Zach Holman

On the contrary, you’re now trying to ‘conflate’ the pay-to-publish model into the two you argued meant that model didn't exist.

You weren’t talking about paying cash for publishing/distribution, because both your two options, paid subscription and free ad-supported, you were talking how the consumer pays and also cost money to publish, cancelling that dimension out.

In the pay-to-publish model, someone is deciding it’s worth their own pocket money (or patronage or sponsorship by powers that be) to publish. That makes it free to consume.

We were talking about the perspective of the content consumer, and for them, the pay-to-publish model is free. They are neither paying for the content, nor are they paying with their attention. Some entirely different actor not discussed in your models, is covering it.

That content, content creators support publishing, tends to be different in nature — someone is willing to spend “their own” money to share the ideas in it freely.

Pamphleteers paid the printing presses by cash too, that’s how they didn’t have to sell ads and how they didn’t have to charge a ha’penny a sheet.

> “Content both created and distributed for free is miniscule and you haven’t quoted a single example yet”

You’re both non-responsive to examples with factual data to back them up, and moving the goalposts. To be clear, I’m agreeing there is too much no-value content getting churned out as filler to advertise against. So much volume, so much noise, the…

There is a load of great advice here: http://speaking.io/

Practice is the main thing, you are speaking about your own project so you know your content well which is a great start.

Make sure that you know the main points you want to get across and make them clearly.

It's very tempting to rush a talk when you are nervous. I used to put BREATH in my speaker notes when I first started speaking to remind myself to pause, breath, think about the next point.

Practice your opening so you know it really well, as many have said the first few minutes are the hardest, so if you really know what you are going to start out with you can get over that bit and into the main talk.

I speak at loads of events, am still always a bit nervous, but it does get easier the more you do it.

I just spoke at a dev conference for the first time last weekend. Here's what I found, in addition to randomly checking out Youtube videos:

- https://speaking.io/
- https://www.pluralsight.com/courses/hanselman-speaking -> Mr. Scott is really good, I like his talk: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FS1mnISoG7U.

I think you have to just keep on practicing actually speaking, like even in front of a mirror, I didn't do this enough (I practiced, but in front of my machine). Also just look at a few people in the audience, think of it like you're chatting with 1 person 100 times/5 people 20 times as opposed to chatting 100 people.

I came across https://speaking.io _after_ I presented for the first time at a larger conference [1]. In hindsight it's so obvious -- Zach Holman really talks about the things that matter. So if you still have time, please do your future-self a favour and have a look at it.

Another point I found out _after_ I presented is to better avoid any caffeinated drinks -- apparently it makes your mouth dryer. Adding a bit of nervousness makes matters worse and you end up having to drink a sip of water every few minutes.

[1] https://youtu.be/wNrTDEaDVwU