This is a simple tutorial on how to create a fantastic looking ebook cover for your latest project using Photoshop. For this tutorial I will be designing the cover for my forthcoming ebook series on how to successfully launch a blog.

1. Ebook Cover Template
   Why reinvent the wheel? The people over at EbookTemplateSource.com have created some free black ebook covers for you to work with.Here are their three options:

   	This cover is suitable for smaller ebooks, newsletters/ezines or special reports. (52 KB)
   	Standard “hardcover” ebook. This design is suitable for most ebooks. (33 KB)
   	Tired of the same old covers? This design will certainly set you apart from your competition. Optional: Set your page layout inside your ebook to “landscape” instead of the standard vertical layout. (27 KB)

   For this tutorial we will be using the first ebook cover template.

2. Front Page Design
   Once you have downloaded the ebook template that you want to use, unzip it and open the file titled ‘cover01_blank.psd’

   
   This will be the starting point of your ebook design. Now lets start creating our amazing ebook cover. Read more

This is my first link love post. Here are a few posts by some of my top commentors that I hope you will enjoy!

• Melvin (MelvinBlog.com) shares his thoughts on Blog Commenting
• Nick (RomanDock.com) asks his readers the important question, ‘what they would like to see on his blog!‘
• David (ProTycoon.com) takes a look at exactly what a blog is.
• Robin (IronBlogger.com) takes us through his goals for the month of July.
• Kevin (BloggingTips.com) talks about networking as a two-way street.
• Nathaniel (Green-Flamingo.com) discusses how different people view John Chow.

Special thanks to all of you - and every single person who has commented or even visited StandOutBlogger since its launch. This post was just a special show of appreciation for those who have been especially active of this blog, and I hope to make this a weekly occurence!

If you loved what you have read then I encourage you to subscribe to our RSS Feed or email updates to get each new post to you as soon as they are written!

Goal setting is so important, especially for an unorganized person like myself. Goals keep you on track, they keep you focused, and are just good things to have. Which is why I am pleased to announce that I have finally set up a page just for my blogging goals.

Check out my new goals page!

I have created SMART goals, because general goals just do not work. The have to be:

S - Specific

M - Measurable

A - Attainable

R - Relevant

T - Time Bound

To make sure that my goals are time bound, I have separated them into 3 categories.

• 1 Month Goals
• 3 Month Goals
• 6 Month Goals

My Goals For July

I want to take some time to look at each of my 1 month goals separately, and talk a little bit about how I see myself meeting them by the end of July.

• Increase RSS Feed Subscribers to over 100 (Currently 30)
  To be honest, I think this goal should be quite easy. I have a lot of things planned to make sure that I meet this goal. As I have mentioned I will not be holding a contest, but instead I will be focusing on providing benefits for my readers and subscribers - making them want to subscribe because they like StandOutBlogger, not because they want to win some contest.
• Write At Least One Ebook
  My sole focus in wanting to create a series of ebooks, is to increase my profile as a blogger, and branding StandOPutBlogger as an authority blogger. I have just started writing the first part of my ebook series (and I have already made a killer front cover!) - so I see this goal being met within the first week of July.
  
  
• Finish In The Top 20% Of Blogging Idol
  This goal is a hard one to judge, because all I know is that there are approximately 90 bloggers that are registered for Blogging Idol at last count. That means that I have to be in about the top 15 to meet my goal. The thing I don’t know is who I am competing against. The rules state that a blog can have up to 1,000 rss readers to enter - and it will be much easier for someone with a higher count to get more readers.

  To make sure that I meet this goal, I already have 4 strategies that when combined will hopefully create awareness of StandOutBlogger, drive traffic, and the convert that traffic to subscribers. I will be announcing these strategies in the first couple of days of July (because I am still finalizing a few of these).

• Make At Least 25 Posts
  This one should be simple, but usually is the one that most bloggers don’t hit. I was going to have the number at 30, but that does not allow for the odd weekend post that you miss. All I have to do to meet this goal is to post consistently.
  
  
• Guest Blog On At Least 5 Blogs
  Ok, so I have announced one of my strategies I wasn’t going to mention until July. All Im can say is “Guest Posts Work!” I have had the opportunity to guest post on a couple of blogs in the last month, namely CarlOcab.com, and TylerCurz.com, and I was very happy with the traffic that I generated from these posts.

  I have already organized for a guest post of mine to be on MixedMarketArts.com (as Colin will be at the Top Affiliate Challenge), so that leaves me with 4 more to find, hopefully I will be able to get another one on both Tyler’s and Carl’s blogs.

  Finding blogs to guest post on are quite easy, if you can’t find any just send a couple of your favourite bloggers a quick email asking if they will accept one from you.

• Participate In At Least 1 Blog Carnival
  I have seen a couple of these going around, and a lot of people have said it is a great way to pick up back links and new traffic, so I have decided to participate in at least one blog carnival and I will decide based on its success whether to continue doing them. This one should help with my Technorati goal as well!
• Decrease Alexa Rating To Under 200,000 (Currently 267,978)
  This morning my Alexa rating was sitting at 307,000, and as I was writing this goal out I went down to my tool bar to check my rating and noticed it had changed already. Hopefully this will make this goal easy to attain also.
• Have A Technorati Rank Of Under 100,000 (Currently 150,025)
  Technorati and Alexa are key factors that affect your placement on lists like 45n5’s Top100 bloggers. Although I have not set a goal in relation to my placement on that list, I still want to make the top100 - I guess it’s an ego thing. To increase my Technorati rank I need to get people linking to my blog. This will be done through the blog carnival, creating content that makes people want to link to me, and blog commenting.

So there they are. My blogging goals for July in a fair bit of depth. What do you think about these goals? Do you think I set them to easy or too hard?

Make sure that I meet my goals by subscribing to our rss feed, or email updates.

Introducing: BillionaireWishlist.com - Where you get to find out what the rich want for Christmas.

I bought this domain a couple of weeks ago, but since I was so busy with IncomeDiary.com, I decided to sit on it til I had some free time to start working on it. Well I had the day off today, so I decided to make something of it - and I hope you agree that I have!

I took the time to make two posts today, one on the Bugatti Veyron (A car that retails for about $1.7 Million!) and my second post which I am hoping the social networks love is a list of 5 of the most expensive houses for sale around the world - with a heap of pictures to make you drool!

Anyway, I am pretty excited, as I usually get when I launch a new blog, but especially this time because it is my first real attempt at a blog outside of the ‘blog about blogging‘ and ‘make money online‘ niches. Well when you think about it I havn’t actually gone outside those niches, just take it the step further and concentrating on what you all can spend your money on when you make your millions through blogging and internet marketing.

I will be focusing a lot more on the social networks with this blog, spending more time working out how Digg and a couple of the other social networks really work - because I think with a blog like BillionaireWishlist.com I should be able to generate a heap of traffic from websites like Digg.

I could probably keep going on about my plans and stuff, but I would really love to know what you guys think of this new blog. I am not looking for ‘Great Blog’ or ‘Nice Work’ comments, cause I can pat myself of the back. What I am looking for is constructive feedback - whether it be good or bad, that allows me to work on ways to make it even better.

If you want to know how my blogging projects go and also learn how you can improve your blogging, then I encourage you to subscribe to our rss feed, or email updates.

I have been thinking alot about the Blogging Idol contest coming up that I have entered into. For those of you that don’t know what it is, it is a contest that will face a pack of bloggers (currently 93) against each other for a whole month - to see who have gain the most new subscribers.

The prize is really nice. $1,500 value to one lucky winner, made up of $800 cash and $700 worth of SEO consultancy.

Just like any other blogger, I would love to win this prize, not only for the amazing prize but also for the fact that I would have increased my RSS feed count dramatically - having outwitted 92 other bloggers - bloggers that would be using every trick in the book to make sure that it is them and not me that takes home to title at the end of July.

Everyone knows the best (or should I say, most popular) way to increase your feed count is to start a competition of your own. All you have to do is contact your network of bloggers and ask them to donate prizes to your contest in exchange for promotion - and ‘ta da’ you have an instant contest and all you have to do is to set the conditions of entry (subscribe to your email feed) and you are easily able to increase your feed count.

But I have A Problem

The only problem is that when I decided to launch StandOutBlogger.com, I promised myself that I would not host a single competition begging people to subscribe - offering prizes as incentives. I wanted to build my blog on quality posting, being active in my niche, and by providing services that would make people want to subscribe because they would be afraid that if they didn’t they might miss out on something.

Enter The Annoying Voice On My Shoulder

I have been wrestling with this dilemma for the last couple of days, because I was convinced that a contest was the only way I had a chance at being competitive. My mind kept telling me things like:

‘You only promised yourself, what does it matter - just start a competition anyway’

‘Just think of all the rss subscribers this competition will bring in!’

‘$1,500 - that is a lot of money to pass up’

Now the first two statements didn’t do anything for me. I hold my word in high regard and try my best to keep even promises I have made to myself, and if I have to break that promise just to get more feed subscribers, I would be content with the amount I currently have.

But then money became the topic of choice to my little friend sitting on my should, and what he was saying sounded good. I mean who wouldn’t love $800 cash? So here I was with this battle raging inside me. Would I keep my word - even though it was only to myself. Or would I compromise for the sake of money? And if so - what was my ’sell out’ price?

I couldn’t Do It

I am proud to say that I have decided to keep my word. I realised that if I couldn’t keep my word to myself, how could I expect to keep it in regards to others.

I was a little disappointed because I was sure that my chances of winning Blogging Idol was gone, but you know what? Since I haven’t been able to do what I thought everyone else would do - it has forced me to think outside the box and come up with new and creative ways to increase my feed count.

So keeps your eyes on this blog during the coming month because there will be lots of benefits for my readers!

–OFF TOPIC–

You may notice that StandOutBlogger.com’s layout suddenly looks a lot cleaner. Well that is because I have removed one of the sidebars - making it a 2 column blog instead of 3. This was a result of an email that I received from Kevin (BloggingTips.com) as follows:

Hey Thomas,

It’s Kevin from BloggingTips.com. Saw that you commentated today so just dropping by to say hi.

Nice blog you have here. I like the design however I think that the sidebars are a little cluttered with ads etc. I really think that if you remove some ads or make it one sidebar instead of 2, more focus will be put on your content. As it stands just now, visitors eyes are drawn away from your blog posts because of this.

Hope you don’t think I’m being rude saying all of this If you need any help modifying it just drop my the bloggingtips forums and I’ll do my best to help you out

Best of luck

Kevin

I must say I agreed a lot with what he said, and it convinced me to focus more on my content instead of trying to make money off you guys! I would love to know your thoughts!

If you loved what you have read then I encourage you to subscribe to our RSS Feed or email updates to get each new post to you as soon as they are written!