Friday, March 31, 2017

Kickstarter: Day 1


Day 1

It’s official! Today is the first day of Black and White’s Kickstarter Campaign. I’ll be counting down over the next twenty-one days, offering some exclusive items, like original storyboards by Gail DiCarlo and setbooksfree.org T-shirts, cinch sacks, and bumper stickers. But I’ll be offering additional items here, for you, my loyal blogging friends. Including:


 

*$100.00 Amazon gift card:
 

**The cover storyboard for Garden House:
***Personalized dogtags
To qualify, share this link: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1531528220/ubooks-musically-enhanced-video-books to your blog/facebook/twitter. Then post the link on this blog in the comments or email the link to: melanie@melanieschulz.com. There is no limit to how many ways or times you can share, but please forward the link, so it can qualify for the official drawing at 12 midnight on the twenty-first.
Come back each of the twenty-one days for updates, exclusives, and stories.
Thank you all.
 
 
 


 


*For this option to be available, 100 entries must be entered.
**For this option to be available, 100 entries must be entered. Valid for US residents only.
***Valid for US residents only.   


 


 
 
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Five Year Goals in Review: March 2017

Last Friday of the Month
Today's the last Friday of the month, making it time for me to review some goals. This is part of a project put on by Misha Gericke where you make a long term (five year) goal and blog each month about how it's going. My goal is to have a world-class publishing company. In five years. Dream big or go home, right? I'm a little over a year into this venture, and so far it's going well. *Ubooks are patent-pending. Black and White has signed some amazing authors. But the one thing we don't have yet is an audience. You know, the reason behind all of it. So with that in mind, beginning tomorrow I'm starting a twenty-one day Kickstarter campaign. Partially to raise funds to hire some new people to produce more Ubooks, but mostly it's to force me to market--something I hate to do. Probably the only time I've done anything close to an actual marketing push is during the last few Aprils when I posted some of my work during Arlee Bird's A to Z bloghop. So I thought I'd apply that same thinking to this. For twenty-one days I'll be posting daily on this blog/Instagram/Facebook to let people know about this new book format. I'm way out of my comfort zone here, so any help you'd like to give spreading the word would be much appreciated. Here's the link to my Kickstarter homepage if you'd like to share it: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1531528220/1409684295?token=65115878
 
Thanks again!
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
*For those of you who don't know what Ubooks are, they're books/stories on video feed, which allow them to be read without interruption. This (I feel) greatly enhances the story, allowing a reader to remain immersed in the story without the distraction of a page turn or a finger swipe. It also allows music/sound enhancements. The best part? They're completely free. All of our Ubooks can be read/viewed free of charge on Black and White's YouTube channel or at www.setbooksfree.org.

Wednesday, March 1, 2017

IWSG: March 2017

First Wednesday of the Month

I don’t know about where you live, but here March is always synonymous with snow. Lots of it. Yesterday it was sixty degrees out and I was working in the garden. The weather people say all this warm weather is bad and we’ll be sorry later when the fruit trees are barren because a frost killed all the buds, and can you just imagine what this will do to our maple syrup production? All of that might be true, and maybe it’s not, but why worry about something you can’t control? Why not enjoy the good part of this mid-winter thaw?

That’s what’s on my mind today as I sit down to write this month’s IWSG post. (Thanks to Alex and co-hosts for putting this on!) It’s about enjoying where you’re at. Sometimes we’re on a really good roll. Sometimes our writing is just flying out, but deep down the fears linger—how long can this possibly keep up? It’s not normal to write four thousand amazingly spot-on words in a day, is it? Surely all this production now means I’m missing something. I’m sure I’ll pay in the end. But what if you don’t? What if it’s just really good production and you’re just supposed to enjoy the moment? So, pull up a glass of summer sweet tea with me, and enjoy this day of sunshine, smack in the middle of winter.  

For those of you on my email list, you’ll be receiving advance released links to:

 
 
With Adam gone, Liz is faced with the truth that a Reader is useless without a Book. Determined to find him again, she comes out of hiding only to discover another truth: every Book has a Writer.
 
 
 
 
Meet Grandma Becky. She's pulled up a chair at her kitchen table and set out her favorite mugs filled to the brim with her special hot cocoa. Stay awhile and hear some stories about the farm she grew up on, her family, and the adventures they had together.


For those of you who aren’t on the list, look for them here in two weeks. If you’d like to join the tribe and get early access to our Freed books, you can sign up here.