Category: ceo

ceo

How to successfully work from home

Time magazine recently ran an informative and instructional article about the “remote worker.”  Whether you are an employee working remotely (or wanting to) for a large business, or you are an independent contractor working remotely for a family-owned business, or whether you are a published writer building your author platform in your spare time, Time magazine’s suggestions here are worth making note of (and incorporating into your routine). More and more companies are embracing the notion of telecommuting; workers are happier and have the opportunity to be more productive if they work smarter, and not just harder.  After all, they’re gaining the time they might otherwise lose to a daily commute (say good-bye to rush hour traffic). They can save money on work clothes and day care and, let’s face it, it’s just plain “cooler” to be able to work from home.

But working from home can have its disadvantages and downsides, so the productive, savvy worker recognizes these and overcompensates for them.  From the article: “Some telecommuters do, in fact, turn into slackers, take advantage of their situations and… don’t form strong emotional bonds with co-workers (no chance for after work cocktails, obviously), and they don’t get the all-necessary ‘face time’ with senior management. Even so, there are ways to win over your boss and be a successful, wonderfully productive remote worker…”

Here are the top 5 tips from Time magazine’s article:

1. Get organized – demonstrate outstanding organization and attention to detail, along with the ability to prioritize and consistently meet goals while exhibiting an overall sense of professionalism.

2. Check in frequently – In the corporate world, if you aren’t seen or heard frequently, you are often not thought of for new opportunities.  Telecommuters can overcome this disadvantage by checking in on a consistent, scheduled basis. That way you stay “top of mind” and demonstrate your work ethic.  Email, use instant messaging, and don’t be afraid to use the telephone.

3. Push yourself to network –  Direct from Time’s article: “Just doing your job isn’t enough to be successful as a remote worker. You need to build your soft skills by networking in person and via social media with co-workers and other people in your industry. If possible, [attend] training programs and holiday parties, and participate in as many networking events and conferences as you can. Building strong relationships can be a challenge for a telecommuter, but it is often just as important as being a good worker.”

4. Take breaks and get fresh air – Without formal meetings and lunch breaks, it becomes important to devise your own productive schedule; and productivity can depend upon a sustainable pattern.  Mimic working at a office by starting work at a consistent time every day (8am works), taking a break or two, an hour for lunch, and stopping at a consistent time every evening.  If “work” were fun it would be called “play” so it’s important to train your body and mind to perform as if you were in an office.

5. Respond to emails quickly – Direct from Time’s article: “This is a simple tip — and an important one. Make replying to… e-mails a high priority. Get back to them promptly so that they trust you’re working, not sleeping or playing video games. And when you respond, be clear and concise. Cover all of your bases to avoid unnecessary back and forth.” If multiple e-mails are required to take care of an issue that could be covered in a 30-second conversation, pick up the phone. If it takes you 2 business days to respond to emails, there’s naturally going to be someone, somewhere, questioning your commitment.  And once confidence is lost, it’s hard to gain back, especially remotely…

blogging, branding, ceo, facebook

Facebook fan leader boards and “Fan of the Week” kudos

I know I should be discussing the proofing process at Outskirts Press, and I will get back to that next week, but in celebration of our passing 5,000 fans on our Outskirts Press Facebook Page, I wanted to mention some of the new apps we added to not only encourage more participation from our FB friends, but to give them recognition for that participation, as well.  Of course, anything that I discuss regarding Facebook is a little up in the air, since apparently, the Fan Pages on Facebook will be changing to a new design on March 30.   But if the “Preview” is to be believed, this new design will incorporate the oft-debated “Timeline” design that Facebook unveiled for the Personal pages a little while ago.  This re-design shouldn’t affect what we’re doing with our Fan Recognition Programs, which I’ll discuss now:

The first is a “Fan of the Week” award, which will publicly recognize a random fan of our Facebook page for participation on our wall — which gives public kudos to fans who have actively engaged in liking something, commenting on something, or posting something.  Each week, a new Fan will be chosen, recognized on our wall, and will be featured on a new Fan of the Week page on our Facebook Page, with his/her user profile “up in lights.”  The purpose, of course, is to encourage other fans/friends to participate, so they will become the next Fan of the Week. The more you participate, the greater your chances to be chosen as the Fan of the Week.

To that end, we also launched a Top Fans app, which goes one step further.  Every Sunday we will recognize the top weekly fans who are responsible for the most likes, the most comments, and the most posts.  The top 5 fans in each category will be listed on a new Top Fans leader-board page, along with a 4th category, recognizing the fans who have accumulated the most “points” overall (with certain engagements — likes, comments, posts — earning a certain number of points).

And in the coming months we will be launching our Facebook Publishing Awards, where certain milestones our authors reach in the publishing and marketing process are automatically broadcast to all their Facebook friends.   People closely watching my personal FB page may have noticed the first such Award come across my newsfeed a couple of weeks ago.  This will be a great way for us to help our authors better establish and earn the public recognition they deserve for their impressive accomplishment — successfully publishing and marketing a great looking, high-quality book!

And if there’s any doubt that all this “stuff” I’m talking about in regard to Facebook (including the tactics I covered yesterday) contribute to significant increases in social media “reach,” one need only look at this recent graphic generated by Facebook Insights for our Facebook Page:

 

 

 

Apple, blogging, ceo, marketing, start-up

Getting video testimonials for your business

While we were in the middle of the Outskirts Press Pre-Production series of blog postings in February, our Outskirts Press blog over at http://blog.outskirtspress.com introduced a video contest in association with Valentine’s Day, titled “Show Me the Love” where we asked our satisfied and successfully published authors to record a 1-3 minute video about either being a published author, their experience with Outskirts Press, or why they loved working with us.

The videos we received were great!  We posted them all on Facebook as we received them. Then our Facebook friends “liked” them or commented on them in accordance with normal social media behavior.  This allowed us to determine 6 “finalists” based upon the number of likes and/or comments each video received.

We then posted those 6 video finalists on our blog along with a poll, asking our blog readers and members of our social community to vote on the video they liked the best.  The winner would receive a free Apple iPad 2.  It was an interesting race, with two finalists battling back and forth in the polls up until the last hour, at which time, one was crowned the winner.

At the bell, Patricia A. Hawkenson, author of Magnetic Repulsion: 100 Poems From Desire to Disgust, was named our Video Valentine for 2012 for this creative video she submitted:

Video testimonials like these are valuable components to running successful online businesses nowadays, because people on the internet are now more likely to “watch” the Internet than they are to “read” it (and yes, I recognize the irony of making that claim in a manner that requires it to be read).

So how do you acquire video testimonials for your book or business? Well, our process worked pretty well, and it went something like this:

1. Use your social media community to solicit participation in a transparent, Web 2.0-friendly way
2. Encourage participation and comments
3. Yes, you may have to offer an incentive to participate.  As popular as Skype may be, it’s still a taxing procedure for most people to create a video, and the likelihood of it being spread across YouTube and the rest of the Internet is not for the faint of heart — particularly for writers, the majority of whom are often introverted. In our case, we dangled an Apple iPad 2, but your gift could be something as easy as a signed copy of your book, for example, or a product or service that you deliver. For instance, our runner-up, received a free iPad edition of her book  (which actually has approximately the same retail price as the iPad 2 itself, so they were both big winners).
4. Once you have video testimonials, use them. Nothing is quite as persuasive as seeing real people making really great comments about your product or service.

So, with that said, take a look at all six of our video finalists by clicking here. Pretty good arguments to use Outskirts Press, wouldn’t you say?

ceo, facebook, self publishing

Fandemonium Volume 2 is published

Let’s take a small break from the Outskirts Press pre-production process (which we’ve been covering for the past month), and the production process (which we’ll cover next) to make a few announcements that I haven’t yet had an opportunity to mention.

For instance… late last month we published our second annual Facebook anthology, Fandemonium Volume 2, which is another collection of writing from our talented community of Facebook friends, all 4700 of them (and counting).  Congrats to all who are represented. You can save 10% on your copy by ordering directly from our bookstore at http://outskirtspress.com/bookstore/9781432788001.html;  although, like approximately 8,500 of our other books, it’s also available on Amazon.com or Barnes & Noble’s website if you’d prefer to buy there. Either way, the American Red Cross gets $7.51 (100% of the royalties of the book) for each sale. They appreciate your support.

Here is the table of contents, to see what work is presented and which authors are represented.  Unlike our Outskirts Press specific anthologies, of which we’ve published three, it’s not necessary to be a published author with Outskirts Press in order to appear in our Facebook Anthology. All you need to do is be a “friend” of our Outskirts Press page on Facebook.  But, I noticed that many authors who were new to Outskirts Press and represented in our first Facebook anthology are NOW Outskirts Press authors, and that’s always gratifying to see. So thank you.

best self publishing, ceo, is outskirts press legitimate, self publishing a book

The new “About Us” page

Yesterday I posted the 2011 version of the About Us page that appeared on our self-publishing website. It contained the “About Us” story through 2010. As 2011 came to an end, we needed a new version for 2012, which continued the story of our company and our successfully published authors through 2011.  Consolidating 10 years of achievements and milestones into one page was becoming laborious (to read), so with this version, we shorted it considerably. Here’s the new version:

Ten years ago, Outskirts Press was founded by author Brent Sampson in 2002 as a result of his personal frustrations with getting published. Outskirts Press incorporated in Colorado in 2003, and through strategic partnerships with companies like Writer’s Digest, Outskirts Press quickly became the fastest-growing full-service book publishing and book marketing firm.

The years between 2004 and 2006 marked a growth rate in excess of 1,500%, an amazing accomplishment that was publicized in July 2007 by The Denver Business Journal when Outskirts Press was recognized as the 3rd fastest-growing privately held company in Colorado.  By the end of 2006, Outskirts Press already had nearly 1,000 books in print,  all of them available worldwide through Ingram, Baker & Taylor, Amazon, and Barnes & Noble online, among others. And by the end of 2007, Outskirts Press had more than doubled its title totals again.

self publishing books

In 2008 The Denver Business Journal recognized Outskirts Press for the second year in a row as the fastest-growing publisher, and in fact, the fastest-growing privately held small-to-medium sized company in Colorado (in any industry), boasting growth of over 500% for the years between 2005-2007.

2009 and 2010 marked more new milestones, as well. In 2009 Outskirts Press published its 5,000th title and became the only self-publishing company to appear on the Inc. 500 list of fastest-growing privately held companies.

And in 2010, and again in 2011, Outskirts Press repeated its appearance on the Inc. 5000 twice more, and became the only self-publishing company to appear on the list of top 5,000 fastest growing businesses in America for three years in a row.

So how does Outskirts Press remain the fastest-growing full-service publishing provider?

  • It begins with our Mission Statement: To exceed the expectations of every author we help publish.
  • It continues with our commitment to conservationism and recycling. Our most popular book sizes offer a recycled paper-stock option, featuring 30% post-consumer.
  • It grows with our authors.  Just ask Gang Chen, who earned over $100,000 in 180 days; or Sally Shields, the stay-at-home mom-turned-2-time Amazon.com bestseller; or Ronnie Lee, who has become one of the most prolific published authors of our generation with the assistance of Outskirts Press.

As we look toward the future, our commitment to produce high-quality books and offer high levels of support to our authors in all three phases of their journey (writing, publishing, marketing), only grows stronger.

For instance, we have embraced digital e-books with three a la carte digital publishing options:

 We have embraced social media to help our authors further promote their books:

And, we practice what we preach, publishing our own series of books to help authors navigate the sometimes tricky waters of book publishing and offering free publication in various anthologies through the year to showcase how easy, fast, and fun it can be to publish with Outskirts Press.

Through it all, Outskirts Press authors have remained our main focal point. With over 8,200 published titles, Outskirts Press continues to pour development dollars and resources into further improvements to the Outskirts Press website and its growing list of writing, publishing, and marketing services/products to further support our authors’ goals and dreams.

What does success mean to you? By any measure, you will find it here with Outskirts Press and we look forward to helping you on that journey.

Many of us, and some of our family members, took a moment during our July 4th picnic, to pose…

ceo, self publishing a book

The old “About Us” page

Every year we update the “About Us” page on our self-publishing website at Outskirts Press to tell a little bit about how we got started, what we’re all about,  what we offer, and build upon the story featuring another year of successfully published authors. There’s a “version” of that information on this blog’s “About” page, too, although the order of the information is a little different. We try to make the updates to that “About Us” page during the first month of each year. So, below is the “old” version of the About Us page from our website and tomorrow, on February 1, I’ll post the new version. In addition to keeping an archive of it as it changes, posting it here also provides all the “old” information (which is still valid and helpful for authors) even as it updates to newer versions. The graph is already updated because we keep updating the same filename each year so that it updates everywhere through its hotlinks.

So, without further ado, here’s the version that existed through 2011.

How did Outskirts Press become the fastest-growing full-service publishing provider?

  • It begins with our Mission Statement: To exceed the expectations of every author we help publish.
  • It continues with our commitment to conservationism and recycling. Our most popular book sizes offer a recycled paper-stock option, featuring 30% post-consumer.
  • And we grow toward the future with our commitment to produce high-quality books and offer high levels of support to our authors in all three phases of their journey (writing, publishing, marketing).

Outskirts Press was incorporated in October 2003 and published seven books its first year.

In 2004, Outskirts Press published an additional 51 books and began creating an infrastructure of talented publishing artisans that would help Outskirts Press deliver maximum author flexibility, full-service support, and the highest quality books.

Through strategic partnerships with companies like Writer’s Digest, and affiliations with the Publishers Marketing Association and the Small Publishers of North America (among others), Outskirts Press built a strong foundation and positive reputation in the publishing industry. The company published 220 new books in 2005, including its own publishing guide titled Self-Publishing Simplified, available as a free e-book as well as a $5.95 paperback edition.

full service self publishingNow in its third edition as Outskirts Press services have improved and streamlined, Self-Publishing Simplified continues to serve as a product brochure, an example of the company’s exemplary quality, and evidence that publishing a print-on-demand book does not require an outlandish retail price. Try to find a new book by any other print-on-demand publisher on Amazon for $5.95! The power of our pricing speaks for itself.

In 2006 Outskirts Press published another 695 books, approximately matching the yearly output of some traditional New York publishers. In total, the company already had nearly 1,000 books in print, all of them available worldwide through Ingram, Baker & Taylor, Amazon, and Barnes & Noble online, among others.

The years between 2004 and 2006 marked a growth rate in excess of 1,500%, an amazing accomplishment that was publicized in July 2007 by The Denver Business Journal when Outskirts Press was recognized as the 3rd fastest-growing privately held company in Colorado.

In the first quarter of 2007 Outskirts Press CEO Brent Sampson wrote and published the bestseller, Sell Your Book on Amazon, which hit # 29 on Amazon’s bestseller list in its debut month (March 2007). By the end of 2007, Outskirts Press had over 2,100 total books in print, making it the fastest-growing full-service publisher in America and one of the most prolific publishers in the world.

self publishing books

2008 was more exciting! For the second year in a row, The Denver Business Journal recognized Outskirts Press as the fastest-growing publisher, and in fact, the fastest-growing privately held small-to-medium sized company in Colorado (in any industry), boasting growth of over 500% for the years between 2005-2007.

Just in time for the holiday season, Outskirts Press CEO Brent Sampson wrote and published Adventures in Publishing, a unique children’s book about how to publish a children’s book. Featuring amazing full-color custom illustrations and rhyming verse, Adventures in Publishing acts as a full-color publishing guide for the Pearl publishing package and is an example of the artistry that is available to all our full-color authors.

In 2009, our authors had the most successful year since our founding, beginning with Gang Chen, who earned over $100,000 in 180 days. Our youngest author, Dalton James wrote, illustrated and published his third full-color children’s book with us at just 8 years of age. And more authors than we can count turned their publishing dreams into traditional publication realities when conventional publishers picked-up their Outskirts Press titles, including Susan R. Dolan and Audrey R. Vizzard. See their case study here.

2009 and 2010 marked a few milestones. In 2009 Outskirts Press published its 5,000th title and become the only self-publishing company to appear on the Inc. 500 list of fastest-growing privately held companies.

And in 2010, Outskirts Press repeated its appearance on the Inc. 5000 and became the only self-publishing company to appear on the list of top 5,000 fastest growing businesses in America for two years in a row. In January 2010, CEO Brent Sampson started his blog at brentsampson.com and in the spring was a semi-finalist in the Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year Awards.

Speaking of awards, Outskirts Press sponsored the Student Literary Awards and Colorado Book Awards in association with our charitable donations to the Colorado Humanities. Meanwhile, Outskirts Press began establishing its social networking presence by developing its YouTube channel and surpassing 500 Facebook Fans and 500 Twitter followers. In December, Outskirts Press celebrated the holidays with its Facebook fans by giving away two free Amazon Kindles.

Through it all, Outskirts Press authors have remained our main focal point. With over 6,500 titles published, Outskirts Press continues to pour development dollars and resources into further improvements to the Outskirts Press website and its growing list of writing, publishing, and marketing services/products to further support our authors’ goals and dreams.

What does success mean to you? By any measure, you will find it here with Outskirts Press and we look forward to helping you on that journey.

Your success depends upon you. Are you ready to start your publishing journey? Click here…

ceo, is outskirts press legitimate, self publishing

Outskirts Press Inc. Holidays Past and Present

Every holiday season, Outskirts Press hosts a luncheon for our family of  Author Reps, Title Production Supervisors, Project Managers, Editors, Illustrators, and Publishing Consultants, although since many of them are scattered across the country (to best facilitate same time zone communications with our authors), only a small percentage of us can ever get together all at once. In fact, typically between 1/3 and 1/2 of our LOCAL people are often together at the same time, seeing how we’re all working as hard as ever to deliver published books to our authors before the end of the year.

Nevertheless, we always find time to fit in a little fun. And speaking of fun, here are the last 6 years of holidays parties at Outskirts Press, proving once again that the more things change, the more they stay the same. And that constant quality, service, and value is what continues to make Outskirts Press the fastest-growing full-service self-publishing firm.  And for that, we thank our authors. So from our family to yours, happy holidays, and thank you.

2011

 

2010


2009


2008


2007


2006

No matter what year it is, Happy Holidays from Outskirts Press.

branding, ceo, marketing, Social Networking Sites

How to automate social media postings for Facebook, Google+ Pages, and more

Yesterday I finished the blog series about creating a Google+ page for business by suggesting that with this post, today, I would share a method to automate posts to Google+. And before I do that, let me dispel the notion that “automating” posts is any sort of “click it and forget it” type of thing.  The task (yes, it’s a task) of “automating” your social media presence still requires a fair amount of work. For instance, for the purposes of maintaining our growing social network communities for Outskirts Press, we use the following “automation” and tracking tools: TweetDeck, HooteSuite, Klout, Ping, Rooster, and FTTT.  And to give you a visual representation of what all that involves, here’s a screen shot of JUST our HootSuite dashboard:

Scary, yes? Helpful? You bet!  In this particular screen shot, if you squint closely, you may notice that we are able to monitor 5 social media “streams” simultaneously, plus we’re able to post directly to our Facebook page, keep track of retweets from Twitter, and even schedule posts in advance on a few of our networks all at once. Unfortunately, no single application that I’ve been able to find has access to ALL the social media networks that we use, which is why we have several (and of course, that sometimes causes scheduling conflicts where several of us at Outskirts Press may inadvertently schedule various posts too close to one another).   And up until very recently, NONE of them automated posts to Google+ Pages (simply because Google+ Pages are so new).  But within the last couple of weeks, the API was opened up to six applications, including Hootsuite.

Sounds too good to be true?  The ability to automate posts and content to our new Google+ Page using an application we were already familiar with and using heavily? Well, right now, it IS too good to be true.   Development of new functionality like this takes time and even though Hootsuite has the Google API available, they don’ t yet have anything operational on their dashboard. Instead, they direct you toward a “landing page” requiring you to “apply” for the benefit of having Google+ added to your dashboard.  Here’s a link to the application.

So until it is officially added to Hootsuite — or to the others, which are: Buddy Media, Context Optional, Hearsay Social, Involver, and Vitrue– this is the procedure for putting the steps into place to be able to automate your Google+ pages as easily as your other social channels.  Of course, you might get hit up by some marketing emails from Hootsuite or even sales calls, so… just sayin’.

I’ve applied and will keep you posted…

Speaking of landing pages, today also marks the beginning of our  new Facebook landing page to encourage more “Likes” to build our Facebook community, which surpassed 3,000 this week.  And I’ll discuss all the fun details involved in creating and implementing Facebook landing pages next…

branding, ceo, Google, start-up

Google Plus For Business – Part One

Google launched Google+ in June 2011, which Mark Zuckerberg described as Google “… trying to build their own little version of Facebook.”  He’s right. If you look at Google+ you immediately see the similarities, so much so I’d be surprised if Facebook lawyers weren’t contemplating a suit. But that’s a posting for a different blog.  This one involves using Google Plus for business.

Of course, up until November,  you couldn’t use Google+ for business, not really. But in early November, Google+ launched business pages for their new social networking site, so now’s the time to write about how to set-up and use Google+ (Google Plus) for business.

First, you need to create a Google+ account at http://plus.google.com

Doing this requires you have your own Google account, which perhaps you have already set-up for Google Alerts, or many of the other services Google offers.   Enter your first name, last name, gender, and year of birth. All self-explanatory. Then upload a photograph, and if you’re an author, I would recommend uploading the same professional image you use on the back of your book and for all your book marketing efforts. 

So far, this is basically the same as Facebook in that I created a “personal profile” on Facebook prior to creating a Facebook Page for Outskirts Press.  Their close association has always prevented me from truly using Facebook (even my personal profile) for much other than business. This is the reason my photograph on my personal Facebook page is the round OP Logo.  Kind of defeating, I know, but it is what it is….    So now that I’m starting with Google+, I’m going to see if it is feasible to separate business from pleasure, so to speak — after all, that is one of the “benefits” Google+ claims over Facebook; we’ll see if it’s true.  To that end, I’ve  uploaded my professional head-shot into my personal Google + account.  As you do this, you may or may not have the same considerations.

The next check-box question requests your permission to “personalize” the web for you.  This is Google’s way of asking if they can use your personal information to tailor advertisements to you.  Their description of this functionality is purposefully vague on its real purpose, but that’s no surprise.  Who’s going to answer “Yes” to “Send me lots of ads” but saying “Yes” to “You’ll get to see everything your friends recommend that you might also enjoy” is a lot easier to swallow.   Here’s the disclaimer language on Google’s help page regarding this check-box:  When you click the +1 button, you’re explicitly signaling interest in displaying, sharing, or recommending specific online content, including ads.

Of course, one might argue that disabling that check-box removes half the point of social networking, and that’s true, so what you do with this check box is up to you.

Then you click join… and come back tomorrow for what happens next…