Are you trying to write a book? If not, you’re the only one. The temptations of writing and publishing a book are many: the feeling of empowerment that comes with finishing a large project; the respectability and deference that comes with introducing yourself as a “published author”; and of course the opportunity to make boatloads of money. A book is …

Like many self publishing authors, when I was getting my first book ready to birth into the world, I realized that I had no platform, no support and very little marketing ability. How could I get people to find my book, like it and buy it? What tools could I use to self-publish – should I use Lulu, Createspace, Lightning …

I like Jeff Goins. Although he only came into my radar recently and I don’t know much about him, he makes me feel like I’m taking a calm stroll through the woods, next to a stream. I can hear acoustic guitar playing in the background. Unlike bloggers who stand out for being edgy, tough, or hard-core, Jeff is nice; an …

I just got my first “Cease and Desist” order, in an email claiming to be from a lawyer defending the rights of Angry Birds. It happened just after I sent the following sketch to some painting companies in Dafen China, in a project aiming to explore whether fine art can be outsourced. Obviously, somebody turned me in. And yet, if …

I’m thrilled to see a new book out by Chris Guillebeau called “The $100 Dollar Startup.” I’ve followed Chris with a lot of interest, being a fellow globe-trotting Portlander, and have enjoyed many of his books and products. This one in particular looks like it will focus on precisely the topics that I’m developing Creativindie around: supporting yourself entirely through …

Book sales may seem like a mysterious void of uncertainty, but the truth is most authors fail for very predictable reasons. Luckily, if you’re doing these things wrong, they’re (mostly) easy to fix. 1) You have no reviews. Are you driving people to buy from an amazon page with no reviews on it? Good luck – reviews sell books. You …

What if I told you I could help you sell %500 more books in less than a month; that I had personal media ties; that I could get you top exposure everywhere and keep the momentum going to sell thousands of books for years to come? Obviously, such an opportunity wouldn’t come cheap. If I said I can do all …

I just saw an interesting sales letter for a program that generates a cheesy social media chatroom box. The idea is actually pretty awesome, and I’ve seen these around: instead of a big colorful ad that says “LOOK!!! CHEAP!!! AWESOME!!!” the ad seems to “reveal” a private conversation about some secret, insider information. With our natural curiosity, need to socialize, …

I thought I’d take a break from graphic design and watch a scary movie. Danielle Radcliffe’s “The Woman in Black” (very good, very scary, by the way, had me jumping like a little girl). The first 10 minutes or so was a little rough and obvious – working the background story in deliberately and without subtlety… as the protagonist is …

For a long time I’ve known I need to learn how to make and edit ebooks for kindle (.prc/mobi) and B&N (epub), but have been stuck by the steep learning curve. There are lots of different softwares to use, none of them seem to work well together, and converting word files into various ebook formats takes finesse, coding and lots …