A Recent Interview with Ken Denmead, Editor of GeekDad.Com

Welcome to another fun interview with GeekDad editor, Ken Denmead. Last time we spoke, we went over the history of GeekDad, and this time, we are looking into the future! Grab your coffee and sit for a spell while we travel into the world of GeekDad with Ken...

**It has been a few months now, since our last interview, and I wanted to catch up with you and any new developments at GeekDad.

Well, things have been rolling along nicely. The holidays are always a fun time on GeekDad, and our 12 Days of GeekMas podcast and giveaway series was a great success. We were named the Top Parenting Blog of 2009 by PostRank, an online ranking service, and we've found our way into the Top 100 Entertainment Blogs at Technorati.

** I noticed your book, Geek Dad: Awesomely Geeky Projects for Dads and Kids to Share, is available for pre-order on Amazon and is quickly moving up in the rankings. Do you want to explain to your fans how the idea came about for it? Did you write it and then search for a publisher? How did that come about...

It actually came to be in a somewhat backwards way. I was approached by a literary agency looking for bloggers with interesting voices and pre-existing audiences to represent. With their help, I put together the proposal for GeekDad, and they passed it around to the publishers, with Penguin finally picking it up. It's not quite the usual method for getting a book published, but it seems to work - especially as blogs and online media gain more respect and greater audiences.

** Do you think there will be a sequel to it? Any new ideas in the works?

No plans for a sequel yet (still have to see if the original does well), and I'm not sure I have enough more original project ideas in my head to put one together. However, there is potential for more GeekDad-related books, including a few based off some of the successful posts we've had on the site. I have a great team of writers on GeekDad, and I'd really like the chance to push forward something collaborative, so that all of them get to see their names in print.

**Do you ever get any fellow celebrities ghost writing on GeekDad.com?

First of all, I'm not sure if "celebrity" is quite the right word. There's a saying: one can be "famous - for the internet." I don't know that I'm even there, quite yet, but maybe I don't have the right perspective! In any case, no, no geek celebrities ghosting on GeekDad. However we have had the tremendous luck of bringing John Kovalic, creator of the Dork Towerwebcomic as well as a few famous games, like Apples to Apples and Munchkin, into our fold.

** In our last interview, we discussed your contributors and their backgrounds. Are they local or nationwide?

Oh, we have contributors all over the United States - California, Arizona, Texas, Kansas, Alabama, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Ohio, Connecticut, Massachusetts, New York, Maryland, the Carolinas and Florida. We also have people in Canada, the U.K. and Australia.

** The other day I was looking at GeekDad.com and noticed you have a lot of merchandise there, from t-shirts to coffee mugs and magnets and wondered who designs them?

Oh, it's a group effort. Of course, the current GeekDad logo came from in-house at Wired.com, but tweaking those designs and getting them to the online retailers and onto products is usually a group effort, especially with the help of my Assistant Editor Matt Blum, and Dave Banks, one of our graphics wizards.

** I heard you mention you are going to do a lecture this week. Where is it taking place and what is on the agenda? Can anyone go?

Through a series of unlikely connections, I and one of my Core Contributors have been invited to speak at Franklin and Marshall College in Lancaster, PA on Thursday night. We'll be talking about the editor/writer relationship in new media, and just chatting about blogging and GeekDad with a bunch of college students and professors, which should be great fun! As far as I know, anyone can come - check it out on the website for The Writer's House at Franklin & Marshall.

**Are you planning on attending the Bay Area Maker Faire again this year? Last year you had thousands of LEGOs at your booth, are you going to have them again? Or, are you having anything else planned as well?

Maker Faire San Mateo (www.makerfaire.com) is our BIG event each year, in terms of a real-world presence. We're hoping to top last year with a bigger booth, more LEGOs to play with, and more great prizes to give away. I'm still working on other things, but if they come through, if you're in the area, you won't want to miss it!

** Are there limits to what the GeekDad.com will cover...ie. sports, cars, celebrities...or where do you draw the line?

Well, there are no bright shiny lines dividing what we will or won't cover. We've found that, to keep content flowing, we have to be relatively broad in our coverage. But what it generally comes down to is whether the story would be interesting to someone like me or my other contributors, in our status as geeks and parents. Sometimes that means a really geeky story that has nothing to do with parenting, but we try to always have parenting-related material up every day. It's subjective, yes, but it seems to work!

And finally

** What can we look forward to this year at GeekDad.com?

One GIGANTICALLY cool thing that's coming up in March is PAX East - the new east coast edition of the famous Penny Arcade Expo gaming convention. As far as geeky events, it's at the top of the list, and we've been asked to host a panel on geek parenting. A bunch of our east coast contributors are going to be there representing the team and rubbing elbows with the geekerati.

And, as mentioned above, Maker Faire is in late May - just a wonderful weekend. Hopefully your readers can come out and say hello!

Ken Denmead
Editor, GeekDad.com
Twitter: fitzwillie
Google Voice: 510-592-GEEK
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You can see Ken's two Skype interviews on ABC News Now by clicking here for the topic "Gadgets Your Kids Never Knew About", and here for the interview "6 iPhone Applications for Kids".

Sources:
Ken Denmead
GeekDad.com
Wikipedia.com
http://abcnews.go.com/