics laws, Human evolution, Culture, Consumer behavior or predict the future is to deduce that from the First Principle.

Reasoning from the first principle allows gives a structured framework for thinking & gives a solution to the above-mentioned complex problem!

Timeline: Big Bang Theory: (13.5 Billion years ago)

Big Bang Theory A starting point for all the above Questions!! It gives an explanation about how the universe began.

At its simplest, it says the universe as we know it started with a small singularity. Physicist define Bigbang as Singularity! Its a point at which all known laws of nature id not exists, even time too did not exist.

Once all the matter, energy & space in the universe were once squeezed into an infinitesimally small volume, which erupted in a cataclysmic “explosion” which has become known as the Big Bang. Thus, space, time, energy and matter all came into being at an infinitely dense, infinitely hot gravitational singularity, and began expanding everywhere at once.

String Theory :(4.5 Billion years ago)

String theory helps us to group all Physics laws into the theoretical framework. which helps to understand the substance, matters & species formation of the Planet Earth leads to the Evolution of Biology & leaving organisms over a period of time to evolve the Homo Sapiens

Homo Sapiens : (2.5 million years ago)

The story of humanity is a story of adaptation. Over the past 200,000 years, ever since the first modern humans (Homo sapiens) appeared in Africa, people have been spreading outward from that continent in every possible direction. As they encountered new environments and challenges, our ancestors had to change in many ways to survive.

Discovered how to make fire. (300000 years ago) This small event transformed the way we ate, the way we grew to live on heated food, it changed our digestive system, it transformed our groups and societies as we literally came to gather around the fire and told each other stories. (Cognitive Revolution)

Above timeline from Bigbang exploration, String theory, Homo sapiens to the build a culture & creating a History. we come in a long way. This will give an answer to all the fundamental questions in the discipline of science, technology, Engineering, Mathematics (STEM)

How to cultivate the First Principle Thinking :

If I had an hour to solve a problem and my life depended on the solution, I would spend the first 55 minutes determining the proper question to ask, for once I know the proper question, I could solve the problem in less than five minutes. — Albert Einstein

✨ Most don’t know where to begin or how to attack the problem? ✨ Most lack a structured approach and don’t have the patience or time to dig deep enough? ✨ How you frame the problem is important??

How to think in a First Principles way: 🔸Keep asking “WHY” to get into the deeper layers of understanding 🔸Read more classics in the field 🔸 Learn the subjects that form the foundation of the field you are exploring. (math, physics, biology, etc)

✔️Want to learn marketing? Read Psychology.

✔️Want to learn Health and Fitness? Read Biology.

✔️Want to learn Economy ?? Read supply and demand.

✔️Want to learn Data Analyst/Science ?? Understand Excel, statistics.

✔️Want to understand relationships and trust work ?? Read Game theory.

✔️Want to understand Blockchain ?? Read Edge computing, attack vector, Encryption.

Moreover, try to study the fundamentals of *different* fields.

“The secret to a great life is to nail the basics.” — @Naval

Bottom line: The Future

Now, We are in the exact middle in the spectrum of the transformation of the Biological evolution to the Technological transform.

Globalization effect & rapid change in the competitive environment it's difficult to understand/learn everything!

learn from basic principle help to sustain in future!!

Understand the concept from First principles. First, deconstructs knowledge into fundamental principles Next, reconstructs the fundamental principles in new fields to become world-class Modern Polymath!

Footnote:

* https://medium.com/the-mission/elon-musks-3-step-first-principles-thinking-how-to-think-and-solve-difficult-problems-like-a-ba1e73a9f6c0

* https://gainweightjournal.com/elon-musk-problem-solving-applications-of-first-principles-thinking/

*https://twitter.com/ARanganathan72/status/846697666608189441

*https://iascurrentaffairsbyamityadav.wordpress.com/2017/06/22/what-are-the-benefits-of-neam-coated-urea-ncu/

*http://theengineeringmanager.com/growth/first-principles-and-asking-why/

#elonmusk #first principles #physics #basic #thinking #mental models #evolution

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filipeteimuraz · 6 years ago

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14 Examples of Truly “Epic” Content: How Does Yours Stack Up?

The word epic is overused.

It’s become watered down over the years, and most people don’t seem to appreciate what it means.

Which is a problem.

Why? Because the first rule of content marketing is:

Create epic content.

I’ve written about creating great content many times before, but epic is a level above that.

According to the dictionary, epic describes something that is:

heroic; majestic; impressively great

of unusually great size or extent

In plain English, it refers to something that’s so much better than any other thing out there that you can’t help but to be impressed with it.

And although you can’t always hit the epic level with your content, it’s something you should strive to reach at least a few times a year.

That’s when you’ll start getting hundreds of links to your content and tens of thousands of views.

But here’s the problem: You can’t create a guide to making epic content because it comes in many different forms.

Great content is fairly predictable, but epic content often requires creativity and a hefty investment.

So although I can’t tell you exactly how to make epic content for your specific business, I can show you what epic content looks like.

I’ve put together 14 examples of epic content across many different niches so we can study them together and you can start to piece together what makes epic content epic.

If you want to be successful, do this: Many of these ideas aren’t that complicated. I’m sure you’ll think many times throughout this post, “Why didn’t I think of this before?”

That’s a good thing!

Try to take the concepts and ideas in these examples and apply them to your niche.

1. The Ultimate Guide to Making Money

We’re starting off with a guide written by Ramit Sethi, someone I mention in my articles often.

He has a lot of content that I consider epic, but I chose to single out his ultimate guide to making money here.

Right away, you can tell that it’s not the standard content you see on blogs. He went to the trouble of having it professionally designed and formatted:

On the left, it has a table of contents—how many blog posts have that?

As you can see by the number of social shares, this guide is incredibly popular.

Epic content can produce epic conversions too: One mistake that I see many content marketers make is producing great content but not wanting to collect email signups right away.

They figure that if the content is good enough, the visitors will eventually think of it again and come back to read other content on the site. But it doesn’t usually work like that.

If you’ve blown away a visitor with your content: capitalize on it right away.

After consuming a useful guide or some other piece of content, most visitors will be happy to sign up for your email list. They aren’t going to get annoyed—you did just provide a ton of value to them after all.

If you take a close look at this guide, you’ll realize that it’s set up as a highly optimized lead generation source.

At the bottom of every single section, it has an opt-in form along with a brief pitch for signing up.

Despite that, it still got thousands of shares, and I’m sure it’s had hundreds of thousands of visitors.

The two main reasons this is epic: The first I already touched on—the formatting. When you make content look amazing, it stands out from ordinary blog posts. People value it more, just like they do paid content.

The second reason is the incredible value in the guide.

Ramit includes his techniques in the article (through text, images, and video), and he also includes multiple detailed case studies:

Case studies make anything more actionable because they help the reader think of the advice in practical terms.

2. NomadList

What do you think of when you hear content?

Most marketers and business owners think of written content, mainly blog posts.

That’s completely natural, and obviously I am a big fan of blogging for business.

However, what you can’t afford to forget is that writing is only one form of content.

And although it’s great for certain topics, other topics are better presented in other forms of content.

NomadList is not a blog post. It actually has barely any text at all. If anything, it’s more of a tool or database of information.

But it’s still content. Content is really anything that you can consume or learn from.

Like all great content, NomadList solves a problem. It just does it better than any other tool.

Digital nomads are people who work remotely and who love to travel the world.

One of their biggest problems is finding great destinations that are both good for work and fun and safe for travel.

NomadList is essentially a directory of popular destinations for digital nomads:

The top bar is a beautiful collection of filters for the user to apply to narrow down the results, and the results are ranked and shown below.

There’s a lot of other great content out there on this particular problem. However, most of that consists of a few pictures and usually long lists in no particular order.

Not only does NomadList rank the destinations, but it also makes it incredibly easy to quickly compare the results to each other.

You can see the average cost of rent per month, the average Internet speed, and the temperature of each destination all on the card for each place:

This goes to show that the form of your content is just as important as the information you’re presenting.

Coming up with a simple visual way to display important to the users information about possible travel destinations took NomadList from great to epic.

Content can evolve: NomadList also illustrates one other concept that you should never forget.

Epic content doesn’t always start off that way, especially if you have little experience creating it.

That’s why you shouldn’t get discouraged if you put a lot of work into something and it doesn’t catch on quite as well as you hoped.

This was the initial version of Nomad List:

As you can see, it’s nowhere near as useful.

It’s still pretty great, but definitely not epic.

But the creator got good feedback from the users of the initial version. They gave encouragement and suggestions, and after a few refinements, the creator took NomadList to what it is today.

If you already have good, or even great, content that solves an important problem, you don’t necessarily need to start from scratch.

Instead, re-evaluate the way you could make it even more valuable to visitors, and create a new iteration.

There’s no rule that says you can’t update or republish old content and promote it again.

3. How to Quit Your Job, Move to Paradise and Get Paid to Change the World

While epic content doesn’t have to be written content, it certainly can be if it’s telling a story.

Jon Morrow, founder of BoostBlogTraffic.com wrote this guestpost on ProBlogger. It exploded.

There are a few key reasons why this post is epic, so let’s break them down one by one.

Reason #1 – It makes a lofty claim…but it delivers: Who hasn’t thought about quitting a job and moving to a tropic paradise at one time or another in their life?

We’d all love to do it, but we get scared or find other reasons not to.

So when you read the title of Jon’s post, you automatically think:

Holy crap, someone actually did it.

But this isn’t an article saying how awesome Jon is.

Instead, it’s a set of blueprints of how he did it. He backed up his claim and gave actionable advice to anyone considering a big change in their life.

Reason #2 – It inspires: People are full of excuses. It’s always easy to find a reason not to do something.

So when you read a story about spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on clothes to make money, you say:

Sure, it worked for them, but I can’t do that for reasons X, Y, Z.

People react similarly to any content that makes them think a big accomplishment is possible.

And it’s what readers do when they read about other success stories about quitting jobs and moving across the globe.

But be honest. Jon had some of the worst circumstances possible and still made it work for him. He had a terrible disease, expensive medical bills, and limited resources.

He still did it.

He moved to Mexico on a whim and started on a path to becoming a hugely successful business owner.

Can you still come up with an excuse of why you couldn’t do the same (assuming that’s something you wanted to do)?

Overcoming obstacles is inspiring. Being transparent about overcoming your obstacles with your readers forces them to take action because they can’t make excuses.

Getting people to take action is the only way to impact their lives in a significant way.

Reason #3 – It resonates with people: Jon is an amazing writer, but that’s not something you can learn overnight.

However, if you start paying attention to how guys like Jon write, you’ll start to understand why readers relate to their writing so much.

While most people write about surface topics, Jon isn’t afraid to be vulnerable and say what people aren’t expecting to hear. Another word for it is authenticity.

It would have been easy for Jon to lament about how hard his life was—to be a victim.

Instead, he writes about the “freakin’ bills”. That’s something almost everyone can relate to.

All of a sudden, you’re not feeling bad for Jon—you’re feeling angry with him.

When you can find ways to make a reader stop reading about you and instead feel and read with you, that’s when you can make a real impact in their life.

I’m no master at this. However, I do get better over time by practicing. And that’s what you need to do too.

4. One Year After Getting Laid Off – My Annual Passive Income Report

One major component of epic content is doing something that no one else has done before—that readers actually want to see.

Now, it’s pretty common for site owners to reveal their incomes, but it wasn’t always like that.

Pat Flynn published his first annual income report in 2009 (in addition to monthly reports), where he shared everything:

In the make-money-online niche, secrecy is the norm.

It’s hard for readers to trust bloggers because they could just be making things up.

After many months of revealing his personal online income, Pat convinced his readers he wasn’t making up his income numbers.

He was one of the first online marketers to promote transparency:

The lesson here: Give readers access to something that no one else will.

Showing income reports is more common these days, but not very many successful marketers will share their own processes or tools. That’s how you could stand out if you run a business in the make-money-online niche.

It can apply to any business. If you run an auto garage, for example, let your customers watch a video stream showing the work in progress, or show them pictures of their problems so they don’t feel like they’re getting tricked.

If you run a clothing store, show your customers where the clothes are made (i.e., not in sweatshops).

5. Link Building Tactics – The Complete List

If you’re interested in SEO, you might have seen this one before.

There are tons of different link building tactics, but they are all very different from each other.

What this means is that only some tactics work for certain situations and businesses.

So, it can be difficult for SEOs (especially beginners) to find the right tactics for their businesses. Plus, they don’t want to miss any good ones.

Instead of just writing an extensive list of 30-50 tactics, which would be very good, Jon Cooper took it a step further.

He compiled all of the link building tactics he could find. The page has at least 100.

But he didn’t just stop there. Someone also helped him create filters for the content.

People can filter the tactics based on the time-frame, effectiveness, and dependency on other sources. This way, readers know that they’re seeing tactics they can actually use:

The list is formatted consistently throughout the page. Each tactic has a description below it:

Epic is a spectrum: If you have some experience with SEO, you’ve probably already noticed that although the number of tactics in the list is amazing, the descriptions could be improved.

Some of the tactics have support links, but the author could add links to tutorials and case studies for each of the tactics to make the page even better.

It could be even epic-er (not a real word).

So although a piece of content could be epic, that doesn’t mean it couldn’t be improved.

This list was created a few years ago, and at the time, it was far better than anything else available on SEO tactics.

However, the standards for content usually rise over time. Although I still think of this page as an example of epic content, it doesn’t stand out quite as much as it used to.

I wouldn’t be surprised if someone created an even better version, updated to match today’s standards.

6. Google’s 200 Ranking Factors: The Complete List

Here is another one you might be familiar with.

SEOs love to talk, especially about Google and its ranking factors.

Up until recently, SEOs were always discussing whether or not certain factors were included in Google’s algorithm, and if so, how important they were.

Many years ago, Google released a statement saying that there were over 200 ranking factors:

Who knows how many there are today?

It doesn’t really matter. What does matter is that SEOs were always wondering about what might and might not be a signal…always searching for more.

Then, Brian Dean put together this epic post.

He dug deep and was able to come up with a list of over 200 ranking factors (which he keeps updated). Most of them link to sources when possible:

Can you emulate this? What do readers in your niche always talk about? What are they curious about?

Once you figure that out, don’t just create a large list of the answers—create the complete list.

Go all out, and put in as much effort as you can in order to make an epic post. The results will be worth it.

7. How We Got 1,000+ Subscribers from a Single Blog Post in 24 Hours

How many posts have you read that are about how to promote a blog post?

Probably a lot.

Most of those are trash. They’re simple lists of briefly described tactics. They all sound like a recycled copy of another blog post.

The guys behind Groove are different—in a good way.

The first thing they did was actually test their promotional strategy. They used it themselves and were able to get over 1,000 subscribers from their first blog post.

Not only did they achieve an amazing result, but they also showed that it’s actually possible.

In the post I chose for this list, Alex from Groove broke down that entire promotional process in great detail.

He included everything from the names of people they targeted to his exact outreach email and the reasons behind it:

This post is insanely practical, which is why it stands out among most other posts about this exact topic.

It also shows some behind the scenes details, which is something I mentioned earlier (see a pattern?).

When it comes to this specific problem (promoting a post), readers crave actionable examples, and Alex delivered just about as well as one could:

8. You Draw It: How Family Income Predicts Children’s College Chances

Let’s get away from the written content for a little bit.

The New York Times published this amazing piece of content to illustrate an important concept: how wealth impacts the chances of children going to college.

Instead of just putting the results in a table, like everyone else, they had a goal: show people that reality is far different from what they imagine.

Near the top of the article is a graph. You can click and draw a line to indicate how you think income corresponds to college attendance:

If you’d like to try it, do so before I spoil it for you.

There are two main factors why this content is amazing.

Factor #1 – It’s entertaining/fun: Do you know what sucks about serious topics? They’re always serious.

Sometimes, it’s good to take a different approach to content. Readers will appreciate it, and your content will stand out.

News articles, in particular, are typically very one-sided. They’re not even conversational like blog posts, which makes them even more boring to read (not that they aren’t important).

A little game like this is always welcomed by most readers.

Factor #2 – It’s surprising: While the end result seems pretty simple, a lot of work went into this content.

Not only did they have to make the interactive graph, but they also had to put a lot of work into researching the actual findings.

These findings were also highly interesting. They were not what most people would expect.

You can read the post if you’re interested in knowing why the results are surprising (a bit off topic here).

Think of an average reader coming to this page.

First they see the interactive graph. They think, “This is pretty cool…maybe I should share it.”

But then, they see the surprising results and think, “People need to know this!”

Great content usually stands out in one area. Epic content often stands out in many. If you can combine multiple things from all of these examples, you’ll be on the right track.

9. This Is How Fast America Changes Its Mind

One of the main limitations of written content is that it takes longer for it to get a point across than for other forms of content.

In addition, it’s really hard to compare multiple things.

That’s why people love images.

This content example is composed almost entirely of images.

But not just any images—they are professionally designed, and they communicate meaningful data.

If they had only created that first one, the article still would have been great.

But they went the extra mile.

They created many additional graphs so that they could go into detail on each important social issue:

When you overwhelm your readers with value, they will love it.

I think the results speak for themselves:

10. Which Phone?

Android vs iPhone, which side are you on?

iPhones are great because they’re simple. The average owner just wants a quality phone, and Apple makes it easy to get one because there are very few models.

Android phones, on the other hand, are made by many different manufacturers.

Although there is more flexibility, not everyone needs all that flexibility.

What Android did with this piece of content was brilliant.

They created a quiz that allowed users to describe what they wanted in a phone in plain English:

First of all, it’s designed beautifully.

But the reason why it’s so valuable is that it solves a huge problem of being overwhelmed by phone choices:

After you answer a few questions, you get a list of the phones that would suit you best (it’s incredibly easy for a user):

Compare this shopping experience to that on any other site, even Amazon.

You go to the cell phone section and are presented with hundreds or thousands of different phones.

If you want to sort them, you have to do so by factors such as the number of megapixels on the phone camera or the phone’s processor:

The average user doesn’t know anything about these things and doesn’t care. All they want is a phone that does what they want.

Complicated questions have complex answers: If there’s a complicated question in your industry that you always hear customers asking about, answer it.

But instead of trying to answer it in a typical blog post, using language they don’t understand and don’t care about, find a way to simplify the answer in the terms that your customer cares about.

Since it’s a complicated problem, this won’t be easy, which is why no one else has done it before.

However, if you’re willing to put in the time and effort, your epic content will be talked about for years.

11. The Advanced Guide to SEO

Okay, I’m a little biased, but I had to include a Quick Sprout post on this list.

All of my advanced guides have received hundreds of backlinks (or more).

Like Ramit’s guide that we looked at earlier, these guides are all professionally designed.

It’s clear to any reader that this isn’t ordinary content.

These guides are also incredibly thorough, covering everything on that topic in great detail.

The best thing about these guides is that anyone can make one like them. However, you will have to invest capital or time and effort in order to make them. That’s what epic demands.

12. What 2,000 Calories Look Like

Epic content often makes your jaw drop.

This piece of content was also created by The New York Times.

One of the most common misconceptions people have is the number of calories they eat. Most people almost always underestimate that number.

Instead of just telling people that (e.g., “This One Mistake That All Dieters Make…”), they showed people just how wrong they usually are.

They created several high quality pictures of actual meals that people eat at common places:

All of these meals have 2,000 calories, which is the average recommended daily intake for most people.

And people were shocked.

They found out that they regularly consumed their daily calories in just one meal.

The takeaway? Look at a common myth or mistake that your target audience makes. Then look at it from a different angle, and show it to them.

13. Slightly More Than 100 Fantastic Pieces of Journalism

It turns out that I’m not the first person to compile amazing content.

This article in The Atlantic consists of links to 100 top journalism articles:

The reason why this piece of content is epic is two-fold: its quantity and its quality.

A great article usually has one or the other.

Obviously, with 100 articles, the quantity was there.

But what really pushed this piece of content over the edge is that it was compiled by an expert—an expert who read thousands of pieces in order to find the best 100 to include in this article.

Curated content is very popular right now, and it usually produces great results. But if you want to produce epic curated content, make sure that you’re actually picking the best of the best that all readers will find valuable.

Any journalist or journalism student has seen this page or has it bookmarked.

14. Lionel Messi Is Impossible

Epic content is possible in any niche.

This final example is about Lionel Messi, who is the greatest soccer (football for non-Americans) player alive right now.

But people like rivalries, and for years he has been compared to another amazing player, Cristiano Ronaldo.

So what do people do? They compare single highlights and certain stats, sharing their opinions on which one is better.

But not Benjamin Morris.

Instead, he created a masterful data-driven post to settle the debate once and for all.

He analyzed thousands of datapoints, players, and different stats in order to get a complete picture of it all.

He created several high quality graphs that showed how Messi and Ronaldo compared to all other players (and to each other):

Note that I said several graphs.

To get a complete picture on a topic, you need to approach it from all possible angles:

His conclusion: Ronaldo is a great player, but Messi is impossible. He stands out so much on these graphs that no one can really make an argument against the conclusion.

Of course, Messi fans loved this article and shared it like crazy. They were excited to share it due to how epic the analysis was.

The takeaway? If you’re going to try to settle a common debate in your industry, be prepared to put in the work and finish it. Put in so much work that readers are left impressed and convinced with your conclusions, unable to argue with the results.

Conclusion

As you’ve seen, epic content can take many forms.

But all these examples have one thing in common:

Readers love it.

Creating epic content is not easy, even if that’s your goal. It’s often not cheap either.

You need to continually practice improving your content creation to give yourself the best chance at regularly creating epic content that readers flock to.

While it may be a ton of work, I promise you that the results are worth it. Just a few epic pieces of content can create or sustain many businesses.

http://www.quicksprout.com/examples-of-truly-epic-content-how-does-yours-stack-up/ Read more here - http://review-and-bonuss.blogspot.com/2019/03/14-examples-of-truly-epic-content-how.html

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jonasjjackson · 7 years ago

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Architectural Blogging … It isn’t for Everyone

My computer is dying … I am systematically killing it with all the stuff I keep on here. One of the things that frequently happens when you write a blog like mine (i.e. a site that is graphically heavy with content) is that your hard drive fills up pretty quickly. Yes, I keep stuff in the cloud and have multiple external hard drives, but those items only delay the electronic death that I sense is coming.

To stem the inevitable for as long as possible, I take a deep dive into the hard drive from time to time to clean up/get rid of everything I possibly can. What you can’t possibly know, although I think most people can successfully imagine, is the depth of the rabbit-hole an activity like this becomes. All you have to do is try cleaning out the nightstand beside your bed and you’ll know exactly what I mean. There is so much quality entertainment in there, despite most of it being completely useless, that the purging activity tends to become an amusing trip down memory lane.

Because of this blog, I receive thousands of emails and comments, the quality of which is ridiculously wide-ranging. Most of what I receive is pretty straight-forward, and an incredibly small portion of what I receive is amazing – like “re-evaluate everything you thought to be true” amazing. The balance is made up of another sort of amazing … the sort of amazing that makes me scratch my head while showing it to other people to see if their take is any different than my own. I will frequently screen-grab some image or comment in an attempt to keep track of its existence – although I almost always fail at keeping track because there are too many.

I frequently dream of sharing the latter sort of correspondence and comments that I receive. If that was something that I thought I could do with a clear conscious, I would have years worth of amusing blog posts that would basically write themselves. I get all tingly just thinking about it. I thought I would share just one image just to give you a taste of the possibilities. Just below is a screen grab from my Life of an Architect Facebook page and one of the comments I received …

So the title of this post was “Traveling and Working” and the basic premise was that between working and lecturing, I tend to travel more than one might think for a firm the size of mine and that I enjoy work-related travel more as I get older. Once I shared this post on Facebook, as evidenced by the comment above, someone felt compelled to point out that you “During ancient Egypt, you could even get killed if you fail the Pharoah … So who says its a wonderful job.?

[needle scratching the record]

How did working for the Pharoah during ancient Egypt get in the conversation? I think I responded back to this comment something along the lines of “I will definitely avoid working for the Pharoah” … as if I had a choice since that last Pharoah died 1,998 years before I was born.

On occasion, I will use screen grabs, comments, and emails that I find entertaining as part of my lectures and presentations, but I have generally decided not to use these sorts of low-hanging fruit for potential blog posts because it feels a little mean-spirited to me. I am well aware of the fact that I just broke my own fair-play decency rule by sharing the Pharoah comment above – but for the record, while I think this comment was just a little outside the boundaries of the topic, if I squint, I can kind of see the point this individual is making. While I make being an architect sound awesome in my post, the reality is that being an architect isn’t awesome for everyone.

Fair enough.

I don’t know how to fairly address what it’s like for all the other people in this profession, so I just talk about what I know from first-hand experience … and even then people will still argue with me. In the past, I would try to explain that you can’t tell me that I’m wrong when I’m giving my opinion, that you can just disagree with me … but that has never worked.

In the 8+ years since I started blogging, I have gone through an interesting transformation, typically oscillating between various degrees of enjoying the experience and hating it, but even at its worst, it has always been entertaining. Unless you work in my office, chances are that you will never learn about all the wildly kooky emails and messages I receive … so sad (not really) but it is these sorts of emails and messages that are really what you’re signing up for when you start a blog. While it is the engagement that frequently makes blogging worthwhile, it is also the thing that brings the most amount of agony along with it. Some people have amazing patience and will email me over and over again, asking if they could submit an article “to my site”. Amusingly, most of those emails start like this:

Hi , I was on your website http://www.lifeofanarchitect.com and think the content is terrific. ….”

It’s clear that this is a form email and that they couldn’t be bothered to enter in my name OR adjust the spacing between the “Hi” and the comma (I can just imagine the training material telling the new employee to “insert name here”) along with the obvious cut and paste URL for my website, which is almost always in a different font style and size than the rest of the email. I have an FAQ page and I decided a long time ago that I would address this request to submit guest posts right up front – as in, it’s the very first frequently asked question that I answered!!

If there is a guest post on my site, it’s because I know that person and I have asked them to write an article for me. I do not need any “high-quality articles that you think my readers will enjoy in exchange for a link embedded in the post.” My readers are clearly not interested in “high-quality posts” or they wouldn’t be on this site in the first place.

I told people that I was just going to delete their email if they sent me a request for host a guest post without checking my FAQ first …

It totally didn’t work.

They will just keep on emailing me over and over, “Did you receive my last email?” Arrggh!!

Here is just one example, which just happened.

Despite being pretty clear (I thought), Jennifer is still planning on sending along an article – an article that I can guarantee will not be something anyone wants to read, as well as including paid links buried within the content. I get these sorts of emails every single day and after 8 years, I will confess that it is exasperating.

If you are thinking about starting your own architectural blog, check with me first. Chances are pretty good that I will try and talk you out of it.

You can read the original post that spawned the Pharoah comment here: Traveling and Working … I happen to think it’s a pretty good post, regardless of the fact that the Pharoah might have killed me for displeasing him once upon a time in ancient Egypt.

from Home https://www.lifeofanarchitect.com/architectural-blogging-it-isnt-for-everyone/

from Home https://andrewysanders.wordpress.com/2018/03/20/architectural-blogging-it-isnt-for-everyone/ via http://www.rssmix.com/

#construction

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andrewysanders · 7 years ago

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Architectural Blogging … It isn’t for Everyone

[needle scratching the record]

Fair enough.

Hi , I was on your website www.lifeofanarchitect.com and think the content is terrific. ….”

I told people that I was just going to delete their email if they sent me a request for host a guest post without checking my FAQ first …

It totally didn’t work.

They will just keep on emailing me over and over, “Did you receive my last email?” Arrggh!!

Here is just one example, which just happened.

If you are thinking about starting your own architectural blog, check with me first. Chances are pretty good that I will try and talk you out of it.

from Home https://www.lifeofanarchitect.com/architectural-blogging-it-isnt-for-everyone/ via http://www.rssmix.com/

#home

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williamalderwick-blog · 7 years ago

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Love in the age of Facefuck: Iphigenia Baal’s Merced es Benz

Original unedited text; a poorly edited version appeared in Real Review issue 4, Summer 2017. I guess I always was a little bit in love with Iphigenia Baal. I remember seeing glimpses of a whirlwind careening through parties, pubs, gigs, the backstages of shows with all of London’s seedy nightlife scrolling behind her as if the rolling backdrop of a private theatre, moving like a comet burning its own path through the heavens, a singular orbit governed by laws all its own and beware all those that fall within its thrall. I recall a hazy cloud of curling hair, gap toothed, cheekbones, eyes that I now want to say were green, deepest hazel green flecked gems. Eyes that burned right through you, unforgivingly. Contemptuously. They had an intensity, a holding you to something, whatever it was. That’s what I remember most, a kind of smouldering raging intensity to truth — the kind that no one can really live with. She was staff writer at Dazed at a time when, on the dole in a band and sleeping on friends couches or at the studio, I thought being on staff to write was just about the greatest job anyone could have. Somethings never change. And she was simply beautiful. Beauty like in a Greek myth, with something timeless to it, otherworldly, at once raw and serene. All carried with such attitude, an always more hardcore than you kinda attitude. I guess I was struck. Intimidated. From afar, a distance. I never really knew her, of course, friends of friends of an acquaintance, the occasional party, a couple of words here or there, nodded acknowledgement outside an opening, doorways, corridors, street-level passings by. Stories and rumours and gossips…I guess I was a little bit in love with the idea of Iphigenia Baal. I’m probably wrong about the eyes. And so a decade later, in another life, Miss Baal’s second novel arrives in a package for me at the office sent by her publisher. Merced es Benz is a love story, a non-fiction novel charting the relationship between the author and one Ben Thomas — seemingly the love of her life. Bookended by Baal’s own reflective prose, we’re witness to the relationship through a little over eight months of Facebook posts and chats, SMS, BBM, email, and google searches. It’s an exhaustive record of every digital exchange between them. From SMS setting up a date or time to meet, likes on each other’s posts or updates, arguments raging across different handsets, emails, sponsored posts, Merced Es’ google search results into drug networks, police informants, flights to Australia. A transcript of all the links and communiques between them logged in the system run out in chronological order. Objet trouvé. Print All. It’s all text-speak dialogue, slanged abbreviations, the ping-pong chat messaging we’re conditioned to now. Bite-sized fluid snippets. Situated in the media that now frame our social exchanges, it feels utterly modern. And it reads quickly. Pages are scanned, scrolled rather than read. The layout echoes user interfaces — like the wireframes used to blueprint a webpage design. And yet it’s also antiquated, a rolling-back to an archaic version — Facefuck v1.3.2 circa 2011. The drama is often in the details. You find yourself checking the timestamps of text exchanges, noting the gaps, the jumps, the ellipses. Merced Es traveling across London to meet Benz, only to be stood up, the messages repeating, ten minutes, twenty minutes, two hours no response, ‘where are you’s turning to anger then rage towards the other who only resurfaces the next morning. Everything feels real, and these are conversations, relationships, exchanges, acts of dickishness and inconsolable rejection that everyone can relate to, has been, played out. It’s London love baby, utterly relatable stories as old as the hills and bitched across spilling pints in pub corners across the capital forevermore. As a teen, Baal was nicknamed ‘that Mercedes chic’ by her friends for wearing one of the iconic three-pointed-star-in-a-circle emblems snatched from the hood of a fancy MB motor around her neck. In Benz, she finds her completing half. Star-crossed lovers, a real-life Romeo and Juliette for the digital age. Merced es Benz has that touch of fate about it. Love is a fiction, a story we weave, to entwine us together. After opening with their first exchange online, Benz responding to a characteristically disdainful ‘Facefuck’ status update from Merced Es, the book jumps ahead to the immediate aftermath of Thomas’s untimely death from a drug overdose in July 2012. Everything unfolds under the shadow of this tragedy — a death that perhaps if not accidental, if not a suicide, might awfully be wilful. Heartbreak even. A deep sadness pervades the reading of the couple’s exchanges. A constricting fatality born of the knowledge of what is to come. The whole book is a looking back, involving both a deciphering and an occlusion. You read searching for clues why, as well as vainly attempting to forget what you know so as to experience the couple’s shared moments in something approaching an authentic innocence. But death shadows, a constant companion inexorably pulling us back towards the curtain closed. It’s a story of a doomed love told from the surviving half. A story of survival, of the telling required to ensure the other half lives on, can become full again once more. No longer simply that Mercedes chic. There is of course the gap here between the author and her avatar or handle, between Ben Thomas and Benz. Merced Es both is and is not Baal. They elide, and this layering, merging, pulling away, leaving out, this différence, is dynamic. In the same way, all the events and action of their relationship are absent. In between texts or emails we have to guess and imagine what transpired. Read between the lines, and project our own experiences into their exchanges, in order to make sense of the trace. A deciphering of what-must-have-to-have-happened to provoke this. Thus as one looks for the source, for the reasons why, all we have are the traces of events that have always already happened elsewhere. Events that have been removed, isolated, quarantined. What we read is reductive — reduced to a trace that itself is raw, it’s copy itself, a copy of a copy, and we’re left with the bare bones. We see the outlines of rich media, image boxes with no filler, YouTube links vacant. Absentia in media res. Just like the object of love (Benz) himself. Severed from both real life and the interconnecting digital web, the printed page is a mausoleum, but doubly here, triply even. Perhaps the only true archive or resting place of our online conversations is precisely offline — otherwise they are still live, active, full of potential to change, be rewritten, re-skinned. I toy with the idea of looking up the video links on YouTube, copying the URLs out verbatim, for veracity, to establish the mood, to listen to the same track by The Rutts. But somehow that’s not the point. Memory, clouded and somewhat made up, filled in over the gaps, feels more authentic to this story. Across the transposed Facebook group patter names are scratched out, effaced for anonymity but still recognisable, half legible, if you know what or who you’re looking for. Photographers, stylists, former colleagues from one magazine masthead to another, public house heroines and pinups. It’s a familiar world, that London of the turn of the decade. Perhaps always in negative, Baal captures the nihilistic decadence of modern urban twenty-something living. Our protagonists are neurotic, directionless within a drifting affluence, never short of a party full of people they loath who are their best friends. Alienation for the trust-fund generation at the end of history. All this… and nowhere to go, nothing to do. Baal’s unforgiving cynicism and rejection of this scene shines through. The tawdry sub-gossip milieu of rich kids idling the world from party to party to beach to island to who cares where next with the touch of overly perfumed Louis XIV court intrigues in their drama and tousling themselves up with all the braggadocio of a rap promo. This centrifugal star-lit social scene is contrasted with hints of stunning dawn views from her 15th floor flat in a Bow housing estate tower block out in deepest East London. But how much of all this is true I ask myself, is this real? I certainly remember seeing some of these posts on Baal’s Facebook, the letter that got her fired from Dazed, the ‘I fucked… and all I got was this petty vendetta’ t-shirt. Maybe one of those anonymous likes is mine. Who was Ben? Did the author make him up? If not, what would his friends or family make of who you read about here? Did she write/ make all of this up? Within a couple of quick searches Benz is revealed in the tabloid daily reports of his death. But even these always by a kind of second degree, headlines that the friend of so and so rock star kid it boy died. His death simply isn’t the story, isn’t the news, it’s his associates. Even here we miss him. I think perhaps Merced es Benz is an attempt to reclaim part of this person lost. A way of saying it did happen, that for all of everything else he was/is/was this, at least to me. The idea and love of a person is surpassed on all sides by them, until that love is all we have left. How much of this is a transcript? Untouched, unedited, unwritten? To read is to be invited in to be a witness, but of what? All the events here, everything that happens, happens elsewhere, IRL somewhere, off read, off piste, off script. Merced es Benz is an account from the aftermath of a cataclysm. It’s the act of piecing together how we got here, a looking back and re-reading of archives. It’s the act of the bereft that Baal puts us as readers into, into her shoes. It’s also the act of writing today. Through technology tracing our every move, thought, exchange, calorie burnt, website visited, link clicked, the great book of being is being written by machines in a language we can’t read. What we mean is our trace, the trail we leave behind through the systems we traverse. In this way the writer is effaced from the writing. Baal tries to take herself out of the equation, effacing herself, by instead reaching towards becoming a pure conduit to this trace of her past. It’s an act of carrying that trace forward — an act of not acting, of not writing but rather of reading — the writer in negative. In absentia. But in this way we become her — recalling and returning to the aftermath, trying to make sense of the event(s) of our lives. This non-writing — this archaeology, this digging up — this is ours, perhaps all that we have ultimately. There is a great vulnerability and honesty in Baal’s non-fiction novel. It pulls no punches, about anyone, least of all herself. If we’re sympathetic to her characters, they’re not faultless. We’re welcomed inside the expressions of their neuroses, doubts and rages to each other just as much as any love between them. And here’s the thing, thinking back I wonder if there is really love in this story, in so far as it’s a story of a failed, doomed romantic encounter. Almost as if the love each of our protagonists held for the other, living outside the book, the traces of its expression and thus their ability to communicate it to each other, couldn’t navigate these mediums between them — perhaps it’s a warning about love being innately atrophied in the age of Facefuck. You’ll only find love in the real world. Recently I’ve been seeing clips of scorpions and crabs shredding their shells recur on my social feed. There’s something strangely satisfying in watching the disconnecting, withdrawing and pulling away under the hard surface, the reveal of the soft vulnerable pink fresh skin exposed underneath and then the empty husk left behind. The hollow shape of the thing, there but without substance, without content. I think of this husk in relation to Merced es Benz. There is bravery in letting oneself be so laid bare, opening out the vulnerability and shape of oneself. An affirmation to say a kind of, I once was this. To be a writer is to share of yourself, invite others to step inside this externalised piece of you. You can only really write what you know, or write to unlearn yourself. Perhaps in reaching for an already externalised trace of herself at the intersections with another person, Baal finds something that enables an authentic intimate encounter with an other for a reader, a kind of genericity that everyone can reach towards. Ultimately, I think Baal suggests that writing today is neither simply the digital trace nor using that trace as a medium of expression, but lies beyond, within a composition or choreography that primes the possibility for encounter. And against the comforting alienation of our self-reinforcing media bubbles, her book asks how one can encounter the other, perhaps even how can one love today? Told almost entirely through social media posts and digital communications, about love and about death, Merced es Benz is an uncovering of the past and a trying to come to terms with it; it addressing the nature, and thus future, of writing itself as confronted with technology and the mediations of today; and, for the old Badiouian in me, it is about fidelity to an event, twice over, that of their love encounter, and that of his death; the one nested in the other, for only by faithfully expressing the truth of the first can one face that of the second. I guess I’m still a little bit in love with Iphigenia Baal, but not in the way I was before. Now, perhaps on her terms, in the way that she invites us readers all into a love that is forever lost, to step into these moments, and feel and watch and recall through the moments of our own lives, what it is to know, to love someone — if not the writer then perhaps her Benz.

Merced Es Benz by Iphgenia Baal is published by Book Works as part of the Semina series guest edited by Stewart Home. Order a copy here.

#bookworks #iphgenia baal #stewart home #merced es benz #real review #literature #essay

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terriluvsbooks-blog · 7 years ago

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Before we begin, I have to thank Terri (my fellow “Carolina girl”) for the opportunity to be featured on #CarolinaReads!

First and foremost I have to ask why audiobooks? What draws you to this format?

Primarily, the convenience. I grew up with a voracious appetite for reading, but as I got older, it dwindled. Life got in the way. I became busier and began to accept that reading was a luxury I didn’t have time for anymore. I’m sure this is something a lot of folks can relate to.

My seemingly incidental introduction to audiobooks re-opened a door I thought had been shut forever. I’m not being dramatic, I genuinely thought that part of becoming an adult meant that I wouldn’t have time for a luxury such as reading. Audiobooks not only allow me to fit reading into my schedule but now I’m able to consume more books than ever!

Do you think every book lends itself to the audio format? Why or why not?

No, I don’t. Most do, but some still translate better than others. That’s not to say, however, that I don’t think all books should be translated into audiobooks. Every book deserves an audiobook!

But a lot of times, audiobooks are afterthoughts for authors. Something they don’t even think about until the book is well underway, if not already finished. That’s completely understandable because writing a book and getting published are hard.

Sometimes, a book is written in a manner that’s just meant to work best on paper.

Two popular examples come to mind: Rainbow Rowell’s Attachments and Taherah Mafi’s Shatter Me. Both are excellent novels but seem (to me) to work better when visualized rather than heard. Attachments is written as a series of emails between coworkers. The novel was formatted in a very unique way to resemble email attachments. In audio, the novelty of this formatting doesn’t come across as well as it should. In Shatter Me, the protagonist constantly strikes through her words as she writes journal entries. Again, I love this idea, but the only way to convey it in audio was to use a scratching sound effect to mimic the protagonist’s writing utensil striking through a word. It took me a good portion of the novel to understand what was happening there.

How do you fit listening to audiobooks into your schedule?

Listening has become a habit to me now. I always have an audiobook playing. Luckily, I work from home, so I’m able to listen continuously and at whatever volume I want!

There are so many daily opportunities to listen. Think about all the times you have music playing. That’s when I play an audiobook.

In the car

Exercising

Working in the yard

Falling asleep at night

Doing housework

At the beach or swimming pool

Anytime I’m performing a mindless task (something that doesn’t require a lot of concentration), I listen to an audiobook.

When I listen to a book, I find it even easier to picture the whole story in my head. How does listening to the story enhance the experience for you?

Oh, absolutely. I love relaxing in bed at night when listening to an audiobook. I can close my eyes and see the story play out in my mind. It’s effortless.

It’s also fun to create mental images of the characters. I love casting the characters of the audiobooks I hear. I ask myself “If this story were being made into a movie or television series, who would I want to play the parts?”. That takes the visualization to another level.

Tell us a little about your company. How did it start? What services do you offer?

It all happened in a very kismet sort of way. I began looking for blog tour companies to work with as an audiobook blogger. After applying to several of them, I was politely told that there likely wouldn’t be many opportunities for me to participate because audiobook blog tours weren’t very popular.

I thought that was odd because I was getting several review requests a week from authors, narrators, and publishers. Why weren’t these people approaching tour companies about promoting audiobooks? This felt like a gap in the book marketing world that needed to be filled.

Shortly after that, I was approached by an author about coordinating an audiobook blog tour for his audiobook that I had previously reviewed. My first instinct was to say “No, I can’t do that.”, but then I thought “Hey, maybe I could do that…” , which eventually turned into “ I can do that!”.

A little over a month later, Audiobookworm Promotions was born. I explicitly cater to the audiobook community, of which I am proud to be a part. I believe that, with a little creativity, audiobooks can be marketed just as effectively as traditional books.

Audiobookworm Promotions seemed like a natural progression from The Audiobookworm. I’m excited to be unveiling a new website for Audiobookworm Promotions in a couple of weeks. I’ll also be gradually expanding my services. Right now, I offer blog tours, review tours, graphic design and web design services, as well as a number of other brand management and marketing services.

I organize virtual tours for all genres and I’m always looking for tour hosts. Anyone interested can sign up here! There are also a number of audiobooks available for “adoption” on my Adopt-An-Audiobook page.

What is the first book you remember reading?

That’s tough because I’ve been reading from a very young age. Like most of my generation, Harry Potter was my childhood.

It’s much easier to recall my first audiobook. The first audiobook I heard was Stephen King’s 9/22/63 and it remains my favorite to this day.

What are you listening to right now?

I’ve gotten to the point now where I can’t just listen to one audiobook at a time. Maybe it’s a commitment thing. I like having several options available to me because of my listening mood changes with the wind.

I currently have about 30 minutes left in Night Broken, the 8th installment in Patricia Briggs’ Mercy Thompson series. That series is a must-listen for paranormal fans. Lorelei King (the narrator) is doing an amazing job.

I’m also listening to Mary Roach’s Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers and it’s every bit of what it sounds. Although, I’m having to hear it in stages and never while eating.

Why did you choose that story?

I started the Mercy Thompson series after it was recommended by too many people to ignore. I love the paranormal genre and this series (as well as its spinoff) has become one of my all-time favorites.

Whenever I’m in a listening slump, I temporarily switch over to podcasts for a day or so. That’s how I came across Mary Roach’s TED Talk, which sparked my interest in her writing. I highly recommend her work (and her TED Talk), but not to those with weak stomachs!

Who is an author or book character you would like to meet one day and why?

I feel like Stephen King and George R.R. Martin are the obvious answers here, but they’re also pretty far-fetched (probably). Now that I’m thinking about it, I’d love to have a conversation with Mary Roach. After hearing her TED Talk, I immediately searched for more of her interviews because I found her work so fascinating. She seems very down-to-earth and to have a great sense of humor, which is evident in her writing. Dinner with her would be fun and informative, although we’d probably have to set some parameters about what could be discussed at the table (for my sake!).

You can only have five books on your bookshelf. What would they be and why?

I believe you can tell a lot about a person by what’s on their bookshelf. Physical book are pretty scarce around my house, but I have hung on to a few:

What Is My Cat Thinking? This is probably my most referenced book (unfortunately). I have three cats and anyone who follows me on Instagram knows which one of them makes me pour over these pages.

The Lady of the Rivers– It’s about Jacquetta of Luxembourg (my 18th-great grandmother). I love doing genealogy and having such a popular book written about one of my ancestors excites me. This will be neat to pass down a future generation one day!

The Everything Dreams Book: What Your Dreams Mean And How They Affect Your Everyday Life– I’ve had this since I was 12. It may be the oldest book I own.

Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, 5th Ed.– From my grad school days. I still reference it occasionally and it’s handy to have around.

Gone with the Wind– I read this every summer between 8th and 12th grade. Even though time has significantly changed my view of the story, I can’t bear to give up my tattered copy.

#theaudiobookworm #terriluvsbooks Book Marketing

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cannysquawker-blog · 8 years ago

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Self Assessment- Half Way.

Vision, Project Design and Planning

How clear, imaginative and entrepreneurial is the project? How likely is the project going to help you make a transition from student to professional How detailed and realistic are the objectives and perimeters of the project?

At this point in the process I feel the vision for my project has always been very clear, I have always had the image of what the final product is going to look like (which is now becoming a reality) from the start. However increasingly this vision is becoming clearer and clearer. The topic itself is an unusual topic for someone my age to explore and I have not seen a theatre performance that has looked into the WMC and Social club history before. Therefore the Project is individual in that sense. Over the last few weeks i have been answering many of my own questions, For example, what individual topics i am going to explore in the performance. And It wasn't until i was able to get out into the club community and start exploring the world in depth that the factual monologue element of the performance would start to become easier for me to collate and write into a script. This is why i allowed myself time to go out and collate research before attempting to write anything. The plan was always to have musical interludes, however i originally did not know which songs I would include, however my research findings about the clubs over the era’s and what were the top songs of these periods, that has fallen into place also. I feel this project is helping me transition from student to professional by introducing me to the world of creating professional standard theatre performance form scratch. Also, creating work to be shown at a theatre festival and worthing along side Directors of such events to work with their plans so that your performances fits their venue, time scale and technical abilities. Along with advertisement and promotional aspects of a theatre festival. This project is teaching me everything from, research methods, for creating detailed and factual performance. Im learning working alongside industry professionals in order to create the technical background for the production. Also, I feel this project is slowing me to discover how to use my own time management and self organisation in order to book sessions in studios, rehearsal rooms, vocal lessons, interviews in the community and simply getting on with the project without any guidance from a pre set timetable. Also already being part of this Professional world of club singing this is allowing me to understand the world in which I am preforming week in week out. Giving me a connection with my audiences that i never had before. instantly by knowing more about the world i work, i am a better performer. When given feedback about my project plans, it was said that i may be being adventurous with my perimeters of the piece, and was advised to aim to perform a smaller section of the piece at Launch Festival. However the launch Directors gave me a slot of 30 min, and so i have been working towards this objective. I now have a 30 min track of 5 songs and time for min and half monologues in-between each song. I feel this is now an achievable goal for the 2-3rd of March 2017.

Management and Realisation Comments on how you are working towards accomplishing your project: How organised, systematic, creative and how purposeful the work today has been? Are you working effectively? How are you using communication skills? (Eg: Networking/ Marketing )

-Originally I started by making a timetable, of the whole process, planning when and were I was going to do what. For example i have myself two weeks of research and collating before allowing myself a week of production before my first show back with Launch Festival Directors which is on the 15th of February. I will then have time after this to develop the performance further before the Festival. This has been useful to be able to look at my timescale all in front and keep myself motivated to work towards targets and know what days I will be doing what obviously this has to be flexible, because things can change. For example I hoped to have my whole script done by Friday 10th however at the moment I am Half way through finishing the monologues for in-between songs. I have just recently found a fantastic book Not Just Beer and Bingo! A social History of Working Mens Club’s by Ruth Cherrington that has sparked a much more in depth look into the History of the clubs, its entertainers, women and the demise. Which I feel i need to read cover to cover, in order to write a factually informed script. Working by myself is a very new thing, I am discovering new jobs I need to do all the time. Questions that need answering on topics like lighting, and set design, something that I have always contributed towards in a group but not had the job to do by myself. So it is these things I am learning new all the time. Again script writing, Something I've never done before, but I'm giving it a good go. When it comes to communication skills, this is something i have had to use a lot so far in the project. Meeting new people and coming across professional doing interviews with industry professionals you have to have an organised and confident persona for them to invest their time talking to you. Also when talking with the launch directors, I have had lots of questions about the layout of the evening and what I will be allowed to use tech wise and also gaining copy right for my music. This has all meant I have had to write emails contacting them in order to get the information i need to go ahead creating my performance. When taking part in the Professional Directions Fair this was great practice talking to students and lecturers explaining what I was doing what my aims were and how I was going to achieve them clearly and professionally. The only thing I sometimes struggle with is eye contact, which I know can be vital when talking with people. But I found the fair was also good practice for this, and give me more confidence after doing it to look people in the eye more often, and something I really am going to try and improve.

Rigour and Professionalism

To what extent do you have a thorough knowledge and understanding of your area of practice? Do you think your work would stand up in a professional context?

- Having had a previous knowledge of the WMC world and being a performer I already knew a little about it, however since venturing on this project I have learnt more directly from people who have been attending the clubs (sometimes) since their opening or their whole lives. I am currently reading Ruth Cherringtons book, and this is such a detailed collective of the history of the clubs I almost feel I am watching time go by on this journey with the whole movement of the WMC. I am about half way through the book and the more I read the more I realise this topic needs creating into a theatre piece, Its calling out for it. Such a historic world with decades of hardship, hey days, music and downfall. To be honest 30 Min isn't enough, it has the potential to be developed into something much bigger, but for now what I am creating is a solo idea that I am open for it to be taken on after the festival and developed into something much more. I truly believe it has the potential too. But because people of my age group do not know much about this world of WMC it would have been difficult to talk to them about joining me on this journey. However, maybe the outcome of the festival, one of my fellow colleges may see the production and think, yeah! I have ideas for that. Or I can carry on developing it as a solo show.

Clarity of Documentation

How clear is how you re-documenting the project? Is it critical and self Reflective?

I am documenting all my research on this blog, so far I have used video evidence, pictures, time laps, email evidence and written blog posts. All which are clear documentation of the process. I mean I could always do more, I suppose you can never do enough. Post anything and everything to do with the project. Adding to the ‘are you being critical and reflective?’ I am doing a post like this one, asking myself questions directly from the module grading criteria in order to be sure I am following it correctly and contributing to the marking system correctly.

Critical Evaluation

I am constantly trying to look at the positives and negatives of my project, looking at decisions that I have made and questioning what I could have done differently or how I could have taken this further. Like for example when interviewing people, I look back on some of the interviews and see places I could have possibly expanded on the questions and got more out of the interviewees.

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lewiskdavid90 · 8 years ago

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