HomeBizNotes.com

Yesterday, I related how I self-published my children’s anthology, Tales of Adventure & Discovery. This covered why and how. Today, I’ll discuss illustrations for the book and choosing a cover.

Illustrations

I also realized I needed some illustrations for the book. I do some sketching and painting. I’ve actually sold paintings, posters and greeting cards. But I don’t consider myself predominately an artist.

However, when I looked into the cost of hiring an illustrator or finding a print program that allowed me to use the work for a book, I decided to do the illustrations myself. If I’d had more time, I would have done more of them. However, I’ve received compliments on those I did and eventually made a coloring book from them.
Cover Design

The one aspect I was dissatisfied with was the original cover design. I didn’t have time to do something myself similar to the type of illustrations I had in the book. So I sketched something abstract and slightly mysterious.

Because of budget restrictions, I had to go with a blue, black and gray cover. Anything more colorful was going to cost $1000 more.

When I saw my book displayed at the workshop, I realized my cover didn’t stand out and call attention to the book or give the idea it was a children’s book. Eventually, my husband and I designed a cover utilizing my illustrations in a collage effect and replaced the initial cover ourselves.

Then I had 500 books to promote and sell. I still have some of them but that fits into my plans. I don’t sell them through Amazon or the big name bookstores. I have done some book signings in local stores. But most of these have been sold on my web site (when I had one) and at workshops and school visits.

I have been pleased with this self-publishing experience and the results.

If you have any questions, ask them in the comments.

(Amazon image)

(c) 2008 Mary Emma Allen

For increased productivity and for work-home balance, Laura Stack, author of Leave The Office Earlier, suggests we do just that – leave the office earlier.

What Works For You?

• What strategies or processes do you have to call an end to your home business day?
• Do you find it hard to “leave earlier” to e.g. have a meal prepared when in the middle of an important business project?
• How do you balance your home business and your family?

Leave The Office Earlier – Cover Image Via Amazon where you can purchase this book.

HomeBizNotes.com

I’m featuring a drawing/giveaway (in conjunction with the Bloggy Giveaways Carnival) for a copy of my self-published children’s anthology,Tales of Adventure & Discovery, described in the post, Mary Emma Allen Publishes a Children’s Anthology .It contains fun stories for youngsters, ages approximately 6-10. I also illustrated the anthology.

Authors (generally considered home business owners) may find ideas in it to use for a book project they’re considering publishing. Parents and children like the stories. Teachers also use this book in their classroom, and I include it when giving author presentations and teaching writing workshops for children and adults.

The second part to this above post will come “live” on Thursday, July 31. Here I describe illustrating and selecting a cover. In future posts, I’ll discuss some of my promotion techniques and spinoffs.

To enter the random drawing, leave a comment below. (Be sure to include your e-mail…which won’t appear except for me…so I’ll be able to contact you if you’re the winner.) I’d enjoy hearing how you’d use the book if your name is drawn. Or share your self-publishing experiences with us.

The drawing is open only to those who live in the United States or have a postal address here. The closing date is Tuesday, Aug. 5, at 11:59 PM (EDST).

(Amazon image)

(c)2008 Mary Emma Allen

HomeBizNotes.com

Since I’ve had inquiries concerning how I self-published my children’s anthology, Tales of Adventure & Discovery, I’ll give a summary here and you can ask further questions in the comments.

Tales of Adventure & Discovery consists of 29 of my children’s stories and poems, most of which were previously published in children’s magazines. However, I retained the rights to my stories so could re-sell them and/or use them in a book.

From Story Compilation to Book

My daughter and I began compiling some of my previously published stories on computer, simply to have them collected for family, as my grandfather’s are. I received a call to teach at a three-day writing workshop for children and adults and mentioned this project. When the publicity came out about the event, it stated that I’d have my book for sale!

So we scurried around to get it done in six months. This also was before the prominence of POD (Publish on Demand) options.

Choosing a Printer

After Beth and I finished typing the stories into the computer and decided upon those for our book, we made a CD. (Nowadays, book manuscripts often are sent via attachment to the printer rather than CD.)

I chose a local printing firm that published books. I liked what I saw. (Some authors search online and get recommendations from other writers about printers. They often work successfully with printers at a distance.) However, I wanted the face-t0-face, hands-on approach with the project. I gave the owner of the printing establishment the max amount I could pay to have a book published. Then she took a look at the project and decided she could produce 500 books.

Since I didn’t have experience in graphics and book formatting, the graphic designer at the print shop did this. We discussed our ideas for the book and found we were in agreement.

Editing

I didn’t try to do all the editing and proof reading myself. Someone at the printer did a first proofing. Then a friend, who had worked as a proof reader and compositor for a newspaper, helped me with this when we got the proofs from the printer.

It’s true, you often don’t see your own mistakes, so it’s a good idea to have someone else edit and proof for your.

(I’ll continue tomorrow and let you know about illustrating and choosing a cover.)

If you have questions about the procedure so far, please leave them in the comments for me.

(Amazon image)

(c)2008 Mary Emma Allen

We all know we need more sleep. Scientific American explains the how and the why in an interesting series of articles about sleep.

It explains the benefits of sleep for memory retention. Being sharp is essential for making good decisions for your business and family.

A lack of sleep over a prolonged period can lead to obesity and heart problems. And for workaholics, morning sleep and afternoon naps can aid mental and physical learning.

An article entitled You Snooze, You Win explains

The intensity of learning new skills and information may drive the brain’s hunger for large amounts of sleep,” Walker remarks. He adds that “in order for an individual to learn new things, they may require a good night’s sleep before the maximum benefit of the time they spend practicing is realized.” Perhaps in the future a typical day at the office will start later and include a power nap.

Jamie Durie of Oprah garden spot fame is an Aussie and one of the celebrity supporters of National Tree Day.

Jamie Durie has done a lot to raise the profile of gardens, trees and outdoor design in Australia, and now in the US.

Co-founded by another Aussie, Olivia Newton John and co-ordinated by Planet Ark, this day in the mid Australian Winter, is about going green and raising awareness.

Organizers explain that National Tree Day is

Australia’s biggest community tree-planting event and a day for all Australians to help out by planting native trees and shrubs at a Tree Day site in their local area.

Co-founded by Olivia Newton-John and Jon Dee in 1996, to date more than 1.5 million volunteers have planted over 11.5 million native trees and shrubs!

National Tree Day is held on the last Sunday of July, with Schools Tree Day taking place on the Friday before. This year over 220,000 school children have dug deep to improve their natural surroundings.

Do you have a favorite tree you like to work or take a break under?
I look out onto rainforest trees from my office, so I couldn’t imagine not having trees and greenery around me as I work. How about you?

Jamie Durie photo courtesy of National Tree Day and used with permission.

HomeBizNotes.com

Add Advertising, Affiliate Links, Your Own Information, Products, etc. (Part 5)

By Lindsay Buroker

(Lindsay left a comment on one of my posts here at Home Biz Notes. When I visited her blog, Writing for Your Wealth, I thought, “This information is great for online writers.” So I invited her to write a guest post.

Actually it has evolved into six parts because Lindsay has so much to share. Read the Introduction to this series

Also Part 1, Apply the Profit+Passion Principle to Choose a Niche

Part 2 , Write Content that Matters to Your Audience

Part 3, Build Traffic to Your Blog with Incoming Links

Part 4, Build a Community

Guest Post

The astute reader (you!) will notice I’ve waited to the last step to really focus on monetizing your blog.

You see, most money-seeking individuals litter their sites with ads, affliliate banners, etc. before they’ve even got anyone visiting their blog. Then they’re perplexed when they don’t make any money.

Making money from a blog comes naturally once your site becomes popular, but you’ll never make anything worth sneezing at if your blog is a ghost town. Work on the first four steps and make sure you’re getting plenty of genuine visitors before cluttering your site with ads (consider waiting until daily visitor numbers are in the hundreds). A lot of glaring ads can be a turnoff to people and may actually hinder your efforts to build a community for your blog.

When you do add Adsense, or text links, or whatever you prefer, study reports on how to optimize placement. (Quick tip: people read from top to bottom and left to right, and their eyes naturally go straight to the content…place your ads nearby so they’re noticed!) You’ll find out one or two well-placed ads can bring in more money than a hodge podge collection inserted all over the place – and a couple nicely integrated ads are less likely to alienate your community.

There you go: the lowdown on building a blog that can be a money maker!

For more on profitable blogging and building financial independence through writing, visit me at Writing for Your Wealth

Leave questions for Lindsay in the comments.

(Amazon image)

(c)2008 Mary Emma Allen

HomeBizNotes.com

Build a Community (Part 4)

By Lindsay Buroker

(Lindsay left a comment on one of my posts here at Home Biz Notes. When I visited her blog, Writing for Your Wealth, I thought, “This information is great for online writers.” So I invited her to write a guest post.

Actually it has evolved into six parts because Lindsay has so much to share. Read the Introduction to this series

Also Part 1, Apply the Profit+Passion Principle to Choose a Niche

Part 2 , Write Content that Matters to Your Audience

Part 3, Build Traffic to Your Blog with Incoming Links

Guest Post

One of the things that makes blogs different from old static websites is the built-in comments feature, which invites visitors to share their thoughts on your posts. Also, many blog platforms allow you to install all sorts of plug-ins and widgets designed to encourage people to respond to your posts and share them with others.

This makes people feel they belong and have a community. Naturally, they’ll want to spread the word about a cool place to hang out (a place where they also get valuable information), so these folks will help you grow your site.

Another perk of having lots of people visiting and adding their comments to your blog is that the search engines place a high value on sites posting fresh content frequently. Your visitors are actually helping you build up your site with their comments. It doesn’t get any better than that!

Stay tuned for Part 5

(Amazon image)

(c)2008

HomeBizNotes.com

Build Traffic to Your Blog with Incoming Links (Part 3)

By Lindsay Buroker

(Lindsay left a comment on one of my posts here at Home Biz Notes. When I visited her blog, Writing for Your Wealth, I thought, “This information is great for online writers.” So I invited her to write a guest post.

Actually it has evolved into six parts because Lindsay has so much to share. Read the Introduction to this series

Also Part 1, Apply the Profit+Passion Principle to Choose a Niche

Part 2 , Write Content that Matters to Your Audience

Guest Post

In the old days, it was usually true that if you built it, they could come. Today there’s a lot of noise in the blogosphere, so you can’t be afraid to strut your stuff a bit to attract attention.

There are a lot of different ways to increase the number of visitors to your site, and if you want to get love (visitors) from the search engines, you’ll work on getting links pointing to your blog. Search engines such as Google rank a site based in part on popularity, which is currently judged by the number and quality of links pointing to your blog.

A tried and true way to get links to your site is by writing articles on your niche, including bios with links back to your site, and then submitting them to article directories such as ezinearticles.com. Other bloggers and webmasters who aren’t into writing their own content will go to these directories to pick up articles, and in exchange for using them on their sites or in their ezines, they should include your bio with that link.

In addition to promoting your site via articles, you also might be able to earn links from established blogs in related riches by submitting story tips or offering to guest blog (as I’m doing now) for a link back to your site. Bloggers frequently are on the lookout for new ideas, and most of them are happy to acknowledge you as the source (and link to your site).

Lastly, don’t forget to submit to the major directories such as Yahoo and DMOZ. though it’s harder to get a free listing with these big sites today, if you have great content with an oroiginal twise, you just might get lucky, and those links can mean a lot.

(Amazon image)

(c)2008

HomeBizNotes.com

Humor writer Tim Bete has been touring the blogosphere during July to promote his latest book, Guide to Pirate Parenting. Today Tim stops by Home Biz Notes with 10 Tips for Promoting/Marketing Your Book. Some of these are tips you can apply to home businesses other than book writing.

Let’s see what Tim has to say about book promotion:

10 Tips for Promoting/Marketing Your Book

1) Offer review copies to bloggers and Web site editors. If you can’t afford to send hard copies, offer a PDF file of your book for review.

2) Hire a blog tour service, such as Pump Up Your Book Promotion. These types of services are much more cost effective than trying to reinvent the wheel.

3) Create a Web site and blog for your book. Even if you already have a Web site, create separate ones for your book. Make daily posts to your blog and your search engine rankings will increase significantly

4) Promote your book to places other than book stores. For example, I targeted coastal gift shops and pirate events rather than book stores.

5) Consider a postcard mailing to possible resellers of your book. There are many online services that will print and mail a postcard for you. Put the cover of your book on the front, along with a few testimonials.

6) Send review copies to magazines for any schools/colleges from which you’ve graduated.

7) Set up a PayPal account so you can sell autographed copies of your book directly from your Web site.

Create a video book trailer and post it on YouTube and other video sharing sites. My book trailer has already had more than 2,000 views.

9) Offer free copies of your book to radio stations as giveaways during interviews or even if you aren’t being interviewed.

10) Enjoy the marketing process and have realistic expectations. It’s unlikely you’re going to have a best seller but that doesn’t mean you can’t make a little money and have fun!

For more information about Tim and Cap’n Billy, tune into Pump Up Your Online Book Promotion.

If you have questions for Tim, ask away in the comments below.

(Amazon image)

(c)2008