Entries Tagged 'website' ↓

A month ago I was contacted by an editor at a traditional publisher. She wanted to know if I would be interested in having a conversation about turning Home-Ec 101 into a book.

Immediately I turned to Google and Facebook, looking to see if it was a legit company.

Yes.

I returned the email and a few days later we had a conversation that outlined the whole process.  The biggest hurdle is the pitch. She sent me a sample proposal and from that I began piecing together one for Home-Ec 101. After stressing about it and pestering people into giving their opinions, I finally turned it in -before the deadline, thank you very much.

Since then, it’s been a waiting game. Well, until yesterday that is. Around 1pm I got an email from the editor saying they really liked the idea and that it seems marketable. In fact, they wanted to hear it pitched in a larger size. (The original specs were for a paperback, slightly taller than your average novel, but not as thick (about 240 pgs ). Apparently they want to see it priced out in a larger book, I don’t know if that has anything to do with the number of words, adding content, or if it’s to allow for more whitespace.  I’ll negotiate my contract when the final size & cost of production are figured out.

Regardless, I’m beyond excited, if nothing else, this is flattering and validating. I plug away at HE101 hoping I’m not wasting my time.  Insecure much?  Always.

Publishing projects take a while, so it will be some time before I make the big announcement on Home-Ec 101. It’s not a secret, but I’m going to try to not make a big deal out of it until closer to the release.

I’m still on cloud nine.

I’m not even referring to my new haircut.

Thank you Dan, Ivy and I really appreciate the piece.  You did a great job of making it look as though we know what we are talking about.

I’ve been researching marketing while I try to figure out how to expand the reach of Home Ec 101 without throwing away cash.  Social media is extremely useful and as I watch our numbers grow, I think we are doing at least a few things correctly.  Ivy and I are patient, so we can deal with building readership in a slow and steady manner.

What baffles me are the plethora of self described social media marketers, SEO specialists.  There are probably thousands of these sites I have wandered across all with the same content, just small variances in tone and word arrangement.  It feels like the Amway of the Intertubes.  What I have yet to figure out is exactly what these people are selling.  Through the noise certain words pop up over and over contacts, client lists, expand your customer base.  Yet, I never see exactly what it is these people are selling.

Additionally whose idea was it to sell these crappy e-books?  I haven’t bought one, I’m just assuming from the general level of the associated blogs that the e-books contents are along the same lines.   (There may be some good ones out there, I just see no reason to buy an ebook on say drinking water daily for $7)

These people are definitely enthusiastic and excited, I just have yet to figure out what it is all about.

All of this said, we’re plodding along, trying to build a resource people will enjoy and return to not only for Home Ec questions but for interaction with others struggling along the same path.

Oh and I have to boast a little.  We launched just over 10 months ago and other than hosting, some art, and of course our fantabulous t-shirts, we haven’t spent anything. I’m sure if we hired professionals it’d have been less stressful, but I truly love what we are doing. Slowly we are finding our way and as we go, we’re meeting a lot of people.   I’m excited about ’08, there will be conventions, both in April and October.  It’s going to be a lot of fun.

We hit 100k visits on New Year’s Day.  Hopefully it’s just a sign of things to come.

I’m working on a new project for Home Ec 101. I spent hours fiddling with a joomla template yesterday, finally had everything fixed exactly how I wanted, except for one text thing, but I was ready to just let that go and live with dark grey vs black.

Then I asked my husband to load the page on his computer so I could verify that the grey text was tolerable. You see, my husband is one of those strange creatures that actually likes Internet Explorer. Here I was excited that I had been very productive with the day’s programming and in the five seconds it took to load all my little hopes were crushed. IE hates my page. The objects are all over the page and I’m furious.

Why is it I can tell Firefox and Safari that a cell should be 20 pixels wide and they will listen, but not Internet Explorer. Oh no, apparently telling IE that a cell should be 20 pixels wide is the same as saying it should be 50 or 100.

Today I’m going to unload all I’ve done and reload from scratch. Thankfully I don’t have to remake all of the objects.

I think this is why I didn’t major in computer programming.

I’d like to thank Jared for letting me pester him with the occasional question.

Well, today’s the day. Ivy and I are ready to formally announce our latest project.

We’ve put together a website: www.home-ec101.com

Check it out and let me know what you think.