An Important Agenda: Sharing our Hospitality and Tourism Stories with the World and Ourselves.
Collaborative Publishing Contributions & Investment Opportunities:
Dear Hospitality & Tourism Clients, Colleagues and Friends,
We are seeking your input on an idea for a collaborative publishing adventure - we want your stories, your investments:
Black Sand Digital is an international digital and printed editions publishing company, based in Toronto, that specialises in luxury hospitality and tourism. (See our menu here on BlackSandDigital.ca for examples of our work and links to downloads or purchases via Apple Books).
We publish exclusively to Apple Books, which is available on 50+ countries via Apple devices (with hundreds of millions of iTunes/Apple ID (™) members).
We also create printed editions of such digital versions, with hardback and soft cover editions as options.
We believe that there is an exciting opportunity to collect stories and contributions from around the world, as well as sharing in on the financial investment and revenues, and we want you to be a part of it in a small or a big way. We want to gather, create, publish and print our stories that matter to our industry, that will be sought after, sell and be read for joy, improvement and guidance to take action.
The Plan and Content Needed!
Four Collaboration of Possible Topics:
A) Women of Hospitality & Tourism: Stories, successes, challenges, lessons learnt, recommendations;
B) Excellence in Hospitality & Tourism;
C) Culinary Creations;
D) Hospitality and Tourism’s Impact on Our Climate Change Crisis.
Possible Content and Ideas for Stories, Submissions, etc.:
A) Women of Hospitality & Tourism: Stories, successes, challenges, lessons learnt, recommendations;
We are seeking contributing submissions by women, men, others, new to the industry, worked in previously, retired, etc., as well as young, those in high school, college and university programmes through to senior executives.
Focus: Sharing insights, stories, thoughts, the who, what, when, where and hows of your time in the business.
How being female in hospitality impacted you and those you work with?
How did you succeed?
How did you help/mentor your female colleagues?
What could you have done to better to level the playing field?
For men in the business, what did you do to help/mentor your female colleagues?
What could you have done better to level the playing field?
How can you do so now and in the future?
Sage insights from one and all.
Your contributions can be short antidotes or chapters.
They can be written or video taped (the beauty of Apple Books brings storytelling to an engaging level).
B) Excellence in Hospitality & Tourism:
Focus: Share those stories that result in an emotional response that resonates with you and others
Share stories or your company’s missions, training, commitment to service excellence.
Share tips and techniques (the nuts and bolts of “How To”) on instilling excellence in a culture, others, yourself.
C) Culinary Creations:
Focus: Cookbooks for guests and visitors alike as a collaborative creation.
Themes can be by country, by genre/food groups, time of day, holiday themes, independents, multi-chain…
(See our “A Taste of St. Lucia with Recipes by Cap Maison” here on our site or on Apple Books.)
D) Hospitality and Tourism’s Impact on Our Climate Change Crisis:
Focus: As with Women of Hospitality, share your stories of our successes, lessons learnt, how we need to improve, how we can lead, how we can really making a difference in our world, going beyond the talk.
Contributing and Partnering in Investment and ROI for any of these books/topics:
Submitting a contribution is free of charges or fees.
If you would like to be a part of the Investment, we will have a PayPal (™) Contributions button set up on our website for you to submit any amount that you wish to contribute to any of these adventures.
Canadian contributions are preferred by Interac (™) and international can be wired as well as PayPal.
If you would like to be a part of the ROI, we will share in the revenues with a contribution of $500 CDN/USD and greater. (Canadian partners will have GST/HST added; International clients will have investments processed in USD.)
Your percentage of the revenues will be based upon your percentage of the total contributions…
Allocation of Investments:
For every dollar that we receive in contributions and investments, 75% of such funds will be allocated to Black Sand Digital’s fees for services.
The remaining 25% will be allocated to expenses such as stock photography, operating supplies, etc.
If we receive a quantity of submissions that results in books greater than 50 pages in Letter/A4 sizing, Black Sand will conduct the reformatting of the files to printed editions and contribute to such printing.
Sales Revenues and ROI:
Digital Editions:
For every dollar earned on Apple Books, Apple retains 30% of such sales.
For every dollar earned on Apple Books, Black Sand Digital will retain 20% of such sales.
The remaining 50% earned revenue will be shared with the contributors of $500 and greater, as per their percentage of investment.
Printed Editions:
As there are not any fees to Apple for printed editions, the earnings will be as follows:
30% of the revenues will pay for the printing costs.
20% will be allocated to Black Sand Digital.
The remaining 50% earned revenue will be shared with the contributors of $500 and greater, as per their percentage of investment.
The pricing of the eBooks and printed editions will be established upon completion of such books, based upon the size and perceived market value.
We will help you create and get your writing juices flowing; we will collect, edit and publish, sharing with the world.
Three Questions:
Do you see a market for, a need for, an interest in any one of these four topics (or alternatives?), generating revenues with a ROI?
Do you wish to contribute your own stories, or know someone who would?
Do you wish to contribute financially, either as an investor or a donator?
Three Actions:
Please spread the word, “Like”, share with colleagues, friends, entrepreneurs, employees, executives, educational institutions and please do ask questions and share suggestions…. We can send this to you by email as well for you to share with others. Just let us know.
Please contribute and invest.
Do connect with us:
Emails:
For all our topics and services, we can be reached at: Hello@BlackSandDigital.ca
Questions or suggestion generally or to me specifically, Sharon at BlackSandDigital.ca.
Final Words and Timing:
As this is an experiment with optimistic possibilities of important stories and talents to share, a crowd-sourcing of contributions and investments, we will be open to ideas and recommendations, and need to meet requirements in order for this to be a financial success for one and all.
We are a positive and excellence focused company and as such, reserve the right to choose which stories and contributions are chosen, edited and shared. We want to include lessons learnt and opportunities for improvement, and wish such stories to be presented as lessons and opportunities rather than judgement, blame and negativity. Thank you.
This post will include the PayPal buttons soon.
We will provide written agreements for both contributors and investors.
Personally and Professionally:
I have been so very fortunate, lucky and honoured to a part of this glorious industry for decades now, with amazing companies, colleagues and lifelong friends as my reward.
I started as a young teen working in a travel agency, stuffing marketing flyers in envelopes; have worked and travelled the world professionally and personally along the way (from Canada to the Caribbean; Australia to America; UK/Europe to Russia, and a whole world in between); Mountain properties, city centre convention hotels, luxury independent and chain hotels; with a cruise ship and Canadian and American National Parks too; studied hospitality and tourism at university (Ryerson University) and been a part of esteemed management development programmes (Sheraton, Cornell University).
I have been front line staff, supervisor, management, worked in independents and leading corporations in limited service, mid-service and luxury, in fast food operations, full service restaurants, hotels and resorts, etc., then rolled it all into entrepreneurial adventures in hospitality and training consulting, mystery shopping, and digital and printed books, all with the passion that so many of us share: being a life-long Hospitality and Tourism Professional. It is home for me and your journeys and stories as just as fabulous, challenging, exciting and worthy of storytelling.
Join me in sharing our important stories and talents with the world!
Thank you!
With gratitude,
Sharon Creelman
Hospitality & Tourism Professional
Entrepreneur