<![CDATA[Stuffed Books: Encouraging Children with Educational Apps and Books - Blog: Our Studio ]]>Wed, 22 May 2013 03:29:53 -0800Weebly<![CDATA[Apple's Brilliant Marketing Machine]]>Sun, 04 Nov 2012 14:46:53 GMThttp://intensemedia.com/4/post/2012/11/apples-brilliant-marketing-machine.htmlPicture
There are very few companies out there that create a buzz around its products like Apple does. Over the years, the well-orchestrated product announcements have always been more like stockholder meetings with the media occupying seats rather than stockholders.

Whether the buzz occurs from carefully placed rumors or simple announcements, Apple's “Buzz-meter” goes berserk especially around announcement time. That's because there are a lot of interested media outlets that cover just Apple. Once the media sees what Apple has to show them, Apple does an amazing job of detailing their financial success from the previous quarter and their engineering breakthroughs.

As I watched the latest presentation online (iPad Mini), I found myself more excited about these announcements than any previous. I actually found myself fist-pumping as I was watching! Is there an acceptable number of times one can fist-pump?

Steve Jobs , former CEO, was a master at delivery. He was a cult-like God to the Apple community and everyone listened to him intently as he delivered speech after speech of great news every quarter for the last ten years of his life.

Prior to this last event, Tim Cook, Jobs' successor as CEO never had the same effect that Steve did. However this last event, I noticed something about Tim's delivery. He definitely prepared more for this. He was looking more and more like Steve up on stage. And not that he needs to, but Steve had a way of capturing our attention. And I believe Tim has cracked the nut on this one too. I'm a keen observer of people's walks, movements and speech patterns. And Tim has nailed the presentation. Albeit for a few mispronunciations, Tim was spot on. If there was any doubt about who should lead this company, I feel that his performance should ease those concerns. It was like watching the old Steve Jobs up there. Tim even looked a little buff in his long sleeved shirt.

Apple is very smart as they deliver all of their quarterly news wrapped around one big announcement. And because every one and their brother wants to know about this one announcement, they're willing to sit through whatever else Apple has to tell them. And usually it's a potpourri of announcements on Financials, PR, Marketing, Wow Factor. Not only is it a managed audience, it's the right people. It's the “who's who” in the media world. The script pretty much stays the same. The reigning CEO comes out: Enter Tim Cook. Loud Applause from the galley. A general welcome and then a few teasers to the audience about the evening. “We're going to show you something great!” You would think after hearing that phrase over and over again, you would stop thinking it was true, but Apple delivers over and over again. There's a good reason Apple hasn't veered from this method of product announcement since Steve Jobs came back to Apple. It's a winning formula.

On October 23, 2012 in San Jose, Tim Cook presented not one, but an across-the-board unveiling of new products. It was surreal. Most of the hype of the event was the iPad Mini. But there was so much more!

Financials:
100,000,000 iPads sold to date
275,000 apps in the app store
90% of web traffic is for the iPad tablet
$6.5 Billion paid to developers thus far

Product Announcements:
The new iTouch, Nano, and Shuffle (iPod) lineup
The iTouch looks and feels just like the new iPhone 5
The new Mac Book series of Notebooks
A new iPad 4
And the new iMac desktop computer
Oh yea, and the new iPad Mini

The new iMac
I have to say, this was the most impressive announcement for me. With a whole new design, the iMac was redesigned for a slimmer look. With a sleek, super thin edge, new Retina display and faster processors and connectors, this desktop is poised to make a lot of noise. Not only were there engineering advancements, but design advancements as well. You can see why this is so important to Apple. By bridging those two together, you can create wonderful products. What they did with the new iMac is incredible. First they slimmed down the display to almost half. Then they removed the 2 MM air gap between the glass and the display by fusing the two together. What this does is truly incredible. It makes the fonts easier to read. Jim Schiller, Apple's VP of Hardware said it's like the text looks like it's sitting on top of the glass. The computer comes with four USB 3.0 connectors, two Thunderbolt ports, Quad-core Intel Core i5 or i7, as well as different configurations for hard drives and graphic cards.

Fusion Hard Drive
Apple has done it once again. It's built an amazing piece of hardware and software that works transparently that fuzes Flash Hard Drive space with traditional Hard Drive space into one drive. The software is so intelligent that it will decide for you which programs are being used the most and whether they should sit in Flash memory or on the hard drive. Flash memory is 2.5 times faster read and wrote times than traditional memory. And Fusion is really close to what Flash memory does. Each iMac comes with up to 3TB of 7200-rpm hard drive: up to 3TB Fusion Drive; or 768GB flash storage.

And what's really nice about the new announcement, is the price. When I started to look for a desktop alternative to my Macbook Pro laptop, the desktop is actually cheaper than the laptop configuration. And with the new iMac, that hasn't changed much. The base price of the iMac 21 inch is only $1299 and the 27 inch is $1799. As much as I love my MacBook Pro, I find myself wanting another monitor to hook up to it. I've thought about using my 42 inch Flat Screen television as a monitor, but the iMac would actually have a finer resolution. That's something I'm really excited about due to the fact that I do so much illustration work creating children's apps. The detail that I will be able to obtain is mind-boggling.

People used to tell me or ask me why I would plop down $1000+ for a Mac instead of just going out and buying a $300 dollar Windows-based PC. It's like driving a high performance car. Until you've driven one every day and can feel the difference, you can't be a naysayer. Apple has fused performance, with style, and functionality. It's brand is more than just the latest trend. It's elegance at its finest. Some purists might find my comparisons of a computer to a high-performance car ridiculous, but think about it. You probably use your iPhone or your computer all day long. Wouldn't you want something great in your hands or on your eyes. It's like nourishment for the soul. I hope some of you naysayers will go test drive an Apple and I think you will understand.

And then I come to the iPad Mini. Oh wait. There's more. I forgot to mention the new fourth generation of the iPad. In all the excitement of the iPad Mini, Tim Cook announced that there was a new iPad as well. A fourth-generation iPad. That's even faster than its predecessor. This is incredible. The new iPad has the new Lightning connector, a faster processor, a new ding dong, and a new flip a ma jig.

You're probably wondering when I'm going to talk about the iPad Mini, aren't you? Well this is the time. I saved it for last. I love listening to Jonny Ive talk. When they showed a movie about the iPad Mini, Jonny gave an insight on how it was designed and so on. He too is a remarkable young man who knows his stuff. When he talks, you want to fall in love with anything he says. I hope he never leaves Apple. If Tim ever would step down, I would hope Johnny Ive would take his place. He's amazing, articulate speaker that tugs at your heart strings. His passion for Apple is only outweighed by his genius.

The iPad Mini has the same resolution as that of the latest fourth-generation iPad. And because of that, Apple’s developers won't need to change anything about how they code apps. You can hold it in one hand! That's incredible. At a 7.9 diagonal vs. a 9.7 diagonal on the iPad, it's still 10% larger than any competitor's 7 inch screens.

As I watched the Apple presentation on Apple.com, it was like, the old adage of, “And there's just one more thing” was being said over and over again. The ability for Apple to consistently wow their customers over and over again every quarter amazes me. They're innovation and simplicity of products is a welcome change from the Quadra 410, 400, 450, Performa 100, 200, 400, etc. Centra, What a nightmare that was. Since Steve Jobs came back to the Apple he helped co-found and now with Tim Cook at the helm, Apple has transformed itself and the computing community into something wonderful.

Nick Nebelsky is Publisher and CEO of Intense Media, LLC. Based in Gilbert, AZ, Nick creates, writes, and illustrates apps and printed books for the children's market and also publishes international travel apps. Nick also serves as an Ambassador for Corona Labs, Inc. out of Palo Alto, CA. He's a passionate husband and father of three and a loving friend to his best friend Max, a black labra-goalie retriever.

]]><![CDATA[Making the Most of the SCBWI Conference]]>Mon, 30 Jul 2012 17:39:42 GMThttp://intensemedia.com/4/post/2012/07/making-the-most-of-the-scbwi-conference.htmlA question was posted to me today regarding the SCBWI (Society of Children's
Book Writers and Illustrators). It's a tight-knit group that holds conferences year-round
in L.A., NYC, and Bologna, Italy. I attended the one in L.A. in 2009. Going to SCBWI
was the single most influencing decision in my career. I've always been a dreamer thinking
that I can do almost anything I set my mind to. And come to think of it, I have pretty
much done almost anything I've set my mind to. When I first thought about creating
children's books, I created a collection of cartoon characters, a theme, and then set
out to create a book. My intention was to self-publish, but when I saw a flyer
on the SCBWI, I couldn't pass up this chance to meet with editors and publisher of the
top companies in America. It's the who's who in children's publishing! I'll tell you what
I did wrong, and what I did right.

First off, whenever I go to L.A., I always see if there is anything I can do while I'm there that is fun and different. I looked up this web site and found that there was going to be a screening of five independent movies at the Director's Guild the night before the SCBWI started. So I arranged a ticket online and watched five movies directed by the likes of Demi Moore and Kirsten Dunst. Little did I know they both would be sitting almost next to me in the theater. It was a fun night, didn't meet anyone famous, but had a great time.

I went there with my roommate whom I had never met before. He was looking for someone to help him cut costs as the hotel is pretty pricey. He was great! He would look at my stuff and give me unbiased, honest opinions. And he saved my butt at the costume event they have for all attendees. That year the theme was blue, so you had to wear blue and better yet, be a character that was memorable that was blue; i.e. the Smurfs, Blue Moons, Blue Men Group. My roommate was prepared with two cool blue hats. He brought one just in case I didn't. And thankfully, I wore the Blue Wizard hat from Mickey Mouse's Fantasia! See Pic below. But you know, I still needed something more, so I grabbed the iron. It was blue! I went as the "Wizard of Irony!" Not to blow my own horn, but I was a huge hit. I got an A for creativity,everyone came up to me to see who I was. It's just unfortunate that the party was at the end, because I made a lot of friends that night.

If I were telling someone advice, make sure you meet as many people as possible. I met the
V.P. of Penguin, several terrific and infamous writers, and illustrators. David Gordon who
worked with Pixar was my Mentor in Morphing Media. You'll meet some great people and some whom you may have admired for a long time, will come to your defense when you're pitching your idea to Disney! That's right, that happened to me. I had the distinct privilege to pitch my book idea to three powerhouses. I was in the Master class for Morphing Media workshop. The goal of the group was to prepare us to pitch our book ideas to three judges, 1) Disney, 2) Fox Animation, and 3) An agent from the Gotham Group. Well I fretted over this. I wasn't prepared for it, my artwork wasn't ready, I was nervous, and basically just crashed and burned without a parachute. The funny thing was that Disney told me that DISNEY would NEVER publish a theme as I had suggested. But then way in the back of the room, Dan Yaccarino (creator of Oswald the purple octopuss), raised his hand and came to my defense. He told the woman that in fact, Disney did do a show that was themed similarly to mine. WOW! I was floored. I have picture of Dan and me together. He's now a friend on Facebook!

The other great thing was that because we were in this Master Class, we had a private
tour at Nickelodeon Studios and got to meet and watch the illustrators in action. It was so cool. The President came out to greet us and we saw some pilots of shows that weren't even out yet. When it was over, they offered us cookies and a gift bag full of Nick Stuff.  
 
While you're there, you'll meet a lot of great people, make sure you sit next to someone
new wherever you go. Even when you're out to lunch, there's a great little outdoor mall around the corner. Try to hook up with people from your own SCBWI branch. They'll help you meet people. There were so many highlights to this trip. The other thing I wished I had done was stuck around and got my books signed by the authors. Instead, I took off and went to the Conan O'Brien show in Burbank. Although that was fun and different, it would have been nice to meet some of my idols.

You'll have a blast!
Picture
The Wizard of Irony and his cast of hooligans at the SCBWI (L.A. 2009).!
]]><![CDATA[Marketing by the Minute]]>Thu, 26 Jul 2012 18:01:50 GMThttp://intensemedia.com/4/post/2012/07/marketing-by-the-minute.htmlA Minute by Minute Account of a "Work-From-Home App Developer"

Wake up at 5:15 a.m.

Wife drags me out of bed at 5:45 am

Make bed, start 30 minutes of stretching and calisthenics:
Sit-ups, leg raises, pushups, hamstring stretches and leg lifts

6:15
Run downstairs and play fetch with my black lab "removed name for security purposes" in the back yard

Eat 2 minute breakfast
Kiss and hug wife goodbye

Head up to the "Office"

7:00 am
Get online and check sales on iOS and NOOK

Read emails

Confirm conference call with Kindertown's, Carolina Nugent's and COO Brennan Knotts.

Read email on great blog about app pricing group on Linkedin.com
"Education App Talk" curated by Jayne Claire's, TeachersWithApps.com
Remind self to go back and make a comment in response to another comment!

Make note on iPhone to take advantage of MyPublisher.com sale (75% off). Intense Media
is looking at publishing small quantity of physical books as well as apps. Mostly for
Book signing events at Barnes & Noble.

Most likely use their mini books for marketing purposes and create a few regular books to
see how they will look printed. Once we see how that will work for us, determine best
strategy to print at least 200 books. I've already researched: CreateSpace.com from Amazon, Blurb.com, and MyPublisher.com.

Read that I've been accepted to "Early Childhood Education Network" and
"Children's Publishing" groups on Linkedin.com.

Make Note: Post 19 sec. trailer of new book, "Sheldon's Adventure" on Facebook, and tweet about it.

Also post it on my site so that I can send it to Pinterest.

Make note: Load an old copy of "Scriptware" on my Mac so that I can start writing a Pilot
for Sheldon for AmazonStudios.com

Make note to self: Need to finish Sheldon's Bible of characters

8:10 prepare for meeting with Kindertown
8:30 - 9:00 conference call to discuss how Kindertown.com and Intense Media could work
together to build a better relationship and help each other spread the word about quality
educational apps.

9:15 - 10:00 Spoke to Jayne Claire from TeachersWithApps.com to discuss marketing ideas for
both companies and to cement a growing relationship developed online.

10:00 - 10:30. Wrote new article on IM home page announcing the appointments of
Jayne Claire and Anne Rachel to the roles of Editorial Advisory members.

10:30 -11:00 Posted trailer on Intense Media's Web site. Working on new one for commercial
release.

Read articles on marketing.

Lunch

12:30 updated web site. read articles, responded to blog posts

1:00 Started outlining article on Kindertown for Examiner.com

2:00 send emails to as many app reviewers as possible.

Grabbed a light dinner

5:00 Drove to Corona SDK Meetup that I co-host as a Corona Ambassador in Phoenix.

7:30 Showed my new book app, "Sheldon's Adventure" for the Nook and the iPad to our group. Everyone loved it.
They suggested adopting a classroom to read the app to.

9:00 drove home

9:45 added former RIF school in iPhone to call

10:00 in bed. Good Night




]]><![CDATA[E-Book Pricing Wars from a developer's perspective]]>Wed, 18 Jul 2012 04:23:46 GMThttp://intensemedia.com/4/post/2012/07/e-book-pricing-wars-from-a-developers-perspective.htmlI'm a full-time programmer/illustrator/writer/marketer/bottle washer. I make my living from creating and developing apps. There are several stages to an app:
  •     conceptualization,
  •     story boarding,
  •     writing, rewriting, editing, rewriting,
  •     artwork creation (100-150 separate pieces of art),
  •     animation and special effect thought process,
  •     art direction,
  •     then there's the coding, a lot of coding. Thousands and thousands of         lines of code; many of which is developed specifically for our needs.
  •     Then there's testing, testing, and more testing.
  •     Then we have a week of beta testing where we send out our apps so that     real people other than us can look at them.
If I were to itemize each of these steps into dollars, they would easily add up to $10,000 to $50,000 depending on the complexity of the app. It's a lot of work to fit into a two to three month window. And I'm not even talking about marketing in both time and money.

Cut that amount to 4-6 weeks, and you have the makings of an ebook. Same amount of writing, maybe a third of the artwork. Cost maybe $2,500 for the cost.

Here's the big difference though. Cost vs. Price to you the customer. E-books are being sold on average for about $10 on the various sites. Same book, less interactivity on the ebook. Apps are thought to be "Expensive" if their prices are higher than $2.99. So why is it that it cost 4x more to produce an app where we as developers can only expect to receive one/tenth of what an e-book costs. The math is simple, right? So why are we creating apps and not e-books? Well I'm creating both and I'm makings apps not just for the iPad, but I'm making it for the Nook, and the Amazon Fire as well using Corona SDK. It's a lot more efficient and cost-effective, believe me!

And I'm not alone in this war. I recently emailed Jayne Clare, former app developer and currently a Special Education Teacher at Southampton Public Schools in the greater NYC area. She now runs the web site: http://teacherswithapps.com/ She said, "It's very difficult to make money in the app store when you are practically giving away your product! Our biggest pet peeve was that your average educational app cost less than a cup of coffee." Why is there such hesitation by folks to pay $1.99 for an app, but will pay $4.00+ a day on coffee? When I figure that one out, I'll let you know. Then there's the flip side to what Jayne and I are saying, and that's from Will Terry who says he hopes that by charging less, he'll get more people interested in his work, so he's going for volume in the early phases of his business. Will Terry is already an accomplished artist who is just starting out in the app business. You can see his work at www.willterry.com.

Until the prices reverse, that's just how we have to play the market. I can't see how the small developer will be able to make it selling their apps for only $.99. I tried it and I don't see a difference in demand between a $.99 app and one that sells for $1.99. For me there's a lot of trial and error. I play with pricing sometimes like I play with the stock market.

I'm hoping this month will be different though, as Barnes & Noble is putting together a promotion for apps that are produced this month for kids. And since that is my primary market, I have created a sweet little story that I hope will receive the promised marketing. I could sure use it! And until the price wars cease, I'll keep putting out the books I love to make that kids love to read. Until I see you again.

Nick Nebelsky is the Publisher of Intense Media, LLC based in Gilbert, AZ. He is a Corona Ambassador for Corona Labs out of Palo Alto and is a passionate developer of children's books and apps. "Sheldon's Adventures" is Nick's latest release co-written by Dr. Michael Perko, PHD, an Associate Professor in the Dept. of Public Health Education at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. Nebelsky expects the app to be published on the NOOK store in another two weeks, and on the iTunes store in three weeks.  You can reach Nick at info@intensemedia.com or visit his web site at www.intensemedia.com. ]]><![CDATA[Nebelsky Named Ambassador for Corona Labs]]>Wed, 18 Jul 2012 04:21:06 GMThttp://intensemedia.com/4/post/2012/07/nebelsky-named-ambassador-for-corona-labs.html(March 1, 2012, Gilbert, AZ) Corona Labs, Inc. (formerly known as Ansca Mobile), based in Palo Alto, CA and maker of Corona SDK, a cross-platform mobile development framework, has announced that Nick Nebelsky, of Gilbert, AZ will become a company Ambassador, representing Phoenix, AZ. Last month, Ansca Mobile embarked on a world-wide search for Ambassadors to help their company grow by organizing monthly meetings, industry events, and arranging for speakers to engage organizations interested in learning more about mobile development. Currently, Nebelsky uses Corona SDK as their mobile development framework allowing it to create books and games more quickly and efficiently than using Xcode alone.

Corona Labs, Inc. is the creator of Corona SDK, the world's #1 mobile development software. It allows users to produce apps and games in a fraction of the code used with traditional methods such as Objective-C. Corona is more than a software development kit, it's a community of developers who are creating some of the top games and apps in the industry. Led by two former Flash engineers, Corona Labs, Inc. is seeing substantial growth and sees the Ambassador program as a way to not only reach out to more users, but help developers from all over the world to form development communities to support one another.
]]><![CDATA[Create An App Even if You Don't Know How to Code]]>Wed, 20 Jun 2012 20:04:26 GMThttp://intensemedia.com/4/post/2012/06/post-title-click-and-type-to-edit.htmlPlease join us for our free monthly meetup on how to create apps for people who don't know how to code. Each month, local developers with various skill levels meet to share ideas, tools, and basic code to enhance their projects and apps. This is a great place for people who are thinking about creating their first app. You'll meet local people who are just like you with different skill sets and who want to be a part of the growing app development revolution.

Dr. Evan Fram, M.D. is our guest speaker this month and we're lucky to have him. He is on a year long sabbatical from his medical practice. He's a newbie Corona user and is very impressed with it. He's a brilliant man and he's definitely someone you'll want to meet. He's developing a 3-D game in Corona and developed the code himself since Corona doesn't have a 3-D engine as of yet. Here's someone who wants to fully engage himself into something new and exciting.

He has been working with Corona and loves it, saying "It's much more efficient than developing in javascript."

In the process of setting up the development environment he found some things that other people new to Corona might also find useful. He's hoping that his discussion will generate discussion from the more experienced Corona developers and I would certainly learn from that.

In addition to his demos, he'll also talk briefly on

  • Cider – a good Corona editor. available for windows and Mac. It has code hinting, integrated lua documentation, and an integrated terminal output window. It is very efficient to run side-by-side with the simulator on Mac and presumably on windows as well. One of the other members of the group indicated that he uses its debugging features and I would be very interested in learning about his experience with the product.  http://www.mydevelopersgames.com/CIDER/
  • Phonegap . A bit off topic but might be useful for people to know about it.
  • TestFlight – a free service that allows you to distribute beta versions of iOS apps to beta testers via the web. It expects IPA files and I ran across a way of using it with the app files generated by Corona. https://testflightapp.co
In addition to Evan's presentation, we'll have an open discussion on other Corona topics.

I encourage everyone who is thinking about mobile application development to attend. This looks like it will be very informative!

Please click here to register for the event.


Nick Nebelsky is the CEO of Intense Media, LLC, an interactive app development company based in Gilbert, AZ. He has over 30 years of marketing experience in the media industry. He is also an Ambassador for Corona Labs of Palo Alto, CA and co-host of Corona SDK Phoenix Meetup. www.intensemedia.com


]]><![CDATA[Learn How to Build the Next Angry Birds!]]>Mon, 09 Apr 2012 20:59:57 GMThttp://intensemedia.com/4/post/2012/04/learn-how-to-build-the-next-angry-birds.htmlEver want to learn how to create the next ANGRY BIRDS? Did you know that Angry Birds was created in .lua; the same language you'll learn how to use when you become a Corona Developer. You'll have access to hundreds of free sample code that you can borrow from to create your own apps. That's just one of the many perks of becoming a Corona App Developer. Join me at the all new Corona SDK: Phoenix Meetup Group. I'll show you all the cool apps you can make, show you how much easier it is to code in .lua than in Objective-C and give you some basic information about Corona SDK. The goal of the group is to engage individuals and organizations interested in learning more about mobile development using Corona SDK. Meetings will consist of networking, troubleshooting, product demonstrations, and Corona Tutorials. I encourage programmers and non-programmers to join us. If I can program in .lua, you can. I have had no prior experience in programming other than Cobol in college and that was years ago. There are some great third-party tools and extensions that I'll cover where you don't even need to program; you can use your talents in Photoshop.

Ansca Mobile is the creator of Corona SDK, the world's #1 mobile development software. It allows users to produce apps and games in a fraction of the code used with traditional methods such as Objective-C. Corona is more than a software development kit, it's a community of developers who are creating some of the top games and apps in the industry. Nick Nebelsky, CEO of Intense Media, a Gilbert-based mobile development company, will be leading the meetings. He was recently selected as an Ambassador for Corona, by Ansca Mobile. "The meetings will be informal for folks who want to learn more about using Corona, and I'll present some background of Corona as well as what is needed to become a Corona developer. There is no cost to attend, but hurry, there are only 30 spots available for the first meeting.

Corona SDK Phoenix Meetup  (Click link to go to Meetup.com and sign up)
Held at:
University of Advancing Technology (UAT)
2625 W. Baseline Road
Tempe, AZ 85283-1056

Room 208
Time: 6:30 - 8:30 PM
Date: 4/18/2012
Spots Available: 30 (waiting list)

Event Organizer: Nick Nebelsky ]]><![CDATA[Diary of a Children's Book App Creator: Flexibility]]>Thu, 01 Dec 2011 16:04:07 GMThttp://intensemedia.com/4/post/2011/12/diary-of-a-childrens-book-app-creator-flexibility.htmlIf you have read our last bog entry, we mentioned how we were working on our latest book on Christmas. We figured we probably wouldn't be done with it until late December and would only have a couple of weeks on the market. Well we are working on something, but we've pushed the Christmas book to 2012. This way, we can have a full-fledged book just the way we want it and give our customers something they haven't seen before in an app book. The script has been written, and now all of the artwork, and special effects have to be created and programmed. Look for an announcement on that 3rd quarter of 2012.

What we do have is a Holiday Bonus for Hippos Name. This bonus was slated to be a part of our new Christmas book, but my partner and I decided that we could get it to market a lot quicker if we pulled it out of that book, and inserted it as a Holiday Bonus for Hippos Name. It appeals to both Christmas children and Hannakuh. There are a total of five bonus areas where kids will have a blast creating, designing, baking, and assembling arts and crafts for the holidays. Visually, this is our best work to date. It seems that I become a better drawer every time I sit down. I really loved how this came out, and I'm sure your kids will love it too. These are high-quality drawings and activities you can do with your children and then you can go back and read Hippos Name anytime you want.
We'll release some illustrations of our new version when we get closer to the release date. Thanks for reading! –Nick
]]><![CDATA[Diary of a Children's Book App Creator]]>Wed, 23 Nov 2011 04:11:00 GMThttp://intensemedia.com/4/post/2011/11/diary-of-a-childrens-book-app-creator.htmlWow! 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
]]><![CDATA[How to Market Your Self-Published Books or Apps on a Shoestring]]>Thu, 20 Oct 2011 14:52:13 GMThttp://intensemedia.com/4/post/2011/10/how-to-market-your-self-published-books-or-apps-on-a-shoestring.htmlAs more and more people are self-publishing books, apps, and e-books, they also need to figure out how to sell their work. Apple, Amazon, Smashwords, and others are doing their part to distribute the work, but how does one go about marketing oneself? Well it's not easy. It has to be a consistent, well-planned out plan that has to be done every day, and every hour after your book has been published. I even recommend you pre-market your app at least 60-90 prior to it being published as well.

When I set out to market our first children's book, I spent a month blogging, writing articles, tweeting, telling people on my facebook pages, and sending articles to Digg. I created a movie-trailer for our app using software from Apple and posted photos of some of the drawings. I did notice a substantial increase in traffic the few weeks before the announcement and for around one week on and around the release. I believe the pre-marketing helped. Looking back though, there was and still is so much more I can do. Small publishers usually have small budgets and little time; so what can be done. In addition to the places I mentioned before, here is a partial list of some of the things you can do at little to no expense to you.

1. Go to Kickstarter.com and start a new project to raise money. Kickstarter allows pretty much anyone who has a creative talent and needs to raise funds. I have seen amounts raised from as little as $250 to hundreds of thousands of dollars. One such fellow is Joe Murray, a professional animator that lives in California. He created two very popular cartoons (Rocko's Modern World, and Camp Lazlo). His idea for a project was to raise funds to create three cartoon shorts of his new animation, Frog in a Suit, and to build a web site that showcases independent animators. The idea is to give more creative control to the creators and not the studios. Fox, Cartoon Network, and NICK are three studios that buy properties from their creators. They retain all copyrights and in turn they pay out a royalty or percentage of sales to the creator from what they get. Depending on the licensing contract, this can also include licensing deals like (mugs, teeshirts, stationery). Joe raised more than $20,000 to fund his project. The great thing about Kickstarter is that not only can your friends donate, but so can anyone in the world. In turn, you provide them with gifts for their help. All the info is on their site. It's a win-win for everyone involved because you're raising money, while raising awareness of your company and building a following of fans that are invested in you.

2. Another great idea is to create a group on LinkedIn.com. It's free and you can create one on your craft, or your message and build people who are excited about the same things you are.

3. Meetup.com is another way to get people excited about what you are doing. They do charge a fee, but it can be offset with advertising that you sell.

4. Try writing for Examiner.com, Helium.com, or Yelp.com. These are three social networking sites that have national audiences that will read your articles. The first two will actually pay you but more importantly, they will give you a national voice. I almost got a book deal from a very popular publisher from an article I wrote on Examiner.com

5.Tweet at least 10-15 tweets a day, but don't use the forum for spamming. That's when you send out the same tweet over and over again. Spamming if frowned upon.

6. Set up a page just for your book, imprint, or app on Facebook. Then send out blasts to all your email contacts and encourage people to "Like" your page.

7. Also in Facebook, post your Youtube videos on your site to give your friends and the public ways to see your movie trailers or sample chapters

8. Make a Movie Trailer on Youtube.com. It costs nothing and if you get a lot of hits, you can ask Youtube to monetize your video.

9. Send out composite drawings of your characters and tag you and your friends on them and send them out to your friends and fans.

10. Blog, blog, and blog as much as you can. And then send out your blog in your tweets, on facebook, on linkedin, digg, and examiner. Also don't forget to send tweets to those people and companies that you talked about.

This is a full time job, so until you can hire out an agency to do this for you, try these helpful tips and watch your web site traffic and hopefully your sales sky rocket! If you have additional ideas, please let me know. Every little bit helps!

Thanks for reading! –Nick Nebelsky, www.intensemedia.com


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