The New Direction: Mission Plan
Here it is; my grand, amazing, super special plan. Ok, so maybe not quite that grand but it’s new nonetheless and I’m very excited about it.
On Wednesday I posted asking you whether I should continue on with my ‘series’ of tutorials or whether I should revert back to posting shorter tips and tricks, make an e-book instead, or as well; there were various options. A lot of good suggestions arose from that both in the comments, by email and offline. As a result I have my plan, which I’m about to reveal to you (Thanks, yet again, to DIY and Blogger guru Allyn, and Personal Development Whiz Ralph).
Phase One
Falling Feathers has died. Or, more accurately, been burned to a crisp and left to regenerate into a new form. I won’t be posting about it any more in my blog since this isn’t the right place for it.
Instead, I’m turning it into an e-book and prettying the whole thing up; it’ll cost a small fee of $7 to download once it’s completed. I expect it to be done sometime this month; more on that nearer the time.
Phase Two
Wednesday posts are here to stay. However, they’ll be going back to my original plan of short, quick tips and tricks on specific tools and timesavers in 3D software or workflow. If something will take more than 5-6 images to describe then I’m probably not going to cover it on this day any more.
Longer posts have been given their marching orders and reallocated to e-books; if I stray from this path again I should be shot. (With a paintball of course, what were you thinking?)
Phase Three
Additional e-books with projects will be released every month or two; they’ll take you from start to finished image/animation step by step. At the moment they’re going to be priced at that same $7, but I may revise this later in the year after some trial and error. They’ll be written in the hours it WAS taking me to write those monster posts.
Also, I’ll be working on longer e-books covering the basics of Lighting, Texturing, Particles, and similar. These will be far more in-depth and the price will probably reflect that. I don’t expect these to be ready until nearer the end of the year.
Phase Four
James finally got to me. I’ve caved to temptation and every Saturday from now on I’ll be posting some fun links, activities (if the mood takes me), and an entertaining comic or illustration. It’s to give you poor souls that don’t take a break at the weekend something fun to do in-between posts/work/whatever!
For the first few weeks I’ll be experimenting a little to see what format suits us all best; stick around and offer your opinions, they’ll help build our Saturdays.
Mystery Phase
I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention that I had something else in the works as well. Not going to give too much away at this point, but you can expect to see it cropping up over the next month or two. Rest assured that when this phase goes live you’ll be the first to know.
In Conclusion
This is the first main change I’ve made to my blog since it started – what are your thoughts? Do you think I’m headed the right way with this, or is there something else you’d suggest?
Let me know in the comments below or by email if you prefer. Thanks everyone, enjoy the rest of your weekend!
The3dStudio.com
All sounds great Heather!
.-= Ben´s last blog ..Everything I Need to Know About Personal Discovery I Learned from Anime =-.
Thanks Ben! I think I’m still tweaking it in places, but for now that’s the general idea…
Also I wanted to say congratulations (before I forget again); Your blog seems to be doing really well! Keep up the good work
Thank you
.-= Ben´s last blog ..Everything I Need to Know About Personal Discovery I Learned from Anime =-.
Heather, I feel bad! I’ve not been commenting on your blog. lately I’ve been really slapped awake regarding visiting other blogs to comment (more than on just the InfoPreneur) so here I am!
I think you’ve got a great action plan and you’re sure to succeed. To me, this looks like a real good vision for your site and I know you’ll do well!
Good stuff, Heather!
Aww don’t feel bad – you’re forgiven lol
Nice to see you around here though I’ll admit.
Thank you! Already made a couple of tweaks to the plan (first ebook is going to be free because it was already partially released, and Saturday posts are going to go live on Sundays) but overall I’m really happy with it. Excited!
How’s your new freelancing business going?
Sounds like a plan, especially the paintball thing, now that sounds like fun.
I think those monster posts are best suited to the eBook, and you may have to play around with it some before you get it right, ie, price and exactly how may topics per eBook.
I think James also had the right idea to mix things up a little so as to give readers a bit of a break from all the tech stuff.
.-= Sire´s last blog ..How Twitter Can Actually Earn You Some Cash =-.
I’ve only been paintballing once… but I would happily go again! We should organise a bloggers meet-up somewhere and have a full-scale war sometime… that could be fun…
Anyway, thank you
I agree, the pricing may take a little while to figure out, but I think it’s probably a better method than trying to go over everything in blog posts (it was turning into a bit of a mess in my opinion).
What about you? Any ebook plans?
No, not at present. You know what I reckon would be fun, a naked paintball skirmish using edible paint :evil grin:
.-= Sire´s last blog ..How Twitter Can Actually Earn You Some Cash =-.
Sometimes you’re positively creepy
Yeah, that’s what my parole officer said
.-= Sire´s last blog ..How Twitter Can Actually Earn You Some Cash =-.
Haha, awesome
Heather,
Can’t really say I know anything about 3-D design. But I wouldn’t definitely putting together an e-book. Whether you sell it or give it away, it’s one of the better ways to connect with the people who follow this blog.
Just my 2 cents.
~Steve
PS- I think I got that Gravatar thingy figured out. Thanks for the recommendation!
.-= Steve Scott Site´s last blog ..30DSHS- Improve Writing Skills, Twitter, and P90X =-.
Thanks for that Steve
Definitely appreciated. Also I see your Gravatar – Much better 
Yes, thanks again for the recommendation
.-= Steve Scott Site´s last blog ..The Key to Success? =-.
No probs, glad it seems to be working out for you
Sorry…I meant definitely WOULD recommend. I apologize for the typo.
.-= Steve Scott Site´s last blog ..30DSHS- Improve Writing Skills, Twitter, and P90X =-.
Lol, happens to us all
Heather, all on your first day! just look at the people on here, great work, now keep it up and stay focused, got an invite ready for you for my new forum, invite only. I’ll send it out soon
.-= TheInfoPreneur´s last blog ..Why Your Comments Section Should Be Like A Forum =-.
Thanks James! And thanks for all the encouragement
I’ll look forward to your invite; should be interesting to see how the forum will work.
Heather,
It sounds like you are more focused now and are clear what your priorities are. That’s great. The new schedule sounds fanastic and offering the ebook is the right way to go, IMHO. Good luck with it!
Happy to hear that you are excited about the new schedule – that excitment and passion will see you through.
Karen
.-= Karen´s last blog ..Why It’s Never Too Late For Your Dreams To Come True =-.
Thanks Karen! All luck is appreciated
Guess we’ll just need to see how it goes now; refining ideas a little as I’ve been saying in the comments. Should be fun
Is your free ebook the teaser to persuade people of the value of the not-free one? This seems like a great direction. It gets you to the value/income proposition and allows you the format to be more engaging and human. Thanks for the credit and I am really happy if my somewhat confused comment got you going in the right direction (talking to Allyn). You can see how confused I get because I was waiting for Wednesday to check your blog until I saw the comments at TheInfoPreneur. Anyway great going and now I will have an easier time with your blog. I always hated reading about making feathers because I felt like I should really read it and learn how even though I don’t know where or how I would use that skill. Now I can read about paintball – or maybe Tai Chi.
Yep, something like that. I figure that the first one, since it’s already mostly written and ‘out’ anyway should just be free (once formatted and cleaned up). Once we’re going with the others I might mess around with pricing a little.
It was an Excellent pointer in the right direction you gave me; still extremely pleased with how that turned out, so thank you! (last one, I swear
)
I’ll probably still have Slightly technical posts on Wednesdays; but they’ll be short and less involved really. Looking forward to it now!
Tai Chi or Paintball eh? I may have to incorporate those somehow… hm…
Hi Heather
I just wanted to add my voice of encouragement to the multitude. This new plan sounds fab. I love that you can start earning a little for all your hard work too. Good job
.-= Eleanor Edwards´s last blog ..Love or Celebrity: Which Would You Choose? =-.
Thanks Eleanor
Appreciate it! How’re your plans coming along for your own site?
How about a virtual paintball site?
That could work, there’s bound to be one around.
Alternatively I’ll just have to sit and code a paintball game when I get some spare time
I like what you’re doing here. I need to visit more often also. Looking forward to the weekend stuff you have planned as I’m sometimes on over the weekend… Good luck with everything!
.-= Eric´s last blog ..Real Or Robot =-.
Thanks Eric – nice to see you around!
Looking forward to seeing you on the weekends sometimes then, they’ll be fairly lighthearted so it should be fun.