Why you should (self-)publish your first book

Receiving that box in our mail from Create Space (an Amazon company) was an amazing feeling! After having worked on the project for so long, it was a great feeling to have real and beautiful results in our hands! Real books. Written by us (I like to call everything my wife does 'us', one of the beauties of being married!)

If you never thought about producing a book, you should take a minute and think... Why haven't you? I am not saying that everybody should write books (Google estimated in August 2010 that there should be around 130 million books!) but I meet so many people that really should!

What about you? Ask yourself the following questions and seriously ask yourself if you should write a book. Or a manual, a comic, a poetry book, a picture journey, a 101 on a subject that has your interest...

Ask yourself; 

Do i have an interest in any particular matter? 

Whenever a conversation hits a certain topic, do I get instantly involved in the discussion?

Do I get excited about a hobby, a cause or a certain holiday destination?

Do I like to express myself through art? Paining? Dancing? Drama? Photography?

Do I keep a journal?

If you answer 'yes' on even only one of these questions you should consider if you should write about it! Tell others you're thinking about sharing your passion (don't mention you're thinking of writing this book - too many people that never produced anything for themselves will tell you why it's a dumb idea...but they are wrong! Seriously!)

You know something about something that others don't. At least not in the way you see it! (self-)publishing a book is great for...

• others: we want to know what you think and how you see things. your art, insight, passion, conviction, know-how can really help us! 
• you: writing a book is a great journey in which you learn much more about the subject you already know so much about! It can also help you to become an authority, or at least a voice, in a certain area. don't ever do it for the money - at least not if you don't already have a great following. you only get little money per book, and the idea that you would already find a publisher that's going to pay you for your amazing manuscript is very small (and that seems an understatement). 

I am aware that I might have lost some of you along the way. But for those of you that are still reading, I would love to ask you this: if you were to write a book, what would it be about?!

Fine tuning the blog

As I'm in my 60days0min challenge (30 minutes of dedicated social media time for 30 minutes max), I realize my personal blog-voice needs to be fine-tuned a bit.

After I wrote the posts on 'how to keep your wife  (part 1 and 2)', I realized that, in order for this blog to find it's niche, I want to fine-tune the blog a bit.

I want to focus this blog more on those that are running start-ups, social businesses and NGO's that are not afraid to partner with 'for-profit' organisations. It's a journey that I am traveling myself as well - so it should be not too hard to write relevant articles. So, as I wrote my innitial 'topics to post on', I want to focus more on the first 3 subjects...

Social Business: a voice i just discovered.

This week I got to discover a new 'voice' in the world. Little did I know that this voice has been around for years already, not in the background but very known and even recognized.
I discovered the work of professor Yunus, founder of the first micro-credit bank, winner of Nobel peace price.

His philosophy on Social Business seem very much connected to the Social Profit model that Tjeko is developing for its fun parks. I bought his book Building Social Profit and want to know more about this 72 year old entrepreneur that seemingly has influenced the world of empowering poor people around the world, starting with his own country, Bangladesh. His work is based on 7 principles, an approached that deserves our attention as well. 

I love people with inspiring quotes like:

... When tiny, tiny things start happening  a million times, it becomes a large thing. It lays down the foundation of a strong economic base. With women participating in building this economic base, it becomes the foundation for better social and economic future ...

So I'm really looking forward to read his book and learn.

Who is new in your realm of influence? What are you learning from them? Because the truth is: if you're not learning, you're dying :/

Feel free to leave your opinion on this blog! I love to know what you think.

How to keep your wife! or: 5 things to keep a healty marriage [Part 2]

This post has been moved our family blog!

How to keep your wife! or: 5 things to keep a healty marriage [Part 1]

When we look around us these days, it seems as if marriage is a thing people try once or twice... As if the glue that keeps people together is of a bad kind. Because it's not keeping people really together!

On the other hand, I see great couples that have kept the 'vibe' between them! The once that are married for about 40 years - and still have the other person make them laugh. Or still make the other person hold their hands! I love being a witness of those moments! Love is a beautiful thing.

Having been married for almost 9 years makes me no expert by any measure ... yet I can tell you honestly that I've never been more in love with my wife than before. And truth be told, she has never been more attracted to me (of course!)

Here are 5 things I keep in front of me that keep my marriage strong. And these might chance trough time - but for now they work GREAT!

1. Keep dating!
For some people this is completely normal - but for too many couples it seems that dating was something of the past. But it shouldn't. Because if dating is something of the past - one day you'll wake up and wonder: what happened to you?!! You never noticed the changes that took place in your partner!
Dating to me is setting aside time to spend with my wife. Not just to go shopping together, or watch a movie on the coach. No, I want to make sure it's time to really talk. Like the time we first started hanging out!
When you 'date' like this, you allow yourself to really see where your spouse is going. Some people I know that divorced told me: when I look back it just seemed our ways had grown apart. When you date, you keep noticing that when it happens...not when it is to late. When you notice it, you can stir on it.

2. Ask her what time she needs you home
This one might seem a little absurd. But do you know what time of day your wife needs you most? Is she an evening person, or more a morning star? Is there a moment in the day your household seem to explode? Are there days in the week your wife is walking on her toes to make things happen?
For us that means that in this period of our lives I make a commitment to BE home by 5pm. That's about the time Tatiana has heard enough toddler arguments and is tired of keeping the house from falling apart. Its also a brief window of time I get to physically invest in the lives of my two (soon to be three) little heroes.

Find her love language, and then speak it
There is a great book called: the five love languages. This book explains in very plain English how different people feel loved in different ways. And if you speak the wrong language to the right person - it simply won't work! It's like going to the south of French and trying to speak English - they might give you the impression they understand you - but they don't! I discovered that to show Tatiana I really care for here - I need to spent quality time with her! That means that when we are together, she really needs me to be there. Not answering my mail when she is telling me about her day. Not watching a movie 'together' while I'm reading a book - because the movie is just not that interesting. Chick-flicks are a great test of love...sitting trough one of those with your wife helps our marriage to stay strong. Not because of great advise - but because we're laughing at the same stupid stuff...and have something to refer to when funny things happen!

 I have two more that are worth reading - they will follow soon. First you might check if you can use any of these - and maybe they got you to think about ideas for yourself! Share them - so we all can be better husbands!

Experiment: 60 days 30 minutes Social Media - Week 1

Social Media for your business, private blog or good cause is very important.
It's one week into our experiment with '30 minutes of Social Media', and I have to say it's been very revealing. It might sound like an easy challenge, but I have to say, after a full week I've learned lots of do's an  don'ts. I can tell you I've discovered a need for a plan!

Last week I started in these three area's:

• Personal Blog: That's what you're reading right now.
• Business: The company I work for: www.kaarskoffie.nl 
• Good Cause: The Social Profit NGO my wife and I started,  www.tjeko.info 

Each area's has is own personal needs. Each catagory has its own challenges, chances and interesting way of approach. All I'm doing in this post is sharing some of my challenges. I'm in the experiment myself - I'm learning, not teaching. So don't expect me to give you a clear cut plan! Yet!

Personal Blog: I found that writing blog posts in a small part of the 30 minutes I'm given is actually challenging for me! Even right now I feel I just get warmed up. But if I want to do other things, I should stop this post and do other things, to guarantee my precense on the web today. Result is a half finished post in my blogger - while i'm typing this time sensitive blog now first!
One of the successes of this week is allowing many more people to know I am using Twitter. In return I got 14 new followers! That's a 10% increase!
Having a good cause that had an exciting week also helped! It gave me things to blog about - as I am personally very involved in the cause, and really want my friends and followers to know the things that happen there.

Business: Time is everything. First challenge in my current position: Having 30 minutes of un-interupted time for the Social Media activities of the company. In preperations of the Social Media 30 minute challenge, I decided to do the Kaars Koffie activities at night, at home. WRONG. After 9pm I just don't have the creativity to really make too much sense. So this week I'm telling my boss: Don't bother me for 30 minutes - I'm in the zone!
Our newly launched Facebook account went from 37 likes to 41. We're preparing a big campaign (as we didn't have any Facebook activities until 3 weeks ago!). Be expecting to read more about this in the future.

Good Cause: Using 30 minutes a day for our good cause has been very rewarding. Using the momentum that was created around Tjeko for our own good has resulted in much conversation about Tjeko. It seems that Social Media is very good to give extra attention (read: extra value) to events that are already happening. You might organize ANY event (church, ngo, school or sport club) - with 30 minutes of social media attention to your event the impact dramaticly improves.

I am going to experiment today with writing some specific goals and approaches for each area - it seems I need some more focus on some areas.

If you have any tips or tricks on how you use your Social Media - please let me know, and leave me your thoughts in a comment!

Tips for reliable affiliate links in a blog

There is a trend going - and it has been going for years now. Producers, resellers, software developers and even charities are willing to pay you! They would love to pay you! If you get to sell their products, they want to pay you for it! Depending on the service, the product and the channel, referrals can actually be a nice way to support your blogging efforts.

On my blog I've used several affiliate referrals on many different topics. Even the pictures I use from www.123rf.com  (referral link) I try to include a referral link.

First of all: Sharing a good product you use or love gives great satisfaction. At least to me! Second, I can use a little extra pocket money - even if it's just to pay for the different web-based memberships!

Truth to be told. It is not a milk cow. Not at all - at least not for me. Partly because I am very specific on referral links that I integrate. I will also not add general advertisements - those just side-track visitors from your website!

So here is my promise.
All referral link on this blog are 100% genuine. They are products or services that I honestly like. I am not going to promote anything I haven't used or experienced myself.
If I'm referring a book, I do so because I really believe it's a good book
If I'm referring a service, I do so because I enjoy the benefits of using it (or having used it) myself.
I can't promise YOU will like it - but I promise I did!


In a blog post about referrals, it only makes sense to give you my most liked products of the moment:

• Livedrive online storage. After crashing my hard disk and having to pay over 1200euro ($1500), this service really seemed to make sense to me!
• HootSuite - the best dashboard I've ever used to keep some order in all the social media streams!
• Platform: Get Noticed in a Noisy World - my absolute guide to blogging etc! Michael Hyatt really inspires many people around the world - including me!