Special Deal on CorelDRAW X4 Software

Corel has a special deal available on CorelDRAW X4 upgrades and the full version. The full version sells for $399 ($30 off the list price) and the upgrade sells for $189 ($10 off the list price). Please make sure to buy the boxed version so you get all of the fonts, clip art, photos manuals and more. These are not included with the download version and the boxed version has the same cost.

In addition to the price savings, you get a copy of CorelDRAW X4: The Official Guide. This 892 page page normally sells separately for $49.99. Of course, I'd love it if you would also consider getting my CorelDRAW X4 Unleashed book as it not only has the written material, but also 11.5 hours of video tutorials.

This is a limited time offer so if you are wanting to upgrade, make sure to take advantage while you can. It is a great way to not only get the software at a discount, but also to get a third-party training resource to help you get the most out of it. Get CorelDRAW X4 and CorelDRAW X4: The Official Guide now!

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Sunday Stock: Dover Design Sampler

Many of you probably remember the Dover clip art books. Did you know that they now have a number of packages that include a CD-ROM full of artwork?

Each week they send out an e-mail with links to some free artwork as well as information about their new packages. If you wish to get the free samples, you can sign up on the Dover site. To get an example of what you get in the weekly e-mail, check out the samples from this week.

When you find something you like, the price is definitely right. Each collection has a very reasonable list price and we offer the packages at a discount of at least 20%. You'll find most packages are no more than $15! With all this great artwork at such great prices, I bet you can find several packages that you want!

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Libra Helps Organize Books, Music and Movies

While most of us are using our computers to create graphics during the day, hopefully we all find time to do other useful things with them. I recently ran across a cool utility that helps you to manage your library of books, games, music and movies. It is named Libra and you can download a copy for free.

The hardest thing to do with programs like this is to build your database, especially if you have a large library of media. Libra attempts to make the process easy by searching for the products on the Amazon Web sites. You can also hold up the bar code on the product to your Web cam to have the product found automatically. While this part sounds cool, I was unable to get a clear image of a barcode on my Webcam. Thus I had to search manually. Even this isn't terribly difficult as long as the product exists on Amazon. If you have older, obscure media, then you might not have luck when searching for the product.

Libra also helps you keep track of who borrowed what. This should at least help you to make sure you get things back from your friends. This reminds me that I need to talk to my neighbor about a movie she borrowed about 18 month ago, but I digress.

When you have stocked your library, the screen will displays rows of covers. Users on Vista will even notice that the cover is reflected on the shelves. You can even print out a catalog of your library that is very attractive, though it will probably use a lot of ink. I think it might be better to print it to a PDF file to distribute to friends who may want to borrow from you.

The way that the program is released is also quite interesting. The developers are giving away the software in hopes that its links to Amazon will generate enough revenue to keep the company funded. Currently Libra is labeled as a beta and there are certainly some rough edges. But it sure looks to have a lot of promise and is certainly worth exploring if you have a large library to catalog.

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Photoshop Web Design Book Available For Free Download

I'm certainly not a Photoshop user, but that doesn't mean I don't enjoy getting a free book. The folks at Sitepoint are giving away the book The Photoshop Anthology: 101 Web Design Tips, Tricks and Techniques. This is a book that sells at Amazon for $26. Of course, the free copy is a download so it is a bit different than the printed version. The giveaway is also sponsored by an advertiser so you find one line of text at the very bottom of each page promoting the advertiser. Honestly, this wasn't a distraction at all to me.

There is a running clock on the site that says the offer will expire in a little over 27 days. So expect the offer to be gone by mid-June.

For those of you who use Corel PHOTO-PAINT to do your Web graphics, you might want to get our tutorial The Terms of Adobe Photoshop and Corel PHOTO-PAINT. It will help you translate some of the Photoshop terms used in the book so you can do the same projects in Corel PHOTO-PAINT.

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Do You Have 1,000 True Fans?

Many of you create some sort of artwork as a way to make a living. If you are not already doing this, you have a desire to make a living from it.

I read a really good blog post entitled 1,000 True Fans that anyone creating "artwork" for sale should read. The idea is that you don't need a bestseller to make a very good living, you simply need 1,000 true fans. A number of good examples are cited and I'm sure you will get some inspiration from it.

I'll add my story to this. I wrote six books for major publishers. Isn't the dream of every writer to get picked up by a major publisher? Well, it was good for a while, but it certainly wasn't any way to make a living. I got a measly royalty payment for each copy of the book sold. So while there were a much larger number of copies sold, the amount of money that filtered down to me wasn't so great. Finally I told the publisher that I couldn't do it any more.

It took me a few years to develop a book I could self-publish. CorelDRAW 12 Unleashed was the first version. It was good and it sold well. Heck, it sold more than I had initially projected. While it sold only a small percentage of what the "major publishers" sold, it was much more profitable that any of the books they published. I was proudest that the book I published was a more complete learning tool than what the "major publishers" produced with their large staffs.

With Corel's development cycle between versions of two years, I had time to build upon CorelDRAW 12 Unleashed and give the book even more of what "true fans" want.
CorelDRAW X3 Unleashed had more information (page, movies) and I even created the special DVD-ROM edition as a way to provide more for those who wanted to spend a little bit more. It sold even better than CorelDRAW 12 Unleashed, yet still only a fraction of what the "major publisher" sold.

Now I'm nearing the finish line of CorelDRAW X4 Unleashed. I've taken what I've learned from the first two books and providing even more of what the "fans" want. I don't know what the sales will bring, but I'm guessing that it will sell even better than the previous books. Yet it will never approach the numbers of the "major publisher".

A funny thing happened not too long ago. I got a call from a "major publisher". They wanted me to write a book on CorelDRAW X4 for them. I politely told them that I'd been self-publishing and that I was very happy with this. They suggested I could write two books, one for them and one that I self-publish. This is physically impossible since it is all-consuming just to write a single book. I told them that my profits for my self-published books far exceeded what I got for my "major publisher" books. The "major publisher" still didn't understand why I didn't want to write a book for them.

In the music industry, the big publishers are struggling to change with digital music. From my conversation with a "major book publisher", it was clear that they didn't get it either.

So for all of you creatives working for yourself, I can only agree with the 1,000 True Fans theory! Put out some great work, build your fanbase and you can do it alone!

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