Fernando Lachica

Learn the Basic of HDR Photography #FernandoLachica

2016-06-26T19:19:00.001-07:00

Learn the Basic of HDR Photography #FernandoLachica

My curiosity with HDR imaging was among the new motivation that I made in taking pictures and exploring the essence of photography; tone, contrast, range, etc. Softwares for imaging development that I used for free: easyHDR Basic2 and Fusion. Differentiate the results below.

Sample Photos:

HDR stands for High Dynamic Range imaging, and it's an old photography practice recently introduced to cameraphones like the iPhone and some Android devices (or with the use of special apps). You're on the right track: it's supposed to make your pictures look better, but it depends on when you use it. Here's a quick primer on how HDR works, and when you should—and shouldn't—turn it on.

HDR, as its name implies, is a method that aims to add more "dynamic range" to photographs, where dynamic range is the ratio of light to dark in a photograph. Instead of just taking one photo, HDR uses three photos, taken at different exposures. You can then use image editing software to put those three images together and highlight the best parts of each photo. In the case of HDR on smartphones, your phone does all the work for you—just snap your picture and it'll spit out one regular photo and one HDR photo. The result is something that should look more like what your eyes see, rather than what your camera sees.

This is why, when you turn HDR mode on, your phone takes a little longer to take the photo. It's actually taking three pictures, rather than just one. Check out the image above for an example. It wasn't taken with a cameraphone, but it's a good demonstration of what HDR can do. If you want more detailed information on how HDR works, our friends at the How-To Geek have a great explainer.

When You Should Use HDR

As we said, HDR is designed to help you take better-looking photos, especially in certain situations. Here's where you should try using HDR:

Landscapes: Big landscape photos usually have a lot of contrast between the sky and land, which is difficult for your camera to deal with in just one photo. With HDR, you can capture the sky's detail without making the land look too dark, and vice versa.

Portraits in Sunlight: We all know that lighting is one of the most important aspects of a good photo, but too much lighting on someone's face—like harsh sunlight—can cause dark shadows, bright glare, and other unflattering characteristics. HDR can even that all out and make your subject look better.

Low-Light and Backlit Scenes (see above): If your photo is looking a little too dark—which often happens if your scene has too much backlight—HDR can brighten up the foreground without washing out the well-lit portions of your photo.

When You Shouldn't Use HDR

Of course, as you've discovered, sometimes HDR actually makes your pictures look worse. Here are some situations in which HDR is better off ignored:

Photos with Movement: If any of your subjects are moving (or might move), HDR increases the chance of a blurry photo. Remember, HDR takes three pictures, so if your subject moves between the first and second shot, your final picture won't look very good.

High-Contrast Scenes: Some photos look better with stark contrast between the dark and light parts of the photo, like if you have a dark shadow or silhouette you want to highlight. HDR will make this less intense, resulting in a less interesting photo.
Vivid Colors: If your scene is too dark or too light, HDR can bring some of the color back. However, if you're dealing with colors that are already very vivid, HDR can wash them out.

Luckily, most HDR cameraphones will give you two images: one with HDR turned off, and one with it turned on. That means that you can always give HDR a shot and see what the comparison looks like before turning it off altogether (as long as you have time to sit through the extra few seconds of photo-taking). As with all things photography, you can't go wrong experimenting! These guidelines should help you out, but don't be afraid to snap a few photos and look at them later. Once you get the hang of it, HDR can be a great tool for getting better pictures. While you're at it, check out our general tips for taking better pictures on your phone, too.

Today’s digital cameras are marvels of modern technology, allowing even the most inexperienced photographer access to state-of-the-art imaging systems that were the domain of supercomputers, and research institutions only a few decades ago. With prices plunging continually lower, and more devices equipped with cameras than ever before, photography has reached the point of ubiquity: cameras are everywhere, and anyone who wants to take photos can do so. But sometimes, the best thing you can do to grow as a photographer is to take the opposite approach and set some strict limits for yourself. By operating within the bounds of some simple constraints, you will often find yourself exploring new photographic possibilities that you had never realized were there before.

EBOOKS DIGITAL PUBLISHING BLOG NOMINATED #BLOGGYS2015 @FICTION & LITERATURE CATEGORY #eBooksDigitalPublishing #FernandoLachica

2015-10-12T05:06:00.000-07:00

EBOOKS DIGITAL PUBLISHING BLOG NOMINATED #BLOGGYS2015 @FICTION & LITERATURE CATEGORY #eBooksDigitalPublishing

eBooks Digital Publishing blog's nominated #bloggys2015 @Fiction and Literature Category and VOTE if you find helpful to you. It needs your email address and telephone number to vote. THANK YOU FOR YOUR SUPPORT! Click the Link: VOTE EBOOKS DIGITAL PUBLISHING BLOG #BLOGGYS2015 @ FICTION & LITERATURE CATEGORY

Watch this video:

Garbage Pollution and Green Environment Blog - Winner Top 10 Emerging Influential Blogs 2015 #InfluentialBlogger #emergingblogs2015 #FernandoLachica

2015-10-12T04:59:00.000-07:00

Garbage Pollution and Green Environment Blog - Winner Top 10 Emerging Influential Blogs 2015 #InfluentialBlogger #emergingblogs2015

Received the award last October 10, 2015 at Best Western Plus Antel Hotel administered by Ms. Janette Toral - an expert in digital media marketing, expert digital media influencer and owner of The Digital Filipino.

Guest speakers were Jason de la Rosa, Marc Concio, Paul Andrew Pisig, Yam de la Cruz, Joemar Belleza, Apple Allison, Genesis Reonico, Grace Nicolas, Emiliana Sison, Ila Cruz, Janice Villanueva, Mannix Pabalan, Dr. Kyla Talens and Marv de Leon.

The Top 10 Emerging Influential Blogs 2015 are: Runner Rocky, Chef Jay's Kitchen, Take Off Philippines, Manila Concert Junkies, Garbage Pollution and Green Environment, Doctor Eamer's Blog, Artful Chapter, Bicol Bloggers - Love Teacher Angel, Rookie Mommy - Personal Finance Tips - My Happy Hub.

The event was very successful...the organizer had done teaching the best learning experience for social media influencers.

SCAM LETTER: CONFIDENTIAL INVESTMENT MANAGEMENT AND BUSINESS INQUIRY

2015-09-18T03:26:00.000-07:00

Got this in my email which makes my mind to wander in different spheres. I've received so many letters like this one, but today, I posted it here on my blog. Weird, isn't it?

RE: CONFIDENTIAL INVESTMENT MANAGEMENT AND BUSINESS INQUIRY

My dear friend greetings, I am writing you again after my first letter to you the other day because I did not hear back from you till now. I'm Mr. Graham Baldock of G.B. Enterprises UK Ltd here in London. I have considered the positive prospect of doing business in your country and want to inquire if I can confidentially move my legitimate funds to your country and invest with you into profitable and low risk business capable of generating at least 10% guaranteed annual returns on investments (ROI). I would want you to assist and guide me and recommend areas where we can invest since I do not know how business is done in your country and I will appreciate if you enlighten me in this regard. I want to have you as my manager, representative and partner and it is going to be a joint business between us after we reach an honest understanding. I also want to know if we can invest directly into your own establishment if your bylaw allows foreign direct investment.

I got your contact from your country's professional and business directory and after inquiries, I decided to contact you directly based on recommendation that you are a reliable, honest and hardworking person in your country. I also made careful study of your country’s steady economic growth,political stability, investment opportunities and also your country's traditional hospitality and I am optimistic that we will have a successful business relationship in your country. I also want to relocate my family and assets to your country and I want you to help me in finding a good home preferably (a waterfront six bedroom property) where I and my family would live in. Please take note that I want absolute confidentiality in this cooperation and also in the handling and management of this fund. I have the sum of Five million,Five Hundred Thousand Pounds Sterling(GBP£5.500, 000.00) to invest with you in long term and I want to know if you can assist and guide me in this regard and manage the investments profitably. while observing your country;s due process religiously. I could forward evidence or confirmation of funds on your request. I prefer investments in the areas of agriculture, real estate, tourism or any other good business that you can recommend. I will give you 3% of the investment fund as commission and for your honest guidance and sincere cooperation with me to successfully achieve this project and the full potential of the investment capital.

Although we have not met before, but I trust that you are an experienced, reliable and trustworthy person with high standard of honesty and integrity. I know that trust, as a foundation for business, is earned and not given away lightly. I also know that almost all international transactions are done on mutual trust, faith and understanding. I am aware that some people have abused the internet and email thereby making it difficult to establish trust online. This is regrettable and I am certainly not part of that. It is also possible that you may have received similar letter before but I assure you that my contact with you is for a genuine business relationship that would benefit both of us and certainly not just a hoax that exist on internet. If you do not want to work with me, please delete this mail and I will not contact you again and do not assume that it is a hoax because this is an offer for genuine business cooperation for our mutual benefit.

But If you believe we can work together on one accord to achieve success soon, please let me know your thinking immediately, your interest to partner with me, your questions if any, and your conditions for this project and detail of profitable area(s) where we can invest, for my study so that I can provide relevant details and how we can proceed to have a fruitful business relationship. Let me also know if it is possible to get the money back in the next 8 to 10 years while the investment is in progress. Please indicate your secured telephone and fax number for effective communication and reply strictly via my email: grahambaldock2005@gmail.com (or) gbenterprisesuklimited@yahoo.co.uk My telephone numbers are: +44 703 198 5960, and +44 703 192 6279. I look forward to your kind and positive reply to enable me provide you with more details.. Thanking you for your time and attention. I anticipate your earliest response. Best regards.

The Philippines and International Restaurants Food Recipes: My First eBook Cookbook #FernandoLachica

2015-09-10T22:38:00.000-07:00

The Philippines and International Restaurants Food Recipes: My First eBook Cookbook #FernandoLachica

In the Philippines, restaurant businesses are flourishing like mushrooms; from the streets, food courts, stand-alone restaurants, food exhibitions, alleys and even in catering.

These phenomena are circling into the food market that even the ordinary citizen cannot decipher which is the true Filipino cuisine. Lots of cuisines from abroad are incorporated with the way Filipinos prepared their foods; Spanish, Chinese, American, Indian, Mexican, Portuguese, Thais, Japanese, Arabic and some foreign dishes. Thus, as the Department of Tourism says, it’s more fun in the Philippines!

Cookbook Description

Food recipes are the lifeblood of every restaurant and household worldwide which caters to all nationalities, who in one way or the other wants to taste according to their indispensable lifestyle. Nowadays, more recipes are added to the vast list of food dictionary that people tends to select food that suits to their taste-buds.

This book is intended for cooks, housewives, culinary art students, Chefs, food businesses, restaurant owners, food enthusiasts, entrepreneurs, and ordinary people who valued their lives in giving extra-total-personalized satisfaction through serving the best food which unquestionably wants to try other cuisines besides from their traditional cooking; added with vast arrays of cooking terms, utensils, ingredients and ways to cook your food. I encourage them to try cooking the way these recipes could give instant satisfaction from their point of view.

Also, people in the food industry could try these recipes for their own business concept in the future. Try to visit Philippines for your next travel and taste the vast array of food cuisine with gusto.

The cookbook consists of 328 pages with 12 Chapters:

Chapter 1: Delicious Filipino Foods

Chapter 2: Chinese Cantonese Cooking

Chapter 3: About Successful Barbecuing

Chapter 4: Taste of Arabia

Chapter 5: Exquisitely French

Chapter 6: Amazingly Greek

Chapter 7: The King of Creole

Chapter 8: Enticing Indian Cuisine

Chapter 9: Modern American Cuisine

Chapter 10: A Mediterranean Delights

Chapter 11: Italian Pasta

Chapter 12: Tantalizingly Thai Cooking

OFW Novel Book Series: The Bored Billionaire and The Filipino Spy #FernandoLachica

2015-09-10T21:53:00.001-07:00

I started to write this fiction novel when I was still working in Dubai City, UAE which made me to continue its course. I wrote for almost 5 years in installment. I actually done it with my own experiences and toally twist it to a more exciting end. To this date, Isa Jecho Publishing got my attention to publish through the distribution of National Bookstores.

I planned to have 5 series for this novel in which I already formed the course of my writing style. To date, I finished the OFW: The Bored Billionaire as Book 2 and the third book that I am finishing now entitled, OFW: The Filipino Spy.

Hoping that I could resume my writing through my heart.

OFW: The Game of Life Book 1 #OFW1

Book Synopsis:

A weak young man...A first true love...A beautiful-rich woman obsessed with love...A kind-loving wife...A circle of friends...Chasing their dreams abroad as OFWs...All brought together with their destinies to love aflame with conflicts, lies, lusts, ambitions, hatred, revenge and the struggles for life in a faraway place.

Overseas Filipino Worker (OFW): The Game of Life is a story of young man from a small island of Negros Occidental, the Philippines, who explored his life in the city and found his true love. He never thought that life in Manila (The City of Hopes) is a rugged terrain of heartaches, lies, hatred and revenge. He found his true-self when destiny engulfed him working in a faraway place called Dubai (The City of Dreams) as an OFW.

Lied and played his game so well to reach his dreams; used his charms to build corporations and became a Billionaire!

Marco Fernando’s new status in life was confronted by a series of discoveries he never imagined. Poverty consumed him to continue his journey until a rich woman Danielle Gustilo shed light playing the game he mastered; she never thought that Marco became her enemy for life.

Marco decided to play the dirty game of love without the knowledge of his wife - Ayah Isabel Gonzales - while reaching his dreams abroad and a lifetime journey in molding his future. He longed for happy-family-life through his money, but boredom surrounds him that nearly broke his family.

OVERSEAS FILIPINO WORKER: THE GAME OF LIFE #OFWAward #FernandoLachica

2015-05-24T23:50:00.001-07:00

OFW AWARD - OUTSTANDING FILIPINO BLOGGER 2014

OVERSEAS FILIPINO WORKER: THE GAME OF LIFE #OFWAward #FernandoLachica

Novel Synopsis

Buhay OFW TV Taping Interview #BuhayOFWTV #FX777222999 #FernandoLachica

2015-05-24T23:14:00.000-07:00

Buhay OFW TV taping interview with Executive Producer, Nitz Magsino, Director Writer, Lala Villanueva Serrano and Jojie Ponce, Cameraman ‪#‎BuhayOFWTV‬

It was last December18, 2014 that I met Ms Lala Villanueva Serrano and Ms Marissa Del Mar of Buhay OFW TV during the awarding ceremony of Ex-Link Management for Outstanding Filipino Award 2014. It's a moment of joy and jubilation for me because after working abroad for almost twenty years, I've got this OFW Award.

Senator Cynthia Villar

Ms Marissa Del Mar

'
Ms. Lala Villanueva Serrano encouraged me to be featured in Buhay OFW TV together with my co-awardees that it will be aired every Saturday 9:00 pm to 10:00 pm at Aksyon TV Channel 41 Manila/NCR and Channel 29 Cebu/Davao. Luckily, it will be aired internationally: KSA, UAE, Italy, Guam, USA, Canada and Singapore.

Some of my photos during the visit of Aksyon TV Team.

How to Become a Novel Writer #FernandoLachica

2015-05-18T05:56:00.000-07:00

How to Become a Novel Writer #FernandoLachica

Learning how to become a novel writer is a goal for aspiring novel writers. To understand how to become a novel writer, it is important to understand that it is a process of self discovery and depends on past experiences, present intentions, and future aspirations. Perhaps most importantly, it depends on your personality. If you are someone who likes to experience thrills, unravel mysteries and love the supernatural aspects of life, you may be the next Stephen King in making.

Likewise, if you are intrigued by the unlimited ways in which human relationships can be understood and portrayed, you may write great drama. While novel writing has a range of personalities, it is critical to match your personality to the most appropriate genre of writing. This will make your life a lot easier, and your writing will come more naturally.

First, identify yourself and understand what you want to discover through the art of writing novels. Next, try to understand the types of issues and themes you want to write about. Finally, learn the basics of the trade and hone your writing skills by learning and developing new techniques and approaches. As usual, it is easier said than done. Nevertheless, never lose hope and never give up. It may take a lot of failures before you learn how to write a novel, but rest assured that publication is well within your reach.

Read what famous authors and novel writers have to say about their experiences and the challenges they faced in the beginning phases of their careers. This will help you understand different styles and create a unique style of your own while helping you learn how to become a novel writer. Sometimes, a very interesting subject lying in front of your eyes escapes your attention. Repeated negligence of this nature can be disparaging and can prove fatal to your writing dreams.

Always be on the lookout for something interesting. Some concepts are so intricately woven into our daily lives that we simply overlook their existence. For instance, few people ever think about how or why the first computer fonts were created and why they have weird names such as "Times New Roman" or "Century Gothic." You may uncover some interesting facts if you start conducting research. Research is crucial to many bestselling novels, including "The Da Vinci Code" for example.

Completing the first draft is the toughest and the most satisfying part. When you begin to write a novel, you may only have a vague idea about the plot. New ideas and thoughts begin to enter your mind as the writing progresses. As such, it is good practice to revise your novel at least twice before you take it to the publishers. There are professional novel editors for hire who can help.

Why Multiple Blogs Mean Multiple Profits #FernandoLachica

2014-02-20T22:32:00.001-08:00

Why Multiple Blogs Mean Multiple Profits #FernandoLachica

The idea of a normal, commercial blog is find a profitable marketing niche and then post healthy amounts of top-quality, original content of interest to that niche on a very frequent basis. If you are an excellent writer who is an expert in the niche of that blog, you may well be able to post new content every day.

If you fail to do this, your blog will go down in the search engine page rankings and never be a money-making business. So, by starting up a commercial blog, you have just agreed to a full-time occupation as a writer and webmaster. It would seem that a single person, no matter how talented they might be, would run out of new ideas for posts at some point and then the blog would fail for lack of new content. At some juncture, you might want to ponder adding posts from writers other than yourself, provided that the content is original. Original content that you did not write by yourself is extremely tough to find unless you hire other writers to compose it for you.

You must also monetize your blog, meaning that you must include banner and text ads for products related to your blog specialty. The idea there is that you will have already drawn in highly targeted web traffic to your blog interested in the very products you are selling.

In order to lure this targeted traffic in large enough quantities to sell enough products to make all your hard work worth the time you must do the things crucial to rank high in the search engines for the best keywords for your blog. Your blog should be optimized for the search engines and you need to put together as many quality backlinks as you can in as many places as possible, all of them pointing back to your blog.

This may require submitting quite a few articles on the subject of your blog specialty to various article marketing sites. You will want to optimize your articles to contain your most important keyword or keywords in a ratio of one to four percent of the total words in the article. The "self-serving" links you will be allowed at the end of your article will grow to be powerful backlinks for you over time. You might also want to consider paid advertising such as Google Adwords but I would not recommend that because of the high "cost to result ratio," especially when you are just starting out with no money yet to pay for the advertising.

You can also post positive and pertinent comments to closely-related blogs and forums. After all this additional work is done, you may want to look at adding a squeeze page to your blog, assembling an opt-in email marketing list and creating email campaigns with the goal of encouraging visitors to return to your blog and purchase your products.

If all this looks like a lot of work, it is and I have merely been referring to maintaining and promoting a single blog related to a single niche and selling only products closely related to that subject. Under the theory that more is better and pretending that you are some sort of talented person with endless time available to you, why not fabricate another blog on another popular but different subject and double your profits. How about four blogs, thus quadrupling your profits or 7 or 16 or 32 or even 64 blogs and becoming spectacularly wealthy in the process?

I'm sure, by this time, you can guess where all this is leading: How is just one person going to be ever able to undertake this? This brings me to the matter of auto blogging. Auto blogging software was created to automate the task of regular blog posting to multiple blogs. At first, it looks like a miracle but it is, as it turns out, far from a perfect solution.

Auto blogging software reaches out onto the Internet and finds articles and videos that can be legally reproduced and which match the keywords related to your niche. You type these keywords into the auto blogging software during the act of setting up each blog. After this is completed, you then have the option of letting the program automatically post up to a specified number of articles or videos on an hourly or daily basis. Then again, you have the choice of simply collecting those prospective posts in a folder where they will await your personal review. You can then decide which articles and videos will actually be posted on the blog and which will be discarded. Using this option will improve the quality of your blogs to a large degree. It will also take up more of your time.

It is very important to prevent the software from posting automatically. If you automate the process, you will end up with a lot of trash on your blogs, some of which will not even relate to the individual subjects of your blogs. You will end up with a bunch of blogs that no one will wish to read. Even worse, the search engines will not list your blogs high enough that they will be viewed in the listings. In short, all of your blogs are likely fail and you will have wasted all your time and effort.

The good news is that there exists a middle-ground alternative to pure auto blogging and that is to post all the articles and videos manually. It should be stated that the search engines like Google, Yahoo and Bing are biased strongly in favor of blogs with purely-original, high-quality content. As we have already mentioned, turning out such a blog is a very labor-intensive and time-consuming undertaking but it is very often rewarded by listings on the first page of search engines in some of the niches that pertain to your keywords. These keywords should be included frequently (up to 4%) in your posts to prove relevancy to your blog subject.

If you go with the auto blogging method but carefully screen your posts before allowing them to appear publically, you will upgrade your chances of better search engine page rankings. However, you will be still stuck with the search engines determining that your content is not original. The search engines will know that your content has appeared elsewhere on the net previously to being published on your blog. If you maintain your content pertinent to your topic and of the highest quality and post frequently (preferably 7 days a week), you can still pull in lots of traffic and fairly high search engine rankings. If you add in some completely original articles that you have composed, your search engine page rankings should climb even a bit higher.

Admittedly, you are making a trade-off here between original content and saving time and effort. Modified auto blogging allows you a way of making up for posting somewhat less-than-original content: You will now have the time to make up multiple blogs on differing niches and therefore promote different kinds of products in larger amounts.

The thought is that while no lone blog will perform as well as if it were comprised completely of top-quality, original content, some or most of the blogs will over time bring in some amount of income every day. For example, if you operated 50 blogs averaging only $10 in sales a day, you be raking in $500 each day, on average. That would equal annual gross sales of $182,500 a year. If your 50 blogs averaged $100 each a day, the annual amount of money would be $1,825,000. No single blog is going to do that for you.

In truth, you will soon find that some of your blogs perform quite well in the long run where others yield no revenue at all. Even with partial automation, posting to fifty blogs every day and promoting them all at the same time is going to result in being more than you can cope with if you look forward to doing the best possible job with each individual blog.

When you originally set up your blogs, make certain that each is set up to be tracked by Google Analytics in order that that you will be able to periodically note and record the progress of each blog in terms of traffic. Maintain a spreadsheet of these traffic results and update it repeatedly. After a two or three months of frequently posting to all of your blogs, you will realize that some are starting to perform quite well while others are failing to do so. You need to give this process an adequate amount of time for your blogs to be found and followed.

At this juncture, you ought to cull or do away with all blogs that are performing beneath a certain standard while maintaining the more patronized ones. If you removed 20 blogs out of your original fifty you could cut back your total daily posting time considerably while providing full-blown support to only high-performing blogs. After a while, you might decide to do away with even more and replace them with new blogs promoting new products to see how those produce.

Consider this question: Which is better, fifty blogs earning ten dollars each a day ($500) or 10 blogs raking in fifty dollars each a day ($500)? The answer is clearly 10 blogs earning $50 each a day because the labor and time needed to achieve that is only twenty percent of the first option. Consider the entire process of getting to that point like planting a garden, waiting for the plants to grow, locating the hardiest plants and then culling all the mediocre plants to offer the potent ones the optimum possibility to grow while slashing your labor to the bone. Makes sense, doesn't it?

National November Writing Month 2013 Winner Certificate #FernandoLachica

2013-11-28T10:24:00.001-08:00

Overseas Filipino Worker (OFW): The Game of Life

I received my certificate from NaNowriMo 2013 which I really appreciated it with vigor. I never imagined that I could write the novel that I thought it'll never happened in my whole life. I dedicated this to all bloggers and writers who in one way or the other inspired me to go on. I valued this forever. Thank you.

Optimize Your Amazon Associate Campaigns #FernandoLachica

2013-05-03T03:37:00.000-07:00

Optimize Your Amazon Associate Campaigns #FernandoLachica

The affiliate program offered by Amazon is by far the best and the most reliable one out there. Amazon affiliates are quite happy with the way the company provides so much support as well as resources. You will have to be prepared and learn how to do things the right way as there are more than a few Amazon associates out there.

There is no shortage when it comes to product selection at Amazon for affiliates. If you visit marketing forums you will find a range of opinions concerning how to select products and markets. You never want to promote any product of questionable quality.

It is always the best policy to only promote products that have good quality. You will discover this on your own, but if you promote the wrong products, then the result will be poor sales. Every category sees sales at Amazon, but there are some categories and products that do sell better than others. One thing that not many Amazon affiliates do is, show your visitors that they have the ability to pre-order products on Amazon. Amazon often creates sales pages for products before they're available, and you can use these to promote products and pre-sell them. That's why you should remember to look for an Amazon page for any new item you want to promote. If there is a page, then you can make sure that you mention it on your site or your blog that it's already available to pre-order from Amazon.

You will be able to increase your conversions with products that have coupon codes available or are on sale. Of course you can do this to offer your visitors a better deal, and that is fine if it works for you. When people see that a certain product has a discount or they are getting more value out of it, they will buy it. You need to learn as much as possible because there are so many other things you can do to help you earn more. There are so many excellent products you can find, and often they are priced for less.

If you want to succeed with the Amazon Associate program, then roll-up your sleeves and get to work on it. If you are brand new to the Amazon Associate program, then start slow and build in a consistent fashion. Do keep learning because this article is just the tip of the iceberg.

Why You Need a Book Cover Design Brief #FernandoLachica

2013-02-17T00:15:00.000-08:00

Why You Need a Book Cover Design Brief #FernandoLachica

If you are writing a book - be it is an ebook, paperback or hard cover - and you really are serious about publishing and making money from it, then the cover will be a key element in its success. Think about one that caught your eye when you last went into a bookshop, or even looked at some on Amazon. Generally ebook covers are flat images (which online stores might use), together with an alternative 'curved cover' for a sales website display. These can be easily prepared using free software and a little learning.

Cover Design Complexity

However, if you want to see your books on prominent display and you are considering using a print-on-demand ('POD') company, then you will need an outstanding cover that sells first to the bookstore and also to manage the design process yourself. There are many items that need to be added in, such as a barcode and ISBN. There are very tight technical specifications to be met if it is to get through the POD printing cycle without additional expenditure. If you want a really outstanding cover image, then unless you are a graphic artist with the requisite eye for design and skills, get it done by an expert. Once you have located a professional, then you should provide clear instructions on what you want.

To minimize misunderstandings, prepare a Book Cover Design Brief. You can refine it with your designer, but at least you will both be working with the same cover requirement.

Your Basic Ideas

The cover artist will need to start somewhere, so a book synopsis will need to be included, and you may have views on an overall design concept. Some flexibility is desirable - the designer is the expert and don't constrain his or her artistic vision excessively. The classification should fall out from the synopsis, but do be clear. 'Mediterranean Cookery' would probably be a cookery book, but could be a travel guide, even a piece of fiction. Consider this when you select your designer, as some specialise in particular genres.

If relevant, it can be helpful to the designer to include brief descriptions of the principal character(s). Will this be the first in a series?

The Main Elements of a Cover Design Brief

As a start, you should specify the 'trim size' of the book - its final format - as this will dictate the amount of space the artist has for layout. If you want a hardback cover, then you may need a dust jacket design and the particular thickness of hardcover will be important.

The final version of the brief will need to be specific about page count (exact), ISBN, cover price, binding format and a host of other items, but the designer can prepare some rough layouts whilst you are collating these details.

What about Reviews - maybe newspaper, other authors (usually, though not always, on the rear cover)? These can be an important part of marketing and you will need to advise the artist on this, so that the provision for some reviews can be included in the overall design (though the reviews themselves may not be available at the time of initially commissioning the design work).

Your design brief must specify the print-on-demand company you intend using. Each has its own technical requirements that a final cover design must adhere to (by satisfying a 'pre-flight' test which software such as Adobe Professional offers). Re-work can be very expensive if you miss a print deadline say for the Christmas gift sales peak.

You may need images for marketing, for email, and for book catalogues. Will you be producing a Kindle ebook? If so you will need a cover picture, and you may even choose to add a rear cover image within your ebook.

These are just a few of the specifications that your Cover Design Brief must include. There are many more, but once you have your first template brief, then you can improve and recyle it for your next book with the obvious changes.

Directory Submission: Submitting Your Website in the Right Way #FernandoLachica

2012-12-04T00:46:00.000-08:00

Directory Submission: Submitting Your Website in the Right Way #FernandoLachica

Directory submission is the process of submitting to the directories. There are a lot of different types of directories. Some directories require you to pay for listing while others don't. There are thousands of directories that allow free listing. The free listing option is the most popular choice among webmasters. With free listing option, you don't have to pay a cent to get your site listed on the directories.

When submitting to directories, you have to write a few titles and description. Preparing a variety of titles and descriptions allow you to prevent duplication problem. Duplicated titles and description can cause your listing to not get index by the search engine. In order for the listing to get indexed, you must write unique titles and description. The unique titles and description prevent the search engine from suspecting that the directory submission is performed purposely. It makes the directory submission process more natural. When the search engine perceive that the submission process is natural, it is more willing to get your listing indexed. Every listing has to be indexed so that the backlink is counted. If you use the same title and description for submission to 1000 directories, there is a high chance that the search engine will not get them indexed. The title and description should be completely different from each other. You must write the title and description yourself. You cannot copy them from other listings. Copying the title and descriptions will also cause duplication problem.

You must tag the listing with keywords. Tagging the listing with keywords enables the visitors to find it within the directories. If you don't tag it with keywords, the visitors won't be able to find it. Getting your website listed in the directory won't help you to drive targeted traffic. In order to drive targeted traffic to your site, you have to tag it with relevant keyword. For example, if your website offer guides for dog training, you should use keyword such as dog, dog training, and etc.

After you have submitted the site, you have to wait for a few months for the editors to review it. It can be approved within 1 day or 1 year. It depends on the editor. If the directory has a lot of backlog, you will have to wait for a long time before it will be your turn. For a faster approval, you can buy the paid listing. The paid listing allows your website to become featured in the search result and homepage.

Directory submission is a tiring process. If you are tired of submitting your website to the directories, you can hire the SEO company. The SEO company offers directory submission at a cheap price. The directory submission is performed by a group of staffs that are good at search engine optimization. They are familiar with the guidelines in the directories so your website will get approved within a short time. Different SEO company charge a different price. You have to perform research so that you can find out which SEO company is offering the cheapest price. Performing price comparison is important because it enables you to save a lot of money.

Wattpad - Watty and Atty Awards 2012 #FernandoLachica

2012-09-21T00:30:00.000-07:00

FOR WATTY AWARDS 2012 AT WATTPAD

Romance/Drama Novel: Overseas Filipino Worker (OFW): This is My life and Story

A must-read Filipino romance novel with riveting plot; love, hatred, revenge, struggle, conflict, poverty and family..It all started with Marco Fernando, an Overseas Filipino Worker, OFW for short.. His dream to pursue higher education, good life and financial freedom faltered when his parents cannot support him anymore. He tried to cover-up his weaknesses through his classmate Ayah Isabel. Along the way, he met another woman, Danielle who fall in love with him, which he used her as investment for his ambition in life. Until, the two women met and Marco had to chose between the two.

Used the first person POV to explore fully on how to inject other OFW events that I can relate with this fiction story.

CLICK HERE TO READ THE NOVEL: OVERSEAS FILIPINO WORKER (OFW): THIS IS MY LIFE AND STORY

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Filipino Folklore-Werewolf Story: Twisted Love

The brutal way of loving his wife and killing his child, Brando deliberately doing insanely-acts to cover-up his jealousy. An impostor, Hugo, concealed his identity to take revenge which lasted his life inside the family room. A story of revenge, love, lusts, hatred, and jealousy that makes this story a riveting one. A short story which relates to Filipino folklore about werewolf and love.

CLICK HERE TO READ THE SHORT STORY: TWISTED LOVE

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FOR ATTY'S AWARDS COMPETITION

Love Poetry Anthology

Love Poetry Anthology are poems constructed by my heart, mind and soul. It really made for you to deeply feel the essence of my being.

Read, vote, comment and follow my writings.

Thank you.

CLICK HERE TO READ THE POETRY ANTHOLOGY: LOVE POETRY ANTHOLOGY

Online Marketing #FernandoLachica

2012-02-29T01:59:00.001-08:00

Online Marketing #FernandoLachica

To get a grasp of the importance of online marketing we really need to back up and get some historical perspective on the issue and then bring it forward to present times in a straight forward easy to understand language that really highlights the critical aspects of online marketing. Looking back at history and some of the major technological advances of the day we can get an idea of where and how history will repeat itself in modern day, all we need is a little foresight and some hard facts.

Take a look back into the 1800’s when the industrial revolution was taking place and some major technological breakthroughs of the day were revolutionizing different industry’s which affected the economy as a whole. Look at the steam engine which was converted into gasoline power and later perfected on the assembly line by none other than Henry Ford himself. He was able to go from making a few cars a day to mass production of the “model T” in a very short time making his product more readily accessible to the public for much less than that of hiscompetitors. What did this mean to the current economy? Well if you were a farmer plowing your fields by hand and watching one of these strange contraptions rolling by it meant that you could probably imagine that if someone could figure out how to hook up a plow to one of those cars that it might take less people to do your current job. And that’s exactly what happened. The tractor was born and was able to do the work of a hundred men with one machine.

This was one major advancement of the day and for the people that could see the changes in the economy coming were better prepared to position themselves to capitalize on it. Another was the advancement in electricity and electrical appliances. People were now able to buy appliances that greatly reduced their workload and no longer needed to rely solely on coal or oil to heat and light their homes. A majority of the people either didn’t understand or care to take advantage of the changing economy. From farm to factories, and from man power to production lines were the major shift in the economy and many people unwilling to or unable to make the shift from the old way to the new way of technology lost their farms and had to go to work in the factories now just to survive.

Let’s jump up to just a few years ago to a man named Paul Zane Pilzer. For those of you who don’t know who he is let me explain. Pilzer is an economics expert and has been an adviser to many presidents, he is the only economist who predicted that the internet was going to revolutionize the world and that the next economic age is going to be the age of the entrepreneur. He predicts that by the year 2016 that 10 million new millionaires will be created through direct selling because of the internet and that if you don’t have an internet based business by the year 2012 that you might as well be out of business because you are going to get slaughtered in the new way of marketing.

Just like the farmers and coal miners of old there will be a shift in the economy. And you and I both know plenty of people who can’t grasp the importance of changing with the times so that we don’t lose our farms so to speak. If you can look far enough ahead to realize that the internet is going to be the only way to do business in a short while if you’re not using it you won’t be able to compete, just like the 100’s of farm workers that were replaced by one tractor couldn’t compete with the new technology of the time.

If you don’t understand the importance of marketing online and start getting some knowledge in that area now then when the shift takes place it will be too late to do anything about it and you’re going to be on the back side of the learning curve working for someone else rather than making your own money. I can’t stress this enough, if you would like some more in dept h history of what I’m talking about or would just like to get a better understanding of where our economy is headed then I recommend picking up any book by Paul Zane Pilzer. He is light years ahead of anyone else you are going to talk to in this category.

Let’s face it maybe a year or two ago it would have been easy to brush this information to the side as nonsense but looking at the current economic situation as a whole it’s pretty evident that times are changing and we had better change with them in order to survive. With all the jobs being lost and outsourcing to other country’s going on your best bet is to understand the importance of marketing online and implement those business practices if you plan on having a business in the years to come.

Amazon Best Sellers in Games, Books & Movies #FernandoLachica

2011-10-22T01:34:00.000-07:00

Amazon Best Sellers in Games, Books & Movies #FernandoLachica

Amazon.com Widgets