Love Learning with Lynda.com - Part 1

I continue to become more self-sufficient as a writer and publisher.  I also am embracing more cloud-based subscription services as part of my street team.  I am now using Adobe Creative Cloud, Evernote, Dropbox, Chicago Manual of Style Online, and Lynda.com for quickly building my skills.

Being an author can be a lonely job.  If you sign on with a traditional publisher, they provide skills to help with editing, technical formatting, publishing and promotion.  I self-published my first book, Still Stupid at Sixty without knowing much at all.  Wrote it in Word, had a friend help edit using Track Changes and used Calibre to convert and upload in Kindle format to Amazon.  My wife and one of her friends helped solve a few technical formatting issues.

But Wine Sense, my current work-in-progress has already taken ten times the effort, will be printed in both physical and electronic format and published in Amazon, Barnes & Nobel, iTunes, Smashwords and Blurb minimally.  Still Stupid at Sixty was only published through Amazon.  Wine Sense also has about 40 photographs, charts, diagrams and other images plus 'fun facts' inserted throughout.  Still Stupid at Sixty had none.  Wine Sense references work from 20 other books and publications requiring significant footnoting, end-noting and bibliography efforts to source other work properly.

I have had a massive learning curve converting to Scrivener as an writing management system, and learning HTML and CSS to provide more control over final output when ePublishing.  I decided enough was enough and needed help with the complexities of laying out format design and typesetting.  I asked someone whose work I had seen before and in total would have charged me about $3,000 to do everything - once!  I was worried about how many changes I might have and how the cost could rise significantly before the project was complete.

During this time, I was exploring taking more control end-to-end over the writing, editing, and publishing process.  No matter how much I researched and analyzed alternatives, I kept coming back to Adobe Creative Cloud as the platform that gave me everything I needed beyond using Scrivener for writing and editing.  It also meant I did not need to spend as much time within Scrivener on structuring and defining the Compile function for final publication.  I could use Scrivener for what it was intended and used InDesign to easily lay out final formatting.

But I knew the Adobe product suite has a major learning curve.  These are very high-end apps that provide you ultimate control to do exactly what you need.  The also require a great deal of training, practice and experience for any of the apps.  I was going to learn InDesign, Illustrator, and Photoshop all at the same time.  Plus I was still learning HTML, CSS and Javascript, and expanding my Wordpress skills!  And to validate content for my new writing projects on writing processes and technology, I also was now working across both Windows and Mac platforms and learning Mac OS in addition to the new Windows 8 and 8.1.

I signed up for Adobe Creative Cloud and started playing around.  I watched videos from the Adobe Learning channel and YouTube.  I bought some books on using the apps.  Over three weeks, I made virtually no progress at all.  I looked to local technical schools to find some courses, but they cost around $700, where targeted to mass market appeal, and did not provide suitable times or locations for me as I work a full-time job.  I tried finding a couple of tutors, but with little result.  I needed to learn a lot and I needed to learn very quickly.

Then several people over the course of a week, suggested Lynda.com.  I checked it out and was intrigued.  You could sign up for as long as you like, terminate when you like, and take as much training as you can possibly fit in.  They also offered a 7-day free trial to test it out.  I signed up for the trial, but after two days, knew I would be subscribing permanently as the results were far greater than I could have possibly imagined.  I could establish my own training program in a structured manner according to my needs, my level of expertise and in accordance to the time I could spend.  It proved to be the most efficient us of of my time.  Within 6 weeks, I have become proficient with InDesign, Photoshop and Illustrator.  Plus I have taken several other courses to improve my overall writing and publishing processes. I was also able to learn some fundamentals for Windows 8 and converting to and using a Mac!

Lynda.com means you learn quickly and  according to your needs, not the needs of a classroom of people, the schools needs or an instructor's needs.  I love Lynda.com and I can tell Lynda.com loves me!  Lynda.com has become a critical part of my writing team and support group!

In Part 2 to be published later this week, I will explain the various options available, and how and why Lynda.com helps you love learning!


Steve Shipley
SAZ in the Cellar Facebook page
Twitter: @shipleyaust
My wine blog SAZ in the Cellar
Still Stupid at Sixty (published under my writing pseudonym Blake Stevens)
Steve Shipley Pinterest Boards

My journey to the Adobe Creative Cloud for design and publishing

I have become fascinated by the technology to support writing and publishing.  My first book Still Stupid at Sixty (published under the pseudonym Blake Stevens) was written in Microsoft Word and converted into Amazon Kindle format using Calibre.  That is how easy it is to self-publish these days.  Anyone who can type claims they are an author these days, including me!

But my current book Wine Sense is a different matter.  It will be published electronically and as a physically printed book.  It is almost twice the size at 125,000 words or the equivalent of roughly 350 pages based on format.  It will contain almost forty photographs, multicolored tables, and a couple of QR Codes to link to videos.  I researched over twenty other wine books and multiple research papers, therefore requiring numerous citations for the original source.  The total effort involved is estimated to be ten times what was required for my first book.

I started to use a cloud-based approach in order to work more appropriately across multiple platforms.  The apps used included Dropbox and Evernote on my laptop, iPad, and iPhone, along with some ongoing collaboration with my wife's desktop computer.  It also included converting from using a word processor to using a real writing management system called Scrivener which tripled my productivity for addressing a more complex project such as Wine Sense.  And I learned some basic HTML and CSS to have more direct control over the final formatting of the book in electronic format so it would work properly across multiple devices and eReaders..

It is still my intent to still involve a support team, especially a graphic designer.  While I am somewhat innovative and creative when it comes to systems and technical problem solving, I lack creative visual design skills.  However, the more and more I worked to develop and optimize an integrated writing and publishing workflow, the more I fell in love with computers and technology again.  I wanted the ability to work collaboratively with my graphic designer and editor in an interactive and back-and-forth manner without having to pay designer for multiple changes in final layout.  Nor did I want to pay heavily for small tweaks to a basic layout design when I could do that myself.

Therefore I started to study and become more intrigued with some of the freeware tools to manipulate photos and other images.  My initial reaction is that the Adobe products were too high-end and too expensive.  I felt I had neither the budget nor the capabilities or experience to utilize these products.  But then I found out about Adobe Creative Cloud which includes Illustrator, Photoshop, InDesign, Dreamweaver and about twenty other products for publishing and it was all for $49 per month if I signed up for one year.  I took two months reviewing strategies, continuing to optimize my writing workflows, and thinking about the commitment of time required.  Ultimately, I felt the $600 or so I would spend per year was well worth it in terms of what I would save by reducing the charges from graphic designers  and much more in the time it was taking fiddling around with integrating and trying to get precisely what I wanted from the freeware apps available.

So I have committed to the Adobe Creative Cloud.  Be aware that these products are extremely high end and have a very steep learning curve.  The products have matured over 25 years and they have thousands of features and thousands of different ways for doing things.  Some of the keyboard shortcuts require the use of three different keys and a mouse click!  These apps require some serious investment in time to become proficient.  I have read books, viewed online videos by Adobe, and tried to play around with the apps myself.  What is really getting me up to speed though is the tutorials I am taking with Lynda.com.  This is a great training site to provide training in many different areas including outstanding training courses and videos for the Adobe Creative Cloud product suite.

While the tools take some getting used to, they provide amazing capabilities to do exactly what you want.  It takes years to become a professional in just one of them and I am trying to come up to speed on four of them quickly.  But I am certain the savings in time and money for my current book and many books in the future is worth it.  While this approach works for me, I understand it may not work for everyone.  But if you need to have high-end design and want control over what you are doing, then the Adobe Creative Cloud is worth considering.  And if you want to learn the Adobe apps as quickly as possible, I would recommend signing up for Lynda.com.


Steve Shipley
SAZ in the Cellar Facebook page
Twitter: @shipleyaust
My wine blog SAZ in the Cellar
Steve Shipley Pinterest Boards