Your blog thrives on content. If you have an online business of any kind (including promoting your art or writing), you need fresh content so that Google, and potential fans, can find you. But writing it all yourself is tiresome and you have to think of new ideas and catchy headlines, and hiring someone to
Websites for self-publishing authors can be divided into two camps. 1) Those offering authors services They write posts to get you to buy their book formatting, book conversion, book covers, author websites, book marketing, etc. 2) Blogs run by indie authors themselves These are full of tips and tricks and useful content. They teach you
I always tell authors creating a book that they can layout their interior book format in Word, and do a pretty good job, and most people won’t be able to tell the difference. Except, it’s tricky to learn how to do a good job, put everything in the right place. It’s also common and general
I’ll admit I never fully got the hang of bidding for freelance work on Elance, Guru or Freelancer.com. You need to send a proposal, pick a price, describe your qualifications – and compete with dozens of other freelance providers. I got picked a few times, but not consistently. That frustration is probably why I developed
Recently a lot of people have been telling me I’m an excellent entrepreneur. It’s not a compliment. They usually say it when they’re disagreeing with my advice. I work with artists and authors, and I tell them what they need to do to be more successful, to sell more books or paintings, to gain more
I failed today. It felt pretty good. It was a relief. Always trying to grow my businesses, I often offer to help someone solve a solution. In this case I’d recommended someone else for a job that I didn’t have time to do; someone I’d met in overseas who was starting out in offering web
I’ve been running online businesses for about a decade. For most of that period, I did what everybody else did. I sold myself. I talked about benefits and what I offered. I made special deals and discounts. I advertised. I was desperate, and I tried everything. But this year things started turning around. I learned
Today was a lazy day for my brain. I woke with a slight migraine so I couldn’t get much work done. Instead my wife and I went to a movie (RIPD) and then snuck into another one (World War Z). I consumed 6 large gingersnap cookies and a double espresso, then at about midnight we
At the house we’re renting in Coeur d’Alene Idaho is a large collection of books, upon which I found a family of small volumes, well worn with by age and careful scrutiny, called The Best of the World’s Classics. One passage within is Alexander Pope’s comments on epic poetry, which I found may be useful in
To spam or not to spam? This shouldn’t even be a question anymore, but now that Creativindie is growing, I keep seeing spammy comments all the time. I’ve decided (probably unfairly) to make an example out of a comment I just got by Peter Sacco. This is what a blog owner sees when you post
Recently I’ve been reading a string of books from successful entrepreneurs. All of them have a background in business, media, blogging and technology. Most of these books are successful because the authors put a lot of money behind them. Some of them have truly powerful ideas, even if most of the content is name-dropping and
Recently I’ve been meeting a lot of “lifestyle coaches” that run “lifestyle businesses.” I didn’t get it at first, but now I think of got a grip on how this works. Simplifying completely, this is how you can become a lifestyle coach: 1) Quit your job and do what you love. First you have to
