Upping My Game

2016-04-02; published 2021-12-05

I started Black Earth Group in 2014 to help publishers and authors with publishing technology. Since going full time in early 2015, I have focused on making tools and systems, and on providing consulting services to publishers and enterprising authors. I’ve also done a little conference speaking (for example, I just got back from giving two training sessions at the PCPA spring conference).

One thing I haven’t done (which you might have noticed if you were paying attention, although there’s no reason you would have been): I haven’t been publishing about what I know. No blogging, no webinars, no podcasts. Nothing. Just quiet me going about my business helping my customers with their projects.

What I find, every time I go to a publishing industry event, is that a lot of publishers are struggling to do things that I provide solutions for — I am solving problems that many publishers have and don’t know how to solve on their own. My customers benefit from it all the time; but for everyone else, “how can they hear unless someone tells them?” (Rom. 10:14, paraphrase).

Now it’s time to up my game.

I’m not going to make any silly promises about how often I’m going to blog or anything like that. But I will state my intention: To blog about what I know so that publishers and enterprising authors can do things they don’t yet know how to do.

My focus is on publishing & technology. I plan to write in-depth articles that describe the lay of the land, explain how to do hard things, and ultimately how to succeed using the (new) tools of the publishing trade. That should keep me busy for a long time.