Tag: writing

Posted in Finding a Drream, Fun Puzzles, life, Thoughts, Uncategorized

Update on New You Tube Channel: Fighting Self-Pity: Spot the Difference Teddy Bear Romance Edition

Posted on by katherinebrianneparilli

It has now been 3 months since I started my You Tube game channel with the hopes of building an audience that would not only allow me to become monetized on You Tube but might also cross over and purchase some items from my Etsy shop. I wish I could say that at the 3 month mark I have thousands of followers and hundreds of thousands of views. Having come across a course about creating a You Tube brain game channel where the person gained 1,600 subscribers and 200,000 views in only a month, I would love to be able to say that I at least got the 500 subs and 3000 watch hours required to start monetizing my channel.

Sadly, I am still a far away from that goal. But amazingly, in spite of having a severe flare up of my autoimmune that I am still recovering from and that put at least a 3 week pause on my iron infusions, I somehow managed to get 120 subscribers. This might not be a big deal for a healthy person, but when I consider that my poetry channel which I have had for a good 8 years only has 270 subscribers, getting 120 subs in 3 months suddenly feels like a really big deal. So finally, in spite of enduring a major setback, I actually managed to take a small step forward.

Hopefully, by the grace of God who has blessed me with a much-needed extra large portion of determination, I will reach not only the first level of monetization, but push through and not only get fully monetized, but maybe even earn a You Tube plaque.

Today my dream of making my You Tube channel and Etsy shop a success seems impossible, but for the longest time the idea of getting 120 subs in 3 months seemed like an impossible dream too. At least now I have a little bit of hope that if I keep trying, I might be able to make something of my dream finally come true.

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Posted in life, Thoughts, Uncategorized

My First 3 Sales

Posted on by katherinebrianneparilli

It is so exciting, the other day I made my 3rd sale on Etsy. That is a one sale a month average. Hardly an exciting start, as 1 sale a month is far from a living wage or even enough to buy a pizza. Depending on any discounts and cost of ads, it might barely be enough to buy a small pint of on sale ice cream, yet for me it is a huge deal as it gives me a minute taste of success and gives me hope that someday I might be able to make my dream a reality.

How long it will take for my shop to become a success, if it ever does, is uncertain. Like the Etsy and self-publishing experts warn, if you want to build a business that will last, you have to be in it for the long haul. You have to go in with the mind set that this is going to be a long term investment of your time. Otherwise you will be tempted to take short cuts that will hurt your reputation or even shut down your business.

You have to go in with the understanding that, especially if like me, you do not have a large media presence and a host of family and friends ready and waiting to buy your books or your latest Etsy creation, it is highly unlikely that your shop is going to start with a bang.

Like the tortoise in the story of the tortoise and the hare, if you want to have any hope of winning the race, you have to ignore the fact that you are not blessed to be one of the lucky few who can race out of the gate and within a few days be selling hundreds of dollars worth of goods. Like the tortoise you just have to concentrate on putting one foot in front of the other, knowing that it will be days, weeks, months, and even years before you have a flourishing shop.

Instead of focusing on how far you have to go, you have to take aim at the first goal, then the second, the third, and so on. Knowing that even though it does not appear like much today, like a puzzle, you are creating the frame work that will one day fill into a beautiful picture that you can be proud of.

Sure there are going to be a lot of days where you feel discouraged because it seems like nothing you do moves the cart in the direction that you want to go. That no matter how much time and effort you make, success refuses to acknowledge you. Sadly, while you dream of making a thousand sales in a month, you might for a time have to celebrate that solitary monthly sale.

But hopefully with a lot of prayerful work and persistence, the day will come when one sale turns into two, then three, four, a dozen, and eventually one glorious day enough to pay your bills and enjoy the life of your dream.

If you would like to check out this fun collection of word games, mazes, and more, click here.

Posted in activity books, Articles about Writing, My Books, Uncategorized

Would Your Dog Rather

Posted on by katherinebrianneparilli

While learning how to make puzzles and activity books I learned about an activity book called would you rather. It is a fun game where players are asked humorous or scary questions like would you rather eat a pound of raw spinach or go without dinner for a month or would you rather face a roaring lion or a pack of licking puppies?

Making a would you rather activity book sounded like fun. But I was not certain what type of questions to ask. That was until I had the idea making a would you rather from my dog’s perspective. So instead of asking would you rather, I made a books asking such important questions as would your dog rather eat celery or go hungry, have his teeth brushed or get a shot, eat raw fish or broccoli?

Here are a few sample pages of my new would your dog rather activity book.

If this sounds like a book you would enjoy, my new book is available on Amazon as a Kindle book for 2.99 or a paperback for 9.99.

Barns and Noble.com as a paperback. Here is the link: Would Your Dog Rather Game Book for Kids and Dog Lovers of All Ages: A Collection of Silly Scenarios and Humorous Questions that the Whole Family Will Enjoy by K. B. Parilli, Paperback | Barnes & Noble® (barnesandnoble.com)

Disclaimer: This post contains a link to an affiliate site.

As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases

Posted in Articles about Writing, life, Poetry, Thoughts, Uncategorized

Maze Craze: A Very Fun Idea

Posted on by katherinebrianneparilli
Disclaimer: This article contains an affiliate link  to Maze Crazy.  If you should choose to purchase it, I would earn a small commission at no additional cost to you. I have used this product for nearly a year before deciding that I liked this program, and becoming an affiliate.

About a year ago I learned about a program called Maze Craze. Maze Craze is a program that allows you to create square mazes and with or without a solution, that are simple enough for a very small child, to the extremely difficult.

Maze Crazy allows you to make very simple mazes that are perfect for very young children, to extremely difficult mazes that are perfect challenge for the serious puzzler.

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The nice thing about this program is that you keep the rights to the mazes that you make. This means that you can not only make mazes for your own personal enjoyment, but to sell as well. You can use your mazes to create maze or puzzle books, activity sheets, or designs for cups, pillows, t-shirts, and more.

Here is an example of an experimental maze book, where I took a poem about adventure, pictures of my adorable dog Happy, and some of the simpler mazes that I had created using Maze Crazy, to create a unique children’s book.

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The mazes are created as convenient PNG files that can easily be inserted as is, onto a pdf making file such as ADOBE, Smallpdf, or Sodapdf and transformed into a file and uploaded to KDP. If you would like to make the mazes more interesting, the PNG file can be uploaded to a program like Canva or affinity publisher where other elements can be added to make your puzzles more interesting.

With a bit of imagination, you can turn a simple square maze, into an exciting adventure.

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What really makes this program exciting is the fact that the creator of Maze Crazy is working to improve this program. Taking the maze crazy experience to the next level by giving the maze creator the option to turn the standard line maze into a maze made out of flowers or clouds.

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And an addition that has really improved the value of Maze Crazy, you now have the ability to alter the maze the shape and path of the maze. Giving you creative control over both the shape and style of your maze.

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Once again, if you want to increase the creativity of your puzzle, you can upload your maze as a PNG file in a program such as Canva or Affinity Publisher. Add a decorative background, insert some interesting elements such as numbers, letters, symbols, or pictures in or around your maze. And before you know it, you have created a unique maze that can tell a story, spread a message of love, or the adventure of your choice.

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With Maze Crazy, you have the power to tell the story you want.

https://warriorplus.com/o2/a/zg0cc/0