We asked our client Margaret Webster from London Microguides to give us her insight into writing and publishing an e-book – following her recent experiences of doing this.
Here is what she says:

eBooks are big, big news.

You’ve probably heard the headlines:

• Amazon is selling 105 ebooks for every 100 print books
• e-readers are the most gifted Christmas present in history
• Self-published authors, Jock Locke and Amanda Hocking, have both sold over 1 million ebooks.

The world of book publishing is being turned upside down. Authors no longer need to seek permission and sponsorship from traditional publishing companies. They can format their own book and upload it directly to online book stores, including Amazon.

If you want to publish a book, you can. But should you?

Before you are entirely seduced by the attention-grabbing stories of the uber-successful few, ask yourself these five questions.

1. Why are you thinking of writing an ebook?

What do you want your ebook to help you to achieve?

Do you dream of earning millions – or more realistically supplementing your income – by selling your ebook on Amazon or other internet stores?

Or do you want a book that will enhance your credibility as an expert in your field? If so, you’ll need a properly formatted book with a well-designed cover.

Perhaps you just want an incentive that will persuade people to sign up for your newsletter so that you can sell your products and services? Then a simple PDF could do the job.

2. Who is your audience?

What sort of people do you imagine reading your book? What’s their purpose in reading it?

Take a little time to think about your readers’ problems and ambitions. What information, help, advice and encouragement would they value from you?

3. What is your big idea in a nutshell?

Your book needs to say something.

What can you say to your readers that no-one else tell them?

4. When will you write it?

You are likely to have a small supply of spare time.

Do you have the time and energy to research, write, edit and format your ebook as well as do all your regular work?

If not, could you consider outsourcing some of the work to a researcher, ghost writer, an editor or designer?

5. How will tell people about your ebook?

Your ebook will not sell itself – not even after you’ve uploaded it to Amazon.

You’ll have to find ways of enticing people to take a look at your book. Blogging, tweeting and facebooking are important ways of sharing the news.

But so too are less obvious forms of promotion such as asking for reviews on other blogs, selling your book to libraries, creating photo books on Flickr or videos on YouTube, public speaking and building relationships directly with readers on GoodReads and the LibraryThing.

So if you know the answers to these questions, ask yourself again – do you really want to write an ebook?

If so, fantastic. Please let us know when you’ ve published it. We’d love to see it. (Or even better,  you could let us know by leaving a comment below.)

Karen Haller is an Applied Colour Psychology Specialist.  She helps business owners to communicate their brand’s authentic business personality in colour, further strengthening their marketing message to increase brand recognition by standing out from the competition and increasing sales.

BEFORE: Recognise & Relieve old logo & brand colours

In analysing the old Recognise and Relieve brand colours Karen Haller found that the brown colour palette is from the colour family related to the Autumn season. The monotone variants of brown give an overall subliminal message of safety, seriousness, reliability and support.

Looking at the brand’s core values – aiding positive change, healing and self awareness in a calm and nurturing environment, the old brown monotone colour palette may have, over time, reflected a feeling of heaviness, reluctance for change and seriousness.

Karen felt the colour family which best suits the brand’s core values and aims is Summer. Cool blue based colours with gray added which reflects the cool, calm and elegant sophistication of this brand.

AFTER: Recognise & Relieve new brand colours

Some keywords related to these colours are honesty, calm, nurturing, reassurance and self healing. Perfect for the Recognise & Relieve brand.

LOGO OPTIONS: Recognise & Relieve logo designs

When designing the new Recognise & Relieve logo Tamlyn created three designs considering the brand colours and brand values to reflect the service which Recognise and Relieve provide.

The first and second logo designs reflect an evolution and simplification of the current Recognise and Relieve logo. The idea of using the figure was to reflect the services that R & R provide, the figures needed to symbolise pain and yet relief at the same time. The idea was to use a single flowing line to create the figure, symbolising continuity and strength.

The third logo is a purely typographic logo. Emphasis has been placed on the ampersand, but using a paler colour than the type allows it to not overpower the main typography, whilst joining the “i” and “l” show unity.

The fourth logo option is more of a mix between a feminine and serious approach. In order to balance the soft feminine curves of the ampersand  with an element of seriousness we have used an all caps typeface. The ampersand has again been enlarged to create a unity between the two words.

And the final logo?

After several iterations Tamlyn and Marina came up with the following. You can see that the font is now a quirky font to represent Marina’s quirky personality.

So you see logos aren’t just pretty graphics we dream up! When creating a logo design we take our time to explore a range of ideas which translate the values of the company and the service the company provides. Through a clever combination of graphic elements we create unique and meaningful designs every time!

We have been working hard on our newsletter, as we always do. And it’s ready to send! In this one the illustration was done by Tina and Amy worked on the graphics for the rest of the newsletter. Other newsletters often feature illustration work by Tamlyn – who drew our owls! Those of you who dont subscribe, you’re missing out! We almost always do special offers, games and prizes. Our latest creation involves a theme – “Make Do and Mend” which goes with the whole “January Austerity” feeling. No point in being frivolous and overly extravagent – it’s just not the done thing! So, in our newsletter we have listed “8 free or almost free ways to improve your presence online.” We do like the number 8!

We also like the number 3 – so watch out for the 3 offers within the newsletter.

Read it here and let us know in the comments below what you think!

You may have seen Keren’s blog post about Pinterest last week. Well over the weekend I blogged about her “Owl” board and found some inspiration for my first illustration of 2012.

Here are a few of my favorite “owly” delights from Keren’s Pinterest board.

And here’s my “Twit Twoo” illustration, inspired by all the “owl” talk here at Top Left Design. Hope you like it!

At the beginning of January we launched our very first website of 2012 for Thanks and Recognition.

Thanks and Recognition help to create an environment of trust where people feel empowered to thank one another for good deeds they have done in the day.  It works very simply, if somebody does something that you value and want to recognise, you send an email thanking them for what they have done. Thanks and Recognition can then calculate how many times you say thank you in a period of time. There’s lot of theory around the subject and you can find out more on their website.

The site is built in HTML/CSS and has a WordPress blog. We used fading statistics on the home page and also embedded Thanks and Recognitions “Yum Yums & Employee Engagement” video which is a big hit in the Top Left Design office! There is also a blog feed integrated on the home page.

Thanks and Recognition were also kind enough to provide us with a nice testimonial too! Thanks guys!

“We are delighted with our new website. Top Left Design were friendly, helpful & professional throughout the process. They made sure we stuck to the schedule to get it finished by our own deadline and gave us very good advice. Tina was brilliant to work with, she guided us through the build with ease and professionalism. Thank you.”

There is a new social site creeping into our awareness.

Perhaps, if I suggested you look at another social network (which I am about to), you would throw your hands up in exasperation and say “I don’t have time!”

But I promise you, this is worth it. Especially if like us at TLD, you are in the business of being visual and creative. It’s called “Pinterest”.

For Pinterest, you need an invitation, so leave a comment below if you would like one and I can send it to you.

If you can show your work in a visual way – this means designers, illustrators, artists, wedding planners, photographers, interior designers, property developers – all of these businesses are based on visual asthetic. This is not just to say you only put in your portfolio and that’s in. The point of Pinterest is to find and share things you like  and then you can also create your own.

Content Curation vs Content Creation

Just like with all the other social networks, successful users mix these two up. Content curation means you find things online to share. With Twitter and Facebook, LinkedIn and Google Plus, most of the time these things will be blog posts. Content Creation means writing and posting your own articles – which can be your own unique statement status updates, but really would be blog posts.

The idea is, if you spend time on social media talking to people, sharing what they post, and then finding new things to share, you cover all the bases and are more likely to be paid attention to – when you create your own content!

So, bringing this back to Pinterest – like all the networks it’s important to put a little bit of time setting up your profile.

You can then browse other people’s boards, “repin” or “like” things you want to share. If you are active you will see pretty soon, people will repin and share your stuff too.

It can be a mixture of business and social – for example you can have boards on:

• Places you want to travel to
• Things you want to buy
• Inspiration for your office
• Your favourite foods
• Theme based (eg I did an Owl one)
• Moodboards
• Photography

Quality still counts – you need to make an effort to find things to share that you know would represent you.

If you are in business, think of it as part of your online profile. Like all social media tools, it’s not there to “sell” for you. But you can use it to showcase your work, your taste, your approach to live, and raise awareness. Then it’s up to you if you want to use it to network, proactively, or if you would like to share your boards on other social networks (for example I have shared my Owl board on Facebook and Twitter and many of my existing contacts have followed me on Pinterest as well. 

This means that you think about the “boards” you create, and what you name them and make sure that what you pin fulfills the following criteria:

1. Within your niche

2. You find it interesting and think your followers will too

3. You think it’s worth people’s time.

Within each board, you can include your own portfolio work (or visual representations of your own work).
Think about themes and how this board will appeal to others. Look at others and see how they do it, and if you see anyone who you feel has the same tastes as you, reach out and say hi!

Now it’s your turn

1. Ask for an invite (yes, you can ask me!)

2. Setup your profile

3. Create a few boards (you can delete or rename the default ones)

4. Come back here and comment on how you find it!

Happy Pinning!

This morning while working on a design I went to grab some ‘dummy text’ also known in our industry as Lorem Ipsum from our trusted friends www.lipsum.com. Lorem Ipsum is described on their site as ‘…simply dummy text of the printing and typesetting industry. Lorem Ipsum has been the industry’s standard dummy text ever since the 1500s, when an unknown printer took a galley of type and scrambled it to make a type specimen book.’

We use “Lorem ipsum” text in our designs as a placeholder – as a replacement for readable content. It’s written in a similar way to English, in terms of the length of words and sentences – and in a way, it mimics the way real English text looks. This way, clients can pay attention to the design to begin without being distracted by repetitive sentences or meaningful text. From this we can give clients the correct word counts to stick to. They can then follow the word count guides and provide “real” copy after.

Anyway, getting off track a little…

So usually I go and copy my paragraphs of random text (aka. Lorem Ipsum) from the site and I paste it into my design and all works just fine! However, this morning when following the usual procedure I was surprised to find that my usual lorem ipsum paragraphs were missing and had been replaced by this ‘Do your layouts deserve better than Lorem Ipsum? Apply as an art director and team up with the best copywriters at Jung von Matt: www.jvm.com/jobs/lipsum.’!

WHAT?! What is this? And where is my Lorem Ipsum?

After copying and pasting a few times with a very confused look on my face I finally decided to Google ‘Jung von Matt’ (I try not to click on sneaky hidden links, I did it once and my Twitter account was hacked and so I have learnt my lesson). Jung von Matt is an advertising agency from Stockholm who appear to have won many awards and are very well recognised in the world of design and marketing.

So why is Jung von Matt on the lipsum.com website?

Well that part I can’t answer, but the funny part about all this is that the symbol for Jung von Matt is that of a Trojan Horse! You know, that huge wooden horse that allowed the Greeks to enter the city of Troy during the Trojan War. Now that was one sneaky way to get into the City of Troy. According to Wikipedia these days a Trojan Horse has “Metaphorically come to mean any trick or stratagem that causes a target to invite a foe into a securely protected bastion or space. It is also associated with “malware” computer programs presented as useful or harmless to induce the user to install and run them.”

That may explain my hesitation when it came to clicking the Jung von Matt link. But this doesn’t appear to be a nasty Trojan Horse, this is a pretty darn cool one – irritating as it may be that it took me a while to figure out how to get my beloved Lorem Ipsum off the lipsum.com site I still can see the kinda cool, kinda humorous side of this.

Friend or Foe?

Jung von Matt say that “Communication should be a gift like a Trojan Horse!”. I have tried to see if this was a hack or if lipsum.com allowed this but can’t find anything on the web about it yet.. (I’m sure it’s coming). And does Jung von Matt even know about this?? But whether they do or don’t all I know is that Jung von Matt snuck onto my screen today in their own little Trojan Horse and I love them. They are cool, sneaky (dependent on whether they know about this or not), edgy and I think their media work is inspiring and a gift to the world of marketing. I could however suggest a few website tweaks they could make…

You sneaky Trojan Horse you!!

PS. This does not mean I approve of hacking and I hope Mr Lipsum.com allowed this to be done to his website.

Then he took a timelapse movie of us working away like the busy bees that we are. We also wanted to send a special mention to Amy who works in our Cape Town Office and hasn’t physically been in our new London office yet.

We did have time to wave at all you lovely folk. It’s good to be famous! Check out the video. it’s truly awesome!

And here is a picture of the kit!

So I thought I would collect together for you my personal favourites (you will love them! Trust me!), to make sure that you don’t miss out on the wonder and joy of watching them! Have a look and let me know what you think! They all have music too as a bonus!

Mystery Guitar Man – Guitar: stop motion music short

Let me just say that all the Mystery Guitar Man videos are pure genius. But you have to start somewhere, and this is the video that got me hooked onto him. Over 1000 cuts. 6 hours of guitar tabbing. It’s an amazing example of genius editing.

Mike Tompkins A Cappella Cover of Adele’s Rolling In The Deep

Mike Tompkins is lovely and talented too – this cover of Adele’s Rolling in the Deep is so great it inspired me to write this blog post. Check it out.

JK Wedding Entrance Dance

Another one where I am amazed if anyone hasn’t seen it. It makes me laugh and brings tears to my eyes when the bride and group come out. You must have seen this – but in case you haven’t here you go!

Barenaked Ladies – Bedside Manor (The Bathroom Sessions)

I am a huge fan of the Barenaked Ladies and this is part of a collection of videos where Steve and Ed sing and play guitar together, using bathroom acoustics.

Jorge and Alexa Narvaez sing “Home” (original song by Edward Sharpe and The Magnetic Zeros)

When I first saw this video, I didnt know who Edward Sharpe and The Magnetic Zeros were, but I loved this – and then researched the original performers of the song. This father daughter duo have gone on to be big stars (they went onto the Ellen Show and and are are now in a Hyundai Ad.

The Ultimate Yogi – 108 Day programme with Travis Eliot – “Yoga Sequences”

My brother was involved in creating this 108 day yoga programme with the fantastic yoga teacher Travis Eliot. I love this video – the music, the way it’s shot, it’s amazing. Have a look!

So, what do you think? Which of these is your favourite? Are there any you already knew about? Would love to hear your comments and your recommmendations for other “must see” videos!

This year I set myself the challenge of of writing a blog post everyday this month. The posts are inspired by the “12 Days of Christmas” rhyme and have opened my eyes to all things Christmassy!

I chose to blog about different designers festive gifts from “brooches” to biscuits, cards to Christmas wraps, and along the way made a few new friends too!

Here are a selection of some of the lovely treats I found on my journey:

Jeff Jospahine Designs

Kate Slater Illustration

Fréya Art

Tina Webster Illustration

Buscuiteers

Have a gander at my 22 festive blog posts so far and keep your eyes peeled for 2 more!