A Million Words Away

A Million Words Away is the passion project of Ian Blake Newhem, veteran ghostwriter and best-selling New York Times author. After a brain tumor diagnosis (on his language processing center, nonetheless) Blake set out to write 12 books of fiction in 12 months. Why? Because sooner or later, that tumor will erode his ability to write. Sh*t.

Since A Million Words Away’s inception, I have been Blake’s right-lobe man. Just the two of us, we learned quite quickly that setting up an entire publishing company would require many sleepless nights.

To establish his online presence, I built his entire eCommerce site on WordPress with WooCommerce and integrated Stripe to process payments. Using custom HTML, CSS, and Javascript, we were able to design and deploy a functional blog/eCommerce website—in a single day. In addition to development, I set up his marketing tools: an Amazon profile to secure additional eBook and hardcover sales; HubSpot integrations for our lead-capture efforts; and Google Analytics for understanding his site traffic.

After creating his site, I hopped into Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator to design all his web assets. This included 12 illustrated eBook covers, some of which were recently featured on national news station KTLA.

In all the Acknowledgements section of his books, Blake refers to me as his spine. What an honor! I’m incredibly grateful to help Blake — and his mission — however I can.

Visit his website here. And buy a book, ya dig?