Does Blog Booker Show Embedded Video

If you're trying to make your blog into a book, blogbooker.com is an amazing tool!  All that's needed is for you to save your blog as an XML file and blogbooker miraculously, creates your blog into a pdf in a matter of minutes.

We are testing today whether or not a video link in your blog will be embedded in the pdf you create.

Furthermore, we want to find out if it does work in the pdf, can you import that file to Kindle Direct to create an Amazon book and will the video remain embedded.  This is the great experiment.

We're taking a video that we had in our "The Perfect Husband App".  It worked perfectly in the app we created with ibuildapp, but since Apple has created restrictions for small businesses like us, the app no longer worked well.  We're trying this route and embedding a video from our previous app.

Here we go.

Christmas Destroyed My Online Business

Full disclosure:  Christmas didn't exactly destroy my online business forever, but it certainly wreaked havoc on any sales from our website at Christmas. (I didn't even sell one download of our adorable "Johnny Rock's Christmas" software matching game.  Why?  because I got caught up in stupid Emerson's quote once again:  "Rings and jewels are not gifts, but apologies for gifts.  The only true gift is a gift of thyself to others."  (I even wrote a whole essay on perils of embracing this quote.)

I do applaud my successful sisters who own profitible small online businesses and make enough money to hire help during the "happy" holiday season.  That subset of women, however, doesn't include me! 

I personally am TOTALLY grateful that Christmas and ALL the holidays are over what with the gift-buying and guests coming, and the cleaning - ohh such cleaning. 

Of course a woman in business is still a woman who, unless she is Michelle Obama or a Madame Secretary type still feels it is her god-given duty to make memories for the family.  So we set aside our blogging and our tweeting under four different names and sending out Constant Contact lovely emails to customers (that one, we shouldn't have stopped) to vacuum the floor and clear off our desktop while rushing to back Pecan fingers to send back East or West or wherever. I even sewed back the arms and legs of a doll I had made for my daughter some 30 years ago and updated her little doll outfit so that my now adult daughter would have a warm and wonderful feeling at Christmas. 
Meanwhile, I didn't blog, I didn't write the essay I wanted about our software, I didn't tweet, I didn't call School Specialty Catalog where we used to sell our software to present my children's book, "Lucky, the Left Pawed Puppy" in print form, I didn't do the press release I was going to.  All in all, I spent two weeks doing stuff I used to do when I was working merely 8 to 5 in areal job that paid me real money.  
New Year's Resolution for Women in Small Online Businesses   
  

Small Business Road Trip Review - Coburg, OR

Along our way up and down the coast (we've abandoned the pop-up trailer: see previous posting) we decided to review small businesses that we fell in love with - all serendipitous encounters of the best kind.

So, we had sandwiches packed in the cooler on our way back to California and were getting hungry around the exit to Coburg, OR. We started driving through a delightful little residential/antique shop area and stopped at a cool, shady park, and were surprised to see two hammocks hung between the posts of the shelter in the park.  They looked like well-made hammocks, but yet our hearts were sorrowful that perhaps this was the only way a couple who was homeless had to sleep.  Our sorrow was eased quickly as my husband looked over to the bikes that were chained next to the hammocks - expensive long trek road bikes

After we finished lunch and walked the dog, we started to drive away, but right next door to the park was a house with an open patio where the sign read Ice Cream and Photo Gallery.  We had to stop for that.  It turns out that his park is a common stopover for bicycle riders to snooze at mid-day before they finish the day's ride.  Walt was quite friendly and had very good ice cream.  He is a professional photographer with a little extra time during the day to sell ice cream.  If you're near Coburg and need a break, get off the highway and tell Walt you were sent by a blogger from 2015!

Coming Soon - Guest Bloggers

We have several guest bloggers on-deck.  Email us if you're a blogger who would like to add a feature about Writing, Blogging, Small Business, Children's Books, Life Wisdom, Dogs, Parenting, Reading, Language Development and anything else you thinks might fit!

Click-to-Website Business Cards

Authors, Small Business Owners, Educators, 

Concept: Add a QR (Quick Response) Code to your business card and direct people INSTANTLY to your article, your novel, your website, your linkedin page. 

The "Back Story":  We fell in love with Newport Beach from the moment we visited there several years ago. We positioned ourselves to live and do our business in one of the most beautiful areas in California.  How?  We live in an RV resort and write and do business from there! It's lively, it's fun. It's blocks from the ocean. People are always on vacation and they come from all over the country.  Because we experienced Newport Beach as a non-native, I was discovering great spots that every visitor would want to experience.  So I wrote a one-day, do-it-yourself itinerary for newcomers and visitors to the area.  Everytime we met a new person at our resort, I'd ask them if they had seen the view from Corona del Mar or Crystal Cove yet.  I'd tell them about the Balboa Island Fun Zone Tour, and then direct them to my article which was on a website with a long URL. It was too "hit" and "miss" to explain to people where to go, but my husband suggested that if we printed the QR code right on our business card, we could show them the article in an instant. 

How It Works: With a QR code on your business card, your customers, readers, students, clients, etc. can scan the image with their smartphone and go straight to the page you want them to.!  It works well.  If your customer doesn't know how to use a QR scanner, just direct them to  Free Apps for QR Scanner that are available for iOS and Android devices in their respective app stores.  We don't know if one is better than the other, but here's the one we use on our Android phone:
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.kaspersky.qrscanner

How to Create the QR Image: There are several websites that will do that for free, like this one: http://www.qrcode-monkey.com/

Tips: 

• You might want to use an image bigger than the one we did because the QR Scanner app has to focus and re-focus to resolve the image when it's too small.
• Since your customer will probably go right to your website on his cell, be sure your website looks great on a mobile app.  I had some extraneous pictures on my "What to See in the OC" article which were cumbersome in the mobile version, so I moved them around to look good both on the web and on the mobile app. 

Note:  If you want to see how this works, you can simply hold your phone and scan my business card with your cellphone and my article at http://billiekelpin.hubpages.com/hub/Trippin-in-LA-What-to-See-in-the-OC will appear in a flash on your phone. If you have questions, just email leftpawedpuppy@gmail.com with "OR" question in the subject line, or leave a comment here :) 

Best Life Practices

Thought for Today: 

Leave everything better than you found it.

Business on the Road in a Pop-Up

I didn't know what a pop-up was either,  Now I'm writing to you from one. A pop-up is a camping trailer and doing business from one might not be for you and your business. (I'm not sure it is for mine, but we're giving this a whirl.) Would I like to have one of those top-of-the-line motor homes to do for our "on-the-road" business tour?  Of course,

"Yes!," but only under one condition - that a new Mercedes 
with conscientious environmental gas usage would be in our budget. (Sometimes old environmentalists just can't do the gas-guzzling thing. "It's a moral imperative" as the character Chris Knight says to Mitch in the old movie, "Real Genius") 

Is it easy to conduct  your business from the road?  If you're adventuresome, flexible, and motivated, you can do it.(I think the neighbor next to us is also doing business on the road because he was on the phone outside of his "Sea Breeze" motor home talking on his cellphone about sourcing some product. (Tip:  Just be sure you bring plenty of chargers for all of your devices.)

Right now I am blogging to you from inside "The Enterprise," getting ready to post this blog and then on to my 2nd blog. After that, I'll put in some hours doing my paid online job scoring student essays. 

Meanwhile my husband is out hiking the hills around Valencia, CA with his son Steve on Steve's 30th birthday.  
But tonight I swim in a beautiful pool and tomorrow we take off headed north (maybe) to San Francisco where my book "Lucky, the Left Pawed Puppy" is in Lefty's store on Pier 39. Meanwhile, in the evenings, Mike and I will be working on our new app which will connect to our blog "In Love and War: Love Letters from Vietnam" blog and our soon-to-be-released audio book "Spoken Stories".

So, if you see a tan Toyota pulling the pop-up in these pictures, just give us a wave!

Cheers from Billie, Mike, and Scooter - on the road with Language Rocks.   

Focus, Focus, Focus

Cheers from Billie, the Prez:

Such a long time it's been since posting!  The cause? -My personal lack of focus and eclectic interests and pursuits. Perhaps you can learn from our mistakes here at Language Rocks. I get great comfort from a quote I read on despair.com: "Maybe the sole purpose of my existence is to be a warning to others. So here's the warning: FOCUS! FOCUS! FOCUS!.
I recently joined the OC Writers group and  was struck by the focus of Dr. Diane Rogers, the author of "Stand Tall Growing the Courage To Be Uniquely You"  With laser-like focus on the promotion of her lovely and important children's book, Dr. Rogers has spoken to hundreds of children about the message of her book.  She conducts art workshops with the children, exploring all kinds of creative possibilities to put her self-published book in front of the market for which the book is geared.  Of course, one can never do that unless they have a passionate belief in the importance of their "product" to the consumer.  Dr. Rodgers is not about the sale of her book as much as she is about spreading the message of empowerment that the book bestows on it's young readers. Belief in the benefit your product is to others is most likely the strongest motivator for FOCUS!

By contrast (and here's "the warning to others"), once I wrote and published "Lucky, the Left-Pawed Puppy" in paperback and print book form, I went on to 39 other projects - not a great plan. 

So let's toast today, dear business reader, "To "Focus  Focus, Focus!" - especially this week - all the way to Friday. I'd love to hear the great results you experienced. 

Cheers from "on the road" - our summer business endeavor. More about that in the next blog :)  

Question for Marketers!

So, here's the app that anyone can download FREE for Android from the googleplay store. (RESIZABLE on the phone!!!) We're working on getting this little app into the Apple store, but we're having trouble. (Blog to follow).

Our next plan is to re-publish this app, but with a Christmas game. That app will have the OPTION TO PURCHASE our complete game app for children for $1.99. The upgrade will include "Sentence Scrambles" for developing reading skills, more memory matching games with niche themes, and Fill-in-the-Blank games that are now featured on "The Awesome Game Page" in the kids' secton of our website at languagerocks.com. 
Marketers: We could use any constructive ideas for our little company regarding our games for kids. We need to know if we should: A. Stop what we're doing? B. Keep on going in this direction? C.Go on to something else? We have been creating educational software and games and other products for 25 years and are at an impasse. Let us know YOUR thoughts the comment section below. 

Will a Custom Game App Rocket Your Small Business?

We at Language Rocks believe a custom game app can rocket
your small business to new heights, get customers to interact with your product line, and keep customers coming back.    That's why we created our newest app, a Halloween memory matching game for Android phones, tablets, online (soon to be in the Apple Store as well.) We called it "Concentration-Halloween Haunt". 

For ANY type of Business
The Halloween App makes sense for OUR educational website, but what about YOUR company? Does having a game make sense for YOUR products?  You might have heard of "The Secret" which was popular several years ago. A game on their website seemed to have made sense for The Secret. Playing the game reinforces concepts the book contains. Imagine the interactivity of a customized game on YOUR website or YOUR business app. (We would suggest fewer squares, of course, with YOUR product or content. You then can add sales banners, links, or affilitate information.)  But when you think how often a player would be interacting with your products, the benefits are obvious.
How to Order a Customized Game for YOUR Website: What Will Your Custom Game Look Like: How Can You Order A Game To Be Created for You:


What Will Your Custom Game App Look Like?

Our software division at Language Rocks has created a memory matching game for the Texas State Historical Museum in Austin, Texas.  This game features Texas state symbols and is in the children's section of the museum on a kiosk which plays interactive computer games.  The screen shot here illustrates the game according to color and other specifications of the museum.  A game such as this can easily be converted into an app as we did with our "Concentration-Halloween Haunt" app described previously. 

A completely different look to the classic memory game was designed for comedian Bethany Therese so audiences would interact with the name of famous and rising female comedy personalities.  Just click here to view the Comics Game. 

To promote our own publication of the children's book, "Lucky, the Left-Pawed Puppy" we created "Lucky's Match", a delightful game for children to play online which we can add to our Concentration Series app in the GooglePlayStore and Apple Store in the future.

What Will Your Custom Game Look Like

Whether you sell houses, jewelry, or power tools - whether you want to advertise your blog or your website, we can customize the memory game to match your specifications and promote your products, information, or concepts. We are able to deliver that game for your website and/or as an app submitted to Google Play Store or the Apple Store. Because we are a small business working with other small businesses, our prices are meant to accommodate modest budgets. 

How Can You Order A Game To Be Created for You

If you are not a software developer and need our services, we can deliver a game to you for your website for $79.95. If you are a software developer, you can purchase our copyrighted code for only $49.95 to use in your projects.  For details on how we can deliver and help create and load your app in the Applestore for Apple devices and Google Play Store for Android devices.  Call us at 763-442-0781 or email us at games@languagerocks.com for details.

Apple Certificates for Submitting Apps to Apple Store

Even software developers have a difficult time preparing an app for the Apple Store.  If you are a writer, photographer, business owner, etc. who wants to use ibuildapp.com for creating your app, read on. When it comes to the publishing part and submission to Google Play and the Apple Store, if you're not an experienced Apple software developer, it's best to pay to have ibuildapp submit your app for you. My husband with 40 years of experience in the software field as coder, consultant, senior project leader, had to go through numerous hoops, especially for submission of my audiobook, "Live from Milwaukee, It's Tuesday Night," to the Apple Store. The costs keep changing at ibuildapp and if you're paying for a monthly plan, be sure you're charging a fee for your app that correclates to your projected sales OR give only a portion of your app for free and hope you have enough customers who will upgrade to the paid version.