<<Hemingway rewrote the ending to A Farewell to Arms 39 times. When asked about how he achieved his great works, he said, “I write 99 pages of crap for every one page of masterpiece.” He has also been quoted as saying “the first draft of anything is shit.”>>

And Hemingway was right to the point. You can always recognize a great idea when you look at the bad ones.

This holds true in every area of life, but most of all in the design industry.

So, let me share with you a secret that most people ignore: ALWAYS CREATE AT LEAST TWO DRAFTS OF WHAT YOU HAVE TO DO, EACH TIME STARTING FROM SCRATCH. This way, you always have something to relate to when you make your decision.

When I first started my work as a designer for a newspaper, I was always deleting my drafts, thinking that the chief designer will laugh at me when he will see my bad drafts and that it might think that I’m not a good designer.

But later, when he only saw my finished layout he was asking me why didn’t I make it so… or so… all I could do, was to tell him that I did but it didn’t look as good as this one.

That’s when I learned a valuable lesson: it’s hard to create something great from nothing but it is possible when you put together more different not so good drafts to end up with a wonderful piece of art.

One of the best methods to create something great is to create more than one different pieces of what you have to do and then get rid of the bad ones.

All this because you’ll know what’s the best idea when you can compare it with all others bad ideas.

I was talking a few days ago with one of my mentors and he reminded me that every obstacle that we pass, take us closer to our desired goal.

It’s a true fact that we were born to succeed and not to fail. Someone, up there, wants us to succeed. All the failures we face are experiences we must learn from. And remember that all these failures make the success much more rewarding when attained.

All the great artists out there are no more talented than you and me; they all work harder and have the ability to set aside what’s bad in their work from what’s good.

And this fact holds true in every area of life.

One of biggest trend these days is related to ebooks. Because of their viral nature, ebooks are a great way to increase traffic to a site and that’s why everyone has to write at least one.

There are millions of ebooks online and everyday there are at more then one hundred new ebooks that hit the stands of the online library. Some of them are free, other not. But they are all full of fresh information or they will be forgotten.

As a reader, it’s tough to decide which one to read and which not. That’s why most surfers do pretty much the same thing they do in a real library.

Remember the last time you were in a real library or bookstore? If you are like me, you will more than likely base your decision of reading or buying a book on the first stimulus that catch your eye. And that one stimulus is the COVER.

And that’s the way everyone decides to read or buy a book: THEY LOOK AT THE COVER AND MAKE THEIR DECISION BASED ON IT!

So, what must accomplish a great cover?

First, it has to be an eye-catching cover so the visitor will pick up your ebook instead of the ebook of your competitors.

Second, even if the cover piqued your visitor’s attention it also have to be interesting enough to make him actually read your ebook.

How can you make a cover to stand out in a sea of covers?

Well, this is not an easy task if you have no design experience? Why? Because, even if your cover is different then all the other ones, it may be different in a wrong way.

You have to consider the general nuance of color for the cover, the main and the secondary font.

Here are a few general tips for you:

1. The colors tell a lot about the general subject of the ebook so you must use them accordingly
2. Use a combination between red, blue, black and white
3. Yellow it’s OK used sparingly in combination with black because it generates the strongest contrast
4. Always use a strong font for the main title – Impact its fine if the title is longer and Arial Black for shorter ones.
5. If your ebook is on a lighter subject you can toy around with different fonts but never use more than three different fonts for the same cover
6. The cover should contain:
   1. the main title
   2. one teaser phrase or a good subtitle
   3. the author name and eventually the URL of the ebook (avoid using http:// and subdirectories) usually a simple domain name will do just fine.

And finally one more tip: always KISS: Keep It Simple Stupid. Do not forget that the cover will be a small image and if you fill it with lot of info, it will be unreadable.

Dear friend,

If you’re like me, than I’m sure you’re pretty familiar with the well-known writer’s block.

From time to time, when you have to start writing something, be it an article, an ebook, or just a letter, there is that moment when you just stare at the blank sheet of paper (or at the vibrant colors of your monitor) and nothing seems to come out from your mind.

The good news is that there is a cure for this disease. 🙂

American poet William Stafford offers this advice to poets who suffer from Writer’s Block: “There is no such thing as writer’s block for writers whose standards are low enough.”

But, this is not an incentive to write junk!

Perhaps the most important reason that leads to WB is the lack of an idea. You just sit down in front of your perfectly empty monitor and think about what should you be writing. “There is nothing I can write about” seems to be the only thing that you can think about.

This doesn’t happen to me anymore because now I have a text document right on my desktop where I note down any important thought, idea, question that comes into my mind during my daily habits. Every time I start writing about something, all I have to do is to open that (now pretty big) file and “presto”, I know what to write about. 🙂

If you don’t have an “ideas file” on your computer yet, no problem, just take a look through some forums related to your niche market and look for questions.

Well, now that I have a great idea of what I want to write about, I just sit down again in front of my computer… and here comes the block again. 🙂

How should I start?

Here is a tip for you: It’s OK to start writing at whatever point you like. You can begin with the final chapter. You can start writing the middle of the book. It’s OK if the introductory part of your book is the last thing you’ll write.

Another thing you can do is to talk over the subject with a friend. If you can’t do that, you should record yourself talking about the matter.

Anyway, you must force yourself to write down something, however poorly worded that approximates your thought and go on with the next idea.

Also, you can always try free writing. All you have to do is to choose one sentence in a paragraph and write a paragraph about it. Then, choose a sentence from that paragraph and do that again.

Whatever you do, it’s always a good idea to be flexible. Be willing to throw out sections of text that are causing problems or just don’t work.

Physical actions can move your brain in good directions so move around, stretch, or walk.

Get a snack or drink, talk to someone, or just relax for five minutes before you start to write again.

After you already have a few ideas written down it’s ok to reread and jot down ideas while doing so.

Relax! Because the more you worry, the harder it gets to think clearly.

And once you have your book ready, remember that you will need a cover for it. 🙂

I can help you with that at www.AbsoluteCovers.com