Random musings and thoughts

Power Outages and Print Books

by Sabrina Musings

I’ve experienced a number of power outages the last couple years (interestingly, more so in the last two years than the rest of my life so far), and it got me thinking about e-books. 

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What Self-Publishing and Internet Marketing Have in Common

by Sabrina Information
Thumbnail image for What Self-Publishing and Internet Marketing Have in Common

For those of you who don’t know, ClickBank is an affiliate marketing website. People can sign up to either sell their information products, or to promote products and receive a cut of the sale. Recently I was looking through ClickBank’s site, and I stumbled across their tips for Internet marketers. Many of their tips can also be [...]

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Featured: Write or Read

by Sabrina Information

My startup Write or Read, which will help self-publishers become more successful by giving them insights into who reads their books and why they like them, is featured on FounderDating! Click here to read it. Also we’re launching the alpha soon, so stay tuned for updates!

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Starting a Business

by Sabrina Musings

At the eLuminate crowdfunding conference, I had the pleasure of listening to Sandi Webster, the co-founder of Consultants 2 Go. She offered some great advice for people starting their own businesses. 

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New Ways of Storytelling

by Sabrina Musings
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Technology is exciting, and it makes it possible to find innovative ways to tell stories. I’ve found a few companies/sites that are experimenting with the way people share their stories. Cowbird: lets you tell stories that fit in to one word categories via pictures of videos. FacebookStories: shows off interesting ways people use Facebook. Javascript [...]

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The $100 Tablet Project

by Sabrina Musings
Thumbnail image for The $100 Tablet Project

The $100 Tablet Project is a crowdfunding project on Indie Go-Go by a 6th-grade science teacher in Berkeley, CA. The goal is to get $3,000 to buy 30 $100 tablets to use in his classroom, allowing him to use more technology to teach. It sounds like a great idea–check it out!

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Your Best Just Got Better

by Sabrina Musings

Last night I went to a Meetup that featured Jason Womack, author of Your Best Just Got Better. It was a great event, full of positive energy, and I ended up learning a lot. 

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Pinterest Pins (an update)

by Sabrina Marketing

A few weeks ago, I posted some tips I had learned about gaining traction on Pinterest. So now I’m going to follow up with a few of my observations, based on my personal experience: fashion pins are the most likely pins to go viral using hashtags can help, but it depends on the tags you [...]

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11 Tips for Writing

by Sabrina Information
writing tips

Photo courtesy of Wikimedia Commons, by Ildar Sagdejev Author Colson Whitehead wrote an article in the New York Times outlining 11 rules on the art of writing. Among them include showing AND telling, write what you know, and of course, don’t worry much about rules. Read the full list here.

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Northside Festival: Music, Film, Art, Entrepreneurship

by Sabrina Musings

Yesterday was the first day of Brooklyn’s Northside Festival, which brings together music, film, art, and entrepreneurship. I went mainly for the entrepreneurship panels, and I learned a lot of technology and gamification.

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The Hunger Games + Beanie Babies

by Sabrina Musings

Epic video of the Hunger Games portrayed by beanie babies. This is almost as good as the movie and book–but I might be biased because I used to own all of the beanie babies in the video. Find out more about the group who made the video on their Facebook page.

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Fiction and Neuroscience

by Sabrina Musings

Recent studies show that reading fiction makes people more empathetic and better able to read others. It’s called “theory of the mind.” Read all about the benefits of fiction here.

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Take my survey! (please)

by Sabrina Musings

If you read my blog, then you know that I’m a grad student at NYU, in the publishing program. I’m in my last semester of the program, and to graduate I need to complete a capstone project. If you have 5 free minutes (really, it only takes 2), please fill out my survey. I’m doing [...]

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Women Entrepreneurs Festival 2012

by Sabrina Musings

More and more women are becoming entrepreneurs. To support and celebrate them, the ITP program at NYU’s Tisch School for the Arts hosts an annual Women’s Entrepreneur Festival, also known as WE. WE 12 kicked off on a Tuesday with an introduction by Mary Schmidt Campbell and a key note address from Arianna Huffington. She’s [...]

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Garden District Book Shop

by Sabrina Blog Photos
Garden District Book Shop New Orleans

Over winter break I went to New Orleans with my family for the first time. While leisurely strolling around the Garden District we stumbled upon the Garden District Book Shop, a small but beautiful indie bookstore with loads of signed books. Browsing bookstores always reminds me why I wanted to go into the publishing business. [...]

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Microsoft Store

by Sabrina Musings
Microsoft Store

I stumbled across a Microsoft Store the other day. Turns out there are 14 stores in the country, and supposedly the first one opened at the Mission Viejo Mall. Interesting how it looks like the Apple store.

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Do eBooks Weigh Anything?

by Sabrina Musings

Interesting question posed by a New York Times reader: When an e-reader is loaded with thousands of books, does it gain any weight? The answer? “In principle, the answer is yes,” said John D. Kubiatowicz, a professor of computer science at the University of California, Berkeley. To read the whole explanation, click here.

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Borders Liquidation = Cheap Assets

by Sabrina Musings
Borders bankrupt

Borders has been going out of business for a while, but until last weekend I hadn’t stepped foot in one of the going-out-of-business-stores. The one in Minneapolis is two floors and almost empty. While it’s sad and a little scary for people in the publishing biz to see such a huge brick-and-mortar store go down, [...]

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Google Loves Lucy

by Sabrina Musings
Google Lucy

Today would have been Lucille Ball’s 100th birthday, and Google paid tribute to her. Until midnight tonight, anyone who goes on the Google search home page can play six clips from the famous “I Love Lucy” TV show. Read more at searchenginewatch and Google’s blog.

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Making Money with Mobile

by Sabrina Musings

Between the iPhone, the iPad, and the Android platform, mobile and tablets are on their way to becoming hugely profitable. But it’s not just the apps that are making them popular. Mobile web is still an important component of mobile as a whole, and McDonald’s certainly knows that. Advertising and monetizing mobile is still being [...]

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853 Books

by Sabrina Blog Photos
books

Take a good look. This is what 853 books looks like. My own personal library, full of YA and picture books, with a few adult books as well. Ah, the benefits of interning at Random House. Actually, I was just working in the right place at the right time. Random House was in the process [...]

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Coca-Cola, Advertising, and Santa Claus

by Sabrina Musings
Coca-Cola, Advertising, and Santa Claus

Over the weekend, I went to visit my uncle in Battery Park. We were at the dinner table, dropping fish balls and slices of beef into a hot pot, when my uncle told me something shocking: “Santa Claus wasn’t a jolly fat man dressed in a red suit until Coca-Cola made him that way.” I’m [...]

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