For the past week I’ve been hard at work on the 7 Day Startup Challenge hosted by Dan Norris. The goal was to build and launch a business in…yup…7 days using the process and frameworks Dan used to build his own business. I managed to do it, launching MyStoryPage.co in about a week. I had a […]
A getting started guide to beating procrastination
Photo credit: Crew Running a solo or micro business is hard. Every single issue that comes up is a decision you have to make. There isn’t a design team to turn to, or a product manager, or a writer, or director of finance. The only expert is you, at least most of the time. Are you […]
How and Where to Tell Your Side Project Stories
About a year ago, I watched a video on Bernadette Jiwa’s The Story of Telling blog with Tina Roth Eisenburg. Tina is known as @swissmiss, the founder of Creative Mornings, and the super cool temporary tattoo company Tattly. The gist of her story: Tattly started by accident, a challenge to herself to create better tattoos than […]
Why Book Design Matters for Self Published Authors
I recently sat in on a talk by Vancouver book designer and art director Peter Cocking. He was speaking at WORD Vancouver about book design for self publishers—good timing since I just put up my own cover of PRACTICAL STORYTELLING. To be honest, creating a cover at this point in the writing process is kind […]
9 Tips for Crafting a Rock Solid Book Concept
Last weekend, the Word Vancouver Reading and Writing Festival hit the streets for an unbelievable twentieth time. In the Writing Workshop track, I attended Jesse Finkelstein and Trena White’s presentation on self publishing. They’re the team behind Page Two, a new kind of publishing agency that helps authors get their work out there, either through […]
5 More Sites You Need to Sign Up For (Because Your Inbox Isn’t Full Enough)
I go through phases when I sign up for everything. This week alone I must have signed up for five different newsletters. And a free webinar (which I didn’t attend). It’s like I’m everywhere on Google. I’m a Signup Superhero (is there a cape for that?) I think if I could be a professional learner, […]
3 Steps to Creating a Perfect Pitch
Does the idea of working on your story scare you? Does it seem complicated? I mean, your story is like your life and that’s a whole lot of stuff. How are you supposed to pick what to use and what to leave out? Why not start with something easy, something that’s only 100 to 200 […]
6 Things Affiliate Marketers Can Learn From Content Marketing
Once upon a time, when online marketing was the Wild West, you could get away with shunting your web site visitors off to your affiliate program as soon as possible. Those were the early days. Now of course, things are quite different. Marketing online is all about building relationships. You want your visitors to stay […]
Why Really Useful Content Marketing Begins with Writing Practice
My online business revolves around writing and storytelling. I’m a business storyteller which means I take a business owner’s personal experiences and weave them into marketing copy they can use on their web site. But for mintedleaf.com itself, the site has been a bit of a mystery to me. (You know—it’s the old story about […]
Give ‘Em What they Want (Then Give ‘Em What they Need)
A recent shared post caught my eye about amazing physics teacher Jeffrey Wright from Louisville, Kentucky. I’m all over amazing teachers. I come from a family of teachers so I gravitate to those stories, even though I’m not a teacher myself. But as my two teens go through high school, I’m constantly looking out for […]