Bio
Summary: Author, Speaker, Consultant, and Founder of successful startup in publishing, passionate about technology-based solutions, writing, music, yoga, and meditation.
Founder, SelfPublish.org
- Bootstrapped my business from zero to over $1 million million within 10 years.
- Worked directly with over 500 authors and small business owners
- Featured expert for Self-publishing on Clarity.fm
- Serve as faculty at writer's conferences and colleges around the country (including Cal Poly).
- Creating hundreds of technical documents (and video tutorials) to assist authors in nearly every step of the self-publishing process.
After interviewing over 50 entrepreneurs in 2008, I launched 50 Interviews Inc. in 2009 and published more than a dozen titles from multiple authors. Within 3 months of inception, I was generating positive cashflow. For five of those years, I had a full-time employee. Being in a position to do so financially, we moved back to the central coast in 2013. SelfPublish.org (actually started as KindleExpert.com before Amazon insisted I relinquish the domain) started as side hustle to 50 Interviews (my publishing company), but quickly became my primary business as Amazon led the way in eBook publishing.
Architect, AuthorDock.com
- Successfully adopted by over 200 users.
- Subscriber supported since 2015.
- Based on well supported open-source software and kept current (currently on the 4th upgrade).
- Custom hypersearch provides for rapid search results from nine content rich engines.
In the process of assisting more than 500 authors publish their books, I developed a set of repeatable best practices to produce quality books for a reasonable price. Many of my clients have gone on to become Amazon bestsellers.
Unable to find a project management tool suited for our needs, I hired developers to assist me in building out AuthorDock, a secure client portal to manage the entire publishing process and keep all the essential metadata in a secure system. The tool currently has over a hundred users and in addition to giving authors the tools to manage the entire process, an exhaustive knowledge base exists to provide users a self-service model.
Developer, PubWriter.com
- Lightweight, fast, minimalism web publisher
- Extremely customizable
- CMS-Free - All files reside in users Dropbox
- Extended recovery - website files reside in two different locations and every version ever created is available if needed.
- Instant backup - files are backed up to a remote location the moment they are saved.
Prompted by a series of website attacks by hackers on Wordpress web sites I managed, I sought out a web content solution that was more robust, less vulnerable to attacks and easier to manage. Utilizing existing open source code, proprietary php, and 3rd party tools, I successfully launched PubWriter in 2015. PubWriter is a Static Site Generator that allows a single web developer to deploy a new website within minutes and manage hundreds of sites with ease. To date, more than 100 PubWriter sites are live. Our solution utilizes plain text files in the cloud (which automatically syncs to the users desktop or mobile device) to publish pages through the PubWriter server. PubWriter is a mobile friendly secure web publisher that supports custom stylesheets, markdown files, and Bootstrap html. Built on the mobile-first secure Bootstrap engine allows it to utilize embedded features now offered by thousands of websites.
Program Director, TechBrew SLO
As the 'Brewmaster' for TechBrew, I facilitate the longest running monthly technology networking meetup on the central coast. In my role, I am a responsible for recruiting speakers and facilitating the monthly event. Softec is a registered 501c non-profit that was founded in 1996 and currently has over 2,000 members.
Contributor, SLO Life Magazine
I have a regular column in SLO Life Magazine that focuses on local authors. Here's an example.
Ukulele Instructor
Account Manager, IBM
Served as a customer advocate on the Hewlett Packard sales team. Awarded to IBM's 'Golden Circle' recognition event and developed detailed account strategies coupled with a strong customer relationship. Responsible for a sales quota that exceeded $1mil/year.
Account Executive, 3t Systems
Contributed to driving 100% year-to-year growth at a fast-growing IT Services firm. Delivered managed services, app development, enterprise content management and unified communications to small and mid-sized businesses.
References
Available up on request.