*Note: If you're visiting my blog because of the Press Release and needed to download the above "elegant" photo. Click Here for regular size, and Here for Hi-Res version. -------------------------------
Thank you to everyone who sent me their About.me pages.
Some have beautiful photos—some have eloquent writing—and some have both. All are beautiful in their own way.
What I keep coming back to with About.me is the elegant simplicity for introducing who you are, and at the same time being able to meet and network with people in a more human way than FaceBook, Twitter or LinkedIn. (See my first Post.) Those have their places, but About.me is a little pocket of perfect tranquility.
Go Here for About.me's Directory If you'd like to browse more pages.
Below is an independent photo promotion I did for About.me. I took a screen-capture of my About.me page and then had it printed on photo paper and mounted on a Standout to sit on my desk or hang on a wall. I thought it was an interesting way to showcase my page and a conversation starter. It also opens the door to so many other cool photo's I could take with my physical real-world About.me page.
(It's an animated GIF so if you're not seeing any words just click the image to load in a Browser.)
If you feel FaceBook, LinkedIn and Twitter are a bit of a mess, then I think you'll be happy to discover the much calmer, more powerful tool that About.me has become. It's a beautifully designed platform to showcase you and/or what your business does, on one page.
It's a remarkable environment where I feel I'm actually meeting the people I see; as apposed to the more distant connection from the other social networks.
There are several ways meet people on About.me. For instance, adding Tags to your page (like Web Marketer, Entrepreneur, Author, etc) when people search for those keywords I show up in the search results and if they click on my page and like what they see, they can Greet me by clicking the little "thumbs-up" button that drops-down a box that looks like this..
Then they can choose to click any number of Greetings that say things like "Love Your Page, Great Photo, I'm a Fan" and such.
If someone clicked one of these buttons on my page I would receive an email saying a person sent me a compliment and I can see who they are and their About.me page. If we're a good fit to work together on something we can email back and forth and that's how it starts.
You can also see everyone who has viewed your page on your Dashboard and keep track of who has complimented you as well as see how many people have seen your page. (As of today 6,770 people have seen my page.) I've had my page up a few months now.
When I first got it up I was receiving about 20 new visitors a day, and then About.me Featured my Profile on their site for a week and it jumped to more than 800 new people a day.
This was truly fantastic exposure; people clicking through to my business site, buying books, signing up for my blog, sending me compliments. It's incredibly tough to get effective exposure that makes an impact and if you put together a well-designed page, I believe you have a great shot at being Featured as well.
In the Web's shift to a more visual environment the About.me platform is an excellent way to embrace it. Everywhere you turn the booming success of.. Pintrest, Instagram, FaceBook photos becoming more prominent, the redesign of ebay, HBO's app and on and on.
A great photo of you or you business is becoming even more paramount.
If you have a photo where you feel you're looking at the person ..and not a photograph of the person, that's when you know you have a photo that can make the all important more personal connection.
It's certainly no easy task to get a great photo of you, I need to do an entire article for how to get a great photo.
Just as an example, the photo of me on my About.me page I captured by setting my camera on the bannister for my staircase and sat on a stool. The image behind me is a wall-hang from IKEA. It's really about taking lots of photos with different lighting and angles and you'll eventually end up with one you like.
If you have a friend that's good at photography that's certainly a great idea as well. Even if you need to hire a freelance or professional photographer it will certainly be worth it. An excellent image truly can not be overstated.
In some cases it doesn't even have to be you. Here's an example of Guy Galaxo who's been making music since the early 90's and used this image. Such a brilliant, minimalist page.
Here's my awesome entrepreneur Moms' page she's just getting up. I really love the large photo of her and tag-line at the top of what she helps people do..
"Triple Your Business - Sell Your Business - Go to the Beach."
Setting up your About.me page is almost a piece of artwork. It's about molding together a photo and a few paragraphs to showcase who you are, what you stand for, and what your personality is. Don't be afraid to put something up, it won't be perfect at first but over the course of a month or two you can mold it into something beautiful.
p.s. About.me is at its best on a desktop, laptop or an iPad. It works just fine on Mobile but it doesn't have the same impact. So if you're browsing on your phone and you're not that impressed, try it on a larger screen.
Bonus: If you build your page and want me to Feature it on this blog, just send me your link by Friday April 26th. You can start out with a bang and have a couple thousand people see your page.
I'm launching a new business this month called GoPublish.me It's a new kind of publishing model that will publish shorter works(20-40pages), by people who would like the credibility, prestige and revenue-stream from becoming an Author—but don't have the time to finish writing an entire book. It is designed to earn a Net Income of $192,000 this year and I'm looking for a CoFounder to join me.
It's a new kind of Publishing model because we'll be publishing shorter works by Authors in Kindle® format, however designing it with all the features of a full length book.
This means bringing their book to life by designing a gorgeous book cover; having their manuscript professionally Edited into a quality piece-of-work by an English PhD; have their book converted and uploaded to the Amazon Kindle® Single marketplace and ready for sale. This includes a professionally written book description and author Bio, as well as their book will be correctly tagged and properly categorized.
Also included in the GoPublish.me Authorship Package is a stunning full-color print-out of their book-cover on premium, gallery quality photo-paper mounted on a Standout that can either be hung on their wall or set on a desk. (It can stand on it's own because the Mounting is 1.5in thick.)
Here's a Standout sitting on my desk..
and side view..
..and hung from the back of a beach chair for a promotion shot.
This physical representation is incredibly important, because we will be using the digital publishing revolution to welcome them to authorship, they also need something they can pick up and point to in the real world that gives their book presence.
The printing of these 20X24inch Standouts is a much higher quality than that of normally printed book covers. The colors really POP. The images seem life-like. It is truly a compelling piece that shows the world their brand new book, with their name on it.
GoPublish.me is not selling a collection of services. What we are providing is the the prestige of being a respected author that has published a quality work—and in addition to that, the revenue stream that goes with it.
It's using all I've learned over the last 7 years being an Author myself. All the contacts I have, service providers, lessons learned, successes and failures. It's taking all of that and focusing it into a well oiled publishing machine that is enjoyable to run with a CoFounder and that makes good money.
Here's me being interviewed last week and explaining exactly what the Kindle® Authorship Package is.
On to the hard part. Where and how to consistently find aspiring authors to purchase Authorship Packages?
It will be a combination of organic Search Engine Optimization I've learned over the last 17 years; laser targeted Google and FaceBook ads to bring in super qualified leads, a YouTube video series filmed by me about how the publishing business works, why professionally editing their manuscript makes all-the-difference-in-the-world and promotional strategies for them to sell more books; National PRWeb Press Release as well as releasing a Kindle Single myself about the benefits of authorship, why it's valuable and how to be successful publishing your own book, I will give away my Kindle® Single for free with a short reference at the end of how GoPublish.me can help them achieve it if they like.
So how do the numbers add up?
To get to $192,000 in Net Profit that means we need to earn a total of $240,000 in Total Revenue. The packages are $5,000, and their costs are approximately $1,000 (it's actually a little less to deliver the Authorship Packages, but it's easier to round up to $1,000.) This means there is $4,000 in profit per package sold. GoPublish.me will need to sell an average of 4 packages a month.
So what type of work is involved in delivering 4 Authorship Packages a month?
It's a pretty smooth process that can be done exclusively through email or phone as you walk the client through the publishing process which looks like this..
After the aspiring author has decided they are interested,(after seeing our Website, YouTube Videos or Kindle Single Book) they will either fill out the Form on the GoPublish.me website with their contact info or send email to "go@gopublish.me". At that point you send them the prepared FAQ about what we do, how we can help them and how they can start.
If they have more questions, answer them via email or over the phone.(Don't worry, I'll show you everything and will always be an email or phone call away) In addition, if they're not sure, we can postal mail them a small size sample print-out of a book cover that is printed on the same quality paper as the larger Standout version, just not mounted. This only costs us .40cents to produce, along with a one-page print-out of exactly what the GoPublsh.me Authorship Package is and how it can help them. So counting the .39cent stamp to mail it to them, it costs less than a dollar to give them a powerful, physical representation of what we can do.
Once they're excited and ready, then they make half the payment up-front ($2,500 via PayPal to GoPublish.me LLC) once the professional copy-editing is done this becomes no longer refundable. When the professional Copy Editor finishes the proofing, which normally takes two-to-three days, you forward that to the client for a final proof from the Author.
During the 2-3 days it's in copy-editing, ask the Author to describe their book and any ideas they have for a book-cover as well as Titles for the book. Once a Title has been decided upon and a book Description as well as short Author Bio they write, all of this info is posted to the team of graphic designers GoPublish.me uses to give the new Author numerous choices of beautiful designs, layouts and themes to choose from for their book-cover. They can see all the designs online and give the designers feedback during the process so they get exactly what they want. In addition, all the book-cover designs are 100% unique (no templates) and the Author gains the Copyright to the book cover image as well.
They will receive numerous designs to choose from. As an example, here are a few covers this Author had to choose from..
Once the Author has selected the cover they want, it's time to download the high-resolution file from the designer. I can show you how to check it to make sure all the layers are 300dpi and set to CMYK color as well as creating the PDF 1xa print-ready file to upload to the printers that will print the book-cover Standout and mail directly to the Author.
At this time we can also crop the full book-cover to be just the front-cover and can upload to the Kindle Marketplace along with their copy-edited manuscript that's been converted to Kindle Format as well as their book Description. From that point their book is ready for sale and will look like any other book for sale on Amazon!
The Author keeps all the copyrights to their book, they will earn 70% Royalties from Amazon paid directly to them. The beauty about publishing this way is once the book is uploaded, all Customer Support can now be handled by Amazon. All book tracking, sales info, Author Bio updates, Description, Royalty payments. Everything the Author needs they can either login and do it themselves or contact Amazon Support. You will be free from what can be endless, mind-numbing emails and phone calls. Especially if we're doing 20+ Author Packages per year, each.
I know this can sound complicated, and it can be, but once you've been through it a few times you'll have the hang-of-it. I will also be there if you need me to help with anything.
The goal of the GoPublish.me business is to create an excellent, easy to run, very profitable publishing business that not only makes the owners happy, but honestly delivers a remarkable product to the Authors who use us. The hope is to have plenty of aspiring authors wanting us to publish them and we can choose the books and projects that inspire us the most.
Judging from the successes I've had building Web businesses over the last two decades, this one should be a fun, vigorous, enjoyable ride to consistent profitability and the creation of a powerful business asset that has a Net Worth of over $250,000 in it's first year—and who knows beyond.
I normally wait until after I've built my business here in the U.S. and made it successful to expand into the United Kingdom, but with this one I'm doing it at the same time. I'm building an exact copy of GoPublish.me at GoPublishMe.co.uk that will target the lucrative U.K. market. The United Kingdom version can be run from anywhere in the world so it doesn't matter where you live.
I was going to sell xx% of the GoPublishMe.co.uk to a CoFounder for $xx,xxx (SOLD), so you'll have complete control of how you want to run the business.. but also have all of my support to make it successful. I'll be building the website for you and launching the marketing campaign for it. Many years of testing have shown me that the United Kingdom version of a Web business will do about 50% of what the U.S. Web business does, so in this case I expect the U.K. version to earn approximately $96,000 in Net Profit its' first year.
If I don't sell it now for $xx,xxx (SOLD) I'll re-offer it again in 6 months when I have built the revenue stream, but it will be in the $40,000-$60,000 range. There are risks for you getting in early, but also rewards.
Odds and Ends: I'll be filing the GoPublish.me® Federal Trademark. The publishing industry is moving to shorter books, we can either fight the flow.. or join it. I've already started putting together the GoPublish.me Website, just follow the link to see what I've done so far. It will be ready to earn money in 30 days, the same goes for the U.K. Website, all I need to do is copy the files to the U.K. Website.
Should you chose to join me in this business the hours are quite flexible. You're welcome to work from where-ever you wish. It can be run in as little as 10 hours a week, up to 40 or more if you want. It depends on how many Authorship Packages you want to do.
Publishing shorter works is an excellent way to vastly improve the number of potential clients. My hometown family Doctor is a perfect example, he's been working on a book for years but hasn't been able to finish (books are easy to start, but very tough to finish) ..but if I told him to narrow it to one central idea, he would be ready to start the process today with GoPublish.me and bring his shorter work into a Kindle Single book.
If you've interested please email or call and I'll forward additional info, I'm also happy to answer any questions: nelson@webfluent.me (phone) 407-963-7331. I'm open to creative ideas for offers, however if you don't have any money to put towards ownership please let me know that up front.
p.s. If you refer this to someone who ends up joining me as CoFounder I'll ask them how they found me and if it's because of you, you'll receive a check from me for $1,000 or 5% of what the deal is for.
After attending Tech seminars and Web Business Meetup Groups for years, it's hard not to notice after meeting so many entrepreneurs—that most have become so focused on completing day-to-day tasks (myself included at times) that our collective heads get buried-in-the-sand. We sometimes don't know how to come up with different, better, smarter ways to run our businesses to be happier and more productive.
That's what this Challenge is. It's a tip for how to go about coming up with better, smarter ideas for your business. It's not about pushing technology away—I love technology—only understanding when it's taken too much of your consciousness and you can't see new, innovative ways to do things.
If you're bouncing along just fine in your business, now is not the time to Catch Some Earth, keep going. But at some point, you'll end up stuck—doing stuff you don't want, not making enough money, not working on things that inspire you—you're stuck in a dip. ..this tip is for you.
It's your reminder to turn off the computer, go to a place outside you normally don't go to, preferably someplace that doesn't have concrete between you and the Earth—someplace you can be surrounded by nature for at least an hour, more if you can.
Your goal; after 15 mintues of just sitting there observing, is to ask yourself.. "What do I MOST want to do with my business?" ..buckle up, you've got 45 more minutes. Let your mind go where it wants to go, just keep coming back to that question. You might find a profound—life changing revelation. An unexpected epiphany just from Catching Some Earth.
Something that could purposefully change the direction of your business and your life, in a dramatic and positive way.
So I humbly offer you the choice to accept the Catch Some Earth Challenge. I've set it to both my computer's background and my phones'. It doesn't need to be there forever, just until you complete the Challenge. I know it's cold in many parts, but at least one day over the coming month you'll be able to get outside.
Here's to a bright and brilliant New Year ahead for you!
Note:The photo above I snapped a few weeks ago while sitting on the ground eating lunch. The restaraunt I bought it from is in a strip mall and this photo was taken in the abandon field behind it. It's suprising where you can find good places to go—even when you're in a crowded city—just by deciding it doesn't have to be a park you go to, as a matter of fact, preferably not. (tip. Pack a scarf, to either block the wind or to sit on, a linen scarf lays flat and packs easily.)
—iPhone and iPad directions. Click the iPhone or iPad image link above and hold your thumb on the image for a second, select "save image" then go to your Settings and change your Background to this image. This might work the same for Android too, but I'm not sure.
I randomly thought up this phrase a few months back and it stuck with me. It's my reminder to spend more time outdoors to refresh the mind.
So here's a friendly suggestion to turn off the computer/smart-phone/tv and head outside. Put your feet on the ground and smell some fresh air..let nature organically recharge you.
Sometimes the best business ideas come from disconnecting.
I know it's not easy, I usually feel the business world will zip right by and I'll fall behind. The irony is—everything slows down. It's kind of nice.
So by all means.. go Catch Some Earth.. it's good for your mind, body ..and business.
Photo: My home is near a forest here in Orlando and it was so warm early this morning the pine trees were literally flowing sap down their trunks—filling the air with impossibly sweet-scented pine. Magical.
So what does swimming in a pool with a 'Web Fluent' t-shirt on have to do with Web Business?
I'm not sure—it's just about having some Summer fun and hopefully inspiring you. About once a year I mix together ideas in hopes of creating something enchanting. I hope you enjoy it.
This entire campaign illustrates one of my core Web business principals—which is to learn most Web business skills yourself.
This allows you to not only be in the drivers seat by understanding how to best use the technology for your situation, but save lots of money you'll likely need to make it through the start-up phase and into consistent profitability.
With the current, astronomical cost of Education, picking up these types of skills yourself is becoming almost essential to success. Everything I've learned how to do, to launch this campaign was learned for free from books from the library or just reading on the Web.
The video was filmed and post-edited by me, as well as the web-page built to promote it.
The film was shot with a Canon Rebel T3i—which is just a consumer level camera. The video editing software I used was Windows Live Movie Maker you can download for free.
The point is, whatever time you spend learning a new skill, it will be well worth it and will far outweigh the initial time loss. Hiring work out is OK for some things, but if at all possible—learn it yourself.
Wishing you a happy, successful summer.
p.s. I'll report back in a month how the Campaign did.
It's been two-and-a-half months since I added two large photographs to the beginning of my Website. The thought was—putting a few real-life, vivid and clear photos up would help better connect with readers and hopefully turn them into buyers.
I held everything else constant to make sure it was the only variable being measured; (Also, Google Analytics showed steady traffic so there wasn't an external increase in traffic that accounted for the 23% increase in sales.)
In the 17 years I've been building Web businesses, I don't ever recall a single technique being changed that produced this type of legitimate increase.
It's also interesting to note that both photographs were relatively easy to take. The first was taken by hanging a print-out of my book cover from the back of my beach chair—and the second was taken by sitting my camera on top of the banister end-cap to my stairs in the living room while I stood in front of a forest wall-hang from IKEA.
It's difficult to find things you have control over to authentically increase sales, so I wanted to share the results—and encourage you to try it, if it makes sense with your business.
p.s. I was made an offer for BestWebsite.com and have sold it, it's currently being developed into something else. However, I've moved all the files to my new home at http://WebFluent.Me
I've never had a "dot-me" so we'll see how things go!
Also, if you ever move your website, remember to do a 301-redirect so you don't lose any of your search engine optimization.
I've earned more than a quarter-million-dollars in profit from this one tip.
This new 6-minute video explains the technique and is free. The entire Course that includes another video and written details is only $5 through Udemy.
I'm also experimenting with black-and-white video—please let me know what you think.
Click Here to see it on Udemy. Or here, to see it on YouTube.
A few weeks ago I was contacted by Udemy—an online learning academy—about becoming an Instructor for them. They describe themselves like this..
"Udemy enables anyone to take and build courses online. Our goal is to disrupt and democratize education by enabling anyone to learn from the world's experts."
So after spending a few weeks on their Site, it's obvious they have reached the point of synergy and are primed for rapid growth.
This is a place where you can not only take classes to learn—almost anything—but also a place to offer classes of your own and be paid well for it. Everyone knows something worthy of teaching.
They've been around 2 years now and have more than 50,000 subscribers. They have also just closed $3Mill in second-round funding from the same venture capital firm—LightBank—that has funded some big companies like Groupon.
Udemy tracks who's taking your course, how far they get through it, posts reviews from students, helps you promote it, and you keep 70% of the revenue if you choose to charge. But most importantly, you own all your content.
Definitely a Web business worthy of your time to check out.
1.) The fabulous redesign of WebFluent.Me with compelling photographs and exhilarating music.
2.) The freshly minted, hot-off-the-presses 2012 Expanded Edition of the 'Web Fluent' book in Paperback, Kindle and Nook.
I've been having a lot of fun redesigning my site with 3 very large photographs (Approximately 1,250 pixels; almost as large as any computer screen) that makes up the only design element of the page.
It's a very different way to go about Web Design—moving away from a traditional "flat" website and embracing a real-life 3-Dimensional photograph that is more striking.
Here is one of the photos shown here about 1/4 size..
In addition to the photos, I wanted to add another element to the experience—music—and not just any music. Something really special—that fills one full of entrepreneurial energy and renewed passion.
I serendipitously stumbled upon just such a song two weeks ago and luckily it's by a new band, aptly named, FUN, that embraces sharing. I've been able to add their latest song, "We Are Young" to my Home Page using a great new website called SoundCloud by copying and pasting their code snip-it on my site.
By the time the chorus kicks-in, I'm charged with energy. I'm hoping the refreshed design will inspire you with new ideas!
Here's another image.. (There is a third on my site.)
If you're on a iPhone or iPad it unfortunately doesn't play the song. The photo above is a print-out of the cover, 3-times actual size and mounted on foam. I then hung it to the back of my beach-chair and this is exactly how the photo came out. No retouching needed except adding the words on the right.
This redesign is also to celebrate the Expanded and Updated 2012 Edition of the 'Web Fluent - The Faster, Easier Way to Build Your Web Business' book. Now available for the next 3-days for only $5 for Kindle or Nook and $10 for the Paperback.
The Expanded Edition includes, —among other things, "The Essential 9 things you should do to make your Web business a success." as well as the results from my Provocateur Project campaign and the Paperback includes a tear-out of one of my Entrepreneur Motto Stickers to hang somewhere you'll notice.
If you're struggling right now and don't have the money for the book, please send me an email, I'll forward you the PDF free.
Also, I'd love to hear any thoughts; good or bad on the redesign. Did it inspire you? Disappoint you? or any suggestions for doing something REALLY outlandish with Web Design. Comments will be left open. You are also welcome to hit reply to this email to send me a note.
—If you're ready for the ride, here's the link!.. WebFluent.Me
