Publish your own magazine!

Okay, I've always loved reading and looking at magazines and I just found this site called MagCloud (from the HP people) where you can publish your own magazine and it's easy and not expensive at all. You design your magazine in PDF format, upload it, they send a proof, you approve it and then you can purchase copies to use yourself (think portfolio, calendar, etc.) or it can be listed on the MagCloud site for others to purchase. So cool! I'm thinking it would be a cool project to make a 'magazine' and have it be the yearly holiday family newsletter.

IDEAS: For fun or fundraising, you could use MagCloud to do print-on-demand recipe books, complete with full-color beautiful pictures of your yummy recipes. Stylists - use this to create a before and after portfolio of your work. Writers and authors could use this to write short stories. You could design a calendar showcasing anything you love. I love it!

How much does it cost?

The cost of your issue to end users will be the production cost (currently $0.20 per page), plus shipping, plus your own publisher markup (if you specified one). MagCloud will pay you the markup for each copy that is purchased.


You can also go to their site and browse all the magazines that others have published - there are so many topics and of course it's a great way to get inspiration. Check it out!

Eye-popping email blasts

It's been awhile since I've felt like I had anything worthy to blog about - my friend mentioned that I hadn't been posting and that made me think about things that I should be blogging about so I've posted a few posts already this week - yay me!

So...I like to get email blasts that have eye-popping visuals - images that are well-designed that sell product/s. I'm on Sephora's email list and I have to say that they do an amazing job at making their products shine in each and every email they do. While not everyone can afford to have professional product shots of their merchandise, there are things that you can do to create your own email eye-candy.

Many times you can find product pictures on the manufacturer's websites and sometimes they even will provide downloads of their products for their distributors and retailers to use. Take advantage! Your graphic designer can take those images and collage them together. Then, come up with just a few phrases that are calls-to-action and you got yourself a visual email blast. If you can't get images online, and have to take photos, you should invest in a camera that will take good pictures. Part of making that happen means familiarizing yourself with some basic photo-taking techniques. (In a future post I'll share some sites and tutorials on this topic.) Then, if you don't know how to use Photoshop or an image-editing program, find yourself a graphic designer who does (or contact me!) who you can work with to put together your graphics. You really will feel more confident about your products and selling them knowing that you have a pro on your team to help with marketing like this.

If you are going to do the email blasts regularly (and it's good practice to do so) then come up with a header design that will be consistent with each blast. You can change the colors and even the style of the collage/image and as long as you have use the same header you will be branding yourself or your company each time you send out your blasts.

If you want to start collecting inspiration from sites that do a good job with their marketing, start with signing up for email newsletters from companies/websites that you personally shop. Fashion and beauty industry sites are inherently good ones to follow. Study the emails when they come to you and save the ones you like. You can give them to your graphic designer as inspiration and reference, or use it yourself if you DIY.

I enjoy comments - let me know what you think!

The Brand of YOU - marketing yourself

I work with many clients who are solo professionals. I help them build their brand by creating a character representation of them. Why a caricature versus an actual photo of yourself? I believe that a graphic representation of yourself can be just as or even more engaging than an actual photograph, especially if you don't feel comfortable in front of a camera or if you feel you aren't photogenic. My clients tell me that their chick graphics attract attention and help make them more memorable to potential clients. Wendy Maynard the Marketing Maven has a great article on personality-based branding. Spend some time on her site if you are working on marketing yourself - she's got a lot of good articles! Check out my chick graphics too - I can help you create your own brand so you can go out there and start marketing yourself! 

Here are some of my clients' websites. See how they use their chick to market and promote themselves.

The Road to Fabulous - Sandy Grason is an International Speaker, Hot Mogul, Rock Star Author of the bestselling book, JOURNALUTION and host of "The Road to Fabulous" on LA Talk Radio. Sandy asked me to design her blog header and a fabulous chick version of her. 

Girlfriend We Gotta Talk! - Mary Foley and Susie Galvez's radio show in Richmond, Virginia. I've also illustrated Mary's book called Live Like Your Nail Color. I love working with Mary! She's full of energy and it's no wonder she's great at motivating women!

The Skinny Blog - My friend Michelle who is a fabulous esthetician and mompreneur with lots of entrepreneurial spirit. I helped her set up an easy-to-update blog/website. She's got great skincare tips that she's sharing on her blog. We're working on designing a stand-out eye-catching print ad using her chick too!

Get excited about yourself and start a self-promotion campaign. I'm telling you to do it - start today!