The site originally had simple Paypal buttons and just a few options to purchase graphics from me but now over a year later, I’m glad to see it grow to where I can finally add the affiliate program.  Now I’ve always hated websites that advertised right up front about affiliate programs because people would use my affiliate link to go to a site and then see that it offered an affiliate program.  Then my prospect simply signs up to be an affiliate themselves and then purchases the product with their own affiliate link

I’m sure you all have had this happen to you in one way or another so I decided to announce my affiliate program on my blog here and also put the link to sign up as an affiliate in the footer of my site at Simple Ecovers.  That way the people you send me may not notice that I have an affiliate program unless they are really looking for it.  So if you would like to join my SimpleEcovers.com affiliate program, I would love to have you on board.

I decided to use Paydotcom as my affiliate program since they are easy to implement.  I have tested and tweaked everything to make sure that you will get paid from all that I sell on Simple Ecovers.  If you choose to promote the $37 ecover package and someone decides to go ahead and order my $147 guru minisite package, you will get credited with the sale. 

Another new addition is my portfolio section and my tutorial section where I will be adding my designs for all to see along with showing you how I design and render images.  Many of you have asked how I do what I do and I want to show you.  I haven’t added any tutorials yet and my portfolio is very small as I have to add hundreds of images still to the plugin that I found.

But in the meantime the site is live and functional plus the affiliate section is ready to go.  You can make anywhere from $10 to $27 per design that I do for clients if you send them to me via your affiliate link.  So go now and sign up as I’ve already made thousands from graphic design and I wish to give you all a piece of the pie.

 ==> Join Simple Ecovers Affiliate Program Now! <==

Until next time…

After some poking and prodding from those of you who like my work, I decided to launch SimpleEcovers.com, a website designed to give the online business owner vision for their products and services.  I failed forward creating my site and making it functional for all of you.

In the end I decided that instead of wasting time to get it “just right”, I would just get it going.  I still have to get some information on the site but it’s live and ready for you to get designs for products and services that you need in order to get your own sites live and running.

Making designs for products is fun for me because I like bridging the transformation from visual product to the digital.  Most people who buy online products get them in some sort of digital download and before they buy, they need visual stimulation to help them to realize the value of the product or service they are buying.

I’m sure those of you who choose to promote products through Clickbank or Paydotcom have seen really great graphics for products and some really bad graphics.  I’m sure most of you have skipped right past the crappy graphics sites as I have.  The product could be really great too but if you can’t get past the blurry or outdated graphics that catch your attention right at the beginning, chances are you won’t make much money with that product.

Many of you also purchase private label rights or master resale rights products to sell separately or add to other paid products that you own.  What better way to brand yourself than to get a new set of graphics for that private label rights product and this coupled with changing the name of the product and including your story can greatly enhance your business and your credibility… not to mention saving you time.

If Alex Jeffreys, Mike Filsaime, and others can do it then there’s no reason why you can’t do it too.  I want to thank all of you who have encouraged me to go forth with starting my graphics business.  This definitely will not be the only business I run but is a beginning to offering even more products and services that I have created and plan on releasing in the near future.

With the help of the Butterfly Marketing script and all of the training I’ve received over the past several months, more and more continuity websites will evolve so we all will need to be creative with what we offer future customers online.  If we leverage our time and talents, create JV partnerships and give great value and support, there is no reason why we shouldn’t get our piece of the internet pie.

So go and check out SimpleEcovers.com and let me know your feedback.  If I’ve done work for you please leave some comments on this blog post and I’ll add them to the testimonials section of my site giving you exposure.  I not only want to do your graphics but I want to help you get known online.  Until next time…

This post is to give a little background about what’s been going on and hopefully will stimulate those of you who are just waiting for something to happen to you, to get off of the fence and start considering what you can do or contribute to what I now consider a wonderful online family.

I decided a while back that I wanted to create and sell my own products online and that was it.  I didn’t want to “work” for someone else or be told what to do.  I have some background using Adobe Photoshop and because I am so cheap and hate to spend money, got into creating my own graphics for my websites, blogs, and ecovers.  I purchased certain graphics and action scripts that I could use to create my own stuff and that’s what I’ve been doing for all of this time.

I’m the kind of person who loves to learn at my own pace and is very curious as to how all of this internet marketing stuff works so I spent a lot of time looking at source codes of many websites and learned how to do practically everything on my own without the cost of schools or tutors.

Because so many of you and my fellow AJ students were giving so much, I decided to start doing free graphics for those who I saw were taking action and actually building their online businesses.  I started by visiting blogs and whenever I saw a crappy looking graphic image, I just emailed them and created a new ebook or ezine graphic free of charge.  We all know the value of a product coupled with a great image can give a higher perceived value.

As I have given to several of you who are probably reading this right now, it has been fun for me to get my creative juices flowing to design something to your liking that helps brand you, your business, and or your products.  I thought I would dread “working” for others but have found quite the contrary with graphic design.

A fellow AJ student and friend, Gary Simpson has been prodding me for a couple weeks at least to get him an ad banner linking back to my site to let people know of my graphic ability.  The problem was that I was not sure if I really wanted to do all of this “work” for other people.  It’s a lot more fun to give than to receive and there is no pressure of giving bad quality as I haven’t asked for money in return for my services.

This brings me to today.  I realize that I cannot continue to just give free all of my talents as I still do have a family to provide for and this is the reason I got online in the first place and paid for a mentoring program to help me build a business for myself.  So you all can thank Gary Simpson for what I just did.

Today I registered the domain SimpleEcovers.com and put up a “launching soon” page and put a brand new ad banner on the right side of this blog.  If you haven’t noticed it, just look to your right.  Everyone who I’ve done an ecover for in the last couple months will be my featured graphics and testimonials section as I’ve kept every single email and or comment about what I’ve done for them.

This gives me instant credibility for a new service which I will be offering and gives my “freebie” clients links back to their websites.  It’s a win win for all of us and since I do not consider myself a graphics guru at all, my prices will probably be the best online as I still have quite a bit to learn.  I never thought I’d be making banner ads, twitter backgrounds and ebook covers that cover the internet but there they are.

I still will be doing free work for those who really need it or have a low budget but the end result will be a successful online graphics ecover and minisite business.  And it won’t stop there either.  I’ll be of course continuing to produce other high quality information products as time permits.  Also, I’m not going to go and pimp my business all over the place unless I’m providing real value to other peoples blogs.

I want those of you who are still struggling to know that you do have talents.  Please just tap into those talents and do what makes you happy.  I never in a million years would have thought that I would launch an ecover design site but here it is, almost ready after just a couple months of helping others and a couple of days of building my site.  Don’t let anything stop you from your dreams and I promise you that success is a lot closer than you realize.

I want to personally thank those of you who let me work for you and give what I could.  I thank you for your praise of my work which gave me the confidence to go forth with this business.  You all know who you are and I’ll be over to your blogs soon.  Success isn’t determined by the amount of money you make but rather how you perceive your life.  I’ve made new friends and helped others to succeed.  That’s all the success I need to continue on.  Thank you, thank you, and thank you.  Until next time…

Below you will find essential tools that I use to create products for my online business.  You may use some of the same tools or you may have something else that works better.  I am always open to new suggestions so your comments will be appreciated.

Essential Tool Number One:

Web Hosting:  For the past five years I have been using Host Gator for all of my website hosting needs.  I pay only $9 a month for unlimited websites and I have never had any problems whatsoever.  I do not register my domains through them as they are expensive but their hosting plans are unmatched.  I was glad Alex Jeffreys recommended them as I was already using them.  Many hosting companies try to duplicate them so I know they’re good.

Essential Tool Number Two:

Domain Register:  I use Blue Wire Domains to register my new domain names.  They have a fabulous back end where I can manage all of my domains and they even have an auto renew option so I don’t accidentally loose any of my domains.  This has happened to me before.  Just point your domains to your web hosting company and you’re good to go.  They are very easy to use and that’s what I like about them. New domains only cost me $9 a year

Essential Tool Number Three:

Autoresponder:  I use Aweber for my autoresponder service.  They have complete tutorials and videos to help you get up and running fast.  They also have live webinars to get your questions answered and see exactly how they work.  An autoresponder is crucial in building a mailing list of people who visit your website or blog.  If you do not have a way of capturing names and email addresses, massive money is being left on the table.  It took me months to finally use an autoreponder.  They are only $19 a month.

Essential Tool Number Four:

PDF Creator:  I use Open Office to create my reports and ebooks.  They are a free open source software that is absolutely awesome.  The most current version is great and creating ebooks is only a fraction of what Open Office is all about.  They are the alternative to the very costly Microsoft Word program.  This is a great choice if you are on a budget like myself.

Essential Tool Number Five:

Video Creator:  Camtasia Studio 6 is the newest version of this fantastic on screen video creator.  You can download this for 30 days free and test it out.  I won’t make videos with anything else and you can create separate audio of  your videos with the push of a button.  With the way digital media is growing, why not have separate video, mp3, and ipod versions of your products?  They are a little costly at about $200 but well worth it.

Essential Tool Number Six:

Graphics Creation:  Adobe Photoshop CS4 is the newest Adobe graphics product.  I use this software to create the graphics for my ebooks, reports, videos, and just about everything else.  If you have a learning desire such as myself, you can create your own graphics too.  I also use the Web Graphics Creator for many projects.  They are way cheaper if you are on a low budget and it gets the job done.  I used this primarily before investing in Photoshop CS4.

Essential Tool Number Seven:

Website Tracking:  Google Analytics is free from Google and you place a small piece of code into your website.  It tracks pretty much anything you can think of from the number of visitors to their geographical location.  There is too much to list about this service but it’s safe to say you need it so you can see how well your sites perform.

These are just my basic seven essential tools for running any online business.  Of course there are many more tools available to do any variety of things so you have to get to searching for the ones that work for the needs you have.  Like I said before, this is in no way a complete list so if you are using other tools that are essential to your online success, feel free to let me know about them.  Until next time…

In fact it is pretty awesome. There is however just one mistake that is all too common when it comes to putting graphics on blogs and websites. To the left is his awesome report cover. The dimensions are 238 x 300.

I definitely did not design this cover and I think it’s stellar but Bill did just one mistake.  He changed the size of the image to make it fit his blog the way he wants it.  When he added it to his site he changed the dimensions from 238 x 300 to 122 x 153.  It is quite fine to change image sizes but the image itself needs to be changed, not just do a resize in your template.

Here is what his image looks like with just the image compressed to 122 x 153.  Notice how the edges are jagged and the text is barely readable.  People do this a lot and it makes awesome images look choppy and unprofessional. 

If you have an image that needs to fit in a smaller space then you need to actually shrink the image itself, not just change the image size numbers in your html code.  You can use many graphics programs to change the actual size of images.  You can keep the quality of images if you do this. 

I use Adobe Photoshop to resize my images even though there are much more inexpensive ways to accomplish this.  It is wise when you get a graphic of an ebook or report done to get the image in a variety of sizes so you can use them wherever you wish.

Here is Bills image resized the proper way and to the size that he wanted in his blog.  Notice how the book is still crisp and clear.  Resizing the actual image instead of just changing the dimensions keeps the image nice and neat.

Another word of advice is the text on the cover.  If you are going to have a few lines of text on the cover as in this case, I would definitely use a larger graphic than what Bill is using so the text at the bottom is readable.

I myself would like the image to be between the original size of 238 x 300 and 122 x 153.  So this means I would resize the larger image down to 170 x 214.  You can always shrink an image and maintain it’s quality but if you need your image to be larger then it’s hard to increase the size of an original as it looses quality and sharpness making it blurry.

Resizing the image to this size, I can still read what the text says at the bottom of the book.  With a graphic this great, there is no need to have the image small.  Why not show it off Bill?

Bill, you may copy and paste the resized image and use it if you like or if you know how to actually resize your graphic, you might do so to keep it’s quality crisp and clear.  You can see that if you try to take a large image and just resize the dimensions in html, then you come out with a choppy looking unprofessional ebook cover.  Most people don’t even realize the image looks like this because it has been compressed.  That’s what gives it the choppy look.

Anyways Bill, I love your site, BillVannot.com and it’s great looking, full of valuable content and the ebook graphic is awesome.  I just hope you change the size to reflect the fabulous graphics.  If Alex’s students need help with their graphics or have any questions, please just leave a comment and I’ll come take a look at your blog.  Until next time…

I do not intend on being rude but rather intend to do my part to help others who have neither the resources, money or both to produce the kind of graphics that make people want to buy or click a link. For those of you who don’t know, I’ve started offering my services free to get Alex’s students a little boost for their blogs and to get my name out there.

I recently visited fellow Alex Jeffreys student Alan Neath’s blog. I found it awesome and professional looking and provides great quality content. I found a post where Alan offers his PDF report about starting a blog which is great. He seems to be going forward and offers great advice.

I have two points to make that may help him and others who are doing the same.  Here is a picture of Alan’s report on blogging.  It’s nice enough to get the point across that he has a report to offer but he neglects to do two very important things that can help him to progress his business.

• Point 1—Personal Branding—The title “When Your Ready” is great but what is it you are to get ready for?  If you read his post connected with this ecover then you’ll know.  I suggest that he puts more text on the ecover to let the reader know exactly what the report is about and who it is from. 

• Point 2—Viral Marketing—If you put your name and what the report is about on the cover then you can easily add this report to a give away event like Alex has been talking about and this report can become viral.

Here I created a new image for his report with alternative text telling the reader who created the report and what is contained in it.  This report is now branded with Alan’s name and what it contains. 

He now also can add this report and image to give away events so he can get his own name out there and receive followers.  He may also want to consider setting up a sign up form in order to allow people to access his report. As it currently stands, anyone can click on a link and instantly receive it not allowing Alan to know who has his report.  If you don’t get the names from people signing up to your list then you won’t get the money when you later promote your products.

Alan, you are more than welcome to this free graphic for your website and to use for viral marketing.  Just right click and copy & paste.  I hope you take advantage of this as it will propel your branding and your business.  I want to reemphasize that I think Alan Neath’s blog is of great content and professionally designed.  My offer for free graphics is still ongoing so I hope you Alex Jeffreys students take full advantage. 

I welcome your comments and questions.  I also created a newsletter design for Chelsea Filan, another of Alex’s students if you want to see what else I can do.  Currently I am looking through all of the student blogs in order to offer this service.  If you happen upon my blog and leave comments about my graphics, I can get to your blog and graphics that much sooner.  Until next time…

Again, I must say that I hope you all have written your goals down for the new year and organized them by priority.  For my first 90 day plan, I hope to get at least 2 paid products created and at least 4 free products.  I have a plan for my business to get the free content out there and make it viral. 

The information will be quality and of value.  If you don’t already know, I can do my own graphics for my products.  For me, I like to create graphics to give me a visual of what I want to accomplish.  Since being a student of Alex Jeffreys, I figure it just makes sense to create products about what I have already accomplished up till now.

My first product will be related to setting up a blog to be profitable and also how to organize the content so it will be the most beneficial to the end user.  Below is the graphic I created giving you a teaser of whats to come.

Blog Your Business Series

I know, I know.  The graphics are supposed to be done after I complete the e book and videos but like I said before, I need a visual aide to help me stay motivated to complete this project.  If I had the money I would have outsourced a lot of these tasks but I really do enjoy the learning from doing it myself.  In the future I will outsource more and more but I really want this project to be all me.

It’s now 12:00am so Happy New Year!  I know running a business can be fun and frustrating but all in all I believe that now that I have specific goals set along with the continued support of Alex’s coaching, I can succeed.  Even if in the end I have a couple of hundred subscribers I will still be happy.  After all, I have to begin somewhere.

Thanks to all of you who give me support and who comment on my blog.  Our success is guaranteed as long as you never give up and never give in.  Let’s not be part of those 95% who quit.  Instead let’s help them to succeed by giving them quality content, support, and most of all hope.  Hope precedes the faith which in turn leads to action.  And we all know that without action there is nothing.

So press forward all my fellow students and all those who find my blog useful.  Creating your own business is very doable if you simply just do it.  And that’s really all there is to it.  So until next time…

 I know a little about graphic design and I want to give some of Alex’s students resources to help their businesses to grow and at the same time, get my name out there.

I recently visited Chelsea Filan’s website and noticed that I could give her a better graphic for her newsletter. It took me about 20 minutes to duplicate her graphics but I think I came out with something better than what she’s got.  Her old one is on the left.

Using Photoshop and some great action scripts that I have, I was able to create a way better and current graphic for her.  I hope she finds this post and uses it for her site.  Again this is my way of thanking my fellow students. 

I know it’s hard and sometimes costs a lot of money to get started.  I really like the layout of her site and so this is my little plug for her.  You go Chelsea!  I am just glad to see students having newsletters up on their sites.

As I search through more of Alex’s students sites, I will provide my services to more and more of you.  If you like what I can do and are needing graphics for your site, I can do them for you.  Just let me know.  Whatever skills I do possess, I would like to help in any way I can.   

Oh and by the way, you can visit Chelsea’s site by clicking on the new image above.  And Chelsea, you can right click the image above and save it to your computer to upload to your website.  It is in .png format and it has a translucent background.  If you have any questions just leave a comment to this post.  Until next time…