E-books are a creative, affordable way to establish yourself as a leader in your field and generate leads for your business.

4 Reasons You Should Invest in E-Books

1. E-books share your expertise with others.

You may take your professional know-how for granted, but you have expertise and skills that other people will find valuable. For example, if you are an accountant, tax forms and balance sheets are a breeze for you, but an entrepreneur tearing her hair out over tax season would benefit from your “Painless Taxes for Small Business Owners” e-book. Think about the subjects you know a lot about (and are interested in). How could you turn those ideas into e-books that are helpful to others?

2. E-books are short and engaging.

Attention spans aren’t what they used to be, and people are interested in information that is clear, concise and to the point. One of the benefits of e-books is that they tend to be shorter than traditional books, whitepapers or other professional development materials. They also have a specific focus that keeps the reader’s attention and can contain links to web pages and multimedia.

3. E-books are easy to publish and distribute.

The process of publishing a printed document or book can be costly and cumbersome. With e-books, you are just producing an electronic document that can be accessed on a computer or e-reader, so you reduce your costs significantly. And since the Internet becomes your storefront, the distribution and marketing possibilities are wide open.

4. E-books are great promotional giveaways or sources of revenue.

The way you choose to sell or distribute your e-books will depend on your business goals. Are you hoping to build a larger blog following or e-newsletter mailing list? Consider giving away a short e-book for free in exchange for a reader subscribing to your blog or newsletter. Are you looking to add new revenue streams to your business? Think about writing a more comprehensive e-book that readers would be willing to buy.

The Benefits of E-Books in Action

Peace of Mind & Body: 27 Days of Journaling to Health and Happiness is an e-book we wrote for our client Create Write Now, a company that helps people use journaling for personal growth and self-discovery. 27 Days is Create Write Now’s bestselling e-book and the inspiration for several journaling events, including the upcoming 27 Days Self-Discovery Journaling Challenge, from April 2 to 28, 2012. People who purchase the e-book receive free membership to the challenge, which includes an online classroom and private sessions.

More about the e-book from Create Write Now:

The Peace of Mind & Body: 27 Days of Journaling to Health and Happiness guide takes you on a step-by-step journey to identify exactly what it is you want—and how to get there.  In just 27 days, you’ll find yourself on a clear path to achieving the peace of mind, health and happiness you want for your life. Personal growth and development can be hard work, but this workbook makes it easy.

Learn how journaling can help you:

Identify what it is you really want
Work through difficult challenges in your life
Create a path to achieve the things you want for your life today
Be a healthier, happier YOU

*Available in a spiral bound hard copy, Audiobook, and on Kindle, iPad, NOOK and Sony Reader

Customer Testimonials:

“I’m so glad that I’m doing this! I have had some of this in my head for a while but, seeing it on paper gives it a whole new meaning—more real, if you will.” -Pam Lofton

“I must say, I’m really enjoying the journaling. Very inspired to get moving on a couple of projects. I think this is just what I needed!  So thank you!” - Debbie

“I just wanted to let you know how much I enjoy the current journallng exercises.  I haven’t been able to journal for a very long time, and there is something about this particular book that has re-energized me!  I am a mental health professional, and plan on using some of the material/directing clients to your website. Thanks again!”—Caroline

 

Interested in working with us to create e-books for your business? Contact us for a consultation.

1. Retail Products

Yesterday, I was in line at McDade’s grocery in Fondren and noticed a line of sauces and dressings from Georgia Blue, a local Madison, Mississippi restaurant. (Georgia Blue isn’t a client of ours.) Seeing the sauce gave me the impression that Georgia Blue has a unique perspective on its sauces. As a diner, I look for restaurants to have a unique point of view, so seeing the sauces (whether I buy them or not) has increased the standing of the Georgia Blue brand in my eyes.

The Takeaway: Consider the opportunities out there to extend your brand into a retail product. For example, if you’re a spa, you could come out with your own label of skincare products. With white label manufacturing, it’s cheaper than you’d think.

2. Restaurant To-Go Box

Speaking of restaurants, one of the biggest branding opportunities restaurants miss is the to-go box. Consider every pair of eyes that might see your to-go box sitting in the office fridge. Those are all opportunities for new touchpoints for your brand, and communicate the brand points that: 1) you serve large portions, and 2) your food’s good enough to take home and eat for leftovers.

The Takeaway: At least stick a logo on that thing! However, consider the opportunities to really communicate unique selling points and personality to make your restaurant unforgettable.

3. Mailing Materials

Our friends and clients at Nuts.com recently asked us to redesign some of their shipping boxes.

Not only does the box have all the requisite space for the logo and shipping labels, but we worked to make each side of the box show a little bit of the brand’s trademark nutty humor. We even included a thank you message from the family’s nutty cartoon characters on the bottom. While everyone might not see it, those that do will have a delightful experience.

The Takeaway: Take routine experiences for your customers and make them delightful in a way that speaks to the soul of your brand. They’ll remember and love you for it.

4. Custom T-Shirts

Our neighbors downstairs from our office, Broad Street Bakery, have been selling clever t-shirts about bread for years. I’m sure they don’t mind customers walking around with the logo, but more importantly, phrases like “Challah Back Girl” remind you that Broad Street is your destination in Jackson for unique house-made bread, reinforcing their positive brand points.

Our friends and clients at Cups Espresso Cafe have new t-shirts designed exclusively by Cups baristas. Cups baristas tend to be talented artists outside of coffee, and their unique perspective and authenticity is a big part of the Cups experience. The t-shirts are a great avenue for Cups to share their baristas’ talent with customers.

The Takeaway: Consider what personality traits of your brand can be expressed through a t-shirt design. More than just showing off your logo, consider how to make the shirt unique, fashionable and memorable.

5. Business Blog

Business blogs serve a whole host of functions. It gives partners (like me) an outlet to write so that readers can connect with me and trust my expertise. Each post goes out into the search engine world and can be indexed and found by people who might not visit your homepage. For example, on our own blog, a review I did about collaboration software Minigroup still sends new visitors to the site each month. Our analytics show that those visitors go on to look at other pages on the site.

We like business blogs best when they communicate a personalty that complements the business’ offerings, which leads to a fuller understanding of the brand. One of our busiest offerings is writing content for clients’ business blogs, weaving in an editorial-style approach with search engine optimization to provide the most bang for the buck from the blog.

The Takeaway: Incorporate a blog into your business’ web presence, whether you do it yourself or contract writers to manage it for you. The benefits will come from returning readership, a more coherent personality for your brand, and the SEO bump.

Let us help you create new brand touchpoints for your business. The more unique experience we can create for your customers, the more your brand will become unforgettable to them. Contact us for a consultation today.

Happy New Year, everyone! I hope January is treating you well, and your resolutions (if you were bold enough to make any) are still going strong.

I vowed to read or reread more books on writing this year—everything from Strunk and White’s classic The Elements of Style to Teressa Iezzi’s new media handbook The Idea Writers—for professional development and just plain enjoyment. When I’m busy with work and other commitments, curling up with a good book can feel selfish or indulgent, but I’m trying to shush that pesky guilt-trippy little voice in my head that tells me I should be doing more productive things. Reading is productive, and good writers are avid readers.

The first book on my list was Anne Lamott’s Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life. I couldn’t put it down; it is refreshingly honest, funny, self-deprecating and practical. Reading it felt as if I were sitting down for a long coffee date with an accomplished, witty, blunt and slightly neurotic writer who had generously agreed to mentor me.

It is such a relief to hear that respected, published writers like Anne (we’re pretty tight now, so I feel like we’re on a first-name basis) still experience everyday struggles—writer’s block, false starts, self-criticism, perfectionism and jealousy. Bird by Bird isn’t a rosy view of the writing process—she makes it clear that it is hard work that requires discipline and a thick skin—but it is, at its core, a testament to why she loves to write and encouragement for others who want to do the same.

I kept a pencil on hand while I read and found myself underlining and scribbling notes like a madwoman. Here are a few of my favorite quotes. 

10 Quotes from Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott

1. “Thirty years ago my older brother, who was ten years old at the time, was trying to get a report on birds written that he’d had three months to write, which was due the next day. We were out at our family cabin in Bolinas, and he was at the kitchen table, close to tears, surrounded by binder paper and pencils and unopened books on birds, immobilized by the hugeness of the task ahead. Then my father sat down beside him, put his arm around my brother’s shoulder, and said, ‘Bird by bird, buddy. Just take it bird by bird.’”

2. “One of the gifts of being a writer is that it gives you an excuse to do things, to go places and explore. Another is that writing motivates you to look closely at life, at life as it lurches by and tramps around.”

3. “I go back to trying to breathe, slowly and calmly, and I finally notice the one-inch picture frame that I put on my desk to remind me of short assignments. It reminds me that all I have to do is to write down as much as I can see through a one-inch picture frame. This is all I have to bite off for the time being.”

4. “Almost all good writing begins with terrible first efforts. You need to start somewhere. Start by getting something—anything—down on paper. A friend of mine says that the first draft is the down draft—you just get it down. The second draft is the up draft—you fix it up.”

5. “Perfectionism is the voice of the oppressor, the enemy of the people. It will keep you cramped and insane your whole life… Besides, perfectionism will ruin your writing, blocking inventiveness and playfulness and life force (these are words we are allowed to use in California).”

6. “Try looking at your mind as a wayward puppy that you are trying to paper train. You don’t drop-kick a puppy into the neighbor’s yard every time it piddles on the floor. You just keep bringing it back to the newspaper.”

7. “Writing is about hypnotizing yourself into believing in yourself, getting some work done, then unhypnotizing yourself and going over the material coldly.”

8. “Jealousy is such a direct attack on whatever measure of confidence you’ve been able to muster. But if you continue to write, you are probably going to have to deal with it, because some wonderful, dazzling successes are going to happen for some of the most awful, angry, undeserving writers you know—people who are, in other words, not you.”

9. “So whenever I am leaving the house without my purse—in which their are actual note pads, let alone index cards—I fold an index card lengthwise in half, stick it in my back pocket with a pen, and head out, knowing that if I have an idea, or see something lovely or strange or for any reason worth remembering, I will be able to jot down a couple of words to remind me of it.”

10. “You are lucky to be one of those people who wishes to build sand castles with words, who is willing to create a place where your imagination can wander.”

Have you read Bird by Bird? What did you take away from it?

Photo credit

Oh, how I love the holidays. Chilly weather, festive decorations, time with friends and family, the New Kids on the Block “Merry Merry Christmas” album playing over and over and over… And of course, holiday treats.

I believe that the best presents are consumable, so this year, my husband Brian and I decided to get ambitious with our DIY gifts.

I knew I’d have to make my great-grandma’s famous ribbon cookies and butter dream cookies (seriously, so dreamy) because it’s impossible to start a new year without eating at least a few dozen. We also started brewing our own beer about a year ago, doing small batches of about 50 bottles at a time, so we thought it would be fun to make a wintry holiday porter to go along with the cookies.

Brian and I live in Naples, Italy, so we made the theme “Birre e biscotti di Babbo Natale”—or “Santa Claus’ beer and cookies” (somehow, it doesn’t sound quite as pretty in English). Brian designed the labels and cards, and I wrote the copy. It’s always been a dream of mine to write descriptions for beer or wine labels, so this was a big deal.

Milk is nice, but after a long night of bringing joy and magic to the children of the world, Babbo Natale wants something a little stronger. His holiday favorite is this smooth, dark porter, which delivers a hint of aromatic cinnamon and clove, a kick of spicy pepper and star anise and a lingering finish of rich maple syrup and hazelnut. It pairs perfectly with a heaping plate of cookies or a nice ragù alla bolognese.

Happy holidays, buone feste! Do you have plans to create your own DIY gifts this holiday season?

My friend Dustin, a translator who shares my love of words and punctuation, recently asked if I could recommend a list of books about writing—style guides, references or anything that focuses on the craft of writing.

As I started putting together my list of the best books on writing (I also love making lists, so this was a fun project for me), I realized how long it has been since I have read any of these books… or any books on writing for that matter. For shame.

I’ve kept a few favorites over the years, moving them from city to city and pulling them out for reference every now and then: the American Heritage Dictionary I bought before I started college, The AP Stylebook, The Elements of Style. I also have a growing Goodreads queue of writing books that I have heard are excellent… and that I never quite get around to reading.

Instead of feeling guilty for being a lazy writer (and, somehow, a bad person), I made myself a reading list to dig into over the next few months and blog about—some oldies but goodies to revisit, some new-to-me discoveries to read for the first time. It’s the best kind of New Year’s resolution: I have to make time to read more. I also have to drink hot cocoa and eat cookies while reading… I don’t make the rules.

Here’s my list so far:

The Best Books on Writing (a Work in Progress)

• Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life, Anne Lamott
• On Writing, Stephen King
• The Copywriter’s Handbook, Robert Bly
• The Idea Writers, Teressa Iezzi
• The Elements of Style, William Strunk, Jr. and E.B. White
• On Writing Well, William Zinsser
• Writing Down the Bones, Natalie Goldberg
• Woe is I, Patricia O’Conner
• Eats, Shoots & Leaves, Lynne Truss
• Made to Stick, Chip Heath and Dan Heath
• The Artist’s Way, Julia Cameron
• A Room of One’s Own, Virginia Woolf
• Why I Write, George Orwell
• Zen in the Art of Writing, Ray Bradbury

What do you think are the best books on writing? What am I missing that I should add to my list? Add your suggestions in the comments - thanks!