For the past ten years I have had a personal motto that was "One Life to Live... Live it Free! - One Life to Live... Make it Count!" While it inspired us to design a "free" life with no traditional job, no boss and no schedule imposed on us; and while the "making it count" part kept us accountable to create Sharing-Books, a project that we believe will be part of our legacy, my wife Bonnie and I felt that it was time to re-examine our personal purpose statement.

We looked at what is really important in this troubled economy and we agreed that relationships were central to our lives. But our need to contribute is also central to our personalities. So we revised our motto to "Helping Friends Prosper".

Helping: We both like to serve others. We find helping very rewarding. Our definition of helping is to equip people to tap into their potential. Often in our circle of friends, all it takes is words of encouragement to put someone back on track. In the current economy friends can get discouraged. Remind them that they have no less talent than before. Remind them that they are no less valuable as people than before. They just got affected by the gloomy mood of the media. Share the truth of "this too shall pass" with a smile. And with words of appreciation reminding a friend how great he/she is, we can recharge a friend's spirit.

Friends: Bonnie and I are quick to make new friends so we find new people to help all the time. Today, social networking services help us expand our circles and stay connected with the people we chose as friends. I am amazed at how easy it is to relate with friends around the globe. I now care a lot for friends I have never spoken to - I only exchanged emails with them. What a wealth of friends we all have access to in 2009. Rather than de-humanizing, the web connects us if we make the effort to use the tools. We have all experienced the conversation on an airplane when the person in the seat beside us shares his/her life and we get to know them well in a few hours of travel. In the past these friendships were temporary - now we can stay in touch very easily.

Prosper: Probably because I grew up speaking French and had 5 years of Latin and 4 years of ancient Greek in high school, the word prosper means to me more than financial success. I look at prosperity from a holistic point of view. In our new motto we chose prosper to mean financial success but also to mean: health, joy, happiness, energy, to thrive, to bloom, and to flourish. So when you and I help friends prosper we touch their lives in important ways. It may be the nudge that makes them start the business they have talked about for so long, or the nudge that makes them start an exercise program, or to start dealing with a negative situation rather than keep procrastinating. If we all help one another in this way, we will create initiatives that will put our countries back on the path of progress rather than succumbing to the prevalent fears and gloom.

So we are choosing to help friends prosper. This new business venture called Sharing-Books has already blessed us with many new friends. We will do our best to help them prosper.

Some of our users may have noticed two brief times where the site was down for maintenance today. Hopefully it did not freak anyone out too much! While the site was shut down for maintenance we did some upgrades to our database, our administrative back end, and added one new feature to the website.

On the book details page for each book you can now see how many times your book has been downloaded, giving you an idea of how popular your book is, and giving you some numbers and goals to shoot for! For those looking to get ahead of the pack in the current contests, you can poke about and get an idea of who is leading the pack. This number shows the total downloads over the lifetime of the book.

I'll gloss over the database stuff, since it is really just changes to let the download totals work on the site. The back end features let us track downloads over a period of time, so we can get an idea of book popularity over a given time frame, not just the lifetime of the book.

Labels: features, news, site upgrades

We are thrilled to have delivered our 2,000th book today. We are thankful for the writers and the illustrators who believe in this new publishing model for children books. As of today 57 books are offered on the site and we are aware of at least another 20 being prepared for this new publishing tool.

It took 5 months to deliver our first 1,000 books and 2 months to deliver the second 1,000 books. We are pleased with the momentum considering that all our visitors have come from referrals. We have not done any formal PR activities or advertising.

Sharing-Books now has registered users from all continents, and visitors have come came from over 50 different countries.

When we were starting this project, I had the privilege to meet many authors looking for a publishing outlet that would welcome their works. One of them was Lucas Spata. I was riveted when Lucas told me his story of fighting cancer and wanting to write to help children facing cancer treatment. His courage and attitude added to our motivation to make Sharing-Books a reality for people like Lucas who have an important children story to tell.

Since then Lucas has followed through on his commitment to young cancer patients. Supported by his employer, the Vancouver Canucks NHL hockey team, and with a group of friends he has created The Impossibility Theory Society to receive the profits from his books. Find out more by visiting www.lucasspata.com.

Sharing Books was started to help people like Lucy Lunn, those authors and illustrators of children's books who are waiting in the wings and afraid to get rejected. Authors who have tried desperately for years to get their books published, and faced rejection letter after rejection letter.

These are talented people, with products that could very well be the next Harry Potter or Beatrix Potter, and they are ignored, rejected, and dejected because they do not fit with the various risk assessments and publishing agendas of traditional publishing companies.

This is one of the big reasons Sharing Books was started, to give a home to the thousands of authors and illustrators that the traditional publishers spend so very much time saying 'NO' to.

Watch Lucy Lunn on BBC

For anyone needing a Sharing Books logo, you can find them on our Media Kit Page. I will add more logos and web chicklets over time, but for now you should have everything you need to make your page saucy with Sharing Books logo madness.

Labels: content, support, tools

Over the last few months I've had lots of requests for help from authors and illustrators wanting to get their work on Sharing Books. To help everyone out, and to share the love, I'm going to start posting semi-regular tips and tricks for success on Sharing Books.

The natural place to start, getting your work on Sharing Books!

We have taken efforts to make getting your work on our site, and getting your work published, as easy and painless as possible. But what we have found, time and again, is that there are a few things that everyone asks about.

The first thing you need to get your work on Sharing Books is:
1) A PDF version of your book, finished as you wish it shown on the site.
2) A .doc, .docx, or .txt version of the text of your book.
3) A thumbnail image you wish to represent your book on our site, no larger then 600 by 600 pixels in size, at 72 dpi, in .JPG or .GIF format.

Today I'll tackle making the PDF. To get these files you will need to use some sort of software on your computer to put the files together. The most difficult is going to be putting together the PDF.

If you happen to be on a Mac, I recommend using either Microsoft Office ( $199 ), Open Office ( free ), iWork ( $79 ), or Adobe InDesign ( $699 ).

For Windows users I recommend using either Microsoft Office ( $199 ), Open Office ( free ), or Adobe InDesign ( $699 ).

If you are on Linux, I recommend Open Office ( free ) or Adobe InDesign ( $699 )

Any of these programs have page layout components ( or in the case of InDesign, is a page layout program ). You can use this software to combine your images and your text into how your book looks. For books that are text only, you simply need to use your preferred word processor.

For Mac users, you have PDF making built right in to every application on your computer. All you need to do is select 'Print' from the File menu, and there is a 'PDF' option in the dialogue box that lets you 'Print to PDF'. Easy as pie.

For Windows users, you have a lot more trouble. PDFs are a real challenge at times on Windows because their isn't a single way to do it, and it all involves plugins, software, and add ons. I recommend the following tutorials and using these plugins for information on how to do it: Creating PDFs, Cute PDF, Print to PDF in Vista. Those should get you under way, and give you an idea on how to get your PDFs made.

If you are technologically adverse you could always request the help of someone more technically savvy. Kids, friends, grandkids, nephews, nieces... they can probably all help you out. Just about everyone knows someone with enough geek in them to put together a PDF! If you are looking for a place to connect with these people, I recommend checking out the Sharing Books Facebook Group. We are starting to get a number of people there that have the technical chops to get what you need done, at various costs.

Hopefully all this information helps you authors out there get things rolling! Look forward to further information as we go!

Labels: help, support, tips n tricks

This is an update to any of the authors who have uploaded their books to our site in the last week to 10 days. This may or may not affect you, but don't worry, it won't affect your books!

In December we made a decision to do a fairly hefty workflow alteration, changing how we deal with our code base on Sharing Books. In doing so we needed to make certain linking and automated email messaging more dynamic. Basically it was set up so that the live site and the dev site were using hard-coded links and URLs, and our new system and workflow needed them to be more dynamic. We made the changes, and everything looked like it was working...

Until users started using things. At that point we found out that one email in our system was sending out URLs that pointed to our development server, which is locked safely behind a wall of passwords so users don't get exposed to new and volatile code.

In a nut shell, what happened was when a book would get approved by our Volunteer Librarians, the email that informed authors and illustrators of their successfully published book would have links sending them to the development site, which they did not have access too.

This is, to say the least, an extremely embarrassing error on my part. I do apologize to the authors who were troubled by logins they could not log into, and links that did not link where they should. We have fixed the problem, and books going forward will no longer have this issue when approved. For those who received emails with erroneous links, you can get the proper URLs for your books by:

1) clicking on the 'Newest Shared Books' link on the site.
2) for contributors, logging in and clicking on 'Published' in your user navigation block.

Sorry about any confusion this has caused.

Although I am a businessman, I have always considered myself an artist - a creator. I know this is a paradox but an entrepreneur creates organizations. Some artists work with a medium where they reach a completed stage, when everything is done and their work acquires permanence. On the other hand, everything an entrepreneur works with is dynamic; people, products and the economy change all the time. In addition we face competition, people who try to undo what we create. Imagine painting while someone rips your canvas or splatters paint on your work. That is what we business creators face and probably it is why we love the challenge.

When the economy goes into collective paranoia like we live right now, there is a phase of fear that induces paralysis. Many people stay paralyzed for a long time. The creators are the first ones to take the initiative and move on. If necessity is the mother of invention, we are about to see a number of initiatives by creators that will again transform the world like it was changed after each recession of the last century. The wonderful thing for artists is that for them necessity - the need to create - is fueled internally rather than by external events like a recession. Creators were conceiving and creating before the recession started. They will continue to create as the economy recovers and they will keep changing our lives for the better. They will simply be ahead of the pack.

A recession creates a vacuum that gives space for new ideas to blossom as obsolete and no longer useful ideas or businesses disappear. For example, Apple just killed Digital Rights Management for the music it sells. DRM has failed to add value to musicians and consumers alike and deserves to disappear. We believe that what is happening in the music industry is a predictor of the future of the "publishing" industry. New media require new ideas and new business models. We believe that an innovative publishing model like Sharing-Books combining social initiatives with new revenue streams for book creators is an idea whose time has come.

Every day I receive phone calls or emails from children books creators who are in the action mode, writing and illustrating new books. Their initiatives are an expression of hope that is much healthier and promising than the fear that grips the economy. We are very proud to be associated with hopeful people who put effort behind their ideas. These colleagues inspire us to do our best to provide a valuable outlet for their creative efforts to be welcome, published, read and rewarded.

Labels: children books, creators, entrepreneurs, publishing, recession

Over the last few months one of the things we have constantly been asked for is a place for authors, illustrators, and editors to get together and collaborate. Everyone keeps asking for tools from us to do so. Well, we don't currently have any tools right on the Sharing Books website, or any plans to have those tools in the short term. But we DO have some places to point users to find collaborators.

The first place we suggest is JacketFlap. They have a huge community of users ( well over 10,000 ) from all around the globe, and it is a great place to find people and support to help you develop your work and your career as a children's book author.

We have also set up a new Facebook Group, so if you are on Facebook you can now connect with other authors and illustrators through our Facebook group. If you do not have a Facebook account, we highly recommend getting one, as it is a great tool to connect and promote your work to family, friends, and strangers!

If anyone out there has other collaborative websites add them to the comments here on our blog, and build out tools and sites to help your fellow authors, illustrators, and Sharing Books projects!

Labels: collaboration, connect, tools

Jennifer Poulter and I have been emailing back and forth about this and that for the last couple days, New Years calibrations clearly being events that barely slow either of us down from working. Jennifer is one of the people we've met over at JacketFlap who has turned into one of our biggest evangelists and go-getters. She is an absolute powerhouse, and we love her to bits! During our email discussions the question of how many books can Sharing Books handle on its site came up. Jennifer ( an just about everyone we talk to ) has also had much to say about quality control, but I will save that discussion for another time!

In terms of content we don't mind having a lot of stuff on the site. In fact, that is exactly what we do want. Space is not an issue, bandwidth and storage space are cheap. Without having to go to a new server package we can easily support 50-100 submissions a day on the site, up to a total of about 10,000 books, before we start to have a serious problem and ask for more server from our host. They can scale up to full enterprise size, and we would be delighted to have that problem to deal with.

The risk to us is so minimal, we can basically host 100,000 books on our site for dirt cheap, distributing them digitally and with print on demand features, and that cost is dropping in half every 18 months. The opposite is happening to traditional publishers. Every 18 months the costs of maintaining a highly vertical corporate structure, distribution network, and sales channel network, and cost of printing goes UP every 18 months ( by about 10% ). So, basically, if we get inundated, we would be absolutely ecstatic. Content is king online, and that is the exact wave of interest and activity that we want. That lets us get more advertising, charge more for sponsorships, and in turn give more back to our authors. If we were getting 100 books a week submitted, knowing that of those 100 only 5 are going to be moderately successful for a short period, and 1 is going to be very successful for a long time, we would be happy. That level of traffic and interest in our site would mean those six successful books would be getting a -LOT- of money. The more content, the more traffic, the more money we have to share.

Once we get to a critical mass of content, we'll add in more tools to let people discover and share books. Letting people build and share their library of favorite books with all their friends. Letting authors set up channels that people can subscribe to, so they can send out notices to all their fans when a new book is uploaded, or when a book gets changed. At that point we would also look into more collaboration and communication tools, letting authors connect with each other so they can edit books, and help improve each other's work. It is our sincere hope that we get absolutely SWAMPED with books. Our business success depends on it.

Happy New Year to everyone, here's hoping for a blast of a year in 2009, and here is hoping to us getting absolutely SWAMPED with book submissions! Also if anyone is interested in finding out more about WHERE Sharing Books is hosted, post a comment here and I will contact you directly and hook you up with some info and a sales rep at our host.

Labels: business philosophy, content