Five Years Later... Time To Publish?

In February of 2008 I published my first blog post, in which I talked about getting ready to write my very first fantasy novel.

Five years, five (drafts of) novels, and several very long hiatuses later, I'm finally ready to come full circle. Yep, that's right - I'm going to self-publish for the first time, and officially get some of this written stash out into the world at large!

But wait, there's more! I've decided to use Kickstarter to fund the publication process. I'm committing fully to this endeavor, and I don't want to leave anything to chance. I'm raising money to hire an awesome editor, get some great visual talent on board, and really make as big of a deal of this as I'm able to.

Crowdfunding a novel is not an easy task, but luckily, I'm not going it alone. I'm already building the foundation for a great team, including some awesome people who are going to be helping me put on local events in New York and hosting me on their sites and blogs over the course of the project.

Interested in climbing on board? Head over to my website and drop me a line on my contact form.

As if that weren't enough fun news, yesterday I got "chucked" by the wonderful team at Knodes. You can read about it - and see me mugging for the camera in our office - here: Emma Gets Chucked :D

Stay tuned for lots of exciting stuff to come! And if you're in or near the NYC area, keep February 25 open on your calendars. I'll be posting info for the launch party here soon!

Welcome to a Very Exciting 2013!

Well! There have been some amazing changes around here, all within the last month, and I'm really just trying to get a hang of it all. Here's to 2013 starting out with a bang!

First of all, I left my job at YourTango, more or less in a leap of faith out into the unknown. Through a series of amazingly fortunate events (largely inspired by my hectic scheduling of networking events since moving to New York), I wound up as an "Internbusinessdataanalyst Person" at an awesome startup called Knodes. I'm happy that my first foray into Silicon Alley turned out to be so successful!

And that's not all. I've got a hugely exciting announcement to make (which will be of special interest to authors, bloggers, editors, artists, creatives, and anyone who likes speculative fiction/science fiction). I'm not quite ready to spill the beans yet, but stay tuned here for more good news.

As part of my upcoming project, I'll be looking for people of the above types (and more) to partner with. If you're interested, go to my About Me page to find my contact info and send me a message. Or wait to get more juicy details in a post soon to come!

WalkaboutNYC: Gin Lane Media - Interactivity Is Media's Future

Welcome to part four of my WalkaboutNYC 2012 startup tour! Today's post is about my stop at Gin Lane Media. To read more about WalkaboutNYC, or to learn about two other great startups in the city (OpenPlans and Campfire) click on the links below.

Walkabout NYC 2012 Recap: Startup-Hopping In the City

WalkaboutNYC: OpenPlans - Trip Planning At Its Best

WalkaboutNYC: Campfire - Immersive Marketing Experiences


Now that you're up to speed, I can get right to talking about the next startup on the list...

Gin Lane Media

Although I've lived in New York City for a few months, I haven't quite gotten distances figured out yet. For some reason, it seems impossible to get anywhere in the city in less than fifteen minutes. Add to that the fact that I planned my itinerary based on what companies sounded coolest, and not which were closest to one another, and you can imagine that I ended up at Gin Lane in Bowery considerably out of breath and a little worse for wear.

Gabe Rivera and Steve Kovach Talk Techmeme, Content Curation

What do you get when you stick the founder of Techmeme (a site that uses an algorithm and human editors to bring readers the latest and greatest tech news) and the editor of Business Insider's SAI (Silicon Alley Insider) in a room together? An in-depth discussion on the role of skilled editors, technology, and the general public when it comes to collecting and disseminating tech and business news - a.k.a., content curation.

It all went down at Outbrain's HQ during a Content Conversations event cohosted by Contently (you can find more information about the Content Conversations Meetup group here). The goal? Find an answer to the question: Is curation an art or a science?

After a lively networking session, Steve Kovach (SAI) got right down to business grilling Gabe Rivera (Techmeme) about the topic. Although Gabe admitted that most of Techmeme's content gets pulled from RSS feeds or scraped from other sources (science), he made the surprising argument that he found it cheaper and more effective to have editors produce the final results by processing the data generated by his algorithm.

Cyber Monday Video Game Goodness and More

So, I've got more than enough things to write about, but today I'm going to make a plug for some of my sites in honor of Cyber Monday.

Sure, it's a bit promotional - but maybe, just maybe, you'll find something you're looking for. And I'll be able to talk a bit about writing and niches while I'm at it :)

I create niche sites/articles on a platform called Squidoo that provide people with information they're looking for on the internet. For example, if someone wants to know what video game to get for a friend who owns a Kinect, I've got a list of the best Kinect games that will point them in exactly the right direction. Looking for handheld games instead? 10 Best PS Vita Games or Best 3DS Games might be more your style.