Category Archives: Rambles

Publishing Confusion – Part Four – Social Media

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PPH Logo 2021

Social Media.

Most of you know how to use the basics…or do you? I thought I was good with Facebook, when one day a course in our local region we found a tutorial on how to use Facebook for business. It blew what we thought we knew right open. OUCH. Luckily there was no re-learning, there was extra learning.

In the last twelve months, many of our Social Media websites have updated. Things have moved, changed or disappeared. Even we’ve had issues finding various items. Sometimes the frustration creeps in and takes over. The better you can use Social Media, the better you can MARKET your business and grow your AUTHOR BRAND. With saying that, we need to give you a few ways to make more out of a post and images.

We’ve always been taught that images get more people looking at your posts. However, what sort of image do you need to use? Have you ever looked on Facebook to see which type of images get the most likes and shares? Why do they get so much attention. Why do people stop scrolling and read? 

Next time you find something you like and read, think about what you notice first. Is it the writing? Which part? A title? A font? Large fonts? The mission into marketing is endless trying to find out what will work for us and our books. RESEARCH…yep that word again. Weird how it keeps cropping up.

Advert for Shattered Badge, Shattered Trust by Sandra Brewster.

We’re going to make a Facebook Post. It was a new release for one of our clients. The novel is called ‘SHATTERED BADGE SHATTERED TRUST’ by Sandra Brewster. It is available on AMAZON. To the left  of the screen is the book cover. For those who are sight impaired the image shows a police badge which has been broke into pieces the the book title across the middle. At the top of the cover is the Authors name. The background is a greenish blur of a crime scene.

First things first is to make a 3D cover so it looks like a book rather than a flat image. This will make it stand out better and hopefully grab a readers interest. It is obviously a story which involves a character who is a cop. Though what is the relevance about the Shattered Trust? Who’s Trust was destroyed and why? Maybe a bit of the synopsis will tell us what’s going on. Can we add it to the Facebook Post? 

This depends on what type of Marketing you are looking at doing. Who are you aiming your ADVERT at? Are you doing a PAID ADVERT or a post in a group? Will you make a TEASER for the story or a POSTER. On that note…if you can’t use photoshop, GIMP, Krita or similar graphic apps then please use CANVA. It’s FREE and easy to use, even for those who think they aren’t good with technology.

CANVA – AUTHOR INTRODUCTION IDEA

In the first PNG image you have all the different areas, all giving you different information. Obviously this is a small image of what the poster would be if it were printed out. Looking at it digitally and asking a few friends, I see what they like and don’t like. The BOOK BLURB is to pale and needs to be BOLD FONT. The eBook app in the image above the authors profile image needs to be put in (can’t do this on CANVA FREE). I don’t like is the BOOK LINK.. it looks to big and untidy. We may make it smaller or use a QR Code.

We have made some adjustments on this second image. The book cover has been placed into the eBook app on the image. In the next image we have put the BOOK BLURB in bold to show what it looks like.

The main issue with the poster is having to use two different apps to make the poster. We started in CANVA and played around, asking for opinions… Now we need to put all of this together. This same poster only needs the book cover adding to the eBook reader along with the QR Code and then it is finished. For now we’ve left the book link in though made it smaller and bold.

My next question is: What do you think? Is it good? Are there any changes? What do you get from reading the poster? Would it make you look up the author and read her books?

Please let me know in comments.

NOTE: The image is to complex to put in ALT TEXT. 

 

 

Psychology in Business – Shapes

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A while back I posted about the psychology behind FONTS and COLOURS, then I discovered SHAPES had various meanings as well. Pulling all three together to make a LOGO or ADVERTISING MEDIA when you’re starting your business would be a bit of a nightmare. The more I think about what I missed over the years while education myself as I went is horrifying. This is something I don’t remember covering in any business course I did in 2015/2016 and I did three, the last being a Diploma in Business Enterprise. It goes to show these courses don’t cover everything.

PSYCHOLOGY OF SHAPES

What do you know about SHAPES? Which one’s appeal to you? What draws you in?
Great questions and it makes me wonder what you notice when you watch adverts on TV or see adverts on billboards, in newspapers or social media. What shape do you see most often? Does it appeal to you? If you’re on social media, what makes you stop scrolling? The SHAPE, COLOUR or FONT! Perhaps all three, because someone got the right combination for their business.

How do you choose a SHAPE for a Logo? Good question. My logo is based on Family History of my partners line going back to the 1820s in London two hundred years ago. The Lamp still stands on Woolwich High Street, outside the building which was a pub. The last I heard, the building is now a hairdressing salon. This shows how much thought I put into my business when I first started in 2014. Not much at all. I was learning as I progressed. However, I will keep my logo. I like it as does my husband.

What do you need to do? Research the psychology of SHAPES. Watch Adverts and understand what you’re seeing, what they mean to the business who created it. Make a list of the ones you like along with the colours and hunt down fonts you can use. Bring them together by starting with a black and white design, edit the graphic until you’re happy with what you’ve drawn or had your graphic artist draw. Choose a font which matches your business and then you have millions of colours and shades to play with.

Last week, we travelled to Sanson and visited Viv’s Kitchen for a lovely morning tea of cream horns and iced chocolate drinks. It was sublime. What catches the eye though are the colours. They used various shades of a  gorgeous mint/pale green along with a retro style. It draws customers in and we had time there. Below are a set of photos from their website. The link you can find above.

This is just one example on how to get things right. The café has been busy everything we’ve visited. This lovely café has also been on TV and is famous for their cream horns. A lush pastry horn coated with sugar. In the centre is jam and cream. Most delicious.

Starting a business, then get your thinking caps on and research what you need to make you stand out from everyone else. 

Good Luck.

 

Merry Christmas to all our Clients, Past, Present and Future.

Rambles, , , ,

Plaisted Publishing House Ltd and our Contractors

would like to wish you all a Merry Christmas.

For those who don’t celebrate, enjoy your time with your families. Be Safe. Be Kind. Enjoy the day wherever you are, be it Summer (where we are in New Zealand) or Winter.

Keep writing, drawing, designing, editing, though make sure you have a rest to. Your family is important.

Here is hoping you all have a lovely Winter/Summer holiday.

Best wishes

Claire Plaisted

Celebrating Seven Years in Business

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Plaisted Publishing is celebrating seven years in business. Established in 2014, we are growing and have most certainly changed over the years. We’ve introduced an Author Consultant Service to help writers move through the publishing process so they can learn and upload their manuscripts to distribution websites. We also offer tutoring for some distribution websites.

This year we are also supporting charities around the world with our Ghostly Youth and Ghostly Rites Anthologies. All royalties from the ebooks will go to a charity which is chosen by those who participate in the books.
     Our Charity of choice for Ghostly Youth Anthology 2021 is Gumboot Friday/I Am Hope. This is a charity for Mental Health in New Zealand Youth, so they can get the counselling they need for FREE.
  Along with the royalties, we will also donate 10% of any money made from any paid consultation or formatting/Interior Book Design. If you are looking for assistance, please consider using our services so we can pay it forward and help some charities.

You can find more information or make a donation below.

GUMBOOT FRIDAY APPEAL

Happy New Year and Welcome to 2021

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Happy New Year to all our followers and friends. It has been a wow of a year with many of us working from home. The toll on the human race is still growing though with vaccines, perhaps we can beat this virus and the many strains. Please be safe and take care of each other so we can grow and help each other. We are lucky to be based in New Zealand, where though we are on level one, our lives are closer to normal than it is for many other countries around the world. Be careful out there.

Thank you for continuing to be with us over 2020 and on into 2012. We look forward to sharing your work, books, interviews, educational articles and helping out clients – past, present and future. Let’s get those manuscripts built into books and uploaded to distribution platforms.

We have a great team here at Plaisted Publishing, our contractor list just keeps growing. If you know a small business contractor who works in Editing, Graphic Design or Marketing, please contact us. We’d love to help you help our clients and grow each others businesses. 

This year we will be introducing you to our contractors, each with their own expertise in a certain area of publishing. You will get to know them and what they can do for you if you are planning to publish a book. We do Interior Book Design in house and have over six years experience in Fiction, Non-fiction, Anthologies, Memoirs, Poetry, Children’s Picture Books and Family History Books/Family Reunion Books.

We also off help with Family History Research and have twenty years experience gathering information for various books we’ve made over the years for reunions and birthday celebrations. If you’d like to talk to us about Family History, please contact us here or email at plaistedpublishinghouse@gmail.com

We are also looking for Content Writers within the publishing world. If you write educational material for Independent Authors, please contact us, we’d be delighted to hear from you. It is important for us all to continue to learn and grow in the publishing world with the ever changing technology we use.

We will also be opening a page to favourite weblinks for educational purposes. If you know of a great website please email us the link and we’ll check it out prior to posting the link on the page.

At present we are updating out website. We will have a library of all the books we’ve assisted with over the last six years along with a list of Author Names. Eventually we hope to also add a profile of each author as well and send those links out to each client so they can share and celebrate each others work.

Our magazine has been on hold for the just over two years now. We hope to re-establish the magazine with a new title, new and easier layout with less formatting work involved. We hope this magazine will be every two months. Here is hoping all this scheduling will work. By the end of this year, we may need a PA…

Distribution Platforms we use
Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP)
Lulu
Ingram Spark
Smashwords
Draft to Digital

Looking into using
Kobo
Barnes and Noble (Nook)

Here is hoping for a wonderful year. Take care and be safe. 

Claire Plaisted
Business Owner

Nero, the TV and Madison

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Doesn’t he look adorable. This image was taken a few months ago while our son was still at University and I was using his bedroom as my office.  It seems, like most cats, Nero likes cardboard boxes. If they are flat he tears pieces off and spits them out. If they are still standing then he sits and sleeps in them. Never mind his cat basket. 

Since I rediscovered the TV and found I can play YouTube on it, I’ve been watching a lot of history and nature programmes. Of course my darling Nero had to join in. He loves the birds. About three weeks ago he was sitting on my chair with me watching the nature programme with me, the next moment he gets down and sits in front of the TV, head on the side, I presume a puzzled expression on his face. Eventually he walked up to the TV cabinet placing his paws and stood up watching the birds fly to and fro, patting the screen a few times when they chirped. Climbing on the cabinet he watched them and seemed to realise the birds flew off screen so off he went hunting. Moving across the front of the TV and around behind, his head poking out the other side until he sat down at the front again. I do wish I had a video of it. I was giggling at his antics. He ended up running in and out of the house for the afternoon chasing real birds and coming in to see how they others were doing on the TV.

On a quick not. Nero has found another person he likes. In the last 24 hours he butts her legs and though still a bit scared, will let her touch him and give him a bit of a cuddle. The young lady is my son’s girlfriend, Madison. This is a first for Nero. He doesn’t go near anyone for about a week, not even my son when he returned from Uni, nor a friend of mine from New Plymouth. He runs…

Sure has a great personality. Still snuggles with me at night, still claws me when he wants something and loves to play with little things he finds…especially wool…oh the wool…my poor wool…Messy toady cat. Love him to bit though.

Now where did he go… NERO…

Courtesy Lost in the Digital Age…

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Over the years, I’ve had bad experiences with clients. I’m sure we all have and we move on and forward, take it as a lesson learnt and not repeat it. Most of the time it works, however when COURTESY is lacking then I will take a stand. It doesn’t take much to message someone who you were working with to produce a book and let them know you’re going to use someone else.

We all lose jobs or clients at times, though when you’ve worked hard for them including FREE work, then surely it would be a COURTESY let me know they are going to use someone else. I’m upset at the lack of a message, especially after all I did for them. I feel bruised and USED. Like I said another lesson learnt. From now on I won’t be doing any FREE or CHEAP work for those caught out by SCAMMERS mainly because I don’t want to find a post on Facebook saying BOOK LIVE on a manuscript I was waiting to format without realising I wasn’t getting it this time… 

No they don’t have to chose my business to do the work even though I’ve redone three books at cost, organised an new illustrator and redesigned several books due to copyright infringement, where they could’ve gotten sued. However, to find them using someone else for interior design without even messaging me is just bloody rude. They could at least tell me WHY?

Finding out why… apparently they didn’t like my FEES for Book three.  Get this… I sort out one book making sure DPI was correct, formatting was situated correctly, checking each part for approval, then once approved I make an ebook and I’m asked to upload to their distributor. Then the paperback. No charge. Then we come to the first and second book in a series both of which had copyright issues for which the author could’ve been sued. I find an illustrator, we redo both books and I upload to distributor in ebook and paperback. All approved by client. I only charge $20 USD for uploading due to author being scammed.  Now the third book is sorted the same way. I put in real charges this time and yes they knew this.  Consultation, sizing of images, formatting of words, approvals, uploads…making ebook and paperback and more. I charged $180 USD. I should’ve been more with an hour rate, though I was still trying to be nice due to them been SCAMMED. I’m not sure how the illustrator feels, though I’m sure they are out of pocket as well.

Now I feel like they SCAMMED me…All the hours I worked on these books and I get paid $220 USD. Way below the minimum wage in the USA and in NZ if I add up the actual hours of work.

DISILLUSIONED IN BUSINESS

Celebrating 30,000 Views

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Must be a happy moment. I’m nearly at 30k views and after nearly two years off due to life. I’m back and building my following, putting out posts which I hope you enjoy, including those I share.

The SCAM Publishers post written by Victoria Strauss from Writers Beware seems to be one of the best I’ve shared in a while. I thank you all for your comments and I’m glad it helps. Victoria’s article is great, as are so many others I find and I also hope you enjoy the ones I write as well.

My favourite this year is the one about Which English you use and who your Readers are, especially for those who want reviews. After all, you don’t want an American Reader to say you have spelling errors through your work when you’ve written in British English…Do you? I know I don’t

At the moment we are also celebrating five years of Awethors and our Awethology which we published in October 2015. About 54 Authors participated with two books of about 600 pages each. A lot of work and joy and the eBooks are still available FREE on Amazon.

Anyway, I’m wondering how to celebrate when I do hit 30k views…It could happen today or tomorrow. What should I do? Ideas are more than welcome in comments.

Thanks for listening to my rambles.

The Awethors – Celebrating 5 years.

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A classic moment when I read a post about the two Awethologies by The Awethors which was published by Plaisted Publishing House in October 2015. How the heck did I miss this? Nearly. Being in New Zealand, means I’m a day ahead of most people. However I’d also like to celebrate both Awethologies we had and participated in. It was amazing team work with Editors galore, around 54 International Authors better known as Awethors who were part of the group. We ended up making two Anthologies with close to 600 pages apiece. The eBooks were FREE and, from memory, the Paperbacks were close to $21 USD.

Not only did we produce the books, we also did a live marketing book day to celebrate starting in New Zealand and Australia with myself and Michael J Elliott. Due to the time difference we were celebrating for a long time. I know I was sharing Author Interviews for 17 hours before retiring to bed. The celebrations continued in the Northern Hemisphere long after.

I will be sharing some of the old Awethor Interviews with you over the next few weeks, hopefully I can get some of the Awethors to update us with what they are doing now and over the last five years. It’ll be nice to catch up with everyone. Meanwhile, here are the links to the two Awethologies. 

Awethology Dark is for those over 18 yrs and Awethology Light can be read by younger readers. We hope you still enjoy the read of some fantastic stories.