On October 15th, 2009 Irene Watson and Victor R. Volkman spoke with greeting card and gift industry maven Kate Harper. Kate Harper started her line of humorous greeting card from a hobby of making greeting cards for friends as gifts. Over the next 15 years, Kate’s turned her hobby into a business, manufacturing and shipping cards to over 2,000 stores, including Barnes & Noble, Whole Foods Markets and the Papyrus chain. She informed us on key areas of getting started as a writer or self-publisher of greeting cards, including:
Card terends: research, seasonal cards, occasional cards, and publishers
What subject areas and categories to focus on, how to stay organized
Test marketing your cards and card verse.
Seven most common mistake card writers will make
Why competition in the card business is vastly over-estimated
Two years ago, she transitioned out of manufacturing and into licensing, where she now designs cards for Recycled Paper Greetings (a subsidiary of American Greetings Corporation) and gift items for seven other companies.
On July 23rd, 2009 Irene Watson and Victor R. Volkman spoke with book coach, professional freelancer, and author Cheryl Pickett. Her first book Publishing Possibilities: 8 Steps to Understanding Your Options & Choosing the Best Path for Your Book (2009) is specifically designed to help other writers navigate the publishing industry. She educated us about the three major models in her system: traditional, independent, and fee-based/POD/pay to publish. Her approach is goal-directed in narrowing the possibilities to the solution that best fits your publishing needs. We also covered how and when to use an Agent, the importance of establishing a platform, and how your personal style is reflected in which route to publish.
Cheryl Pickett has been writing professionally for almost a decade. She got her start as a freelance writer in 1999 just before the turn of the new millennium. She has well over 120 articles to her credit which have appeared both on and offline in newspapers, ezines a trade magazine and more.A few years ago, she decided she wanted to take her writing in other directions and ultimately combined her life-long love of books with her research and reporting skills. Her personalized, step-by-step approach is unique and empowers new and would-be authors to make solid decisions throughout their publishing journey. You can find out more about Cheryl and Publishing Possibilities by visiting her site PublishingAnswers.com. or her blog publishinganswers.blogspot.com
On May 8, 2009 Victor R. Volkman and Tyler R. Tichelaar spoke with computer training and accounting expert Edna Washington of Washington Consultants, LLC. We previously recorded Edna at the 2008 Motown Writer’s Conference but response was so great that we invited her on for a full 40 minutes of Q&A about business records, taxes, and structuring your company. Edna Washington is a workshop presenter and has over 15 years accounting and computer experience. We grilled her on a variety of common startup questions incuding:
Do I want to be a proprietor or a corporation?
How do I setup my business so it is properly recognized?
How can I amortize a large book printing over several years?
Do I need QuickBooks to manage by business?
What are 1099s and when do I give or receive them?
How can I draw money from the business?
What is the “home office” expense and can I claim it?
What types of deductions are commonly missed by authors?
Edna is the owner of Washington Consultants, LLC in Detroit, Michigan. She attended University of Missouri at St. Louis. Washington Consultants provides accounting and computer services to small businesses. They also offer computer skills training for youth and adults. Mrs. Washington also volunteers with youth organizations to help young people succeed in life. She believes in giving back to her community. She believes that our youth just need to be encouraged and shown that there is a world to be conquered
On March 16th, 2009 we convened the 2009 Book Marketing Roundtable to talk about industry “best practices” with authors, marketing experts, and publishers Irene Watson of Reader Views, Tyler Tichelaar of Superior Book Promotions and Victor R. Volkman of Loving Healing Press, Inc. This is a free-for-all discussion on many critical book marketing aspects including: Amazon launches, online author readings and podcasts, editing and proofing, awards programs, book giveaways, author and publisher associations, blog book tours
Irene Watson is author of The Sitting Swing: Finding the Wisdom to Know the Difference, the proprietor of Reader Views Inc., Blogging Authors dot com, Inside Scoop Live, and many other publicity and marketing related activities. Tyler Tichelaar is the owner of Marquette Fiction and author of the Marquette Trilogy, a saga of 150 years on the shores of Lake Superior, and is the proprietor of Superior Book Promotions, a full-service literary and editorial consulting firm. Victor R. Volkman is the publisher behind Loving Healing Press Inc. and Modern History Press and publishes a full line of books on trauma recovery, personal growth, and coping with disabilities as well as the editor of numerous anthologies including More Than A Memory: Reflections of Viet Nam
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