Are you considering writing an eBook? If so, you’ve got to check out eBook Evolution. It’s a new product from Kelly Kingman of StickyEbooks.com and Pamela Wilson of BigBrandSystem.com. Kelly and Pamela teamed up to create an all-in-one toolkit for writing, creating and launching your own eBook.

Click HERE to check it out the eBook Evolution.

When Kelly and Pamela met at SXSW earlier this year they realized that together they had all the tools and knowledge that people need to create great-looking, profitable eBooks — whether it was getting clear on what to write about, finding an inexpensive way to make it look good, or figuring out how to sell it without unnecessary hype.

So many entrepreneurs want to write and sell an eBook but need a way to make the design and launch process easier. Hiring a designer can get expensive, and hard-sell copywriting is not as effective as relationship-building — especially when you’re just starting out. That’s where eBook Evolution comes in.

eBook Evolution includes:

• The Sticky eBook Formula: Kelly’s acclaimed eBook that takes you through the idea-generation and writing process.
• Templates for OpenOffice writer designed by Pamela, who has 24+ years of publication design experience.
• An instructional guide and in-depth screencast for using the templates/li>
• The Cover Recipe Book, step-by-step recipes for creating 20 different covers
• The eBook Evolution Launch Guide which shows you how to take the overwhelm out of launching, including worksheets and checklists
• A Quick Start Guide to see how all of the above fits together and where to start depending on your experience level
• Lots of fun bonuses!

eBook Evolution is available through Thursday for $97, after that the price goes up to $147. Considering that even a basic cover design can cost $150, it’s a great deal.

Here’s the link again -> eBook Evolution

Want to share this great offer with your friends?

Copy and paste this link: http://tinyurl.com/7be9tbr

Don’t forget to let me know when you get your own eBook published!

Hi there.

Okay. I gambled the title would be too much to resist. Fact is what I'm about to tell you is important stuff. Not life and death important. Credibility important. Important enough to warrant a little marketing trickery to get you here. I'll make this brief. Items I don't ever intend peddling:

• Rehashed fads-of-the-day "White Papers," how-to articles, pamphlets, booklets, books, audios, videos, podcasts, etc., created for the singular purpose of generating passive income for anyone other than the original author, who (one would hope) at least believed in the worth of the creation, and often not even then. – In other words: No writer / publisher sweatshop products. Period.
• Any flavor of "Do This – Get Rich Quick" chicanery.
• "Jump on the Bandwagon Before It's Too Late" malarky, or
• "This is the Last Whatever You'll Ever Need to Do Whatever to Make This Much $$$" article, book or program.

I'm sure you find enough of that cluttering your space as it is. Oh, sure I could make a few extra bucks here and there. Maybe even hundreds or thousands. It's not that I find anything wrong with increasing revenue by means of aggressive "passive income" streams. In fact, used appropriately they can be a mighty fine addition to any marketing guerrilla's tactical arsenal. If you've found a few passive streams working for you — well, that's good.

What I disdain are those who seem content to offer nothing of more value from themselves or their businesses. Whose direct mail and e-mail documents, catalogs, websites, and blogs are congested with gaudy graphics, flashy animations, over-sized hype and type. All sizzle and no steak. They evoke images of financial swindlers, pyramid schemers, snake oil hucksters, and rogue spammers.

If this makes me a renegade and outcast in some professional circles. Well, so be it.

Will I participate in affiliate programs?

Yes. But only for products and services that I truly believe are helpful and reasonably-priced ones I have used myself, or have been recommended by trusted advisers and friends. You'll also find me offering free downloads and reprints of articles, e-books and other items on my sites, provided I feel they have relevance and value for my clients and visitors.

Who will be the final judge?

You, dear reader. And that's why getting you to read this was so important to me.

My door's always open to your comments, opinions and suggestions.

 Just when you think that changing ourselves for the better, moving forward as we deliberately work to shed bad habits, along comes an amazing video showing how completely and easily a crab slips out of its old shell. Wow. If change were only so easy for humans.

Perhaps it only appears easy for the crab. It has no choice after all. Inside the old shell, it has grown and a new shell, still soft in its infancy, has formed. The choice to change is hereditary. It sheds so it can live. It will die of constriction if it does not risk exposing itself to the risks of the surrounding environment.

 Whether or not the crab struggles emotionally with this process is questionable. Whether we humans struggle with change is not.

Change is hard, Hard, HARD. To embrace it takes guts.

We must willingly risk damage to our egos, to our emotions, to our choice to evolve. And by doing so to improve, to become more successful. To journey forward watching for and embracing more opportunities to change, evolve, grow, improve, succeed.

What are you working to shed? Is it time to crack open the old and expose tender new skin and ultra-sensitive emotions? To the elements? To criticism?

You can change for the better. Just crack open the hard old shell you're hiding in.

Regular readers already know that what used to be here has moved to 56 Vibes with the new design premiering there Feb. 20th.

In the meantime, this will become the new Writing | Editing | Marketing Services and Portfolio site for me, Kathy Henderson-Sturtz…or just Kat to most of my friends.  And, yes, still Kathy Sue to many of my Kentucky-oriented family!

The new bone structure here is in place and I'm once again busy behind the scenes editing graphics and portfolio items to upload here. The Henderson PR & Marketing redirects to here now. My plan is to uploaded more portfolio images and links to pdfs by end of March.

Thanks for hanging in there with me. Your patience is appreciated while I work out the kinks in the new design here.

If you want to help…I'll send you a soft rag you can use to clean the dust off your monitor. That way everything will show up shiny and new when the Grand Re-Openings are finally announced.

Kat

Just a quick note so everyone knows that most everything currently here will be moved over to my other site www.56Vibes.com. And for the curious, this site will be the new web home for Kat's professional writing and business consulting work, most of which is currently over at www.hendersonprmarketing.com. I'll keep you updated!  Thanks for everyone's continued support and good vibes! Kat

One of the things I've most admired about my Grandma Aline is her sense of humor. With never an unkind word said to or about anyone, she was still able to be mischievously funny and witty. I remember riding with her to a Wednesday church meeting in early fall when I was about 27.

She'd had her ears pierced for the first time earlier in the year. And so, I'd finally gotten my nerve up and had mine pierced, too, at a booth at the Michigan State Fair, just a few weeks prior to our get-together.

Grandma had a wide variety of simple but beautiful sets of matching jewelry. They were gifts from Grandpa Cleo, who usually picked out a different gemstone each year. Rings, necklaces, bracelets, brooches and earrings. Since Grandma and I had the same ring size, it was a frequent joke between us when I'd blatantly "hint" that she lend me her rings. This time our talk turned to earrings.

Would she still be able to wear her many clip-back earrings? Would Grandpa remember to buy her pierced ones now? How many sets of pierced earrings did she think she would need to accumulate before I could start teasing her about "borrowing" them.

After a few minutes of this silly banter, Grandma grew silent. Then keeping her eyes straight on the road before us and with a voice tender with emotion she said quietly, "Kathy, dear, I'd like to give you the pair I have on today."

Wow! I hardly knew what to say! My grandparents came from hard-working Kentucky stock, who had struggled through many desperate times growing up, as well as after moving to Detroit. They were generous people, but to own a pair of Grandma's earrings now. Well, that was a gift I hadn't expected.

I waited a moment for traffic to clear in front of me, then turned to look at Grandma, eager to see what beautiful gems gleamed in her ears and ready to utter my humble "Thank You" and other inadequate words of gratitude.

What I saw made me bust out laughing!

There she was, looking the other way and casually twisting and turning what dangled from her ears — plain old black thread!

She turned back to face me, mischievous smile wide across her face. "Gotcha!"

Grandma Aline hasn't lost a bit of her humor and wit. 

She turned 100 this year, February 2nd, 2009. Groundhog's Day.

At her birthday party held in a small banquet room at a local restaurant that same day, surrounded by friends, family, good food and fond memories, her eyes danced with delight and her smile was just as wide as ever even though she'd taken out her dentures because they didn't fit quite right anymore.

After dessert, always a favorite course of hers, I sat with Grandma awhile and presented the updated number of living descendants she and Grandpa had begat starting with their two children: One son (my father), 13 grands, 31 great-grands, and 13 great-great grandchildren, including one grandson born earlier that very day. Plus, one more due in July.

Grandma rolled her eyes. "I feel busy just thinking about it!"

She out did herself later that evening, setting my husband up as her straight man. Sitting quietly together, he asked Grandma, normally an early riser, if she thought she'd like to take a break and sleep in the next morning. "Well, yes, I just might do that," she replied. "Then again maybe I just won't wake up at all."

"But Grandma," my husband said, "That wouldn't be good."

Grandma leaned over, eyes sparkling and the familiar mischievous grin beginning to pull at the corners of her mouth. "No, that wouldn't be good. But sure would freak them out!"

JUST FOR TODAY, let's find ways to find and enjoy humor within our lives, especially with those we love. It's a trait that has served my Grandma Aline Davidson well for over 100 years. I wonder just how many hearts, minds and souls her warm, witty, gracious and mischievous smile has warmed all these years. Please consider sharing your own stories of good humor and laughter.

UPDATE: Grandma passed away in September 2010 as she sat on my dad's living room couch reading her well-worn Bible. Her passing is especially memorable for its calm simplicity. As Dad described, "One minute I looked over and she was reading her Bible. A few minutes later I looked again and she was gone."

One of my favorite books on facing one's fears is by Susan Jeffers, Feel the Fear and Do It Anyway. 

She's also the author of Feel the Fear…and Beyond.

I got my copy, of all places, at an office supply store. Actually, it was the ideal place for me to find it because one of the greatest fears I battle is my fear of success. Even realizing I feared professional success was a long, hard battle.

I've discovered that many folks fear success much more readily than failure. It crops up countless times in the intuitive readings I give. We've failed.  We know what failure feels like. We know how to cope with failure. We pick ourselves up, allow ourselves to gripe and groaned a bit, then set off again. We learn from our failures. And many progressing well along the spiritual path even come to think of those times not as failures at all but as challenges that we've met and overcome.

But SUCCESS…now's there's a new batch of willies.

Even when we've experienced success, even what some might consider grand and numerous successes, to stay focused and keep going forward often sets off debilitating signals in our brains and bodies. Fears tremble down our spines rendering us immobile.

We stall.

We become masters of procrastination.

Or even worse, busy bees of searching, collecting, sorting, storing, and doing the unimportant and unnecessary. All as a guise to look like we are building up our resources to deliver our next success.

In other words, we sabotage our own best efforts. We suddenly, and often unconsciously, fear what comes next — the unknown changes success will bring to our lives and our relationships.

Success far more than failure forces us to change! And while we may want, enjoy and ultimately thrive meeting those changes, it upsets the relationship balance we currently have with friends and family. They, in turn, become fearful of new unknowns.

What will you do now? Who will you attract and invite into your life? How will your relationship with them change?

Will there still be room for them? Will you even want them in your life anymore?

What if success ultimately hurts you? Will they be around to help pick you up and dust you off? Will they want to be there then?

Ah, so many new fears to face when challenged by success.

Like a recovering alcoholic, who knows that to successfully manage his addiction takes a day-by-day, moment-to-moment commitment, I now face my fear of success each day and moment.  Some days I am more successful than others.  But I am committed to the journey, ready to face both the challenges and triumphs success brings.

What fears hold you back?

What do you choose to cling steadfastly to because you fear what change might bring?

JUST FOR TODAY, I encourage you to consider what fears you have that are keeping you from your achieving your greatest potential. Choose one fear to face today. Feel it fully. Allow yourself to experience all the spine-tingling tremors that race down your back, that spin in circles in your mind, that cause your heart to alternatively pound and flutter. Face one fear –commit to tackling it head on. Do not try, for in trying you will feel the comfort and familiarity of failure. BE the success that facing your fear creates.

Please share your thoughts, experiences and journeys by clicking the comment link below.