About two years later I am slowly taking on less and less consulting work, and I am currently building a startup company that provides marketing tracking for local businesses. I am working on startup with a friend and I have taught myself ruby programming language. Thus far, I feel like I am living out most of my dreams; NICE right? — yup I think so too.

When I found out this week that a high school buddy of mine who is around my age, was in the hospital and has adcances cancer… WOAH (I thought) he is my age he has not lived a full life… that got me thinking even more… what is “living the dream”?

Not everyone has the same dreams… right? I am sure none of you share my dream of becoming a successful entrepreneur, so you can travel and spend time with your family…

The alarming thing is,  in life  you tend to forget your dreams, ignore your family, suppress your feelings, neglect your friends, and forget to be happy.

I would like to avoid making these mistakes. But how do you avoid mistakes you make by default? Ideally you transform your life so it has other defaults. But it may not be possible to do that completely. As long as these mistakes happen by default, you probably have to be reminded not to make them. Make a post-it and post it on you monitor if that helps.

Palliative care nurse Bronnie Ware published a list of the five most common regrets of dying patients in her care.

• I wish I’d had the courage to live a life true to myself, not the life others expected of me.
• I wish I hadn’t worked so hard.
• I wish I’d had the courage to express my feelings.
• I wish I had stayed in touch with my friends.
• I wish that I had let myself be happier.

As I embrace 30′s and move forward in life these are words I will live by:

Don’t ignore your dreams, don’t work too much; say what you think; cultivate friendships; and be happy.

But here’s the twist. A recent report out a few weeks ago stated that electronic books are outselling paperback books and get this, Apple expects to sell more than 28 million iPads by the end of 2011. So it’s no surprise that a lot of writers want to know how they can get a publish an “eBook” or as Apple calls them an “iBook”  into the iBookstore.

Getting your book into the iBookstore can lower your over-head and be more profitable. This exposes your work to entirely new markets. However getting a book approved by Apple isn’t a easy process.

You need to follow specific guidelines for preparing and publishing in order to avoid time-consuming headaches and a rejection email from iBookstore.

This post offers you a step-by-step guide to preparing and publishing your book for submission to the Apple iBookstore.

iBook Author App

Preparing your book for electronic publication

It is important to make sure that once readers download your digital book, they have a really good experience with it. That’s what gets them to mention it to others, talk it up on social media sites, and rate it well.

Part of ensuring a good digital experience is in the editing process.

You also need good design. Great covers sell books. And with digital books, it’s doubly important to capture reader attention, since the icons are small and there is so much to see at one time. If you are not a graphics designer I recommend you make the investment and hire one.

A couple of places to look for quality cover designers are r2H Designs (UK) and The Book Designer (US). Whether you use those services or not, they’ll give you a good idea of the types of design services out there. If you are on a budget try using a site like Fiverr.com might take a few tries to find a worthy designer but all gigs on this site cost only… $5.

Self publishing for the iBookstore

Apple’s distribution system for the iPad is a free app called iBooks. This app allows you to buy and download books from the iBookstore.

Apple doesn’t have too many restrictions on the books that can be uploaded to the iBookstore, but individual writers are not able to directly upload titles.

Apple has appointed a number of iBookstore aggregators that are approved to submit books to the iBookstore for you.

For this article I am going to focus on using Lulu. Another popular option is Smashwords.

Here are some things to take into consideration before you get started with an aggregator:

Cover Image. You will need a quality book cover image (JPEG) and it must be a vertical rectangle shape at least 600 pixels tall. The cover should include both the title and the author name. It cannot be a greyscale image and it cannot contain hyperlinks or web site addresses. Also, keep the image PG-13 (no nudity). Again hire a graphics designer if you are not one, your cover is the higher selling points.

Content Restrictions. You must be the original author, or exclusive digital publisher or distributor. Apple strictly forbids content that encourages illegal activities, promotes intolerance or discrimination, invades the privacy of any person, or that slanders or libels a person or organization. Erotica that depicts underage people engaged in or witnessing sexual acts is totally off-limits, in addition to being just plain wrong.

Pricing. Apple prices ebooks in 99-cent increments, so you are encouraged to do the same. Can’t put a price on you iBook? Hher is some helpful info for finding a price point, the average iBook price for a “best seller” is $9.99

ISBN. You need to get an ISBN for your ebook. Most aggregators have services that will automatically assign you one.

Get your books into the iBookstore

Now that you have your book edited, a cover created, your pricing set, and have had it checked for content, you are ready to use an aggregator and get your digital book into the iBookstore. (One important thing to know before you move forward: you retain all copyrights and intellectual property rights to your books.)

I’ll take Lulu as an example of the steps you’ll go through to get your digital book into the iBookstore. The steps are very similar for all aggregators.

1. ePub format. ePub is the format Apple accepts for ebooks. Lulu has a service that will run a special ePub checker and then convert your book into the proper format that is guaranteed to pass Apple’s strict guidelines. You can also submit the ePub file yourself using any number of ePub services as well as Apple’s own Pages program. If you want a speedy process, I would suggest using the aggregator’s services to avoid any technical holdups.
2. Cover image. You will need your cover image to upload along with your ebook in ePub format.
3. ISBN. Lulu will assign your book an ISBN as part of their regular service.
4. Upload. You can now upload all your files and supply all of the necessary information about your book.
5. Get Paid. Apple retains 30% of all revenue from sales on the iBookstore. The publisher (that’s you) receives 80% of the remaining revenue and Lulu receives 20%. Or you can pay Lulu a one-time fee and you won’t pay them any additional commissions.

That’s it. You now have your very own book in the Apple iBookstore for sale.

Now, of course, it’s time to market your new book. But that’s another post …

p.s. Good luck if I have inspired you please mention me in your book

post inspired by  Shane uses his Tablet Computer Geeks blog to deliver the latest and best iPad information,

define('WP_ALLOW_MULTISITE', true);

Once you have done that, make sure you deactivate all plugins.

Then you should be able to access the network page from Tools » Network

Select Sub-Domain and carefully follow the instructions because you will need to edit your wp-config.php and .htaccess files.

Now, you no longer need to install multiple copies of WordPress because you can run multiple blogs from one installation. By default, you would only be allowed to run other blogs as a sub-domain. To use other domains for blogs, you can use a WordPress Multisite Domain Mapping Plugin

According to James Martell affiliate summit west 2012 had the most attendees in it’s history.  Jeremy “ShoeMoney” Shoemaker announced he will not be publically speaking anymore which is a shame because he was very knowledgeable and entertaining, glad I got to hear him speak. I mean really, who sells a puppy for an ounce of pot. And what type of drug dealer takes a puppy as payment. Nebraska sounds like an interesting place, would love to visit some time, I’m serious (it’s where Shoemoney calls home).

Another reason affiliate summit west 2012 went down in my history is because I learned a lot. This industry moves very fast and there are always changes. Some of the reason why I recommend anyone who has thought of promoting offers needs to go to a affiliate summit event is because where else can you learn about all the latest news, tips and tricks. Here are some tips that will make you a successful affiliate.

1. Choose an affiliate network and build a relationship with a affiliate manager they are very knowledgeable want you to be successful.  I met Lauren Simon (a affiliate manager from Clickbooth) she gave my good friend Harshad Ghodke and I, v.i.p. passes to affiliate fight night. Which was awesome!

2. Make friends with other affiliates. They might not give you all their secret but they will be willing to help if questions arise.

3. Do research find a affiliate network that has offers you want to promote. Finding a niche that resonates with you will be much easier to promote than promoting something that has no appeal to you.

4. Think outside of the box. Put your self in the customers shoes, if you know your target market well; you will do well.

5. Always measure your results and always test.

No better place than Las Vegas to realize that media buying to promote offers is a lot like gambling you never know what offer is going to convert in to a sale. However the only difference with promoting affiliate offers is that you can do “a/b” testing with ad copy and landing pages to see what works and what doesn’t. I personally use social media and organic results to promote different products.

I met some very knowledge people in the industry and I think I learned more this years event than any other year. I recommend attending a Affiliate summit whether you are a newbie or a veteran.

p.s. Thank you Shawn and Missy for organizing a great summit.

Reasons You Should Pick Me:

1. I want to be chosen for this contest because I think you can brake my unlucky streak…

2. I have been doing SEO and Social Media marketing for clients for too long. I want to become a full time affiliate marketer but I just need to learn more about the industry and become friends with other affiliates.

3. I think a trip to the affiliate summit west 2012 will be a great milestone in my life and hopefully epic memories.

4. I have 8 kids… ok just kidding I have two kids but sometimes it feels like eight.

5. My main reason for wanting to become a full time affilate instead of having to deal with customers directly, is because I want more time with my family and less stress would be real nice too.

Hope to see you soon at affiliate marketing west 2012. Thanks and good luck!

We met at affiliate summit east 2010 here is the picture, to prove it.

image source: http://www.shoemoney.com/gallery/v/Affiliate+Summit+East+2010/notsure.jpg.html

The entire admin panel now looks fresher and better.
A new toolbar is provided on the top which does our job much simpler to add new post, approve comments, check updates etc.

The admin menu is now much better. The old admin menu was really irritating with the drop down for further options. With the new admin menu, all you have to do is just hover on the links and a sub menu will fly out. This definitely now saves my time now.

The most important update for WordPress users with the release of 3.3 is the media uploaded. Now you can simply drag and drop files in to post box. No need to browse files and then upload them. This saves some time as well.

Touch support has been optimized for people who use devices like and iPad to update their blogs.

Import of your blog from Tumblr is now supported. This is really a great news for people who want to shift their blogging platform from WordPress to Tumblr without much hassles.

Please visit the WordPress Codex for more details on the update. All in all, a great update and something most of you will be happy with.

source: http://www.thedotcomblog.com/technology/wordpress-3-3-sonny-released

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