Moonshots Beyond the Cloud

A few weeks ago I announced my newsletter Practicing Google: Weekly practical resources on Google products and related tech . Now that it’s picking up subscribers and engagement, I’m ready for the next step. I’ve launched Practicing Google on Product Hunt . The Practicing Google page on Product Hunt. Product Hunt has a community of tech-savvy makers, creators, and entrepreneurs. Many likely use Google products, so there’s a good overlap with the audience my newsletter addresses. I hope they will find the newsletter interesting and relevant enough to subscribe and share it. I have been thinking about, researching, and tweaking the newsletter for the past year . While I always wanted to publish a newsletter, I started working on it in early 2019. Deciding on a format and picking a topic I know well and I could consistently write about took months. But the hardest part was coming up with concise and descriptive text for the name and tagline . My brain remained empty for mo...

In January 2020 Leanpub announced the cancelation of the Conference Purchase Program . The program allowed conference and event organizers to buy at steep discounts multiple copies of ebooks to give away to attendees. Were eligible the ebooks for sale at the Leanpub self-publishing platform the authors enrolled in the program. It seemed like a good idea, especially considering the growing interest in swagless conferences. But it didn’t work well in practice. The announcement of the discontinuation of the Conference Purchase Program in the Leanpub Author Update newsletter. The program provided a self-serve tool. But it turns out conference organizers were looking for a different process . They wanted direct negotiations with authors and more extensive records, such as invoices, additional payment options, and transaction tracking. Given the accountability and transparency requirements of many organizations, this is understandable. The Conference Purchase Program wasn’...