If you listen to our podcasts, you recently heard my interview with Rick Smolan, a new friend and someone whose books I’ve long admired. He’s the photographer-turned-entrepreneur behind all those coffee table books that start with this in the title, “A Day in The Life of…”. He started with “…Australia” and from there went on to create a whole series based on places and countries around the world. He sold millions of copies.
Learn about his incredible story by listening in to my interview with him.
In particular, we he and I focus on his most recent, gorgeous book, America at Home, 
which is a pictorial journal of Americans and their dwellings and lives within and around them. Fascinating stuff ranging from the artsy home creations in Manhattan, to a street-person’s makeshift home in San Diego and everything in between. I was interested in this book because I know home is the cradle of millions of small businesses – 18 million according to recent stats. Check out America’s most outstanding home-based businesses, by the way, to get inspired to create your own thriving enterprise.
A cool thing he offered to StartupNation listeners is this: the ability to create a custom cover on his new book featuring your own photo.
The process takes about 4 minutes and is really fun – you actually see your image appear on a 3-D model of the book while you are making the cover.
When you click on the url below it will take you to a website where in just a few minutes you can upload, crop, and caption your own photograph to appear on the cover. It’s a very cool gift idea. And the contents of the book are nothing short of fascinating. You’ll see “the emotions of home” photographed over the course of seven days by 100 of the America’s leading photojournalists plus thousands of amateurs.
Inside there are more than 250 photos capturing the distinctive rituals, the intimate moments, and all the ways in which we work, play, learn, conduct our lives, and interact with friends and family members (and pets!) as we transform our dwellings into our homes.
Just go to www.myamericaathome.com to check it out.
From the site, you can email your uploaded photo on the cover of the book to friends, embed it in your Facebook page or blog and other cool stuff…
Here’s an example of a custom cover:
Have fun being famous!
And make a mental note about how creative Rick Smolan is in finding ways to take an average photographer’s career and make it into a budding publishing empire!
Rich
