Ram Muthiah's Blog, page 2

Stopping Human Trafficking Using Technology

There are few times I go like “Why didn’t I think of that?”, when I see a new mobile app. I got one of those moments when I saw “TraffickCam” mobile app which is available for both iOS and Android. The app uses crowdsourcing to stop the human trafficking.

What is human trafficking? It’s a modern day slavery.

Source: UNICEF

There it is, from UNICEF.

I wrote a non-fiction for the parents who are not technically-savvy to deal with many issues seriously worsened by the Internet. Human trafficking is one of those issues. The criminals use the Internet to kidnap and sell the children who have to go through unimaginable torture. More than 300,000 American children and about 1.2 million children worldwide are trafficked each year. Most of these children are aged between 12 and 14. “TraffickCam” app will help to catch the criminals if all of us work together.

Traffickers regularly post the pictures of their victims posed in hotel rooms for online advertisements. Yes, that’s happening more often than you think. There are websites right here in the United States that do it. “TraffickCam” app asks all the users to take the pictures of hotel rooms they stay in when they travel. When many travelers do this, that essentially creates a huge database of the images of various hotel rooms across U.S. and also the globe. This database can be used by law enforcement investigators to track the hotel room in which the children are locked up by the perpetrators. The app helps the investigators by analyzing the patterns of the carpet, furniture, lighting, windows, walls, etc., in the hotel rooms’ images and compare it with the images posted by the traffickers in the underground websites.

The app is free. Please download it and take the picture of hotel rooms when you travel next time.

Where to find the good cover designers for your book?

“Don’t judge a book by its cover” — We heard this over and over. But, if the cover is not attractive or does not convey the message, the book does not have appeal to the readers.

For my debut fiction novel “Tell My Dad“, I spent a good amount of time searching for the cover designers. I wanted the best possible design. After doing research for weeks, I decided to launch a contest in 99designs. Why a contest? First of all, I did not want to hire a designer just by looking at online reviews and ratings. Second, I wanted to see the designer’s creativity for my specific requirements. Third, I wanted to crowdsource the design selection process. All of these are possible in the contest.

99 designs will ask you to prepare the list of requirements and the design concept. Mine looked like one below.

I want a book cover design for a book I’m writing called “Tell My Dad”.

It’s a mystery/thriller book. It’s a story revolving around child abductions and affected families. I want the element of suspense on the cover. I want to picture the crucial scene of the book, described below, in the cover.A bad guy kidnaps five year old girl and lock her up in the backseat of the car and drives away. The girl, with fear and confusion in her face, looks thru the window while the car is speeding up.

For the above scene, I want the girl to look thru the fogged window. Title is written on the fog as if the girl wrote it.

My main goals are:

1. To show the title in child’s handwriting style

2. To let the reader instinctively feel the thriller element

There it is. I posted the requirements and announced $300 bounty for the best design. I received about 89 designs over 4 weeks period. I short-listed 10 designs, created a poll and invited friends and family to vote for the best design. 99designs have the feature to create a poll which was useful. The poll gave me a pretty good idea about how others feel about the design. An overwhelming majority voted for the below design.

It’s designed by Denis Lenzi. I am very satisfied with the final design and revision process that went with it.

If you are on a budget, you may want to check out the designers in fiverr. I wrote a non-fiction ebook “How to protect children from online predators and cyber bullies” which I am giving away for free. I could not afford $300 for the perma-free book. I looked through the profiles of various designers in fiverr and had chosen one. My experience in fiverr is hit and miss. Fortunately, the cover design came out well. I wanted a simple design with attractive colors and fonts. I provided some sample pictures and ideas to the designer who came up with the following design.

I think it’s a pretty good design for $5.

In summary, I believe that the contest in 99designs offers the best possibility to create the wonderful cover design. Please share your experiences in finding a good cover designer.