I'm STILL a very naughty boy!

Howdy folks,

Yes folks, I am officially the slackest blogger on the planet. Truth to tell, I've been busy jobhunting. Commuting 2 hours each way is boring, so I don't get much time to handle the eBook. Including the Oz-eBook, of course. Which is why I haven't uploaded as yet.

As chanteuse extraordinaire Kylie Minogue would sing, "give me just a little more time".

I'm a VERY naughty boy!

OK, OK, so it's nearly a month since I posted...

But a lot has happened. Including downloading (but not yet uploading) my new photos and the mock-up of the book cover. And again, writing (but again, not uploading) the Oz-eBook.

I'd say it's time to upload, and get cracking on the next eBook. Which is one that I'm excited about: the effect of layout on sales on a computer screen. That's right, how to increase sales by using effective layout for your website. I'll have a chapter on why most web designers should be shot. Maybe I'll even give away bullets -- one per book -- as a promotional offer with the new eBook. (But you have to get your own gun.)

Just kidding. But really, most web designers should be shot. Find out soon why. :-)

I'm a naughty boy...

Yes, everyone, I've been very naughty. Actually, not so much naughty as sick in bed. :-(

So I haven't blogged in almost a month, and no, I haven't uploaded the Oz-eBook. Nor have I uploaded my photographs (although I have seen them, and they're great). Nice work Glamour Pets.

So apologies to all you Australians keen to see the eBook in all its strine glory, and remember: Aussie, Aussie, Aussie, oi, oi, oi!

Oz-eBook is on its way!

Yup, I know I've said it before -- but the Oz-eBook is on its way. Just a slight glitch in uploading, but then you can have Juicy Red Berries in Oztrayan. Which will be really convenient for all my Australian customers (and with the Australian dollar moving to new heights, convenient for my bank account :-)

Oz-e, Oz-e, Oz-e, oi, oi, oi!

Oz-eBook is written

Well it's done. The Oz-eBook is now in existence, although I'm still yet to upload it. I figure it's the least I can do for my countrymen (should that be countrypeople?) as they're buying my book so enthusiastically. :-)

And speaking of my countrywhatever, there's a new movie out called Razzle Dazzle. If you get the chance, go see it. It gets a 5-star rating from me. Kerry Armstrong does a star turn as the stage mother from hell. I haven't laughed so much since Muriel's Wedding.

Since I started blogging, my life's been as good as an ABBA song. As good as Dancing Queen.

Books, more books...

It's getting crazy here, although it's a good kind of crazy.

I had in mind that I wanted to write a book. Just one book.

Ha!

Book #2 is being written this weekend. Along with books 3 and 4. what started with one book (Juicy Red Berries, about layout) has a follow up (Juicy Red Berries for Computer Layout). And now everyone in Australia is requested Australian/British language versions (with Australian payment option in Australian dollars).

And then another couple of book ideas have landed in my head (isn't inspiration great?!). Adding Australian versions, it's now books 5, 6, 7 and 8.

Expect to see me blogging a bit less often. :-)

Confessions of a font junkie

One of my pet obsessions is fonts. Having worked on layout so much, I get a little bit over the top noticing fonts, and I have likes and dislikes. Note: never use Monotype Corsiva in my presence.

And my current favourite is Interstate, in all its highway glory. Yes, I know it was the hot font of 2005, but I still think it's a classic: beautiful, easy to read (hey, if you can read it zooming down the highway at 100mph, it's legible). I just love the way the centre bar in the capital E is slightly retracted, the way the tail on the lower case h is oblique, the fat round curves on the 9 and 6... Yes, I can see your eyes glazing over from here. But seriously, printouts of this font should be a centrefold. If this font was human, I'd *&^% it.

So naturally I was delighted when I found a download of these fonts at
http://www.triskele.com/roadgeek-fonts/
It's nice to know that someone is even more obsessive than I am about it. :-)

Oz-e, Oz-e, Oz-e...

...oi,oi,oi!

All you Australians would know the chant.

I'm getting a LOT of enthusiasm for the eBook domestically, which is a pleasant surprise. The eBook is being picked up by my fellow Ostrayans at a rate that's outstripping everywhere else!

So I'm doing my countrymen -- and women, of course! -- the honour (yes, Australian spelling!) of doing a version of my eBook in Australian. No, it won't feature Australian slang, although if I can work the phrase "flash as a rat with a gold tooth" in there I'll be thrilled. But it will have Australian / British spelling ("colour" instead of "color") and, most importantly, you can pay in Australian currency.

And of course, I'm calling it the Oz-eBook.

Oz-e, Oz-e, Oz-e... oi, oi, oi!

Seven deadly sins: Pride (hubris)

I'm up to the last of the seven deadly sins -- or seven deadly *virtues*, as I've renamed some of them. I'm finished with sin after this. Mind you, this IS the Big Daddy of them all -- pride.

How can pride affect your layout? Easily. Think about your product or services for a minute. You're proud of it -- justifiably so, I hope -- and you want to communicate that pride to your prospects. So you talk about your features. Your company has been operational for 15 years. Yours has the largest market share in a particular area. There are lots of photos of you and your staff with beaming smiles all over your faces, etc...

Let me be blunt here: as the old saying goes, "me, me, me is dull, dull, dull". And it is dull. Your prospects don't care about you or your company; they only care about what you can offer them. I can't say this enough.

There's a utility company in my city that insists on sending me bulletins with every bill. Glossy (and expensive!) page after glossy page of smiling employees working on Very Important Projects and pretty graphs and pie charts. Truth be told, I don't care. If one morning, I wake up and my hot water system is not working, I will care. I will care a lot. I will care a lot more than the utility company would like. But until then, these bulletins are totally irrelevant to me, and go straight to my recycling bin.

Two magic words are useful here: "which means". For example, "we are the largest retailer of [whatever] in [area], which means we have a lot of outlets there, making it more convenient for you." It's really all about the customer. The difference is between talking about features, and talking about benefits. You always want to promote benefits to the customer.

So swallow your pride when you do your layout, scrap the irrelevant material -- which means that you'll have more interested prospects, and more money in your pocket.

See, it's not that hard. :-D

Seven deadly sins: Envy (invidia)

How can you use envy to serve your copy?

Don't envy other people's images and decide you need a few of your own.

Don't envy other people's graphics and decide you need a few of your own.

Don't envy other people's multiple fonts and decide you need a few of your own.

Don't envy other people's fancy features and decide you need a few of your own.

Envy other people's sales and get more of your own. Go buy my book, learn how to use layout to increase sales, and go gettem!

Envy. Another one of the seven deadly virtues. ];-)

PS I saw a lovely t-shirt recently: a picture of Satan and the caption, "God is busy. Can I help you?"

Seven deadly sins: Anger (ira)

I'm up to the fifth of the seven deadly sins. The previous four haven't been so bad; in fact, I've even turned them into virtues.

Not this one. No sirree. How would I type when I was angry?

LIKE THIS. I WOULD LEAVE MY *&^%ING CAPS LOCK KEY ON AND TYPE IN UPPERCASE. WHEN I TYPE LIKE THIS, I FEEL LIKE I'M SHOUTING. IT'S HARD TO READ TEXT THAT'S WRITTEN LIKE THIS, AND IT MAKES THE AUTHOR LOOK LIKE A MORON. ESPECIALLY WHEN YOU GO TO BOLD FONT, MAKE THE TEXT A BRIGHT RED, AND ADD A SERIES OF COMPLETELY UNNECESSARY EXCLAMATION MARKS!!!!!!!!!!!!

Which is why I've reverted to lower case, non-bold, sane writing. Honestly, would you buy from someone who really wrote like that? Me neither. So why do so many people do it -- especially the exclamation marks?!

The the very worst example I've seen is someone who wrote out his top ten or eleven values on his business card in upper case. Partly it was the care factor: if you value spending time with your family, that's nice, but irrelevant to me. Just give me your card, if you have something I want, I'll be in touch, thank you. Secondly, it just about gave me eye strain to look at. And of course, you want people to read what you're writing.

All this bad upper case / bold font / exclamation mark writing is making me angry. And that anger, of course, is a virtue. ];-)

Seven deadly sins: Sloth (acedia)

How appropriate. I almost couldn't be bothered to write this blog. ];-)

As it turns out, sloth is very appropriate right now.

Last night I was reviewing a friend's copy for submission to a local paper (it was actually Rod at Tap4Health -- if you haven't checked out his site yet, go to http://www.tap4health.com/ -- I've got glowing reviews of his EFT practice and I'm planning on some more in the next few weeks).

But I digress. I've decided that sloth can be a virtue, if you can get it to work for you, so to speak. I can get sloth to work for me, and I think that's a major achievement. :-)

Most people are lazy. This is not automatically a bad thing if you know this beforehand. And when people are gazing through newspapers (or other print media), they don't want their eyes to do a lot of work.

Simple, really.

So it makes sense to make your copy laziness-friendly. Most of the advertisements I saw in the paper were anything but. They were busy -- lots of colour, hard to read writing, wayyyyyy too much happening. So I trimmed Rod's copy down -- I got rid of the rainbow background, changed a few fonts, and put my secret weapon in place. The graphic designer had worked very hard -- too hard -- and while he was hardworking, most prospects are not.

And if you want to know my secret weapon, buy the book. Because I'm too lazy to tell you any more! ];-)

Seven deadly sins: Greed (avaritia)

Ever been tempted?

I'm talking about layout, of course. Tempted to put too much on; tempted to add picture after picture, paragraph after paragraph, font after font, and wayyyy too many colors. Ever seen layout that's busier than Grand Central Station?

That's succumbing to greed. Being greedy for extras, instead of being greedy for readers. And the more people read, the more sales you make.

So let me make a counter-temptation: be greedy for readers. Less is more. Cut back the number of colors in your copy to, say, four or less and see how you go. Classic colors (black, white, red) might be the way to go.

Less is more, which is why today's blog is short.

Seven deadly sins of layout: Gluttony (gula)

Now, how does gluttony relate to layout?

Quite simply. Think of some food you would want to eat, does it look different to food you avoid? Obviously, yes. Several years ago, I worked with someone whose daughter was a food stylist (yes, there is such a thing), preparing food to be photographed. Here's a tip: you never want to eat food that can be photographed, it's invariably inedible. To get crisp looking vegetables steaming, they're usually prepared raw, with a microwaved tampon (!) inside under the vegies to provide the steam. That's one of the tricks to photographing food.

And there are similar tricks to preparing appetizing layout. I've used the word "appetizing" very deliberately here. Those secret techniqes that the food stylists use are nothing on the secret techniques I've written in the eBook to maximise sales. Just click on the link and download!

Seven deadly sins of layout: Luxuria (lust!)

I thought I'd blog about the seven deadly sins of layout, having seen some sinfully bad layout. So I turned to the seven deadly sins for inspiration. And the first one that comes up is... lust. Or luxuria in the original Latin. I quite like the idea of luxury, myself. I just never thought of lust as a luxury.

So I thought of how lust could be a sin in layout, and I had the strange thought: maybe lust could be a virtue instead. Don't get me wrong here: I don't think you need a row of scantily-clad cheerleaders to sell dog food. Although replacing the Australian iconic "dog on a tuckerbox" with a "Playboy bunny on a tuckerbox" might bring the tourists back.

But I digress. When you think of lust, what color do you think of? Me, I think of red. Well, it's hardly going to be fawn, is it? ;-) Even phrases such as "scarlet woman" are suggestive of red's pulling power in terms of lust. And let's face it, sex sells. (Although I'm still not sold on the idea of bikini models on packs of kitty litter, not even if they're sex kittens.) If you're still not convinced of red as a sexy color: ever seen a woman wear green lipstick?!

Adding warm reds, pinks and browns to your copy can have some merit -- for example, panels of a pale warm pink (less than 10% ssaturation) can be inviting. I've dedicated several chapters in my book to the strategic use of color -- use it wisely and well in your material, and sales can double.

Luxuria..l maybe it's not such a bad thing... ];-)

IT'S ARRIVED!

Yes, the book Juicy Red Berries is now for sale! This is the book that tells you how to get effective layout -- so that you get increased sales!

Reading my book you'll find the secret keys to effective layout, and avoid the seven deadly sins of bad layout. You'll have layout for your brochures and letters that increases your sales -- in some cases, dramatically!

Do you know what color increases your sales? And what color positively kills your sales?! If you're interested, click on the button at the top right hand of this page to buy my book. Priced at a bargain basement price of just $7.77 (US dollars), it'll more than pay for itself with increased sales.

I'm excited to be able to offer my eBook for sale -- I hope you enjoy it too! Now, on to the sequel... improving layout for electronic media!

A slight hitch... but great photos!

I'm four days overdue with the e-book. Unforseen circumstances, just getting the website up. But I had a great bit of synchronicity -- after the travail of not getting the site up I met someone at a party (a friend of a friend of a friend, literally!) who pointed me in exactly the right direction that very night!

So the Universe is looking after me.

And I had some photos taken by friends who are professional photographers ( http://www.petphoto.net.au/ -- don't laugh, I'm not a Penthouse pet but they do a great job!). Anyway, the photos have apparently turned out really well and I'll have some up on the site and as the front cover once they're photoshopped. :-)

So it's still happening, just a slight delay.

Three quarters there...

It's getting closer. The book is finished, set into encrypted pdf format, raring to go. Now it's just a case of joining the dots to get it up on the net safely, so that people can download it easily, I get paid and it's secure.

Almost there. :-)

It's getting closer...

Only three more days and my book is up on the net for sale. Actually, it might be only one more day.

I saw the first color-printed copy last night, which is exciting.

Just one more edit, I promise, just one more edit...

T minus 6 days

It's getting close...

I printed the book out last night, just to do a last minute bit of proofreading. Or "poofreading", as I once saw in a newspaper advertisement. Guess they really needed some proofreading there! ;-)

The photo shoot's been delayed till next week. So if I'm to make the target of release next Monday 18th Feb, I'll just have to go without the photo for a few days. I won't wait until all my ducks are in a row.

Calling all Americans out there: I need a volunteer to read my e-book (and get a free copy in the process, before the rest of the world!). Being an Australian, I write like an Australian -- which is not a problem, as long as the rest of the world can at least understand me. Or maybe I should make that "Ostrayan".

I've got the website to set up, Paypal to get in order, a photo shoot... the next few days will be low-level flying (I work full time with a two hour commute, so I'm a past master at time management!). I'll be thrilled when the book is up on the net for sale!

It is written

Yes, the book is finally written, including the checklist. The checklist is a real value-adding feature that I thought of while writing the book -- you can check the copy that you have against the checklist, making sure you're not committing any major bloopers.

I'm starting to get a bit absent-minded and forgetting things (like a leather jacket in a café -- I got it back!), probably because I'm focusing so much on this book. I'm looking forward to having it up on the net for sale.

It is written, but it's a loooooooooong way from finished...

T minus 10 days...

...and counting.

Part of me is saying how insane it is to try and finish my book in a weekend. Another part of me is saying that it's high time I got up of my derrière and just did it. Today, that part's winning. :-)

Tomorrow's the big day -- I'll be completing the writing part of the book. Then, of course, I have to do the layout (there's no point in writing a book on layout with bad layout!!!) and setting up the Paypal account. And then -- I'm an author!

I'm starting to get a bit excited...

T minus 11 days

Howdy outstanding people,

Steve Jasper here in beautiful downtown West Melbourne, getting excited (if a little apprehensive!) with the launch of my first book, Juicy Red Berries.

What started me writing a book to begin with? Well, at one point in my life I supported myself by writing copy -- letters, web pages, emails, brochures, advertorials -- you name it, I wrote it. And it was a lot of fun -- I got to see clients (who were also good friends of mine) get their businesses to the next level. They had fantastic products -- products and services that really added value to their clients' lives. It was great to be part of that process, and I was proud to be part of it.

But I also saw something that absolutely broke my heart. I saw a lot of very bad layout -- layout that actively worked against the product sales. Things like black and white photographs on pale yellow paper -- turning everything into a sickly hospital green. No, I don't want to buy anything that's a sickly hospital green either, thank you very much.

So I've written a book for business owners producing their own brochures (or outsourcing them) with a checklist that would be useful to maximise sales. And I'm releasing it on Monday, 19 February (Australian Eastern Daylight Time), which means I have a lot of things to organise in the next few days.

Wish me well. :-)