Five of our clients won won book awards at the 2013 Colorado Independent Publishers Association EVVY Book Awards banquet held on May 18th. Here are the 5 award-winning books we designed. Noted below are the team members who have participated in the production of each book. John Hall is all smiles with a copy of his book and his award certificate. John’s book Do What You Can! won 3rd place in the “Self-Help” category. Several team members participated in the production of his book: Barbara McNichol edited the book, I came up with the cover concept, Kerrie Lian designed the cover and interior, Helena Mariposa proofread…
Spotlight on a Client Project: Building a New Brand Last year our team designed Julia Spencer’s award-winning book, Looking Through a Key Hole. The memoir is about her challenges with severe and progressive vision loss. She relies on her Seeing Eye guide dog, Irene, for independence. Since self-publishing her book, Julia’s speaking business has grown so she needed to clarify her brand and update her marketing materials. Julia asked for our help with creating a tag line and updating her website and speaker one sheet. Team lead, Patrice Rhoades-Baum – who is our branding expert – helped Julia nail her brand and created…
You can use the Google AdWords Keyword Planner tool to research and choose productive keywords to use in your book marketing campaigns. This free tool allows you to type in a word or phrase then see the results of your search term and additional keyword ideas. Each word or phrase is ranked by competition and by the number of global monthly searches on Google. You want to select and use keywords and phrases that have low competition and high search volume. Go to this page: https://adwords.google.com/KeywordPlanner For this exercise, let’s suppose I’ve published a book on puppy training. I’ve typed in…
Kindle Direct Publishing Select (KDP Select) is a special program that Amazon offers independent publishers, authors and self-publishers to be a part of the digital Kindle Owners’ Lending Library. You can earn a share of a $6 million fund based on how often your ebook is borrowed through the program. In addition, you can use Amazon’s special marketing tools, which include offering your ebook for free to readers for up to 5 days in each 90-day period. You can also earn up to 70% royalties on sales in Brazil, Japan and India. Ebooks not in the KDP Select program only…
Client Case Study: Brand and Website Design My creative team recently finished a large project for a hearing aid dispenser. We guided Byron Patton of Lifestyle Hearing Solutions through the steps of creating a brand and website along with a new logo and stationery package for his new company. The process was deliberate and creative and constructed in a way to leverage ideas and concepts to save Byron time and money. Here’s how we did it. First, our branding expert, Patrice Rhoades-Baum held an in-depth interview with Byron and other team members to discuss his target market, the value his company…
At a recent Colorado Independent Publishers Association (CIPA) meeting we had a panel speak on the topic of how to make your book an “Amazon Bestseller.” One of the panelists was Marcia Reece whose book, Secrets of a Marriage Mouse became the #1 bestseller in three Amazon book categories: Marriage, Personal Relationships, and Health. She shared with us a few of the many very specific techniques she used to sell 3700 books in 3 days on Amazon.com. Marcia occasionally offers one-day workshops where she explains ALL the important steps in this process. Shown below are some of the highlights of her…
You Can Make Your Book an Amazon Bestseller – Even if You’re a First Time Author or a Marketing Novice It’s true…my friend, Marcia Reece Can Help You Make Your Book A Bestseller! If your book is not yet finished, Marcia will show you exactly what you need to do while writing and marketing your book to make it a bestseller–and create more business when your book is finished. If your book has already been published, Marcia will show you how to start a sudden surge of sales carrying your book to bestseller status in your category–even if your book…
You can get Tom Matt’s Kindle eBook, Maximize Your Quality of Life: The 200% Solution FREE on October 29-30, November 15-16, and November 27th at Amazon HERE: http://ow.ly/eQeyZ This book was #1 in the Amazon Kindle store in the Motivational category! See this previous blog post to learn more about this fantastic book. My team designed the cover and interior of this book. The printed book will be available soon. Every Baby Boomer should have a copy. Get yours FREE here: http://ow.ly/eQeyZ
Sometimes our team will receive a partial manuscript or a manuscript that has not been edited or proofread. If a self-publisher provides us with a properly formatted manuscript, we can save them time and money on editing and proofreading services. Once the manuscript has been edited and proofread we can move on to the design and layout stage. Your manuscript should be formatted in a typical 8.5″ x 11″ MS Word document so it is easy for you and our editor to review, markup and make text changes. While your manuscript is in the editing stage it will NOT resemble a book page layout. Our graphic designer will do that later during…