After writing a book, many people want to know how one goes about publishing a book. A well-known author once said recently that “it’s no great feat to get one’s book published—it’s no great mountain to climb.” He is right, but his opinion is subjective. To you, reading this blog, it is a huge mountain to climb to get your book published. There are many paths you can take up that mountain, but it is still a huge feat.
This week we are going to look at some pointers about cover design. Covers are a selling tool like no other. They are usually the first thing people see, and they are usually the thing that makes someone buy or not buy. Covers capture interest—so it’s important for you to have the right one.
The wrong cover can be devastating to your sales. A poor cover can turn off readers and can even cause your book to be returned by customers. Bad covers can also lead to poor reviews. But what do I mean by a bad cover? Let’s look at the four biggest problems we see on covers. You can see covers that have these problems all over Amazon.
• Spelling errors on the cover
• Poor punctuation
• Pixelated images
• Poor name and title placement
But these are not the only things you have to think about when putting your cover together. You also have to become an ad-man and create a cover that looks good as a thumbnail. I bet you didn’t think about that! Yes, your cover has to stand out as a thumbnail on Amazon. So keep that in mind and test your covers. Shrink your cover in size and spend some time looking at it. Can you still make out the image on the front? Does it still look as attractive? Would you buy that book?
Give it a try—and see for yourself!
YOUR VISION TORCH Series Achieve Your Dreams, Ignite Your Vision, & Re-engineer Your Life Purpose
“Do more, see more, feel more, achieve more… make Wednesday YOUR day for achievement!”
Have you ever wondered about the people who seem to zoom through their day and achieve everything they started out wanting to achieve? Have you ever wondered how they do it? I’m sure each of us knows someone who can get much more done in a day than we believe possible. The super filer, the busy typist, the amazing salesman. What gives those people such drive?
It really comes down to the need to meet goals. Some people have an inbuilt need to achieve everything straight away. But there are ways for you to also help yourself make more from your days. This week, we will be talking about increasing productivity during our days, so our evenings can be less stressful.
Make Notes
The most successful people in the world always carry a notepad in their pockets to make notes. Many of us use our computers or phones and make notes on the diaries we have there. But this doesn’t seem to cut it for many people—it’s better to write it down and refer to something that is real—a piece of paper.
Time Management
Those who are super achievers know that time is a finite thing. On a daily basis, we only have so much time to do things. That’s why it’s important for us to make the most from our time. Try timing your activities, multi-tasking or combining tasks. This will help you cut down on the time you are spending on an activity and will cut the number of things you have to do.
Relax…
Even during the most stressful day, successful people find the time to wind down. Even in the office, you can spare a few moments every day to take your mind off work, meditate for a few minutes or read the news. Relaxation is part of what makes us successful. We have to know when to turn on the standby button.
Colleagues Can Be Fun
Try to be as social as possible. The more social you are at work, the more you feel like part of the team. Try interacting with as many people as you possibly can—and make friends. Working with friends is much better than working with people you hardly know.
Wake Up, Gotta Get Out of Bed
What can really set back our days is being late for work. Once you are late for work, you can expect your day to become sluggish. Try heading to bed earlier, waking up earlier, watching the news, having a relaxing breakfast and then heading to work. There’s no reason to rush anything in your life—take it at its own pace!
YOUR VISION TORCH Series Achieve Your Dreams, Ignite Your Vision, & Re-engineer Your Life Purpose
The only thing normally holding many people back—and away from their dreams—is themselves. They suffer from terrible fears when they try to better their lives. Inner fears like frustration, failure and lack of confidence allow some to be talked out of success by their own demons. These fears control the lives of many people but can be conquered. This new series of blog articles is all about fears that will hold you back—and how to conquer them. This week we are going to look at a fairly common fear that stops people from reaching their full potential—a fear called Acrophobia, which is a fear of heights that can stop many people from actually taking the first step toward their dreams.
Acrophobia may manifest itself in many ways, but is the extreme or irrational fear of heights. It’s not the same as vertigo, which is an inner ear problem that makes you think that you’re moving even when you’re not.
Recognizing Your Phobia
If you’re in a high place, do you feel like you will fall or jump off the edge? Do you suffer from panic attacks, dizzy spells and feeling faint? This condition can be triggered by a variety of every day activities such as travelling on a lift or escalator, parking in a multi-story car park or climbing a ladder. The thoughts and physical sensations are harmless but can be so distressing that it seriously limits the sufferer’s enjoyment of life, and can stop you from fulfilling your potential. Imagine if you had to make a business deal in a skyscraper—but couldn’t face going to the fifth floor? How about needing to meet that all important person for lunch—but not being able to reach the top of the building, where the restaurant is situated? If you suffer from acrophobia you may never be able to achieve the things you truly want to achieve.
Overcoming Your Phobia
Throw Yourself In
One of the most common ways of overcoming this phobia is just to “flood” it, in other words, just throw yourself right in and use your willpower to climb those stairs and stare out of the windows of a skyscraper. This could also mean skydiving, bungee jumping, or other extreme ways of getting to grips with your fear of heights. However, recent surveys have said that only a small percentage of people have overcome their phobia this way.
Small Steps
Another way to get to grips with your phobia would be to take small steps, until you feel comfortable to take some more. For example, you could try placing a ladder outside your home and climbing one step at a time. This would allow you to overcome your phobia at your own pace.
Thinking Is Doing
Sometimes the best way of combating a condition like acrophobia is just to change the way you think. Ask yourself why this condition scares you so much—what is it that bothers you so much about heights? Why are you scared to go on that elevator? Sometimes, it’s all down to defeating the demons in our minds.
Time
The most important thing is to realize that you have all the time in the world to overcome your phobia. There is no rush—take your own time and realize that only you can do it. Know that it could take a long time to get over your phobia—but it will be worth it in the end.
Ask any successful person how they entered the business of being successful. The answer that you will hear overwhelmingly is that they dreamed of doing something. Something big. Something important. Something that nobody else had ever done. They dreamed of becoming, finding, having, being, saying. The dreams you’ve had are a direction. A desire that comes from deep down inside your body and soul. Dreaming is half the journey to success.
But, you may say, BUT… How do I know what I want, and how do I get what I want? That’s the hard part! You have a dream journey—but you have to make it from place A to place B. It may be a difficult journey with lots of frustrating stops, starts and detours. It may be something you feel that you can’t do. It may be that you are at a place in your life that doesn’t allow you to pursue your dreams—but that doesn’t mean you won’t stop dreaming. It doesn’t mean that tonight you won’t discover the way to make your dreams come true. There is nothing stopping you from doing anything in your mind—your dreams cannot be taken away from you—so instead of decreeing that in reality your dreams are nothing more than made up, you should embrace them, watch for an opportunity and strike when you feel the time is right.
Knowing Your Dreams
Sometimes people wake up after a vivid dream, and for a short time after they wake up, they can remember the whole thing. As your day progresses, you lose more and more of that dream, and within a few hours it may be gone. How about keeping a pen and a piece of paper by your bed? When you wake up in the morning, jot down your dream. This way you can see patterns, direction, and make sense of what your inner self is telling you—at your own pace—without fear of forgetting it.
No Dreams?
Rubbish. Everyone has dreams. It may just be that you don’t feel your dreams are achievable, therefore, you may be more likely to quash your dreams before they can even take shape. Think about it—at some point in your life you have wanted something. You’ve wanted to go somewhere, see something, be someone. Think back and try to reconnect with your dreams.
Honestly…
Okay, I am not saying that tomorrow you can wake up and make your dream come true. You are welcome to try that, but for the majority of people it will be a journey or a quest. It will be something that takes time to take shape. You need to be honest with yourself. Is this the right direction? Am I in the right place to make my dreams come true?
Maybe It’s Time…
From time to time, people get a buzzing feeling that it’s time. When you get that feeling—act on it. If it feels right, if the time is right—do it. Just DO IT!
Allow Yourself Space
When you are lying in bed at night, think about the wide blackness of space. Look at the planets, look at the distance between Earth and the other planets in our solar system. Now imagine that your journey is between Earth and Jupiter. How would you make that journey? What would you need? How long would it take? Problem solving skills are going to be very important to you as you follow the path leading to your dreams—ask yourself questions and come up with the answers. The more you come up with answers, the more you will think outside the box.
David Bowie Dies at 69! A Legacy Lesson for All! Princess of Suburbia, Dr. Princess Fumi Hancock, Chimes In!
I woke up to the sad news of David Bowie…Dies at 69! Understanding how his family may be feeling as I had just lost a brother barely 6 days ago, my first inclination was to find out what legacy he left behind. While many may be stuck on how he died, I have a different view about it. I shared this on my periscope broadcast today (CLICK HERE).
Many who follow me on periscope (@PrincessinSub) and BLABTV (www.blab.im/PrincessinSub) know how passionate I am on the importance of writing our Legacy Statement and allowing that legacy statement to point us to our true calling or passion or life purpose, as you may call it. David Bowie exemplified that.
photo by_Adam-Bielawski
Here is why:
(1). Every media outlet I turned to this morning said one great thing about his legacy: that he was “a master re-inventor and a compassionate business man.”This is a legacy his family should be incredibly proud of. It was amazing that not many talked about how much he made but more on the lives he impacted while he was with us. This is a legacy worth celebrating for generations to come.
(2). Another media outlet talked about the fact that he was someone who tried things and when it didn’t work, he knew when to let go, then re-invent his life purpose. Because he was great at it, his music cut across generations. While many artists in his generation may have faded away, he remained known. He was also a family man, who kept his family as private as he could.
(3). Once he re-engineered his life purpose, he worked at it. As a matter of fact, David Bowe’s last music was released last week, few days before he turned 69.
Here is a question for you today, if you took your last breath today, what would your legacy be?
TODAY’S FAILURE is a platform for TOMORROW’S GREATNESS.
Have you ever felt frustrated, overwhelmed, and in disarray about a situation in your life…. where you wished and thought, if only God had intervened soon enough, your loved one would not have died? If Only God had intervened soon enough, the business or dream you were trying to make happen would not have collapsed? If Only, He had come soon enough, things would not have turned out the way it did.
“Lord if only…Lord if only… Lord if Only!”
Many are afraid to admit this but there have been times in my life where I just didn’t understand the initial outcome of a promise I knew God had deposited into my life, or why I put so much work into something or someone and it turns sour when I was sure it was God who’d asked me to do that or forge that relationship.
TODAY’S SPIRITUAL EXPLORATION:
Join me in exploring some scriptural verses today to help ease our minds:
John 11:39 New International Version(NIV) John 11: 1-45 39 “Take away the stone,” he said. “But, Lord,” said Martha, the sister of the dead man, “by this time there is a bad odor, for he has been there four days.”
Imaginea loved one gravely ill; your family members prayed and fasted and at the end of the day, that loved one dies… How do you reconcile with this?
Now imagine, a dream you had nursed for long, you have pumped all that you had in it, prayerfully considering your path, pushing forward because you really believed you were made to solve that problem through your innovative idea. At the end of the day, things did not happen the way you envisioned.
Imagine a relationship you were truly dedicated to building, knowing that this person is who you will live the rest of your life with; or go into business with, or perhaps you were meant to mentor, but then it all ended in painful breakups.
The Story of Lazarus: The story in John 11 is that of Lazarus. He fell gravely ill and his family did all they could to get Jesus attention to visit. When he finally got to the town, he was met with mourners in sack clothes … there was much wailing and turmoil. Many probably did not understand what Jesus was doing as he walked among them examining their countenance. I can imagine all of the murmuring and some saying, what is Jesus doing here? Didn’t He realize that the man – Lazarus is now dead? Some even said it to his face, don’t you see or know that Lazarus has been dead for 4 days? When we needed you to come, you did not show up?What could you possible do now that his body is decaying?
Jesus Response to the People’s Behavior: How could they have doubted the father? How could they have doubted that he did not hear them? How could they have doubted that He knew exactly what had happened and that he was still the same person who’d performed much miracles before Lazarus death?
But that God many be glorified and that he (Jesus) fulfills his promise…he called out to Lazarus.. and commanded him to come forth from underneath the grave. Immediately, the stones covering the mouth of the tomb were pushed back and Lazarus came out. Source: The Raising of Lazarus, by Duccio, 1310–11
While we may not understand why it takes Forever for God to answer our prayers, He has heard us the very first time we made our request. Often the answers are waiting for us to fully align with God’s words, be ready to receive it, having the right attitude to sustain the answer.
Wisdom Nugget for Today:
Take the limits off GOD! Take the limits off His Power. He is God who answers ALL prayers and because He sees the future more than we do, HE ANSWERS THE WAY HE KNOWS IT WILL EVENTUALLY BENEFIT US.
In the case of Lazarus, Jesus was not 4 days late but HE WAS RIGHT ON TIME. Likewise, whatever the dream is that seems dead right now, if you take the limits off God, HE will breathe life into it and cause it to prosper at the right time. Our time is never His time. He owns the past, the present and the future and because He knows your DNA, He will never allow any vision, dreams, or goals to crush you ..which can happen if fulfilled sooner.
Today, choose to take the limit off God…. Move into the realm of possibilities, trusting that he knows the right time to release that which you have asked. Continue to abide in the will of the father for your life, crushing every fear, every doubts, every past pains from failure with the understanding that today’s FAILURE is a platform for TOMORROW’S GREATNESS.
Until Next Time, Be Inspired, Be Motivated, Be Of Sentimental Value, Be Authentic
Dr. Princess Fumi S. Hancock, BSN, MA, DNP. Author, Screenwriter, Speaker, Behavioral Health & Transformation Interventionist http://www.theprincessofsuburbia.com
COMING SOON: JANUARY 1, 2016 RELEASE:
Your Vision TORCH SERIES
Many see success as a mystery because they have had so many unsuccessful ventures &/or relationships that they have now resolved that perhaps they are not meant to succeed.
On today’s episode, Dr. Princess Fumi Hancock will talk frankly and help you understand why you have failed or things are not going quite well in your life. LISTEN HERE!
It’s Warrior Wednesday: Southern Warrior Sister, Dr . Princess Fumi Hancock presents: The 5 Minute Success Blueprint
The Road to Success Requires Some “Housecleaning”& “Heart cleaning”
In Just 5 Minutes, You Will Garner Cutting edge Wisdom Nuggets to thrust you to your Destination. Knowledge is POWER. LISTEN!
The Road to Success Requires Some “Housecleaning”. Housecleaning – The removal of unwanted or superfluous items, practices, conditions, or personnel.
Many are not successful because they lack complete focus. At one time, they are doing something but before they see the success of that one thing, they have moved unto something else. Are you guilty?
On today’s episode, Dr. Princess Fumi Hancock will discuss the importance of doing some house and heart cleaning before taking a step towards success. LISTEN. LIKE, & SUBSCRIBE HERE!
It’s Warrior Wednesday: Southern Warrior Sister, Dr . Princess Fumi Hancock presents: The 5 Minute Success Blueprint What is the #1 Habit You Must Avoid Like a Plague to Succeed?
Princess Fumi shares her heart and walks her listeners through important facts/ dangers and the #1 plague which can stop anyone from fulfilling their calling.
Many fail to appreciate or honor the connection God places in their lives. They often disregard other people’s’ opinions and do not understand that true friendship or mentorship tell the truth at all cost, even when the truth is hard to swallow.
It’s Warrior Wednesday: Warriors Learn How to Steer their Vision without FEAR
Many walk around in circles; never fully grasping what they need to do to steer their vision. Many are frustrated and about ready to quit on their dreams because age is quickly riding up on them and it just seem like the dream is getting farther eluding them. ARE YOU TIRED? Are you depressed? Are you confused? Are you overwhelmed and can’t see to find your way out of the unending circle of challenges?
Here are steps you can begin taking today that can /will impact your outcome ultimately:
(1). Believe that you can make it ~ For me, the Word of God has been a great resource where this is concerned.
(2) Understand that there is a season for the breakthrough you are seeking, so discern the season and stay in it.
(3). Do not spend your energy attempting to operate in someone elses’ lane and season. BELIEVE WHEN I SAY THIS, COPY-CATS EVENTUALLY SELF DESTRUCT!
(4). Focus! Focus! Focus!
(5). Write the vision down and make it plain. (6). Take massive action towards it: One step at a time, you will conquer the mountain. (7). Be vigilant to align with those who are assigned to you for this season, to uplift, up guard, mentor, guide you t the path you are treading.
Above all, BE READY!
Until Next Time,
Be Inspired, Be Motivated, Be Of Sentimental Value, Be Authentic
Dr. Princess Fumi S. Hancock, RN DNP
Storyteller & Screenwriter, Speaker, & Transformational Expert
After writing a book, many people want to know how one goes about publishing a book. A well-known author once said recently that “it’s no great feat to get one’s book published—it’s no great mountain to climb.” He is right, but his opinion is subjective. To you, reading this blog, it is a huge mountain to climb to get your book published. There are many paths you can take up that mountain, but it is still a huge feat.
“Dreams Are What Lives Are Made Of…”
