Ever have one of those weeks where you can’t seem to get into any kind of rhythm? I’m having one of those weeks so far. I can’t seem to find the work rhythm I usually have. One thing or the other would come up which would throw me off track and consequentially behind schedule. Hopefully all of that will change today.

Things are off to a good start. Since last week, I haven’t posted any bulletins via MySpace. The reason being they made some changes to the bulletin editor last week which for some bizarre reason caused my bulletins to repeat themselves. So instead of a single bulletin there would be two of the same one. Because of this, I’ve held off till they fixed the problem or I found another solution. This morning, I found a solution. I typically use Firefox for everything but this morning after trying to post a bulletin only to have the aforementioned error occur, I thought I would try it in IE. Low and behold, it worked! Go figure. Guess IE is good for something after all.

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It’s been ‘one of those days’ so far. I was tied-up this morning doing some errands so I didn’t get much work done. So that leaves me this afternoon to try to do it. I was ready to tackle things when I got a visit from the local newspaper wanting to do an interview with oui! The reporter read the press release I sent out yesterday through some press release sites I found. It was a short interview on the pay-what-you-want option and about Ambrosia Publishing in general. I don’t expect much to come out of it but you never know. Any marketing is good marketing, I suppose.

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I was hoping to take today off but there’s too much to do. Most of the day will be on getting the press release out on the set-your-own-price pricing I have set up now for the downloadable versions of the graphic novels for sale at the Ambrosia Publishing Store.

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After spending most of yesterday on that damn YouTube searching and downloading videos, it’s time to get back to work.

Most of the day was spent putting into motion a new marketing plan influenced by the recent Radiohead release. After getting the ‘okay’ from the guys I’m publishing, people can now pay-what-they-want for every digital download from the Ambrosia Publishing Store. This means, if they want to pay five cents, then they can. I’m hoping this move will get the comic news sites to notice the company and books. It’s frustrating as hell dealing with them. But the top four publishers are their bread-and-butter so you have to just keep plugging away till they can’t help but start covering you.

So I spent all day changing the code for the buttons on the Ambrosia Publishing Store to enable people to set their own price. Tedious work but it’s all done. I’m going to send a press release out on Sunday about the new pricing but I will post about it on a couple forums I frequent to hopefully get people, at least, mumbling about this.

Technorati Tags: Radiohead, Ambrosia Publishing Store

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Had a bitch of a time sleeping last night. As a result, I didn’t drag my ass out of bed till 9 this morning. As a result of that result, I’ve decided to take a day off. I’m trying not to do any work but it’s hard. Guess I am a workaholic after all.

So far, I’ve been downloading YouTube videos of Jim Lee drawing. I have the ones of him drawing and inking a picture of that Jenny Sparks character. Now I’m in the middle of a series of videos of him drawing some stuff with Stan Lee babbling about some crap next to him.

The reason I’m downloading these videos is to learn how he works. I majored in commercial art when I first went to college back in ’86. After that first year, I lost any desire to draw for some bizarre reason. I didn’t get back into it till a couple of years ago. I started doodling here and there; moving on to sketching. And now I’m at the point where I want to give illustrating a shot again. It’s intimidating as hell though. I look at the work of my personal art heroes like Frank Miller, Matt Wagner, Jack Kirby, John Byrne, and others and I have to convince myself that they were like me at one point in regards to their level of artistic skills. Miller just didn’t pick up a pencil and draw the way he does now. It helps that I keep Wagner’s new GRENDEL ARCHIVES close by. It’s a collection of his first published work which was a GRENDEL story. It’s no where near the artistic level of his current work obviously which is why it is so inspiring to look through whenever I doubt my artistic abilities.

Technorati Tags: YouTube, Jim Lee, Matt Wagner, John Byrne, Frank Miller, GRENDEL

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With no updates today, I spent the better part of the morning working on Ambrosia Publishing’s MySpace page. I’ve been meaning to but it was one of those things I’ve had on the To-Do list for a while. So I made time today to tackle it. I added a section to the page which displays each graphic novel’s cover along with links to the Ambrosia Publishing Store, to the online serialization blog for that particular graphic novel, and finally a link to a PDF sample of the same graphic novel. I just wish there was some way to measure the number of clicks each one receives.

I’m also considering creating buttons to add to the update bulletins I send out through MySpace whenever a new page goes live for an online serial. One button would be for the Ambrosia Publishing Store; the other would be for that particular story’s online serialization. I’m still contemplating on whether this could be seen as being “needy”? There’s a fine line between marketing and coming across as “needy” which would only turn people off. I think I’ll sit on this idea for a while longer and ponder on it some more.

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With SMUGGLING SPIRITS: BOOK ONE coming out early next year and the online serialization of it already completed, I was left with a dilemma of how to not only keep SPIRITS out there but also how to market it to new people who don’t necessarily want to read the online serial version of it. So I came up with the idea of starting a mailing list which will send weekly five-page updates to everyone who signs-up.

So I’ve spent practically all morning getting that set-up. I had the backend of it done over the weekend and all tests show that it works. This morning was spent setting up a plug-in to use on the < a xhref="http://www.ambrosiapublishing.com" mce_href="http://www.ambrosiapublishing.com" target="_blank">Ambrosia Publishing site which ties-in with the mailing list program I’m using. Everything has tested okay, so chances are I will write up a press release announcing the newsletter and send it out.

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Typically, Fridays are spent catching-up on tasks I didn’t get to for one reason or the other the past week. Instead of doing that, I thought I would do some research into conventions/festivals/expos coming up in 2008 which I would like to possibly attend.

While there are numerous I would love to exhibit at, my budget is telling me to weigh my options. Being on a limited budget means I can’t take a “hope-things-work-out” approach to attending conventions. I know attending conventions- let me rephrase that- I know attending “right” conventions will expose Ambrosia Publishing and its line of books to a lot of people but I have to compare that to the cost of attending a particular con. Most cons I’m interested in exhibiting at would cost me an average of $1,500 - $2,000 to exhibit at. That includes travel, hotel, and table costs. That isn’t including shipping material to the hotel before the con or money needed to live on during the con.

As you can see, it is quite the expense to attend cons unless they are close by or if you have a friend’s or relative’s place to crash at while attending one. I guess the key is to be very selective in the cons to exhibit at and possibly just attend the more expensive ones as a guest in order to network.

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I’m slowly catching up on things which piled up while on vacation. But it seems like for every thing I finish, I get an idea pertaining to the business. It could be a marketing idea or something I want to add to the site or something else entirely. This would explain why I have “To-Do” lists scattered on the desk here.

Just received an email regarding a new positive review for Kyle’s CLOCKWORK CREATURE: CHAPTER ONE at one of the better indy comic blogs, Indie Pulp

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Here’s one of those “where I’ve been” posts which everyone uses at some point, I suppose. I was gone on a little vacation for most of last week. I got back here only to come down with the stomach virus from Hades. Because of that, I was a bed-ridden vegetable this past weekend. I didn’t feel somewhat human till yesterday.

So now I’m in the midst of playing catch-up on all kinds of things. It was nice to get away for a bit to recharge the batteries, as they say. Now I’m revving to go but I have to deal with a bunch of emails first.

One thing which has been on my mind since I heard about it was Radiohead offering their newest release as a you-pay-what-you-think-it-is-worth digital download before it is “officially” released by a major label. While I would have been much more impressed if they had just foregone a major label all together, it is still worth noting how big a deal this is. I just wonder how this kind of business model can be incorporated into Ambrosia Publishing’s. I guess it would depend on the creators involved and if they are up to allowing the digital versions of their books being offered for sale at a price the customer is willing to pay for it. Might be worth pursuing.

Technorati Tags: Radiohead, digital download, Ambrosia Publishing

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