After a great deal of back-and-forth, the Kindle version of The Age of the Platform is now live. This was the last domino to fall. The usual suspects beat Amazon.com to the punch and, yesterday, I agreed to let 800CEORead handle many of my bulk sales.

So, here’s where we stand:

Back to the grind, as they say. Let’s see where this book takes me. Something tells me that I’m off on an interesting and rewarding journey.

I am very pleased to announce the publication of my fourth book, The Age of the Platform: How Amazon, Apple, Facebook, and Google Have Redefined Business. It’s now up on Amazon. A few months ago, I launched a site specific to the book.

This is the third release from Motion Publishing.

Stay tuned for more updates soon on when the book is available in all electronic formats. That is in progress as we speak.

The Age of the Platform: Sample

Or, click here to read them.

In his excellent book Ripped: How the Wired Generation Revolutionized Music, Greg Kot describes how in the mid-1990s Prince (yes, that one) wanted to release two or three albums per year.

The response from his record company: You can’t do that.

His record company was really saying we can’t do that.

It’s an critical distinction, but that didn’t stop him. Prince did it anyway by starting his own label. Check out his discography.

Lessons from Prince

What does this teach us?

There are two choices when confronted with can’t:

• Acceptance, frustration, and defeat.
• Disobedience and possible failure.

For movers and shakers, there’s really only one real choice.

I have almost reached half of my funding goal for The Age of the Platform. I’m psyched to be so far so fast. I have a shorter time period on this one due to a Kickstarter policy change. I’m also trying to raise 50% more money. (Last time, I underestimated some key costs.)

I’m a little paranoid about falling short of this goal since most of the contributions from my experience come from those early on.

I’d really appreciate it if you helped me spread the word on social networks like Twitter, Facebook, and Linked in. Contributions aren’t bad either.

I hope to hit 50% this week and will with your help. Also expect some real cover mock-ups this week.

Click here to back it.

Many traditional powers-that-be are under attack. Consider the following:

• Until the late 1990s, releasing an album meant selling your soul to one of very few record companies with the power to reach the masses.
• Independent filmmakers faced enormous uphill battles in getting their movies made–and seen. Although Kevin Smith of Clerks’ fame charged nearly $28,000 on credit cards to get the film out, countless other writers and creative types played the waiting game.
• Many aspiring authors waited for publishers and/or agents to choose them. There just was no other choice.

Now, video editing software and devices make it easy to bypass the gatekeepers. A Korean filmmaker made a movie with an iPhone 4. Self-published rock stars like Amanda Hocking are selling hundreds of thousands of books via Amazon.com. Established musicians like Prince are striking creative deals to get their music to the masses, bypassing record companies. Many other bands use other innovative and non-traditional means to reach their audiences, all without a proper record deal.

There are those that wish that things would return to a more “normal” time. That’s not happening anytime soon.

Are you a part of the future or the past?

We’re all really busy these days. We skim articles and blog posts, rush through e-mails, pick up occasional tweets, and fast forward through commercials from shows on our DVRs. Sign of the times…

Some are claiming that many books are no longer relevant. By books, I mean the 250-page or so texts that develop an idea that no blog post, article, podcast, or video can. Think The Long Tail or Blink. We’re just too overwhelmed. We have time to read the reviews and get the gist of things. That’s about it.

Maybe that is true. Some say that the book has gone the way of the album, a relic of a bygone era. We just want the songs. Today, few of us want to experience the entirety of a complete work like Dark Side of the Moon.

It’s hard for me to accept the notion that no longer books no longer matter. Perhaps this is my own conceit or delusion. Maybe I just don’t want to believe this. I have written a fourth book and just don’t want to believe that it’s going to fall on deaf ears. (More on this soon. I promise.)

Simon Says

When our time and attention is so valuable, it’s a commitment to read a proper text, especially for attention-challenged folks like me. But that’s the whole point. Books are important precisely because they aren’t consumable in an hour. Yes, you miss out on a bevy of blog posts and a torrent of tweets by reading a book.

And for that you are rewarded by reading the author’s message and existing it his/her universe for the duration of the book.

Feedback

What say you?

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In the din of our times, it’s easy for things to get lost in a near-constant stream of information. We just don’t have time to read everything that we’d like.

Yet, on occasion, you reach someone with your words–and it feels great.

This happened to me this morning with Wayne Hurlbert’s review of my book.

Do I need constant validation? No, and I never have. At the same time, though, it’s just an amazing feeling when something that you created finds an appreciative audience, no matter how large. I suspect that musicians, actors, artists, and other writers feel the same way.

By the way, I’ll be appearing on Wayne’s show tonight.

Feedback

What makes you create?

Leverage is a fickle thing. Consider the following:

• The company in a remote area has a tremendous amount of leverage of local employees, especially if the latter have no desire to learn new skills or move.
• The highly skilled employee weighing multiple offers can exert significant leverage over each prospective employer.
• The home seller has leverage over the buyer who becomes emotional, especially if the former doesn’t have to move.
• The cable company has leverage over its customers, especially when local rules prohibit free choice (as is the case in my neighborhood).
• The author with a strong following is holding some strong cards over her publisher for her next book advance, especially since self-publishing is becoming an increasingly viable–and less stigmatized–option.

I could go on, but you get my point.

So, what are you doing to maximize your leverage?