REVIEW:

What You Get:

• 10 Ready-to-use, customizable templates for use in Microsoft word
  
  
• A new "customizing" toolbar to add to word, to make customizing your templates easier
  
  
• Customization guide that gives you step-by-step instructions showing how to customize the templates and create your own.

See more at: http://www.EbookGraphics.com/mytemplates1.html

What's Great:

I REALLY liked the depth of the information in the "ebook design" book. Particularly the info on fonts, and how they can be masculine, feminine, or neutral, formal or informal, etc. A lot of people don't realize that, just as with color, there really IS a "psychology" behind your choice of font.

For instance, you've probably run across quite a few sites online that use that ridiculous -- I think it's Comic Sans MS -- font? Immediately when I get to a site like that, I know -- or *think* that I know -- it was created by a woman.

Not as if that in itself is a bad thing. It just shouldn't be what your visitors are thinking about when you're trying to get them to ORDER. (Or subscribe. Or whatever.)

What masculine type would use Comic Sans MS on a business site? Or ANY site, for that matter? The name of the font itself tells you that it's not for professional use!

Anyway, I absolutely LOVE how Tarvin explains the importance of the right kind of design for your e-book. Font, color, graphics, layout ... no stone is left unturned. The "ebook design" book itself is an amazing resource for anyone interested in offering their work either online or in print.

You should remember, however, that your design should reflect what you want to convey with your infoproduct. Every decision you make for your business conveys *YOUR* BRAND.

Contrary to what a lot of people believe, your brand isn't simply a "slogan" or a website. Your brand encompasses and projects your ENTIRE IMAGE, and should be treated with the seriousness it deserves.

Tarvin's "Ebook Design" book ENCOURAGES us to understand and remember just how important this is, and how to design our e-books to reflect our brand.

Jolly good show!

Finally, most of the templates included in the package are very professional, extremely attractive designs. You can modify the colors of any of them, and even move stuff around a little.

I found one I'll be using (eventually) to customize my Website Marketing for Cheapskates e-book, that I'm really excited about!

Now, if I could just make the TIME... ; )

What Needs Work:

At the end of the very first section of the "Customizing Templates" mini-e-book, Tarvin began with "There's no fluff or filler in here -- just the step-by-step instructions on how to create and use Word templates to create great-looking ebooks."

To his credit, there WERE easy-to-follow, step-by-step instructions in the booklet.

Absolutely!

But to my dismay, I also feel that there was also a good amount of filler as well.

For instance, I really don't like when authors "sell you" on the book or product ... AFTER you've already ordered. This book does that. And to me, it's unnecessary.

After I obtain my copy of a product, I'm ready to start USING it. I don't need to hear more about why I need the book, what it's going to do for me, or how "painful" my life was before I had the product.

I think that kind of thing should be restricted to the sales copy. Just get to the meat of it and let me find out how it's going to change my life on my own! Telling me isn't going to make me believe it. (Quite the opposite, actually. It evokes skepticism, as it reeks of "horn tooting.")

The author also included a definition of the word "template" in the "Customizing Templates" booklet, which I thought was unnecessary.

If customers didn't know what templates were, why would they have bought the product?

That, again, needs to be restricted to the sales copy.

There was also a lot of "banter" in this instructional booklet. My educated guess is that it was included to make the reading and learning process fun, less tedious, and more enjoyable. To the contrary, it succeeded only in making it frustratingly difficult for me to pick the meat from the bones.

Meaning?

I literally had to read every word -- every paragraph -- to understand just what I was supposed to do next to start/continue customizing my templates. In contrast, I like products that tell me what I need to know -- ONLY what I need to know, and that allow for good skimming.

Also, it occasionally seemed like I was being talked to as if I were in grade school, from the way some of the text was phrased. For instance, Tarvin says:

"We're going to be working with the three areas mentioned above -- headers, footers, and the text area.

But, what about the graphics, you say?

Ah! That's where the secret hides! Hang on -- we'll get there in just a minute."

I appreciated that the author was trying to make this process fun, but I'm not sure customizing templates is something that CAN be viewed as fun by the average person...

So the continual "excitement", to me, seemed overboard and just a little patronizing.

The "Customizing Templates" instructional booklet was 16 pages. Without the filler and "excited" banter, I think it could've been comfortably cut down to 8 or 10.

One final issue.

The author tended to bold and color several phrases throughout all the books and booklets bright blue -- and I kept trying to click them! ~LOL~

Tip: I never recommend making ANY onscreen text bright blue, as you're almost sure to confuse your readers.

Closing Summary:

After getting past the "post-sale sell" of the book in the intro and fighting off a little filler and excess excitement here and there, I enjoyed this work. It definitely achieved what it was meant to do, which is teach me how to customize professional templates to jazz up my e-books.

Cool.

My thinking on the "filler" issue (AND the "let's make creating templates FUN!" issue) is that this package was designed for newbies. I'm advanced and didn't get much from those things, but if you're newer to e-marketing, you may get a kick out of the banter in the books.

But most importantly of course, if you can follow simple instructions, yes -- you should be able to jazz up your Word documents quickly, without a lot of headaches.

If you're an advanced marketer like myself, you should be able to do the same, of course. And if you're able to live with the drawbacks I've listed in this review, I suggest that you DO so -- and get Tarvin's book.

Even if you don't use one of the 10 neat templates he's included, with a little work, you'll probably leave with more than enough knowledge to create your own unique one(s).

Overall? Great job, Neil. And a unique product to boot.

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