The cool thing about writing a short book and self-publishing it on Amazon Kindle is that you can think of yourself as a Beta Author. Why Beta? Think of it as an Agile Book Launch. Your short book will be provocative, smart and well-written. It will have a sizzling title and a click-inducing cover. But it may be the first in a series of books. You may want to write a longer book later. You may want to revise it. No problem. As an

Inspired by a number of other bloggers and authors, including Chris Brogan (Temple, Untangle, Practice), Jonathan Fields (Serve, Inspire, Transcend) and Chris Guillebeau (Finishing), I am starting 2012 with three words. I was tempted to say "launching" 2012 because that's what it feels like. More about that in a minute. First, my words:

Alignment

Quiet

Compassion

Alignment

2012 is going to be a year of adventure,

Seth Godin reminds us - again - of the new way to think about writing a business book. You are writing for the fans and followers you already have. Your tribe. They are the ones who will celebrate with you and kick off word-of-mouth sales if you set your launch price on Kindle at $0.00.

As Seth puts it: "Wake up in the morning thinking about what (you) can write for (your) readers." Not the other way around. The old mindset went

Context is one of those words that sparks a multidimensional image in your head. That is key to understanding why context (who, where, how, what, why) has as much to do with the success or popularity of a new book as does the actual content of that book. Who recommended the book to you? That counts for a lot. You tend to trust recommendations from friends who are discerning and on top of what's new.

Where did you hear about the

Amazon is capturing headlines again as the company bullies its way into book publishing - as distinct from book selling. But there are some bright spots for self-published authors. You can run occasional (very occasional) $0.00 promos for your book. That's what's happening right now on my Amazon page - but only for the next 36 hours. Download The Corporate Blogging Book (Updated Edition) for $0.00.

I think you'll like the new

David Meerman Scott often writes with great clarity about stuff that the rest of us are thinking about but haven’t gotten around to articulating. His newest book, Newsjacking, released today, is no exception. Two things are notable about Newsjacking: 1. it is being released in almost real-time in e-book format only (for Kindle, iPad and soon, Nook and Sony) and 2. the topic is real-time PR and how to get it. I read about the book