Leslie Balleweg Barber spent part of 2021 working on her book Understanding Conceptual Figurative Paintings and How to Create Them, and we were hired to consult on this project. We helped her edit and refine the text and then go through the publishing process, choosing Ingram Spark because of their ability to do both hardback and paperback books and use high quality art-worthy paper. The result is a gorgeous tome that is not only educational but a gallery of Balleweg Barber's exceptional work. 

Thank you, Leslie for choosing to work with us on your project, and congratulations on your gorgeous book. If you want to add this book to your library or coffee table, you can buy it here or at any booksellers. 

This is our friend Mary Lou Wilson. She's in her early 90s and has always wanted to write and see her work in print. Jill has known Mary Lou for almost three decades, and they met in an adult education writing course.

Last year, Mary Lou asked if Jill would co-author a series of books based on her life and her family. With that request, she became a client of Creating the Freelance Career. Jill and Mary Lou have been at work on those books, but in the meantime, Mary Lou had an idea for an article. She sent Jill a draft of her idea and they worked together to create a marketable article, researched places that might be interested in it and wrote the query letter so Mary Lou could pitch it. 

NPR's Next Avenue bought the article about gift ideas to buy the elderly person in your life and they published it today. You can read it by clicking here. 

Mary Lou is overjoyed, as Next Avenue not only made the article a feature story, but they are also promoting it on Facebook and in their newsletter. We are excited that we got to help her make her publishing dreams come true. And this success has encouraged Mary Lou to brainstorm ideas for future articles and places to pitch them. Go, Mary Lou, go!  

Jill L. Ferguson, founder of Creating the Freelance Career, and author of 14 books and counting was featured yesterday in Billion Success. Billion Success is an entrepreneurship and authorship education platform that believes "every ENTREPRENEUR / AUTHOR has a unique story and life experiences." Their founder Herby Fabius, says, "Our goal is to share those stories and experiences to INSPIRE, EDUCATE and MOTIVATE [capitalization theirs] others to start their own success journey. We love to promote authors and founders. We do it to promote you; to promote your business; to promote your books. We want to play our part in making you a success."

To date, they have interviewed more than 500 entrepreneurs and more than 80 self-published authors and they have a social media following that is more than 15,000 and counting. Jill connected with Billion Success through HARO or Help A Reporter Out, which she has used for years to both find sources for articles and to be an expert and featured in Entrepreuner, Forbes, Business Insider and many other publications. She recommends all of her coaching clients join HARO as it is a useful way to get more press.    

Jill looks forward to seeing how this opportunity of being in Billion Success affects the sales of her books. :) Promoting the article all over social media has already resulted in at least one person saying they needed business coaching. 

Some of our clients need to draft business proposals to perspective clients and they come to us to help with that task. We've written before about crafting a book proposal and in some ways the process is similar. You need to have a clear idea of who your audience is who will read the proposal and how your idea or book fulfills a need. 

For example, one client (we'll call her Marcy to protect her privacy) was doing part-time work for a company as a contractor and the company asked her to write a job proposal for what the role might look like if it was a full-time employee role that included not only the work she was currently doing but expanded to be a type of coordinator role that would need to communicate with and work with not only current company employees but also three different levels of external stakeholders. The CEO of the company told Marcy to justify the expansion of the role in the proposal (even though he suggested this possible change in the first place). 

Marcy asked us for advice. Jill said to her that she should start the proposal with a short introducation and by talking about the challenge the company is currently having because of the current structure, hourly limits, and roles. Then Marcy was instructed to talk about the value that creating this new position would bring to the company. Next, for section three of the business proposal, it was advised that Marcy list the job duties (what the position would do and for how many hours each week). For section four of the business proposal, Marcy talked about her qualifications in detail and why she was the most qualified person to fulfill the position if/when it was created. In section five of the business proposal, Marcy covered her history of working with the organization since she has almost ten years of history with them.

Lastly, March wrote an actual proposal for the new position including what the position would like and the proposed salary range. This part can be a stand-alone document of the job description, the kind that would be housed in HR. 

None of the sections of the business proposal had to be long but they did need to be long enough to provide levels of detail so that the reader wouldn't have more questions than were being answered by the business proposal. 

While this example was specific to a contractor being asked to write a proposal for a full-time employee position, much of the advice can be used in writing a business proposal for other means. If you are writing a business proposal to get investors or funding, then you also will need to include marketing plans as well as budget, as Jill explains in this article that was published by SCORE LA.    

Patti DeHoff released her first book, Picture This! A collection of heartwarming sights, a compilation of photgraphs of found hearts. DeHoff explains, "Over the years I kept seeing hearts everywhere so I started taking pictures of them since they brought me so much joy." She shared some of the photos with friends and family members and they enjoyed them so much that they encouraged her to create a tangible product of them. 

Since DeHoff had never written a book before and was unfamiliar with the publishing process, she talked to some colleagues about her plans and that she needed some guidance and one of those colleagues introduced her to us. We are grateful to have gone on this journey with her and watch this book come to life. 

Picture This! makes a lovely engagement, wedding, Valentine's Day, Mother's Day, or just because gift; it's great for any occasion where you want to give love to someone. And a portion of all book sales will be donated to the American Heart Association. 

Picture This! can be purchased directly from Heartwarming Site and DeHoff is in the process of creating a line of found-heart photography greeting cards, calendars, and other gift items to continue spreading joy and love. #hearts #love #photography #giftbook #newbook #weddinggiftidea #engagementgiftidea #AmericanHeartAssociation 

On August 9, Talyn Fiore's  book of photography and poetry, Brown-Eyed Girl releases on the Fiore's thirtieth birthday. We are thrilled for the screenwriter, actress, and interior designer, and we are equally excited that we got to be a part of her journey bringing this creative and heart-felt book to life. (And a big shout-out to Barry Schweiger who insisted Fiore contact us.) 

Brown-Eyed Girl is a product of the pandemic, born from a relationship heartbreak, where Fiore found herself pouring out her heart and soul in poems. When her grief passed, she was still writing and had an epiphany that creativity can erupt from any emotion, not just pain.

The photography and design of the book (all done by Fiore herself) is stunning and she's incorporated her belief in numerology into its structure and pricing.

Brown-Eyed Girl is available from booksellers everywhere, including Target and Amazon. 

Congratulations, Talyn Fiore on your first book! 

Creating the Freelance Career's Founder Jill L. Ferguson was a guest last night (along with The Advocates co-author Robyn E. Gulliver and Jan McNicol) on Crikey Talks, an online subscription-based show on July 15, 2021. They discussed how being an environmentalist and caring for the planet can feel like a futile attempt when businesses and governments do not seem to care or enact changes. With temperatures increasing, weather patterns and natural disasters growing more severe, and droughts and fires escalating, the race is on to curb humanity's negative impact before it is too late. 

We had great fun on the show despite the seriousness of the topics, which ranged from coronavirus, activism, climate change, and the differences and simliarities between experiences in Australia and the United States. And the audience participation was active with a poll and a group chat. Thank you all for your questions and for this opportunity. 

#climatechange #environmentalism #bookpromotion #theadvocates #activism #australia #crikeytalks 

Jill L. Ferguson, founder of Women's Wellness Weekends and Creating the Freelance Career, was featured on July 9, 2021 in an article in Narratively that discussed the new book The Advocates that Jill co-authored with the multi-talented Robyn E. Gulliver. The Advocates chronicles the lives and activism of nine women in Australia but the book also provides an overview of the history of Australian environmental activism as well as the way other countries affect the landscapes, health and fauna of specific places. 

Jill was so grateful to be a part of this project and to Melbourne University Press for publishing the book. 

Congratulations to Rubi Lee, who published her book My Lovely Emma, this month. Lee has worked the past year on the erotic novel (based on a true story) and after sending it to a few agents and publishers, she decided to publish it herself through Amazon's KDP platform. We were thrilled she asked us to accompany her on this journey and she solicited our advice. 

We recently started working with modern artist Pam Smilow, who represents her own work—fabulous bright and lively paintings in a variety of sizes—and that of her late husband, Gert Mathiesen, whose vivid Tree of Life painting is above.  
Pam and Gert have had a unique business model for the past more than three decades. While they have done shows in galleries and been exhibited by some museums and Gert's work even spent four years (2014-2018) on display at the Consulate General of Denmark in New York City after his death, they have connected most with their collectors doing home shows.

Pam describes these events as "the Tupperware party model", meaning she goes as an invited guest into a home and lays out the paintings (most are on canvas or on paper) "like rugs on the floor," she says, and on the walls of a home. Potential buyers are invited to the home for a kind of "art party" and they can select the art they want. And then Pam goes to their homes to help them place it where it will look the best. (She also has the ability to do this virtually  due to the pandemic). 

She explains that many people need help placing their artwork. The way the light hits the wall, the way the furniture is arranged, the way the lighting changes throughout the day, all of that matters to how the painting will look and how viewers will experience it. Some people try to put too small of a painting in a space so then the painting gets lost. Or maybe the work doesn't coordinate with what else is in the room so it will look out of place. These are the things Pam helps with when she makes "house calls." 

The Tupperware Party model of selling art came about for Pam and Gert when Barbara Edelston Peterson, world-champion triathlete, author, Whole Champion Foundation founder and Pam's childhood friend, suggested at a high school reunion that Pam come to her newly reconstructed, blank-walled house (rebuilt after a California fire) and put on a show.Barbara says, "My walls were blank. We lost everything. So did all of my neighbors so their walls were blank, too." So Pam and Gert and all of their artwork flew to Northern California and Barbara threw an art party so people could redecorate. And that began quarterly trips to California, both Northern and Southern, and selling to people in many many homes over the decades, including to some people you've seen on the silver screen.  

COVID, of course, with its lockdown curtailed Pam's mobile art shows, but it has given her plenty of time to create new art and to start a blog called "Things We Love", which features three things she loves that week. The blog publishes every Sunday morning and people have said it has become part of their routines, just like reading The New York Times. For that, Pam is grateful. If you'd like to read Things We Love just click on the words and it will take you to it and you can subscribe to this weekly burst of inspiration and gratitude. 

As more and more people are vaccinated, and the world opens more each day, Pam is excited to resume her travel schedule and to meet with collectors new and old and help them find and position artwork that makes them happy every time they look at it. 

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