Archive for January, 2010

Learn to Throw

// January 30th, 2010 // View Comments // Daily, Journal, Yo-Yoing

Well I spent a lot of the end of this week pushing myself to finish the first book in my how to yo-yo series called “Learn to Throw”. Wednesday I spent a couple of hours writing down what I felt I needed to accomplish to be finished, researched a few website that I could potentially publish on, brainstormed where to take the first book.

Thursday was my hard working day. I woke up, spent an hour focusing on personal development (some audio books I stumbled across thanks to Russell Yermal), and then got dressed for business and headed down to Moxie Java with my laptop. I figured if I was going to be working on my book what better place than a coffee shop to keep me awake and get me into a groove. (My friends think I was being too cliche, I think they need to try and write a book without easy access to coffee.) After seven hours (got there at 11) I left Moxie Java for a Ren Faire Committee meeting (I’m behind on putting together their website, opps!) laptop in hand. Everything I wrote down on Wednesday that I needed to do to feel I was finished I had checked off except for the Acknowledgements page, the copyright page, and the index pages. Today I finished all of that except for the index page which I’m pretty sure I don’t need anyways.

One of my more recent decisions with this book is to publish it initially as an eBook but allow myself the option of selling physical copies if people want one (or two, or five). So I looked around and have been considering using Lulu.com to get started. I am also considering Amazon but considering how I can’t find any links on their website on ‘how to publish your book on amazon’ and how Lulu has a big old button on the top left side that says “publish” I think they’ll be getting my attention first.

Learn to Throw Sneak Peak

There are a few things I’d like to do before I publish it though; I have a friend at the Messenger Index here in town, Erika Harmon, who is their editor who offered to edit the book for me when it was done (she actually edited it as a transcript last year). I’d like to get her the current pdf and make sure I’m not overlooking some idiotic error. Another friend of mine, Adam Haroun who is brilliant with graphic design offered to help me out if I ever needed it and I’d like to see if he can make the cover really pop (since I’d be printing the book too, I want it to catch eyes on shelves :) ). He’s amazing by the way and he’s got his own graphic design business started, you should check it out if you ever need help with graphics, I’m pretty sure you can find it through his site http://www.adamharoun.com/.

I do have a few pictures of me in the book that I didn’t take that I need to ask permission to use and I would like to add a few ‘title pages’ introducing different sections of the book and lastly an updated bio that will make clear who I am, what my mission and vision are, and how to get a hold of me for help and such. After that I’m done! I can move on to writing book two for the intermediates and possibly even recording video to go along with the book. I’ve even been told by Justin Burns who I was on the Go-Giver Tour with to record an audio version of the book, he says it’s huge these days. I’m still not sure… Yo-Yoing is a rather visual hobby… I still think video would work better. What do you think?

I’ll be letting you guys know more about the book as I get closer to publishing it, it’s over due, should have been done last year, but I’m happy that I took the advice I’m always getting to ‘just freaking do it’ and that I did it. If you’re interested in buying the book at all let me know, I’ll make sure to email you when I have more info on how to get a copy for yourself or your sons, daughters, nieces, nephews, grandsons, granddaughters, etc :) Have a great weekend folks!

number of view: 368

Freestyle and Biz

// January 24th, 2010 // View Comments // Business, Daily, Journal, Yo-Yoing

Hey everyone! Last night I had the opportunity to perform a yo-yo freestyle (demo) at an event called: “An Evening of the Arts” here in Emmett, ID. It was a benefit event for a local high school student, Tommy Lukrich, who was raising money to help send him to an audition to be in Juilliard. I had a great time performing, the audience was really responsive without prompting (the way it should be) and after the demo I answered a few questions from the audience about yo-yo projects I’m working on (how-to book, clubs, etc) and got to watch some of the other acts for the night.

Just wanted to share the video of my Freestyle (which I got Tommy to record, thanks again Tommy! :) ).

Also decided to start showing DTIstore.com some love; it pales in comparison to themikemonty.com and I don’t think it should, in my opinion it should make theMikeMonty.com pale. But that’s what I’m going to be doing, getting the site tuned up and ready to fly. I also have a lot of plans for the company to, started a mailing list for the monthly newsletter, member of the list get a chance to win a free shirt once a month. We’re gonna start doing a monthly yo-yo video contest too, we tried it out back around june of 2009 and had a few entries and people seemed to really enjoy it. And the final three irons in the fire for now are yo-yo related. 1) We’re in the process of manufacturing our very own yo-yo that will be called the BaseBoost. We’re looking for quote on production and are moving towards prototyping. 2) We are starting the process of making one yo-yo related shirt per month. and 3) I’m going to be publishing my how-to yo-yo book as an eBook to raise funds for physical printing as well as the yo-yo manufacturing. The book will “published by” DTI. :)

That’s it for now. Later folks!

number of view: 304

Can't Wait!

// January 18th, 2010 // View Comments // Business, Daily, Journal

Tomorrow the first B3 – Business, Books, and Breakfast meeting ever :D It’s going to be awesome! The facebook fan page shows nine people will be attending and about 20 maybes. The flyer for the event went out to a whole bunch of people via email too, so I’m hoping to have between 10-20 people. The VibesBB book club in Meridian had over 60 people at the first meeting but there were a lot more people promoting it (I think four) that’s why I’m hoping for 20 haha. Anyways, I’m listening to the Go-Giver right now, and trying to get tired; that’s the book for tomorrow by the way. Oh and something kind of cool, I asked Bob and he sent me an autograph to put in a book to give away at the first meeting; I couldn’t get a hold of an extra book in time though so I’ll have to simply give away the autograph. Next time I’ll have to find or get something cool donated to give away, I think it’d be a fun little perk for the monthly club.

Well gonna go and focus on the audio reading :) Later!

number of view: 296

Been Sick

// January 18th, 2010 // View Comments // Daily, Journal

Been sick all last week I think since Monday or so… Been trying to get rest to get better; the book club is tomorrow (Tuesday) and I’d like to be feeling at least healthy when I wake up for it at 6am. Not much else to write, I’m going to be sleeping in today (Monday) once I actually go to bed so I can take advantage of the holiday to get some more rest. When I wake up I plan to clean a little, read a little, and write a little. For now, time to sleep :)

number of view: 240

Laptop is Back

// January 13th, 2010 // View Comments // Daily, Journal

Finally got my laptop back the other day :) The video I posted yesterday was basically to celebrate that. Didn’t get too much done today though; woke up with a sore throat and basically and entirely sore body. Spent the whole day resting, hoping to feel a bit better by tomorrow since I have three meetings tomorrow :) Not much to say today because of this, so I’ll not waste your time, later!

number of view: 290