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
Are you a creative person trying to get people to pay more attention to your work? Do you hate promoting yourself, and arent’ sure how to begin marketing? The #1 rule here on Creativindie is: make something people want. The reason this rule is so important, is that most authors and artists blithely ignore it.
This weekend I attended my first ever WDS (World Domination Summit), put on by Chris Guillebeau of the Art of Non-Conformity. A lot of the lifestyle values and career goals of the group (total freedom from office hours, self-employment, personal fulfillment, making a meaningful contribution, adventure and travel, deep and meaningful...
I’m vexed today. I just discovered a pretty cool book online. I like it. I wrote a 5 star review. It has an ugly cover, and mine is the 2nd review, and it was published 2 years ago. Then I looked over some of my other reviews for books I’ve liked – indie books without
A common piece of advice for indie authors that I hear repeated strenuously is this: “DON’T make your own book cover in Microsoft Word!” Why? Because it’s almost certain to be ugly. But the reason that authors even attempt it, is because Word is probably a program they already know how to use and have
