I’m a nerd, and one of my favorite things to do when I’m faced with a big project or a big goal is to map out a plan and work that plan until I accomplish it. I know, that’s some serious nerd alert there. So when it was finally time to re-record my entire online course, The InDesign Field Guide, I knew I needed a good plan.
In this post, we’ll cover what lead magnets are and lotsssss of examples, how to choose the right content for a lead magnet, how to design a lead magnet, and how to deliver your lead magnet to your audience so you can grow an email list that’s ripe with ready-to-buy customers and ready-to-book clients.
A few weeks ago I shared Part 1 of my experience self-publishing with Amazon’s Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP — formerly known as Createspace), and I’m back with Part 2 to cover my experience with the platform after the book went live, such as sales reports + tracking data, Amazon rankings, royalties + payouts, and some surprises and hiccups that popped up along the way.
Ok, that title was maybe a litttttttle click baity, but I couldn’t help it. Because it’s true — I’ve been needing to write this blog post, to kick off the new year with a solid blogging game, and yet there’s only one thing I seem to be doing instead: procrastinating. I’m like really, really good at it.
My word in 2018 has been hone. I wanted to hone my business as well as my lifestyle. Refine it, simplify it, get super clear and intentional on what I wanted both to look like. This past year was less about growing my business, and more about stripping out what wasn’t working so I could focus on and improve what was working.
So good news, I self-published a book! I still can’t believe it’s out in the world, making it’s way into mailboxes and hanging out on nightstands and stashed in purses for carline reading. Launch week went amazing, and I’m still amazed that this little book is having such a big impact on readers, and connecting with their stories right where they’re at.
Today, I’m gonna cover all things book design! We’re talking the cover design and the interior layout. All the things. As a designer (and a former book designer), this is the part I’ve been most excited about in this process. So let’s dive into a lil’ behind the scenes of my complete book design process, plus some release date info, a quick Q+A on some common things you guys have been asking me, and what’s coming up next in the self-publishing process.
Today I’m talking all about infusing quality into your business, particularly in three specific areas: your craft, your content, and your conversations. Quality should be infused into everything you do as a business owner – this is just good business to provide quality to your customers — but these three areas are practical places we can start to put it into practice. Is that enough P’s for you? This post is a doozy, so let’s get started.
Long time, no book update! I’ve been hard at work behind the scenes on the next few phases of the book writing process. So let’s chat about how I finished my writing process with a writing retreat as my motivation AND reward, how I hired my editor, and what the next few steps look like in the coming months.
One of the most powerful parts of using Adobe InDesign is the master pages tool. It’s one of many ways in InDesign to speed up your workflow and keep your design uber consistent. Many of my InDesign students are blown away when they learn how to use this feature, and see how such a simple tool can revolutionize their design process. Check out this beginner's guide to master pages with InDesign tutorial.
I think every business owner's story is an underdog story. Most of us worked for someone else, spent our days dreaming of working for ourselves, and usually through a significant change in their life – either forced or voluntary – they finally take real steps towards that dream being a reality. It’s rarely a smooth road, it’s usually a bumpy, curvy, pothole-laden road that can take a long time to get down. Lots of people have asked me about my own journey, so I thought I’d share it in a fun, timeline-style post – showing you that the big transition from day job to self-employed is not a quick or easy one. It takes time, work, and a whole lot of patience.
People in the online space are sometimes surprised to hear that I’ve only ever been to one creative conference. There’s a million great ones out there, and lots that I would love to attend, but I’ve actually only attended one single conference, and it was a pivotal one – the Society for Creative Founders. SCF taught me the basics of running a thriving creative business and connected me with countless other creative women who were in the same boat as me – learning the ropes of this whole business thing, and looking for some friends to figure it out with.
Over the last several years, I’ve had lots of random questions and survey responses that brought up great topics, but maybe not enough to write a whole blog post about. So I decided to throw them together into a 20-questions style post – except it’s 15 questions. Close enough, for this tired mama. So below you’ll find some answers to random questions about the interworking of my business, systems, apps, and resources I use, and a grab bag of topics like travel, motherhood, taxes, organization, and even TV shows.
This year had tons of traveling, tons of momming, and tons of work on keeping this business chugging along. I started new projects that I’ve been putting off, and I cut old strategies that weren’t working anymore. This year was a season of pivoting and simplifying and getting real clear on what I do and don’t want to do in my business.
My last (and first) book update felt like a lifetime ago, but alas, it was just shy of 3 months ago. I had “Book Update #2” on my calendar for this week’s blog post, and thought, well there’s nothing new to say except: I’m still writing it. But then I jotted down some notes and it turned into paragraphs and it appears I have more updates than I realized, so here we are. Funny, that writing thing. It works.
I’ll be frank — in Abode InDesign, if you’re not using these 5 tools below, you’re doing it wrong. These are essential to making InDesign really shine, and allowing you to work faster + smarter than any other design program out there. (Looking at you Canva and Photoshop.) Let’s cut the small talk, and get right to the juicy tools that you NEED to be utilizing if you want to really get your money’s worth with InDesign.
So I’m gonna write a book. There, I said it on the Internet, so it must be true. This post is really different than my usual content, and this entire book writing process seems like it will be really different than my usual projects. And, spoiler: I’m not very far into the process! But I want to blog about the process (because writing a whole BOOK just wasn’t enough writing for me??), for two reasons.
In the last couple years, Etsy has added an advertising component to their platform, allowing shop owners to purchase paid advertising space to show up higher on search results pages. They’re called promoted listings or sometimes, Etsy ads. This can be a controversial topic sometimes – do they work or are they a waste of money? In this post, I'll share my findings after 9 months of experimenting and what strategies I'm using going forward.
