Wednesday, January 2, 2013

Carmel Heart Media in the New Year

Welcome to the New Year! Carmel Heart Media, LLC was founded in November, 2012, with grant funding from Lane VR and a carefully designed business plan with my adviser Leah, of Lane Small Business Center. Since November, I obtained a business license and office equipment, professional software and beautiful business cards. Over the summer, while I waited for my grant to come through, I took on two clients to help them with their self-publishing needs, which have ranged from editing to layout and cover design. In the process, more have lined up with an interest in becoming published, now that I own my own imprint.

My original plan was for me to publish e-books and apps of my own work, yet now demand has been strong for print projects. Carmel Heart Media will offer two print publication services: full publishing under the CHM imprint for premium quality manuscripts that fit the genre and theme of Carmel Heart Media, and also basic book production for those who want to self-publish. This will involve a la carte services, such as cover design and editing, or putting the entire book into print-ready form. These services will cost less than any service available on-line including Amazon's CreateSpace, AND clients will receive personalized care and attention not available from the mass self-publishing industry.

None of these projects were my original business goal and they weren't even included in my business plan. However, these are skills I have and enjoy using, and they are skills people want. Hopefully, by the spring, I will have my new web page designed, which will have many more details and samples of my work, especially showcasing my graphic design work, such as the cover I created above. I won't be able to do it all and wear all hats. I have a volunteer employee who will be working with me, until I am able to pay him. This should free me up to follow the monthly targets that are on my original business plan, which has an eight item product list for 2013. Because of this, I am only working with one Carmel Heart Publishing author at a time and time-frames for a la carte services may be longer than the industry standard. Luckily, my plan is flexible enough to accommodate these changes in what I'm able to offer, because I'm excited about helping new authors succeed in realizing their dreams.

Carmel Heart Media books will have an inspirational theme and incorporate aspects of the Carmelite tradition, such as mindfulness and contemplation, or they will be works with complementary themes. We welcome inquiries at info@carmelheart.com. Our first book will be Ordinary Heroes: Creating a Culture of Life, by Terry Ianora, OCDS, and we are planning a release for the anniversary of Roe v Wade this month. Terry has been a client since June of this year, and her book has been created with great care and love.

I'm looking forward to an insanely busy year, but not a stressful one, because I'm doing what I love. My most cherished project will be the development of a Borderline and Beyond app for sale on Itunes. Thanks for everyone for their support and encouragement as I and Carmel Heart Media go forward in the new year!



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