Wow! It has been more than a month since my last post. I did a little experiment for the first 22 days of the month; I did zero marketing. Course I didn't plan it that way, because I was busy, but wow what a difference. Yes Virginia, Self-Marketing does work! Even though my web traffic has been down, my sales for my first app are pretty consistent. I think lowering the price helped a lot. Hmmm that could be the best marketing so far! I did lower all my apps to $.99 so we shall see if that does do the trick! I do have 9 days left in November to make some marketing noise and will start to blow some horns. As I am really excited about two new announcements. 1) I just made some really cool additions to Hippos Name and Hippo Mini. We decided to improve the apps a little before starting our new book for December. So we flushed out the map page and took each character, regardless if it appeared in the book or not, and wrote a little bio of them. The new artwork was so good, that we're going to up the bar and strive for Disney-like quality from now on. Hey, we have great characters and strong writing, why not go for even better artwork.

So look for the new version coming out in one week. Heck, buy the app now to see how much it will change. It's a great story and now has even better characters.

I struggled with the original script for the new book. It took a long time to write this one. I think it's because I wanted something that was as good as my hero's, Charles Schulz. And I went down that way, even creating a skating scene with all of my characters. Well that wasted about 2 weeks of artwork and story lines that were going nowhere. I finally did what I did for Hippos Name. I just started with one idea and started writing and finished the script in about 20 minutes. I've edited it quite a bit, but it's ready to go. I'm very happy with it. And because of the additional work we did on the last app, you can be assured that the artwork will be 10x better than what I've given so far. The characters are well-defined, and well thought out. I can't to show off my new book app to all of you. Look for the announcement on December 20-21! I should have a trailer made for it by then as well. And This Time, I'll Price it Right!
–Nick Nebelsky

If you're like me and love to create, then you'll love the present. It's a great time to be alive! I was fortunate in that I have this creative talent that has been unlocked! I love what I do and couldn't be happier knowing that God has given me the talents, and Apple has given me the tools to help me succeed! I just celebrated my first year wedding anniversary, and Apple has given me a gift that I'll never forget; the permission to sell my new app, Hippos Name in the App Store! This is only the beginning, but it's the start of something big. I've already started the wheels turning on the second book and have a mile long list of things I need to do for the first one. But this is where the fun continues. I get to tell people about how much fun it was to create this app. How I started with an idea almost 18 years ago telling stories to my niece and nephew and taking those characters today and weilding them into something more than words in the air. It was my nephew who at age 18 told me to take those characters that I created and make them real. Draw them out. Give them names and personalities and traits. That was eight years ago. And I did do that that three years ago, but it never came off the ground. I had trademarks, logos, a web site. But it just wasn't there still. So I changed the name of the collection, kept the original names, and changed the focus. It's now turned into something wonderful and I'm very proud of it. I'd love to one day be able to hire my nephew and write books together, but I'll have to sell a lot of apps to do that. In the meantime, I hope you will join with me in celebrating this great feat. In the next few days, I'll post some of my original pencil drawings and how the characters have matured over the course of three years.

How to set goals for yourself and your app studio

As I mentioned yesterday in my blog, "Word of the Day is Timing", I spoke about putting forth a media plan and a product schedule. Within these plans are lots and lots of goals. I like to think of them as little accomplishments you'll strive for each day. Goals should not have a negative connotation about them. They're levels at what we place on ourselves to be better, sell more, and achieve more. Every day we want the best for our children, our spouses, our pets, our lives. So these little stepping stones of achievement and accomplishments will make us a better salesperson, and a better person.

When I set out to publish my current project (still a secret), in my mind, I set little goals; mostly sales goals. But what I found out is that to achieve those goals, I have to set and meet a whole lot of mini goals to get where I need and want to be.

Let's first talk about development. Although I am a developer, it's not a passion of mine. Luckily, I found someone who is more passionate about programming than I am. My wife! She has taken over the reigns of Chief Programmer and now I can concentrate on things that make me happy like conceptualization, brainstorming, writing, and drawing. What's great about finding another person to share your vision with is that you have another set of eyeballs to look at your work and make adjustments and improvements. When I first set out on my project, I thought I could pump this guy out in three weeks. Then Mr. Morris Lessmore came around. (See blog post) Everything stopped. I LOVE THIS BOOK! I said to my wife, I want to revamp our book and be as good as or close to what they're doing. And she said, "We can do it!" Four great words that are now embossed in my skull.
So when you're setting your goals for your next project and you want to do something but not sure how it's going to happen, find someone you trust, go to Corona's web site, they have a lot of great resources there to help you achieve your long and short term goals.

My new plan is to set aside at least two months for development and production. This includes, writing original story, character development, drawing, building of sprites and animation, and environment building. And also sound FX as well; most of which I do myself.

Marketing Goals: This is a big one. After you have finished your development and testing, next comes submission and the week-long waiting game while your app awaits approval at Apple. Take this time to put your marketing plan into action. This is bonus time for you. If you haven't already, send out tweets, notifications in facebook, youtube vids, etc. Every little bit helps. One of my approaches is to set small goals for twitter followers. I was stagnant at 285 for the longest time. I felt like I needed more to help get the word out. So I followed more people. As of right now, I have one follower for every 4 I follow. Follow me @intensemedia! So I set a goal today to reach 20,000 follows and 5,000 followers by November 1st. It's a small drop in the bucket, but every voice, every person means something to me. They may have 20,000 followers or 200K or more. The idea is to spread your message far and wide. I'm also building a facebook page solely for my company. The private thing is nice, but you have to build your friends. I've created an Intense Media channel on You Tube. As soon as my app is ready, I'll start uploading some videos from the app. I'll also place ads on my most popular videos.
I currently write for Examiner.com. I write for a national audience. I try to convey good quality information and mention my web site at the end. I place my articles in Digg and on my new blog page on my web site. I talk passionate to people every day about what I'm doing. I seek advice from gurus in my iOS app development groups. We have some very successful and approachable app developers in my area. Get out and meet people who can help you and will help build you up to where you want to be. These are all attainable goals you can set for yourself. Market the heck out of yourself and your brand.

And after you've reached all of your little goals, set new ones. Always strive to be your best. Make great products, and have fun!

–Nick

It has been almost a week since my last post. I only have one excuse for that. I've been working my tale and tail off! I'm so proud of this book. One of the things I would like to share with you is the word, "Inspiration!"

It's a powerful word because you can get inspiration in a myriad of places; such as friends, family, your own products, other people's work, books, audio tapes, gurus! One of those places is on Youtube! I watched a video on Entrepreneurship. It was made by a man whom I've never met, but I'm sure I will soon enough. His name is Carlos M. Icaza; he is co-founder of Corona. No not the beer, but the SDK (software development kit). It's a relatively short video of his top ten things you need to have if you want to be an entrepreneur. And every one on the list resonated with me. But there was one in particular that stood out and that was to "Believe in Yourself!"

Artists are notorious for having low-self esteem and not speaking up on their beliefs especially their own work. So what I want to do is share this video with you and also I want to tell you to keep striving for what you believe in. Don't give the naysayers any power and march on!

Carlo M. Icaza's Video

We're so close to releasing the book!

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