Writing

Update: Quest for Employment!

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Well I’m adding new content to “Quest for Employment,” my upcoming job-search inspired guide to the variances and techniques I found for the job search.  Fortunately, I found I had to more enhance or add to content rather than add huge amounts of new information.  It’s going quicker than I thought and I hope to have a new beta this weekend.

I like the fact I can keep it tight and effective, so hang in there – and when it’s done I’m also planning to return to my job search coaching!

So for a quick taste, the contents will cover:

  • Regional issues.
  • Resume issues beyond the obvious
  • Job search boards and their idiosynracies
  • Networking being more than it seems
  • Being yourself -in a way you may not have thought of
  • Going on a blitz and running a job search campaign.
  • A bunch of miscellaneous tips I REALLY couldn’t justify giving chapters!

It’s also heavily oriented on “to do’s” so you can get applying what I learned.

– Steven Savage

Steven Savage is a Geek 2.0 writer, speaker, blogger, and job coach.  He blogs on careers at http://www.fantopro.com/, nerd and geek culture at http://www.nerdcaliber.com/, and does a site of creative tools at http://www.seventhsanctum.com/. He can be reached at https://www.stevensavage.com/.

Status On My Next Book

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Well my next book – which is really more of a booklet  – is out of editing.

My plan is to take some of my past Fan To Pro columns on job searching and improve and enhance them to form a tight guide to oddities on the job search.  It’s gone pretty well, and I expect to be publishing sometime in November.

I’ve had great feedback from my pre-readers and I think it’ll be very useful for folks on the job search, especially those who want to try and get out of a rut or take their job search skills a bit farther.  I’ll probably be pricing it pretty cheaply as an e-book.  Not sure I want to do a physical book, but more on that later.

It’s a bit under 40 pages, and doing it’s been interesting:

First, I really feel the idea of using blog content as the seed for a book actually works.  I wasn’t initially sure about the idea (I mean, why not just do a reprint?), but instead it’s like the original posts are the basis for another useful form.  What works as a blog post in my ranty-coach didactic style doesn’t work as a book, and what you can do in a book and a blog differs.

Secondly, after you get feedback on a series of blog posts and/or look over your work, you can incorporate that into the based-on work, and this ads a lot of value.

Third, it’s a way to make your content accessible in a  different manner.  People don’t want to have to go back to your blog all the time, or have to find printouts, or whatever.  You can give things to people in a different useful format.

Fourth, and something I hope to explore later, if you’re producing a physical object (a book or magazine), there’s something new to leave for posterity.  Something that can be passed on, put on a shelf, gifted easily.  There’s something satisfying about that.  This may not happen with this book – but we’ll see.

So hang in there, it’ coming . . . and starting to wonder how I present these books on my sites, so suggestions welcome . . .

– Steven Savage

Steven Savage is a Geek 2.0 writer, speaker, blogger, and job coach.  He blogs on careers at http://www.fantopro.com/, nerd and geek culture at http://www.nerdcaliber.com/, and does a site of creative tools at http://www.seventhsanctum.com/. He can be reached at https://www.stevensavage.com/.

 

Progress: Quest for Employment

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So my rewrite of my “how I found a job fast in 2012” book has been named “Quest for Employment.”  Not sure that’s the best title, but then again I’ve never taken a lot of specific blog posts and made them into a booklet.  I have done general compilations, but not this.  So hey, I’ll take a lame title.

Anyway, I’ve had trouble getting back to it after a series of events, visits, and now illness.  So I plan to get back to it and try and finish it this month or at least early November.  The idea is to do it as a simple, low-priced, effective ebook, probably $1.99

What I want to do with it is take articles from my series and rework them into sort of a “plus” version.  The idea is that after completing a series, I could then improve it, enhance it, and take what I learned to create a coherent book.  So if people liked the series, wanted to get more, or just wanted a low-priced compilation, it’d be a great purchase.

I rather like this idea.  I get to create a great series (and in many cases blaze new trails), and then the lessons learned get applied to producing a great book.  I even validate that the idea is a good one.

Right now the state of the book is mostly re-editied, and I’m also adding useful resources to each section.  I also am adding “To Dos,” my rather famous thing from many of my books – saying what you have to do right after reading.  Always gets people motivated, and helps you feel active.

I’ll keep the updates here – because I ALSO have two other series I want to try this on if it works . . .

– Steven Savage

Steven Savage is a Geek 2.0 writer, speaker, blogger, and job coach.  He blogs on careers at http://www.fantopro.com/, nerd and geek culture at http://www.nerdcaliber.com/, and does a site of creative tools at http://www.seventhsanctum.com/. He can be reached at https://www.stevensavage.com/.