Welcome to neXtDRAFT Issue 18. celebrating market day in Estancia.
Every Tuesday, growers come in from the mountains to trade their vegetables for fish, and anyone who can sell anything
joins them by lining their wares along the streets, alcoves and market entrances.
The town swells with the additional tricycles and stall owners, and roadside eateries double their cooking to cater for all the extra customers. It's a day to keep your bag close too.
Market day every Tuesday.
Kitten Chronicles
The kittens are almost three weeks old (and if you remember my sleep-deprived moan last week) are now living OUTSIDE in a cage put together by my neighbour's husband. Jerry seems to like it in there too. For all the trouble they are seriously cute. 10/10 for cuteness. If you're dead keen you can read more of the kitten chronicles on the blog.
Maxine and kittens happily inside (not for much longer)
Jerry's reading
All the reading I'm doing with Jerry is paying off and his teacher gave him 10 pesos on Friday for the big improvement. He was very proud. Our favourite book at the moment is The Magic Pudding, oh I'd forgotten how funny it is. The illustrations are just wonderful and add so much to the story. If it's lurking at
the back of the bookcase or you've never read it, check it out. It's so much fun.
The Magic Pudding is an Australian children's classic.
Weekly trips to the city
We've been slogging it back and forth to the city, the bus trip never seems to get
any better. Worried about Maxine and the kittens we did the city trip to ballet class and back in the one day.
An exhausted Jerry fell into bed on Saturday night exclaiming
"Tita Mel, promise me we'll never do that trip again!".
I must say we didn't have
it too bad though, because after the first hour we had the whole back seat to ourselves. Not like the four passengers in the picture who were squished onto a broken seat.
Broken seat on the bus? No problem.
Time to go
Well it's almost 4.30pm AEST and Jerry is home sick with diarrhoea. Diarrhoea takes on a whole new dimension when you live in one room without running water. Still I'm getting plenty of exercise filling buckets from the water tank in between answering questions like "'Tita Mel what is destiny" or 'how can i follow my destiny?"
Hopefully I'll have an answer for him (and you) before next week.
from the top of the island where the trees were once bamboo nursery
Reading Jerry the Magic Pudding
For anyone not familiar with The Magic Pudding here’s a quick run-through. An Australian classic of children’s literature (originally published in 1918) the tale is about a magic pudding and his three owners (a man, a penguin and a well-mannered koala). The pudding has
magical qualities, for no matter how many slices his famished owners eat, the pudding basin never empties. And when the eating is done Albert (the pudding) comes alive and wears the basin on his head like a hat. Albert is also very naughty.
The story surrounds a battle of wits between the three pudding owners and two cunning pudding snatchers (a wiley possum and wombat). In between puddin’ snatching and retrieval we learn
all about how Bill, Sam and Bunyip came to be acquainted, plus how the pudding was originally invented. Any time the pudding owners are feeling a bit stressed or happy or anything really Bill will launch into his favourite song The Salt Junk Sarah (a sea shanty ballad with infinite verses). It really adds to the fun.
For those of you not conversant with Philippine bus culture, if a seat-back jams on a crowded bus (still at the terminal) the conductor will cooly break off the offending back rest and manoeuvre it into the aisle (random passenger instructed to hold it for the next 2 hours). Then
direct a standing passenger to squish into the opened up seat (there’s room for four to sit there now). Don't you wish you were on that bus?
I’m a professional writer making my way in the world of business. The WritingBiz section is for anyone wanting to make writing a career (or at the very least make some money writing). I’ll be sharing ideas on how to find clients
and customers within your niche, self-publishing eBooks, as well as how to setup your writing business and run it profitably.
A dedicated writing space in your home enables you to build a consistent writing practice. Whether you’re a novelist or a copywriter, the consistency of writing everyday will quickly improve
your writing. The words come faster, and you finish client projects in less time.
Reflecting on some personal examples of how constant reading has made a big difference to my own skills as a professional writer. Since adopting a more strategic approach to reading, the results are even more apparent. I’m clearer in my thinking and
finding it much easier to sit and write without interruption. Not only do I feel more confident starting to write but the ideas come a lot quicker and the words flow more naturally. And these improvements are inspiring me to read more and more.
This space is for my clients or anyone wanting to learn more about maximising their online presence. Every week I offer my best advice for selling online, improving website metrics, and how to blog
strategically. I also showcase one of my clients each week as a way of saying thank you for the business. Of course it's a place to advertise my own writing services (because I have to make a living too). Email me for any topics you'd like me to cover.
Quick Q&A
What is an auto-responder email?
If you have ever given out your email address to get more information about a webinar, course, product (or similar) and found a new email arriving just about every day, you've probably been receiving a sequence of auto-responder
emails.
Email campaigns that use auto-responder emails are a cool (and cost effective) way of building a relationship with customers as well as selling online. Just imagine you're a bookshop and you also have a website to sell the books online as well as in your physical store. You could run a promotion on the website for customers to join your email list and receive
10% off their first order (within 5 days). Once the customer submits their email address they would automatically receive the following emails.
(immediately after subscribing) Welcome email, 10% voucher attached with a few instructions how to use it, thank you for
subscribing.
(24 hours after subscribing - voucher unused) Physical store overview, inviting the customer into the physical store and telling them about the weekly events like book signings with authors and reading club. Reminder that their 10% voucher can also be used in the physical store.
(48 hours after subscribing - voucher
still unused) Online store overview, explaining how customer can set their genre preferences and change their customer settings to receive emails about new releases from authors or genres they love. Reminder about the 10% voucher.
72 hours after subscribing - voucher still unused) Most popular books, short email talking about the 10 most popular books in the last month (listed by genre).
Reminder about the 10% voucher.
The bookstore plans and creates this sequence of emails in advance, and are triggered automatically each time someone subscribes to the email list. Email management software is so sophisticated that you can create alternate sequences based on behaviour.
So imagine if the customer used their voucher on day 2, instead of the most popular books and voucher reminder email, they might receive a variation which includes an acknowledgement of their purchase and a further discount they could use in their first week as a subscriber.
Email auto-responder campaigns are cost effective because once they are setup they keep working automatically. It doesn't matter what time of day or night a customer subscribes they sequence begins right away.
Business Profile: June Perkins
Dr June Perkins is an author, poet and photographer. She's also dear friend and (while not a client) has supported my work in the Philippines since day 1. She's sponsored my projects here with the children (both financially and by giving her time in skype calls), she's sent me books and toys for the children, as well as contributing to my crowdfunding campaign last year
(when I needed to get back to Jerry in the Philippines and setup my writing business). Thank June it's greatly appreciated.
June has published a wonderful children's book called Magic Fish Dreaming. If you are looking for some quality Australian literature (with stunning illustrations) buy your kids a copy of Magic
Fish Dreaming today. Click here to visit her website.
June donated extra copies of Magic Fish Dreaming to the children here.
Need some help improving your email marketing?
Email is the best way to sell your products and services online. Here's a few of the things I can help you with.
setting up strategic landing pages and writing the
content so you can build your email list and market products like books, courses, webinars and workshops;
implementing email marketing strategies so you can keep your customers informed of new product releases, end-of-season markdowns, and exclusive offers;
scheduling newsletters and eZines that provide value to your
customers and keep them engaged with your business;
writing and configuring auto responder emails, and product launch campaigns.
