Monday 30 June 2014

Community Blogging

Congratulations to The Welwyn Festival Group on another successful week of events. This was the 40th consecutive festival in its current format and the 13th year that The BPc has produced the full programme, as a community project (free) since we used to be based in Welwyn.

We also help to maintain their blog www.welwynfestival.blogspot.com. It is difficult for some voluntary committees to update their own websites or blogs as committee membership is often transient and the skills and available time required are inconsistent, typically when the focus group is linked to children of a certain age group, such as primary school, guides and scouts; as children move on, so do their parents.

Increasingly, though, people are able to manage blogs and social media. We are happy to help them acquire the appropriate skills and support them, as we have done with a number of organisations. However, our time is also limited as we have to fit in such projects around paid work, primarily: website design, website optimisation, blogging, social media management and pay-per-click ads management. Maybe, if we stopped getting involved in the fun stuff, we'd get round to our own website!

Tuesday 10 June 2014

Re-rendering of old Logo for Client

Clicking on the logos to see their larger versions will emphasise the difference between the old gif and the re-rendered, editable, scaleable version we have just created.

The client, SunHat France, wanted to keep the established logo but needed it to look smarter. The BPc is happy to improve (or redesign) your logo at a very reasonable cost.

Just add your enquiry as a comment and we'll get back to you!

p.s. we've since removed the ugly blue lozenge and added some more rays to the sun because we were asked to re-design the whole website! You can see the splendid re-designed logo on the new SunHatFrance website - and book a touring holiday of Provence while you're there!

Sunday 1 June 2014

First Novel from Local Author

It is said that we all have a book within us - the real difficulty is getting it out! Plotting a story, committing hours to writing it, having it proofread, considering any feedback, finalising the manuscript and then publishing your work can take weeks or years.

As hard as it is to create a good book, traditional publishing methods can mean than most potential writers' books will never be printed. For would-be authors who have a very limited budget, self-publishing via e-books provides opportunities that many would otherwise never have.

The growing number of readers who have already discovered kindle and similar devices understand the advantages of keeping 1000s of books on a device the size of an extremely thin novel. A double-edged sword for book readers is that, although there is a wide choice of books costing very little money, there is virtually no quality control over novels that are published. For this reason, it is important that everyone who downloads and reads an e-book should take a few minutes to leave an honest review (note that a review may include an opinion but should not be comprised wholly of an opinion - well, that's my view!)

Approached by local first-time author Colin Lord, a self-confessed "non-techie", to design a cover then prepare and upload his novel to Amazon's e-book section, we are pleased to report that the task was not too overwhelming and "When the Odds are Evens" is available to download for (currently) £2.99 including vat.

Colin is writing a sequel to the book and working on a script for an unrelated radio play.