Was 2013 as good as you hoped it would be? Did you accomplish what you had your sights set on? Going into a new year is always a good time to take stock of your life, set goals and make a concerted effort towards real change. Think back over 2013 and ask yourself these questions:
Today I noticed a few posts popping up on blogs I like about doing a 2013 “Year in Review” and mapping out goals and New Year’s Resolutions for 2014. This is something I’ve usually done on my Birthday (Dec. 22nd) or Christmas, or closer to the new year. Setting and achieving goals has been a
If you’re an artist, author or entrepreneur, you’ve probably heard of Steven Pressfield, author of The War of Art and more recently, Do The Work. His books have become manifestos for creatives because they rephrase the artistic life in terms of battle and violence, and help people overcome their fears, doubts and worries. According...
In most regards, I think authors and artists have a lot to learn from the young entrepreneur crowd chilling in San Francisco and Silicon valley. They are reckless overachievers and productivity chasers with their eyes on the end goal. They are developing “minimal viable products” to test out the market and then...
Given my decade of living overseas and moving around pretty regularly, I didn’t think relocating to Tainan (Taiwan), a city I’ve already lived in for many years, would eat up too much of my productivity time. It only took a day to find an apartment, another day to pick out and order furniture. What I
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
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
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 danced around Etsy for several years. As a fine artist, I’m not quite ready to sell my paintings for as low as I think I would need to in order to make a lot of money of Etsy. However, even in that regard I’m probably wrong, because I spend far more on shows and
If you’re indie publishing, you probably can’t afford a photo shoot. Fortunately (or unfortunately), these days major publishing houses can’t either, which means everybody is using stock photography. Stock photos are royalty-free images you pay to download, that you can use for book cover designs or other projects. There are...
What if I told you I could help you sell %500 more books in less than a month; that I had personal media ties; that I could get you top exposure everywhere and keep the momentum going to sell thousands of books for years to come? Obviously, such an opportunity wouldn’t come cheap. If I
I thought I’d take a break from graphic design and watch a scary movie. Danielle Radcliffe’s “The Woman in Black” (very good, very scary, by the way, had me jumping like a little girl). The first 10 minutes or so was a little rough and obvious – working the background story in deliberately and without
