The submissions for the IttyBiz Gift Guide end today. Click for details if you’re interested. It would appear that my writing ability is getting better because only two of the submissions were wildly and ridiculously inappropriate. Based on the frankly shocking level of inappropriateness, I choose to assume these people had Google Alerts for “gift guide” and were submitting with their eyes closed and their finger poised over their mouse clicker.

The Thing That’s Kinda Neat:

Thank you for all of your emails asking if I’m spending my days having dirty sex in a pile of American money. No. But not for lack of trying. I’ve been very busy responding to hate mail. (See below.) Since I have to make sure I’m drunk and angry before responding, it’s taking me some time. You can only get redrunk so quickly, you know?

Anyway, I did find time in my busy schedule to buy myself a very pretty purse. You know that thing that you said you’d buy once you “made it”? (Don’t lie. You SO have a thing. Do not try to get all monk-like asceticism on my ass. This is IttyBiz. We know all your secrets.) Anyway, I bought my purse from Ebay.

Morning after, I get one of those confirmation emails from the seller. Among the details, here’s the gem:

“You have selected one of my favorite bags!”

This made me feel very nice. It made me feel like spending three hundred dollars on a purse was not a bad idea. Even this woman who SELLS PURSES FOR A LIVING admired my taste in purses. Clearly, I’m Jackie fucking O.

Now, do you really think it was one of her favorites? Or do you think she’s doing this to hedge against buyer’s remorse? Either way, it’s absolutely genius. Go look at your own business and find a way to emulate this because it is letter perfect. Especially considering the asshat levels of dumbness attained by most Ebay sellers.

The Second Thing You Should Know:

Thank God I don’t have comments because this one’s going to be a doozie.

Since the launch of the product which shall remain nameless, I have got a lot of emails. Some of them were incredibly kind and helpful in their feedback. (Thank you, kind and helpful people!) Others were, uh, not. And what I’m about to say only applies to the Meanie Pants out there.

(If you are wondering whether or not you were a Meanie Pants, you weren’t. True Meanie Pants think they’re totally justified in being Meanie Pants and wouldn’t waste their time wondering if they were Meanie Pants. They say things like, “If you can’t take the heat, get outta the kitchen.”)

I’ll give you the Readers’ Digest version.

- The videos are too small.

- The videos are too large.

- The file that isn’t zipped should be.

- The file that is zipped shouldn’t be.

- The audios should be all on the same page as the videos.

- The videos should come in the same zip file as the audios.

- You hate audio. Can I change it so it’s all video?

- You hate video. Can I change it so it’s all audio?

- You hate PDFs. Why are there transcripts? Are people DEAF or something?

- I should be getting back to my email faster.

- I should be getting the content up faster.

- That free content module I gave away? It should’ve been a different module.

- The sales page is too long.

- There’s not enough information on the sales page.

- The Buy button isn’t big enough.

- The Buy button should be at the top.

- The Buy button shouldn’t be so close to the top.

- There should be more Buy buttons!

- Jesus, what’s with all the fucking Buy buttons?

OK, I know this is going to sound bitchy. That’s probably because it is bitchy.

Do you remember when we learned about not running our mouths off online? (Seriously, go read that one. In it, I use the line, “If you don’t know all the facts, put the laptop down, Tolstoy.” I don’t care who you are, that’s funny right there.)

Do you remember when I was a bitch to Dan Schawbel and looked and felt horrible after?

I really don’t want to get all “Don’t you know who I AM?” here, but really. I am in the business of making very popular information products. In those products, I pimp the people I like. Really, really hard. PEOPLE PAY ME TO TELL THEM WHO TO BUY FROM. I do the same thing with my blog and on Twitter.

Is it really in your best interests to have your first communication with me be nasty? Would it not behoove you to give me the benefit of the doubt? Is assuming I’m trying to fuck you REALLY a good idea?

This is not just true for me. It’s true for everybody. We don’t like it when people are mean to us. We don’t like it when people say things about us that aren’t true. We don’t like it when we feel impotent and wrongly accused.

I don’t always remember the people who I was angry at. But I do always remember the people who hurt my feelings. And when you come out with both pistols firing, assuming that I’m totally dishonorable and trying to screw you over, that hurts my feelings.

Just a little lesson in online reputation management.

And, whoever you are and whatever your email, I promise you I will get to it personally as soon as I can. Even if you wrote to tell me how much you hate me.

His mother, because she was a nice mother who thought children should have input in these things, used to ask him what he wanted. My husband, like most boys his age, didn’t know. She asked what he liked. He didn’t know. She asked what other boys his age wore. He didn’t know.

She, quite sensibly, suggested that since he saw these boys at school FIVE DAYS OUT OF SEVEN, that maybe he should have at least a clue what other kids are wearing. My husband, never the most observant when it comes to things like this, confessed that he did not.

One day, though, he knew. There was a new fashion, and he wanted in on it. He wanted a buzz cut.

All the boys were getting buzz cuts. It was approaching summer, and he relished the ease of maintenance of virtually no hair.

His mother, delighted that he was taking an interest in his appearance, hooked him up with a buzz cut as requested, and all was well.

A few days went by — I’m going to take some poetic license here and assume this took place on a Saturday — and he trundled off to school with his shiny new buzz cut. He was stoked. (Was stoked a word when my husband was in grade six?)

He walked into school sporting his new do and his teacher looked at him with resignation.

“Do you have head lice, too?”

One of the questions I get most frequently when I’m consulting with bloggers is whether or not they should install this widget or that widget. I will not mention the widgets in question by name because I find most of them morally reprehensible. We’ll avoid the reprehensible ones for now and focus on something nice and safe like Amazon.

You’ll notice that I have Amazon links in my sidebar. (RSS readers can trust me on this.) They were there when I started this blog and for the most part, they’re still there now. I get a lot of questions about them. A lot of people assume they make me at least decent money because otherwise, I’d kick them out and replace them with real, paying ads.

The reality is, I put them there because I’d seen them on other blogs and I though I’d like a splash of color in the sidebar. I haven’t really had the time or the energy to replace them by hooking up an advertising page and changing the theme and God knows what else.

I make about two bucks a month from them.

Attention: Blogging Newbies

Just because someone with a bigger blog than yours does something, doesn’t mean you should do it, or that it’s even working. Please remember this when the next God forsaken widget comes out. Just because you can drive your car with your knee doesn’t mean you should.

I dutifully followed the link and saw an article with my name on the byline and my photograph in the top left corner. Here’s what it said, with identifying details removed:

“This week’s [name of series] is a special contribution that [website] Founder [name of dude I’ve never heard of, hereinafter shortened to DINHO] lined up from Naomi Dunford. Naomi Dunford writes for IttyBiz, a blog for entrepreneurs, freelancers, and other work-from-home types. Come by for marketing tips, small business advice, and the occasional very bad joke. Naomi shares with use [use?] her top ways to get a new business off the ground.”

Um, WTF?

The funny thing is, this article was indeed written by me. I wrote it for a client who never paid me about eight months ago. Since I had no use for it on my own blog, I gave it to a website looking for guest posts. Apparently, the dude with the website I submitted it to sent it to these guys and said they were free to publish it.

So I emailed the webmaster dudes and said:

From: Naomi Dunford
Subject: Who is [DINHO]?

Also, maybe I should meet [DINHO]. Since he hooked up the interview with me and all. :)

Here’s the response I got:

Hi there Naomi,

Also, we may be looking for some writers for our new site launch of [our site] later this summer. What would you charge us to write a blog for [our site] on a home-business topic? 5 posts per week minimum? Let me know what you would charge us on an ongoing monthly basis as we are looking for some great writers that want to help us, help like-minded entrepreneurs!

I fucking HATE IT when I’m sarcastic and nobody gets it.

I can’t figure out whether or not to be annoyed by this. I mean, they didn’t scrape my site, they scraped some other dude’s site. I got a link and a little bit of traffic. Maybe some people subscribed and I can subsequently upsell them a bunch of crap they don’t need? Is there money to be made here?

Jamie says (sarcastically, because apparently I need to make that clear now) that I should quote him my consulting rate and see what he says. “Well, a blog post takes about two hours and I bill $100 an hour, so that’ll be $4000 a month.”

Let me know your thoughts. Should I be pissed? Should I laugh? Should I go all diva and start screaming “DO YOU NOT KNOW WHO I AM?” Should I write a real blog post instead of this filler copy?

In Which Jamie Welcomes the Lurkers, and Lays the Smacketh Downeth in a Nice Way

OK, first things first. Naomi had a post a few days ago, and we saw the lurkers (and I use this term nicely, it is not meant to be derogatory) come out of the woodwork. Sometimes we get so used to seeing the same names on the comments on different posts that we forget that there are other people reading these posts whom we have never met. While it is always awesome to see our regular commentators show up and put in their two cents, it was especially awesome to see so many new names in the comment section.

So lurkers: this part is for you. We want to encourage everyone to feel like they can take part in the discussion that is IttyBiz, so take this as your official welcome to the party. Please, please, please use the comment section on this post if you have any comments or suggestions on what we can do to make it easier for first-timers to feel comfortable enough to take part.

Secondly, it was previously suggested that the time may have come for us to set up some comment rules. Since unruly behaviour tends to upset my wife and therefore ruins my day, I agreed to take on this task. Please pay attention, I don’t want to have to come find you. If you haven’t already read How To Avoid Running Your Mouth Off On-line, perhaps that is the best place to start.

The rules are pretty simple.

Please treat the IttyBiz blog the way you would treat a party to which you are invited and know some but not all of the guests.

If you come to the party only to hand out your business card to everyone in attendance and then promptly leave, you will not be invited back.

If you continually and pointlessly talk smack about the host(ess) or their guests, you will not be invited back.

If you are a bigot, racist, homophobe, or goat-lover at our party, you will not be invited back.

If you are any of these things in the privacy of your own home, that’s your business.

If you contribute to the discussion at the party, you will always have a standing invitation to our party.

If you are the person who always brings more alcohol than is strictly necessary, you will always have a standing invitation to our party.

If you can voice a dissenting opinion in a thoughtful way, you will always have a standing invitation to our party.

If you treat others with respect and kindness, even when offering a criticism, you will always have a standing invitation to our party.

Perhaps most importantly, it’s our little home business party. We are the sole arbiters of who is invited and who is not. (Case in point, we have decided that two people can be sole arbiters, and there’s nothing wrong with that.) Most transgressions will likely get a warning first, but if we’re really pissed off then maybe not.

Welcome, and please enjoy the party.

Image credit : Givepeasachance

Jamie is off thinking of a comment policy that is suitably funny and appropriately vulgar for this little home business blog — we might end up using something from How To Avoid Running Your Mouth Off Online — and I am thinking. I don’t have a lot of time to think lately, so sorry about that. It tends to get ugly because I’m so out of practice.

I read a comment by Milena Thomas of Quiet The Thunder, and she points to a link on her blog about comment rage. I was not a reader of hers before but I sure as hell am now. I’m not even going to bother to try and express what she expressed because I’d be useless at it, so just read it yourself when you have some time.

Reading her post made me realize that I am angry with this commentator because they have what I want. They have the time to sit around and read blogs like the kind I want to read and participate in the conversation and subscribe to comments and do all the things I want to be doing.

I’m angry because I’ve finally achieved what I thought was home business success and I’m still stressed as shit. I’m angry because, compared to my old life, I have more money than I know what to do with but I don’t have the time to read the books I can finally afford to buy.

I’m pissed off because there are over 300 unread posts in my reader — and believe me, I do NOT subscribe to a lot of blogs — and I can’t even envision a time when I’ll be able to get through them. Not because I have to — I know I could just click “Mark All Read” and be done with it — but because I want to and it feels like I can’t.

And I’m angry because I feel like this person is taking the privilege of time, the privilege I’m so desperate for, and dithering it away. This person has a special, beautiful, glorious gift of time and they’re using it stupidly. (Kind of like when you have a crush on a girl and her boyfriend treats her like shit. You want to punch him in the face because he’s squandering something wonderful.)

Anyway, I realized that I’m the one being the asshole. I’m directing the anger I feel about my own situation at this commentator, which is stupid and asshole-like behavior and frankly, a waste of my time and my energy and my life.

Thank you for your input and your advice and your wisdom and your laughs. And, when dealing with all of the overwhelm that has recently taken over my life, thank the Lord for the blog that is making my life better every day. If you are not reading Dave Navarro, you are an idiot. (Dave, you are free to put that on any testimonial page ever, for the rest of your life, and thank you for everything.)

There is a commentator who comes to this blog a couple of times a week seemingly just to be an asshole. This individual stops by every now and again ostensibly joining the community but only has one topic to discuss: why I am dumb and they are not dumb. It seems like everything I do inspires this individual to tell me how retarded I am. If they cannot find anything to act superior about they generally remain silent.

I have seen this person on other blogs doing the same thing. I was on the phone with a particularly prominent blog consultant a while back and he told me that the pain in the ass factor of this individual made him not want to leave comments on my blog anymore. Nobody wants to come just to be argued with.

I read a book one time — shocker — something pathetic like Chicken Soup for the Soul, version 143. There was a story about a grandma who had a rule.

Let nothing pass your lips that is not true, kind, and necessary.

Now, if I only ever said things that were true, kind, and necessary I would be out of a job. But I try to follow at least two of them at any given time.

This commentator tends to err on the side of truth with a fairly casual disregard for kindness and necessity.

Here’s the thing. I don’t mind general assholes. Remember Tomato Guy? He follows me on Twitter and stops by every now and again to let me know how much he hates me, which is cool. I’m down with that. He doesn’t pretend to be anything other than a hater and I respect him for his honesty.

But this commentator is pretending to be a part of the home business community here and on other blogs and it’s really fucking pissing me off.

So I want your thoughts on what I should do. I’ve thought of a few options:

1. Email the commentator politely but firmly. Something along the lines of “If you don’t have anything nice to say, don’t say anything at all.”

2. Email the commentator with “Get out of my fucking shop”.

3. Call the commentator out on the blog and we can all beat them up. (Did you see what happened to Oscar?)

4. Delete the comments on an ad hoc basis.

5. Do nothing.

As you can tell from the content of this website I don’t dig censorship, but I also don’t want readers making other readers uncomfortable. It’s my party and I don’t want everybody to leave.

So what’s your vote? I would especially like to hear from you lurkers who don’t normally comment. What do you think?

I present my esteemed professional colleagues having a friendly chat at our favorite blogging conference.

Must See SOBCon08 Video.

(The handsome man on the left is one of my clients, Clay Collins, who writes a pretty darn cool blog about meaningful productivity and anti-hacks. (I have to say it’s cool because I do his PR.) The beautiful young lady on the right is Sonia Simone of Remarkable Communications, the only blog in the world that will make you well and truly believe that marketing people aren’t all shysters. And the final gentleman in the picture is Michael Martine of Remarkablogger who needs no description.)

You: But Naomi, I thought you weren’t at SOBCon!

Me: Funny, that. Watch the damn video.

IttyBiz and Brazen Careerist Get Together To Make Sweet, Sweet Love

Brazen Careerist is:

“We’re an online career center aimed at Generation Y — young professionals who want to design and define their careers using the new rules for success.

“The Brazen Careerist network is made up of a vibrant, curious and ambitious group of career-minded bloggers, passionately covering a variety of fields: personal development, entrepreneurship, public relations, technology, marketing, and politics, each blog offers a unique, informed perspective to our ever-expanding audience.”

They’ve included me in that network of bloggers, which is damn nice of them, wouldn’t you say?

IttyBiz and Alltop Get Together To Make Equally Sweet, Sweet Love

Moving on to the lovely folks at Alltop:

Guy Kawasaki, general internet dude extraordinaire, created Alltop as a place to go to get all the top stuff in one place. You dig Mommy blogs? Daddy blogs? Humor? Religion? Wine? Books? Social media? It’s all there, all on one page.

“We import the stories of the top news websites and blogs for any given topic and display the headlines of the five most recent stories.”

The cool kids are saying that Alltop will help non-RSS people start reading blogs regularly. This is, shall we say, highly cool.

Anyway, they say I’m good enough to hang out with Entrepreneur Magazine, Fast Company, Seth’s Blog, and Copyblogger, among other cool people and websites in the Small Biz category. Yay!

I Never Said It Was A Meme

UPDATE: It has come to my attention that what follows is even snarkier than my usual fare. This is what happens when I try to be funny. Sorry if it sounds bitchy. I’m just playing, y’all.

Certain readers of this blog have accused me of starting a meme with the What’s Your Small Business? post. I would like a chance to defend myself against such a grievous and public attack.

(For the uninitiated: A meme is when a blogger creates a post with the intention that it goes Viral Lite and gets them incoming links. They pose a question or challenge, and generally tag several people to answer it on their blog, linking back to the original post. A popular meme that goes around a lot tells the reader to grab the nearest book, open it to a predetermined page and post a predetermined sentence or word from that book.)

Memes, while allegedly fun, don’t help your business. What’s Your Small Business? does. Therein lies the subtle but important difference.

Contribute! Participate! It’s fun. It opens the conversation with your homeboys. It might get you business. It will get you a PR 4 link from IttyBiz, not that you’re so shallow to care about that sort of thing.

You don’t have to link back to me, although it’s nice when you do. In fact, you don’t even need to participate.

You can die in obscurity for all I care.

Anyway, that’s all folks. I’m going to go do weekend things with my family. (By weekend things I mean tie Jack to a keyboard and whip him until he comes out with legible web copy.)

I’ve previously heard people say, both in business and in blogging, that they will accept criticism as long as it’s constructive. Personally, I don’t have a whole lot of time for constructive criticism because I don’t have a lot of time for criticism in general. But if you have to criticize, I guess it may as well be constructive.

What I notice, though, is that what gets packaged as constructive criticism tends to be a thinly veiled form of assbaggery. Someone says something is constructive and then they proceed to be a total prick for no good reason. (You get this when you go into freelancing a lot.) Kind of like prefacing something with “With all due respect.” Cause what they’re about to say is just SO respectful, I’m sure.

Therefore, since there seems to be so much doubt in the world about what is and what is not constructive criticism, I have decided to make public the ultimate guide.

First, a definition of terms:

Criticism: the act of passing severe judgment; censure; faultfinding.

Constructive: Serving to improve or advance; helpful.

1. You are a fatty.

This is an example of criticism. The writer is finding fault with their target’s weight. There is no suggestion, advice, or offer of help. Plain old criticism at its grammatically dubious finest.

2. You should eat some celery.

This is an example of a statement intended to improve, advance, or be helpful, and is therefore categorized as constructive. Taken verbatim, however, there is no direct criticism here. This is just constructive.

3. You are a fatty. You should put the McFatty Burger down and eat some celery.

This is constructive criticism at its best. There is the criticism, along with some helpful and well-meaning advice. Obviously, since we are all good businesspeople, we should leave this in our comments section as an example of our ability to receive constructive criticism well.

NOTE: There is some concern within constructive criticism analysis circles about relevance and accuracy. Some suggest that a true and relevant statement, even when said critically, is not inherently criticism and should therefore be treated as a simple and neutral statement of fact.

For example, somebody could write in my comments, “You are rude and disrespectful.” This would be both true and relevant, leading many experts to debate it.

At the same time, they could say “You have no tits and you look like a man.” While this is also true, it is not relevant and therefore it sparks additional — and equally heated — debate.

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But what happens when people don’t get the joke?

I didn’t post an April Fools’ post on my blog — well, I posted on the first of April, but it wasn’t a joke — because I’m not into it. A lot of people are, though, and the blogosphere was abuzz.

Deb Ng Quits Freelance Writing Gigs

Darren Rowse Launches PayPerTweet

Tim Ferriss Quit Blogging A Year Ago (Thanks, Hunter, for this one.)

While some readers, especially North American ones who are familiar with April First shenanigans or those who have been in the blogging world for more than a year and were prepared for some craziness, thought these things were funny, “touché” or “well-played”, some didn’t. In fact, a lot didn’t.

Why didn’t it work? Why did people not get the joke? Why are people threatening to unsubscribe left and right? Three reasons.

1. These people are not known for being funny.

Maybe they are funny — I read a few of the blogs that ran April Fools’ jokes, and they can be funny folks — but they’re not known for it. Dooce is known for being funny. David Sedaris. Many of the lesser known mommy bloggers. But not these three.

Many of the readers of these blogs were not expecting a joke, and April Fools’ jokes are traditionally known for being practical jokes. Practical jokes are often not funny. They’re something one person does to make someone else look or feel stupid. They are an expression of superiority, of one-up-man-ship, of derision. And when you’re not the type of person who does this thing normally, people feel like they got screwed over.

On this blog, I make a regular habit of talking smack about everyone I can find. People come here and expect a certain level of snarkiness. Other than those who are very, very new (Hi, new people!) nobody’s surprised when I talk a little shit.

Tim, Deb, and Darren are known for offering fairly serious advice, and people felt betrayed. They are trusted resources, and it didn’t cross many people’s minds that their trusted resources were kidding.

2. A lot of people don’t like April Fools’ Day.

I, for one, like comedy movies. I like to laugh. But I don’t remember the last time I went to the theatre to see a comedy because I don’t like the comedy that’s on offer. I don’t like the Owen Wilson/Vince Vaughn/ Ice Cube/ Wayans brothers style of comedy. Not inherently bad, just not for me.

Many people feel the same way about April Fools’ Day, or about physical comedy, or about practical jokes in general. Some people don’t like the Saran-Wrap-On-The-Toilet thing. Birds of a feather flock together, and when people realize you’re not like them, sometimes they leave. Sometimes they don’t, and I’m the last one to tell people to change who they are just to keep a few dozen blog subscribers, but it’s worth noting.

3. A lot of people aren’t North American/British/Australian.

While I’m not an expert on the culture in Tanzania or Serbia or Mauritius, I have a feeling that the citizens of these countries don’t hold April Fools’ Day in the same high regard as your average Connecticut WASP. (Don’t start. You know damn well I’m not saying a word against Connecticut WASPs. I’m just saying they’re different from your garden-variety Tanzanian. Am I wrong?)

Many international readers just weren’t prepared for April Fools’ Day. Thus even when people said, “HA HA! Don’t freak out, it was April Fools’!” they still didn’t get it. They were in many cases offended and pissed off and I don’t particularly blame them.

My point, and I do have one:

Joke, don’t joke. Doesn’t really matter. Just consider the impact your joke might have. If you run a business blog, consider the potential impact on your clients. I lose some clients because of my language, because of my sarcasm, and because I tend to run off point. I’m fine with that — it was a conscious decision I made to eliminate potential pain-in-the-ass clients.

Your business might be the same, but it might be different. You might be at the point in your career where you don’t want to run the risk of pissing off the Mauritians. (Who knew THAT was a word?) Whatever. Just know what you’re doing, and if you do end up pissing people off, don’t blame them for leaving.

Click here to subscribe to IttyBiz. It’s fun and fat-free.