CMOR Weekender #2 – A rising industry, how 2 speel good, and a great source of links.

The CMOR Weekender edition of Code My Own Road. This is a regular column I do on a Saturday (Friday if you’re in the U.S.) where I talk about random interesting stuff that’s come across my plate during the week. Generally it’s off-beat and can sometimes be off-topic from our normal focus of creating multiple streams of income. Think of it as the lighter side of me and Code My Own Road

Are you kidding? No one reads eBooks

The first little snippet of info I came across a few weeks ago and shared it on my Google Reader feed (which feeds into my Buzz). It’s a little something by this site I found while reading ProBlogger called Sticky eBooks.

Kelly has narrowed in on a really great niche I think, the niche of blogging about eBook creation is one that a lot have tried to get into and failed. I really enjoyed her recent post on a comment one of her clients made about no one reading eBooks.

Really they couldn’t be more wrong and she explains why. Borders are getting onto it in a big way with the launch of their eBook store holding literally millions of book titles that you know and love. eReaders like the Kindle and the iPad (and loads of offshore devices) are selling like hotcakes and according to recent reports the eBook industry as a whole is growing over 175% this year alone.

It’s a growing industry people. Be aware of it and plan accordingly. I know I am.

I Can’t Spell

Ahh, so many people point out to my common grammar mistakes. I seriously do feel bad, but I just can’t be bothered going back and checking it all. My spelling, I think, is fine (apart from the title which I’ll have you know was deliberate thank you very much). It’s just my grammar…

At least I’m aware of it I guess, many aren’t. Here’s a great list of 10 of the most common spelling and grammar mistakes bloggers make. I have to say I make them with alarming frequency.

A Great Source Of Links

I recently blogged about how I’m trialing Zemanta and did a full review on it. I’m quite pleased with the results so far and I’m considering writing it up as an experiment (something I haven’t done in a while, not since my Stumble Your Own Stuff StumbleUpon Experiment).

The great little fact I found out is that when you sign up your Zemanta account you can submit your blog as a Zemanta source (that link was buried deep in their FAQ and all sites are manually checked) – it’s a great way to get links back to your articles, as long as you’re blogging regularly I’d assume.

I’ll see how I go with that experiment over the coming weeks and present the data to you real soon.

New Side Bar

I stupidly updated a widget plugin I was using to display history on my blog in the side bar based on certain tags. What I didn’t do is test it or back up the old version.

I could have pulled it from a site backup, but decided to finally put in a tabbed widget with recent posts, random and bring back the tag cloud. Let me know what you think.

Related articles by Zemanta

• The Context of Character: Are the Links in Your Blog Posts for Sale? (coolcatteacher.blogspot.com)
• 7 Kindle related surprising things (ireaderreview.com)
• The Death of Print Media? (blogworldexpo.com)
• iPad: Satisfaction or Disappointment? (woorkup.com)
• Amazon eBooks starting to blow the cover off of hardcover sales (thenextweb.com)
• The eBook may not have the last word (telegraph.co.uk)

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