Have a question for Ask The Geek? Send it to me.

Dear Ask The Geek,

I’ve been blogging for seven years and I have a lot of popular content I’d like to republish in an ebook. Should I do this? Are there any tips you can give me for preparing my content?

Thanks,
Budding eAuthor

Hi Budding eAuthor,

I’m a big fan of ebooks, this is no secret. And publishing your content in an ebook format, even if it’s been available online for years, can still be really appealing for many readers. Some people prefer the longread format of books vs. interlinked web pages, and the portability when they’re offline can’t be beat.

I know you’ve already read my article, How to publish an ebook with Amazon Kindle in 7 steps. So, here are some suggestions I have for preparing your blog content for a book:

• Continuity of content and creating a story
• Images and delivery costs
• Links

Continuity of content and creating a story

Your blog is probably set up to be read in chronological order, and/or divided into categories. It may come instinctively to publish your content exactly as it is, in a chronological fashion, and depending on your blog, it may work that way. But it doesn’t always work, and if you sit down to read the content from end to end, you may find some gaps and disjointedness.

I think to appeal to a wider audience, you might want to think of grouping your content differently. You’ll definitely get a lot of readers from your existing network, but if you package the content a bit, anyone who stumbles upon it will get something out of it even if they haven’t been reading your site. This may mean finding common threads among your blog posts, creating a journey or storytelling through your content, and being selective about what to include and exclude.

Are there stories, characters, or people you mention in your blog that won’t be understood by first-time readers? Make sure you orient them well, and take a little extra time to make sure you’re making your blog content into a book with a start, middle, and end.

Images and Delivery Costs

Content on the internet is heavily powered by images. In ebooks, it doesn’t always have the same impact. Many of your readers will have different devices which interpret and format the content differently, and a post with 20 pictures may lose its effectiveness when the reader has to page-forward, page-forward, page-forward continuously.

The first thing you should do is download all the related images locally and see how heavy your book will be if you include them. The size of your ebook file can affect your royalty! At least, with Amazon Kindle, it can. If you price at $2.98 & under, this doesn’t matter, but if you want the higher royalty rate, you’ll be charged for the delivery and your book’s file size will affect that. This is something you can evaluate as you get closer to publishing (KDP will estimate the delivery cost with a final version, before you publish), but it’s worth keeping an eye on which images are essential, and which can be eliminated or are a bonus.

Above all, since you’re now selling the content, you might not have permission to reuse a few of those images, even if you give them copyright attribution. If the images aren’t yours, make sure you spend some time understanding their copyright so you be sure if you’re using them correctly. If you’re using Creative Commons images, make sure they are licensed for commercial use.

Links

Interlinking content is also one of the Internet’s greatest features. In a book, it doesn’t always work well. Most ebook reading devices are unitasking, which means they won’t have your book in one tab, and all the links they click on in other tabs. If they click on a link in your book, and the link is elsewhere, they’ll be taken there.

I think this is a pretty disruptive way to read a book, even more so if the person is offline and opening that link in a browser will not return any content. But I do think linking in your content is something worth doing.

Here’s where I’d do it:

• Links in a resource section 

If applicable, create a section of your book towards the end with links for people to find out more about the subject which are all external to your book.

• Links in your author bio

Link back to your websites, your social media presence, and other books you’ve published, so people can go check them out. Remember to set up that Author page on Amazon, too!

• Footnotes & Appendixes

Footnotes are old school, but I think really powerful when used correctly. I love being able to jump to a footnote in an ebook and then right back without losing my spot. Just remember to add the jump back to the book content in your code!

Appendixes become powerful as well, especially when you have something like a pronunciation guide or similar that instantly adds value to what the reader is reading.

Do you have any suggestions for this budding eAuthor? 

Sara Rosso (aka WHT’s In-House Geek)

I’m also a big fan of TED conferences (their slogan, ‘ideas worth spreading’ is given tribute in the title of this post) and the conference videos which they make available for the entire public. I included Sheryl Sandberg’s TED video in my post, Stop Sabotaging Your Own Success, but I’ve been watching, sharing, and processing those videos for a long time now.

So it’s no surprise that I would instantly fall in love with TED’s new venture, the TED Radio Hour, an audio podcast produced with NPR which focuses on a single theme. Each episode brings together both the TED presentations and new, follow-up interviews with the presenters and other experts on the chosen topic.

The best of both worlds.

I really enjoy the TED videos, and a great way to discover other great TED videos is by clicking on one of the tags like happiness, creativity, or business, and watching all the videos associated with that theme.

But the TED Radio Hour takes it one step further and curates that content into a single theme per hour, with about 3 segments, and includes a dialogue with the speakers (and other experts) that is lacking in the original TED presentations.

So far they’ve only done two episodes, but they’ve both been great, and I can’t wait to see what else they come up with.

I thought I’d pull out two points from the first two episodes that I think will resonate with all of you.

Episode 1, Our Buggy Brain, delves into how our brain perceives value, makes us happy, sad, and even justify cheating. Especially worth listening to is segment 3 on Episode 1, when Dan Gilbert about our “psychological immune system,” which talks about synthetic happiness vs. natural happiness, and how we have the capacity to generate synthetic happiness even when we don’t get what we originally wanted.

“We have a belief that synthetic happiness is not as real as natural happiness…I want to suggest to you that synthetic happiness is every bit as real and enduring as the kind of happiness you stumble upon when you get exactly what you were aiming for.”  - Dan Gilbert

He delves in further about how constantly questioning your decisions when there’s still opportunity to change them can also lead to more dissatisfaction, rather than making a decision and moving forward as if it were unchangeable. Your mind reacts to and will rationalize the outcome towards acceptance / optimism, rather than agonizing and doubting yourself before the decision has been made or while it can still be changed.

Sound familiar? Do you agonize over making a decision, or doing or not doing something, rather than making the decision and figuring out the next step? As a procrastinator, I can say that I use deadlines to help push me towards these decisions which then I live with, but I also hate to have ambiguity – I will force myself to a position, even one that could later be wrong, so I don’t continue to second-guess myself. Gather enough information / put in enough effort to do something decently, then make that step. Send in your application. Turn down the job offer. Ask for something you’re afraid to ask for.

Episode 2, The Pursuit of Happiness, delves further into happiness and the impact of choices and regrets on our happiness. The segment on regrets is especially interesting, and comes back to episode 1 on how we deal with not getting what we want. Kathryn Schulz talks about why we should embrace regret:

“…if there’s something to alleviate the sadness (of regret)…failures of self-knowledge are so important…these gaps in our self-knowledge are what enable us ultimately to learn, to change, to become new people…to have new self-knowledge available to us.” – Kathryn Schulz

The content of TED presentations is often ideas which apply across industries, careers, and interests. It’s often inspirational,  and it always makes you think.

Check out the TED Radio Hour’s website, or subscribe directly in iTunes.

Disclosure: I get a comment or two that sometimes these posts seem like paid content because I’m so praising. The comments & opinions are my own. If it’s paid, I’ll definitely let you know, as I state on my contact page re: disclosure. For the record, this post is not sponsored.

Today I’m only going to talk about publishing ebooks, and specifically Amazon’s KDP program – Kindle Direct Publishing. Right now the ebook market is very hot and growing, and you can get your book in front of a worldwide audience who can buy it and start reading it in seconds. What’s not to love about ebooks? (If you want to learn more about ebooks, check out my Guide to Ebooks series.)

So here are 7 macro-steps which I’d like to highlight for getting your ebook from idea to published on KDP. Hopefully in the future I’ll go into more detail on each one. Note: this is for people wanting to do it all themselves. There are conversion services out there for payment who will do the majority of the work for you, too.

1. Sign up for KDP. 

It’s free to sign up for Kindle Direct Publishing and you actually don’t have to have a book ready to publish when you sign up. You’ll want to get in there well before as they have a lot of resources and tips to share for the preparation of your book for publishing.

So sign up at http://kdp.amazon.com and get started in the Help section. You also have access to the KDP Community which is a series of forums. I’ve heard they are very useful but luckily I haven’t needed them myself.

2. Format It: Prepare your manuscript / novella / ebook & format it for KDP

If you have a story / subject to write about, great! If you don’t have an idea/story, stay tuned for a future post which talks about writing inspiration. Once you’ve got your written material ready to publish, this is what’s next.

I don’t want to rewrite all the good help out there & I’ll round up some good books / sites for the future, but let’s look at what KDP makes available for you starting out:

• The KDP formatting guidelines (link to PDF) are free and are obviously a must. Start here and read it 2-3 times. It’s 55 pages but think of it as a small manual to self-publishing! The guidelines are listed under Prepare your Book > Instructions for a Mac but they don’t seem Mac-only.
• There’s also a simplified formatting guide which is pretty basic and much, much shorter.

If you like and enjoy working with basic HTML, this will give you more control over the final product. Since both of my books have started with some HTML formatting, I decided to continue creating them that way. I used a text editor (TextWrangler) because I don’t mind getting in the code and formatting it myself.

But this is not for everyone. You can easily use a Word Processor like Word or Open Office (open source! free!) to prepare your manuscript with some basic formatting. There’s even a free Kindle book available for you from Amazon if you’re using MSWord: “Building Your Book for Kindle.”

I think the rule of thumb is: the less formatting (read: special text styling / placement), the better. Remember, unless you have a ton of complicated images & placement, your book should be fluid and be able to be resized and rotated as the reader dictates.

I can give some more options for formatting your content in a future post.

3. Test It: Download & Install Kindle Gen & Kindle Previewer & Kindle Apps

Amazon gives you two powerful tools to create and preview how your Kindle book will look – get them both as they serve different purposes. Kindle Gen will package up all the things (images, Table of contents, XHTML) into a file ready to submit to KDP. Kindle Gen will require typing a few things into the command line (a bit techie), but there are instructions and forums to help you master it.

Kindle Previewer will simulate what the book will look like on a Kindle after you’ve run it through Kindle Gen, from your PC/Mac. This is helpful if you don’t have a Kindle (like me – I have a smart phone & iPad I test them on and Kindle Previewer).

Both the Kindle Previewer and Kindle Gen are available on KDP under Prepare Your Book > Tools and Resources.

You should have the Kindle App for every device you can test it on (there are a lot)! When it’s ready, you can move the ready-to-submit file over to your smart phone / iPad via the Kindle App so you can preview what it looks like. Plan to do a full read-through on at least one of these devices.

Trust me, no matter how many times you read the material while writing & formatting, if you read it on your iPad/Kindle prior to publishing, you will find errors you can fix.

4. Create a Cover

Your ebook may have no pictures inside, but you’ll definitely need a nice image and well-thought-out text & font for your cover. Buy a stock photo for your cover, use a Creative Commons image (make sure it’s licensed for commercial use!), or use one of your own images. If you’re not handy with Photoshop (or open-source GIMP), consider asking a friend to help you out. Or pay someone to do it – it’s an investment, and though a book’s touch & feel aren’t important with an ebook, the cover is critical and will definitely influence sales.

Make sure you read the KDP formatting guidelines for your cover – you’ll be able to upload an image for the cover prior to submitting your book so you can see what it looks like.

For more on ebook cover design, check out The Book Designer. Note: I won their non-fiction cover design award in February for my cover on How to Order an Italian Coffee in Italy!

5. Submit your Book’s Details, including pricing, & publish!

Now you’re finally ready to submit your book. The KDP guidelines will walk you through the information which will be needed for each step, but probably the most important step is deciding the price. Take some time and think about the price you’ll set before you’re ready to submit so you don’t agonize when clicking the submit button. Luckily, you can change price often on KDP so it’s not set in stone.

After submitting, depending on your language (as of this writing, English-language books are processed faster), your book will start appearing in Amazon stores (they say 12 hours for English books, up to 48 hours for non-English books).

6. Set up an Amazon Author Page

You’d think by submitting your book through the KDP you’d have an author page, but you don’t. I believe this is so publishers stay separate from authors. So head on over to Author Central and set up an author page. Have a little bio and picture ready, along with links to your websites or Twitter if you want to add those.

Strangely enough they don’t include a link to your website directly, but they will let you insert a blog feed…so that’s a great reason to have one! You’ll also get access to additional sales information not tracked in KDP.

You also get to personalize a short Amazon Author URL – mine is http://amazon.com/author/sararosso.

7. Get the KDP newsletter and follow @AmazonKDP

The great thing about the ebook industry is things are growing and changing fast. I suggest following the KDP newsletter (monthly) which has some recent news, Amazon formatting updates & changes, and is worth keeping track of. Here’s a recent issue of the KDP newsletter.

Also follow @AmazonKDP on Twitter – they don’t Tweet often but they do share helpful articles (many which aren’t even written by Amazon) about publishing & self-publishing.

Don't leave the cover image selection of your #KDP book to the last minute. bit.ly/r5Rry9—
Kindle Direct Pub (@AmazonKDP) April 02, 2012

So there you have it!

Those are the seven macro-steps I think you should take to publish your book on Amazon Kindle!

Who’s self-published their own book? Any tips to share?

photo by Peter Kaminsky

If you’re new here, you should probably read my biography just to give you a better sense of who I am. In short: I do a lot of stuff. I’m curious. I love learning. I take risks. I speak my mind. I dare.

The risks I take are reinforced by a belief that I owe it to myself to at least try. I’ve always seen myself as a bit of a Jack of all trades, rather than an expert in one subject, but I’ve come to believe that’s a blessing rather than a curse. Releasing myself from the aim of being an expert or being perfect at something means that I have the complete and utter freedom to try. And fail. Hell yes, fail. Even often!

But trying, definitely.

I’ve spent a lot of time talking with (girl)friends about what’s next for them. I mentioned that I wanted to have a Vision Board workshop for this reason (which had to be postponed due to crazy November travel for me) because I want to help them start to think about “what’s next?” without hearing “not until I...” or “maybe when I...” or “I’m not ready” or “after...” or the worst: “I don’t know.”

Friends, and strangers reading this, listen to me:

Stop being your own worst enemy.

Stop being the force that keeps you immobile.

Stop being the cause of failure before you start trying.

The reality is, in most cases no one will be there to give you permission to act. To try. To succeed. And to fail. No one will take you by the hand and say, “Now it’s time. You’re ready.” No one will be so sure to say, “Don’t worry, you won’t fail.” No one will lay their hand on yours as you click that submit button, as you fill out that form, as you sign up for that chance, as you raise your hand.

You can be surrounded by a loving family and supportive friends, but ultimately that conviction has to come from within you. So give it a chance. No, not just that. PUSH IT.

And leap. And try. And do.

And yes, you might fail. And yes, you might sometimes look stupid. Or unprepared. Or lost. Or audacious. Or wrong. Or arrogant. Or ballsy. But you also might not. You might surprise yourself. And slowly those lost and unprepared times might become the minority rather than the majority, and soon you are looking at the Past You from a vantage point you didn’t know existed before you decided to try.

I think I’ve had this feeling inside of me for a long time, but it wasn’t until I read this, 2.5 years ago, that it became a solid concept to me:

“Because, at the end of the day, they can still say no. The powers that be can tell me I’m not a good fit — but I shouldn’t be doing that job myself. Who knows if I would have been picked, but I made sure that I wasn’t. I rejected myself [let me repeat that: I rejected myself]. I don’t want to do that anymore.” Tea & Cookies, Throwing Your Hat into the Ring

A week later, I sent in my job application to Automattic. I threw my hat into the ring.

So, it’s a simple message, but a difficult one for many people to really embrace. Step out of your own way. Once you do that, give yourself a push forward, too.

I’m not going to let just my words convince you – here are the best of the best articles I’ve found in the last year or so that reinforce this concept. If you have an article or post to add to this roundup, leave it in the comments!

Here’s how you can stop sabotaging your own success:

You’ll need to use confidence as a tool in risk-taking:

“What it taught me was you have to be very confident, even though you’re so self-critical inside about what it is you may or may not know. And that, to me, leads to taking risks.” – Virginia M. Rometty, HBR’s Why Women Leaders Need Self-Confidence

You’ll have to do things you haven’t done before:

“You can’t let what you know limit what you can imagine. As you try to do something special, exciting, important in your work, as you work hard to devise creative solutions to stubborn problems, don’t just look to other organizations in your field (or to your past successes) for ideas and practices. Look to great organizations in all sorts of unrelated fields to see what works for them — and how you can apply their ideas to your problems. Who are the most unlikely organizations from which you learn? Do you have new ideas about where to look for new ideas?” – Bill Taylor, HBR’s Don’t Let What You Know Limit What You Imagine

You’ll need to push yourself to continue when that something is uncomfortable and even painful:

“But here is an E that we need to always be working towards getting more comfortable with…Getting comfortable with being uncomfortable. Pain. That little red alert gauge starts to light up when we feel that pain, that burning, the lactic acid shuffle. Our mind starts telling us to back off and cool it, but here is where we need to play chicken with that blasted little needle and E alert sign.” – The Arty Runner Chick – Redlining and the All-Important E

You’ll need to stop worrying about what your success looks like to others:

“Success and likability are positively correlated in men, and negatively correlated in women. Women must worry about how ambition ‘looks’ because appearing ambitious negatively impacts their success.” – The Next Women, Busting the Myth That Women Are Less Ambitious Than Men

You’ll have to do as other successful people do, until you’re successful yourself:

“When we expect to do something perfectly right out of the gate, we make tons of mistakes…Intelligence is malleable, and it grows with experience….Anyone can get more willpower – it’s developed over time like a muscle” – Harvard Biz IdeaCast 273: What Successful People Do Differently

You’ll have to adopt a growth mindset - basic talents & abilities can be developed over time through mentorships & experience (and you need to start today!):

“These are the people who go for it….they’re not worried about how smart they are, how they’ll look, what a mistake will mean. They challenge themselves, and grow from that…Challenges are exciting rather than threatening. Instead of thinking ‘I’m going to reveal my weaknesses’ you think ‘here’s a chance to grow’…You’re focused on the process instead of just the outcome.” – Carol Dweck, Mindset: The New Psychology of Success.

You’ll have to accept that self-promotion doesn’t have to be annoying or “dirty”, but it can be useful and relevant when done right:

“Perhaps the challenge isn’t learning to become more comfortable with being self-promotional, but rather learning to play within the range of what your community considers acceptable (defined by your own bullshit meter). That means if you tend to feel uncomfortable promoting your work, endeavor to squeeze in a bit of personal PR thoughtfully and remember: There are some real freaking crazies out there who actually want to read your stuff, see the pics of your trip to LegoLand, take your teleclass. And who are YOU to not deliver? You see? It’s really not about you.” – Jory Des Jardins, Do Nice Girls Self-Promote?

You’ll have to start defining yourself by what you want to become, not only what you’ve accomplished so far:

“Which leads to a question about how do we define ourselves? Is it just what we’ve done? You’ve already heard me say that, we are always 2: Who we’ve been, and who we aspire to be. Each of us is bound by our past, our accomplishments, and our failings. But I believe we are ALSO our aspirations and dreams. If each of us has a self-definition that allows us to appreciate the creative act of the moment…then we will stop denying energy to it. We will be okay with the trying and experimenting. Look around at any innovative company, and notice….they are okay failing because their self-definition includes the idea that they will ultimately figure it out.” – Nilofer Merchant, 2 Ways to Skirt Self-Handicapping

You’ll need to raise your hand to be called upon, and expose yourself to judgment, or risk doing nothing:

“In these circumstances, people who don’t raise their hands don’t get called on, and people who raise their hands timidly get called on less. Some of this is because assertive people get noticed more easily, but some of it is because raising your hand is itself a high-cost signal that you are willing to risk public failure in order to try something…. To put yourself forward as someone good enough to do interesting things is, by definition, to expose yourself to all kinds of negative judgments, and as far as I can tell, the fact that other people get to decide what they think of your behavior leaves only two strategies for not suffering from those judgments: not doing anything, or not caring about the reaction.” – Clay Shirky, A Rant about Women

You’ll have to start taking action to get results:

“Own It. It’s time. If we don’t have the confidence to take a shot at what we want in the business world, there’s a 100% chance we will fail. Basic math. Lack of confidence plus lack of action equals zero opportunity for success. It’s a game of confidence, action and results.” – Amy Jo Martin, Let’s get out of our own way & start owning it

You’ll need to learn how to negotiate:

“I work for a large multinational tech company, I regularly hire woman for 65% to 75% of what males make. I am sick of it, here is why it happens, and how you can avoid it.” – TwoXChromosomes on Reddit

You’ll need to keep yourself in check:

“And if you don’t check yourself before you wreck yourself, you’ll damage your own self-esteem, stand in the way of your own goals, and maybe even sabotage precious relationships.” – Fearful Adventurer

You’ll need to hold yourself accountable:

“I am so done with letting my own insecurities, self-doubts, and regrets hold me back.” – Sarah J. Bray

You’ll need to act:

“If you have a lightening bolt idea, just DO it. Execute the bare minimum to get your idea out into the world.” – @maggie #altsummit via @nicoleisbetter

You’ll have to take a seat at the table:

“Believe in yourself, negotiate for yourself, believe in your own success.”- Sheryl Sandberg, Why we have too few women leaders : some insights on how women evaluate themselves

It will all start with YOU.

(And watch Sheryl’s video at TED, too):

Have a question for Ask The Geek? Send it to me.

Dear Ask the Geek,

I have a question for the photo geek. What book or resource do you recommend to learn tips on using a DSLR? Want to increase my knowledge before my trip to Lucca this April.

Thanks,
Kristen

Dear Kristen,

this time I’m trying something a little different and I hope you’ll find it useful – I’m answering you in a quick video! Check out my answer regarding improving photography with some helpful tips about using your manual, books and sites you can read for tips, and setting some goals for improving your photography. I’ve also included some helpful links below the video (direct link to the video in case you don’t see it)

Books & gear I mentioned:

• The Digital Photography Book by Scott Kelby [Kindle ebook version]
• The Digital Photography Book - Volume 2 by Scott Kelby [Kindle ebook version]
• The Digital Photography Book - Volume 3 by Scott Kelby [Kindle ebook version]
• All 3 volumes of Scott Kelby’s The Digital Photography Books - [Kindle pack]
• More camera/video gear and photography booksI use or recommend - and more books that talk about composition and the more artistic side of photography

I also wrote a post about tips to improve your photography with any camera (not just a DSLR).

Other sites & blogs you should check out: (have a favorite site? leave it in the comments)

• Digital Photography School (they have a very active forum, too)
• Photofocus
• Phototuts+
• Jasmine Star Photography (especially for portraits / wedding)
• Strobist
• Joe McNally
• Stuck in Customs
• Nicolesy
• Mitchell Kanashkevich (he has a lot of ebooks, too)

Hope that helps,

Sara Rosso, aka WIHT’s in-house geek

Disclosure: Some of the links in this post are to Amazon – I’m an Amazon affiliate and I will receive a small percentage if the product is purchased. 

If you’ve never given a presentation in the Ignite format: 5 minutes, 20 slides, 15 seconds each (read more about the Ignite format on O’Reilly’s website), I strongly urge you to – it will challenge you as a presenter and force you to be very succinct and practice quite a bit to stay with the timing. I’ve presented several Ignites in Italian this year, but this was the first one in English.

Here’s the video of my presentation:

Here are the slides of my presentation:

The presentation “Tools for Entrepreneurs: Create. Collaborate. Communicate.“ started out as a way to explain very technical things to non-technical people, but I quickly realized that most people when approaching technology get intimidated by the “What’s DNS? Do I need a dedicated server?” kind of questions and therefore feel they can’t understand technology.

I feel that this technology intimidation is really due to the fact that they don’t really own their idea, and better understanding it will guide any decisions they have to make with their idea moving forward.

For me, the biggest online tool for most entrepreneurs is definitely their website. Having a website is like putting your shingle out declaring you’re in business.

In this presentation, the first section focuses on further defining your idea so you can create the site, offline, before engaging someone to build it for you (or building it yourself). From who the users / customers will be and what kind of information they want, to what the actual purpose of the site will be (conversion), to defining a list of must-have and nice-to-have features for the site.

The second section focuses on how to collaborate with those who will help your idea become a reality, from working with collaborators remotely, to the kinds of tools and software you’ll need to collaborate, and setting some guidelines for those tools to be effective.

The third section focuses on methods and approaches for communicating your idea, whether through the use of social media or just being consistent in your entire presence online.

Be sure and page through the entire slideshow to see the resources I included at the end for those looking for open source software alternatives to proprietary software, and links for getting started with ebooks and Creative Commons.

Below is the slideshow, click through to see the slideshow in your browser:

It was a great experiment and I’m really pleased with the results. Soon I’ll share what I learned on the technology side, but for now I’m just enjoying seeing it for sale online.

If you want to check it out, you don’t need to have a Kindle to read it! Here are links to the (free) Amazon Kindle App software for Android phone, Blackberry, iPhone, iPod Touch, iPad, or Mac or a PC. After you download and install the Kindle App software, you can buy the book and read it on your device!

Buy How to Order an Italian Coffee in Italy in your Amazon store! (note: the content is in English regardless of the Amazon store you buy it from):

• How to Order an Italian Coffee in Italy on Amazon.com
• How to Order an Italian Coffee in Italy on Amazon.co.uk
  
• How to Order an Italian Coffee in Italy on Amazon.de
  
• How to Order an Italian Coffee in Italy on Amazon.fr

I used to be a die-hard Remember the Milk fan. Then I discovered Wunderlist.

What do I love about it?

• It’s everywhere I want to be. Check it out below: for your Desktop, iPad, iPhone, Android…there’s even a web version if I’m not near one of my devices.
• A neat and clean interface keeps me calm. I haven’t even changed the default wood background because it reminds me of a clean desk.
• Did you see I said desktop app? My browsers are such RAM hogs, I love not having to use my browser when I’m working from home and also keeping my lists available for those offline productivity sprints, too.
• It syncs, syncs, syncs. No matter what device I pick up (Android phone, iPad, computer) my lists are in sync.
• Some great drag & drop organization and quick views for upcoming deadlines.

What I hope to see in a future release:

Not too many criticisms here – I like the clean interface, the search capability, the print tasks, and unlimited lists and syncing. But one thing I’d really like to see is smart recognition of dates in the text (instead of manually selecting deadlines) and being able to set recurring events – pretty much my only gripe, and not that big of one!

Check out Wunderlist.

Disclosure: I’m not being compensated in any way for the thoughts and opinions in this post.

All the applications suggested are linked to their Android Market pages so you can check them out immediately – click on them! Here’s a direct link to Productivity on your Android Mobile – 10 Tips & 40+ Apps on Slideshare.

Did I leave one out? Let me know in the comments.