How to Write a Bio That Gets Read The days are gone when we only relied on our boring resumes to emphasize our achievements. Unlike a resume, a bio is less formal. This gives you the opportunity to share your story, build trust and make a positive connection with the reader. Your bio should explain who you are, what you do, add a dash of your personality, and then leave the reader with confidence in you. Whether you are an artist, designer, writer, or entrepreneur, a good bio is an important part of your promotional material. Size matters: No matter what size, your bio is a great branding opportunity, especially when you are in business for yourself! Mini: You will need a mini bio for your social networks and for your ‘elevator pitch’ . Short: A short bio needs to have all the components of a long one, but only highlights the very best. Long: A longer bio is generally used when you feel like you have a lot to say. Ann Tran @AnnTran_ Washington, D.C. ♥ Happily Married ♥ Spiritual Seeker. Sean Gardner Name:
Top 10 Ways to Sell Your Digital Art | PayLoadz Are you a graphic designer? Perhaps you have landscape or animal photography you would like to sell online? The Internet can be a difficult place for entrepreneurs with digital art to sell because it is easy for people to download your work without paying for it. An image you upload on your site might be listed in Google Images. From there, a person could easily download it. If you wish to sell digital art online, you need to find a safe and secure platform. 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10.
Selling Your Art With Words Yet in these days of online art marketing, that is exactly what many artists must do. If you sell your art or craft in any kind of online venue, the written description can be just as important as the visuals. Thorough descriptions are necessary in order to tell potential buyers more about the piece, to “sell” its features and virtues, and they are also helpful for search engine optimization. If you studied art or art history, you may have learned the formalist approach of describing the visual elements—the form, composition, medium, techniques, and subject matter. And that’s always a good start. But what many of us are called upon to do in the Internet age is to describe our own art with more of a marketing approach. Here are some writing tips: This language of description is completely subjective, of course, and any artwork can mean many different things to different people. You might also like to read, “How to Write a Bio that Gets Read”.
Marketing: 7 Places to Sell Your Work Online What if Van Gogh had been able to show his work online? Before the Internet, artists had very few outlets to sell their work. The main choices were galleries (which took 50% of the selling price) and art fairs. Today there are a whole host of online art retailers, making it much easier to get your work in front of the public. Determining the “best” sites for selling art is subjective, of course, but I tried to list the best in terms of audience size (traffic), cost, and quality of service. While Imagekind sticks to artwork printed on paper, canvas, and greeting cards, Redbubble is a place for “framed prints, mounted prints, greeting cards, posters, designer T-Shirts and more.” Etsy calls itself “Your place to buy & sell all things handmade.” If fine art prints aren’t your thing, or if you’ve got a great design for a mug or t-shirt, then head on over to CafePress or Zazzle. BoundlessGallery is a site for buying and selling fine art originals and prints. February 2010 update
3 Big Mistakes Artists Make With Their WordPress Websites Big Mistake Number One: Choosing the wrong WordPress Theme BIG Mistake NUMBER ONE: Choosing a WordPress theme that competes with your art. An artist’s site should be all about the art. There are literally 1000’s of WordPress themes to choose from but it is difficult to find one that’s suitable for fine art. A theme with tons of tripped-out functionality, busy graphics or way too many options just creates a learning curve that’s complicated and way too long. Artbiz is all about WordPress, it’s an easy platform for artists to manage themselves. KISS it = Keep It Simple! It’s all about your artwork. Big Mistake Number Two: A lack of content substance BIG mistake NUMBER TWO: A lack of substance in the content. It’s important to create a great theme that makes your site visually appealing. People want to know who you are, how you do what you do and why. Art is full of hidden meaning that may not become apparent until it is pointed out. Why is your work so magnificent; tell us.
HOW TO: make a passive income as a designer Interested in earning money while you sleep? When you work as a designer, you typically work in a salaried position or as a freelancer where you charge by the hour or project. While this is great, and helps you have a continuous and steady income, you might want to consider looking into ways to generate a passive income. When you turn the services you’re currently doing into products, you’re not limited to charging for every hour that you work, and you can instead sell those products and make money while you sleep. There are many ways designers can generate a passive income, and today we’re bringing you some of the easiest and best ways to help you earn money while you sleep. 1. Do you know one aspect of design very well or are you an expert in your field? Tips for E-Book Writing: Come up with an idea, or look back on what you’ve already written.Answer the following questions: what is the goal of this book? Looking for More Information and Help on Writing Your First E-Book? 2. 3. 4.
RSS Feeds For Successful Artists RSS Feeds for Successful Artists Today, more than ever an artist needs to increase their exposure on the Internet in order to reach their target audience. An art website setup with an RSS feed can help an artist to achieve this goal. An RSS feed on an art website can increase the following and the coverage for the site owner. A website owner or a webmaster who has an RSS feature built into their website has an automatic and simple way to distribute any of their site’s new content to any interested persons, to other websites and finally as a way to distribute any new content to the social media universe. An RSS feed allows someone who is interested in you, your product or service to follow your website through a feed reader. 1. 2. Overall, RSS capabilities create one more tool that an artist can employ to help increase their website’s exposure, expand their followers and ultimately to gain a higher page rank with the major search engines. Guest author: John R.
Why You Should Be Sketching (Even if You Can’t Draw) The first part of any project, print or digital, should start on paper. Sketching can be an integral part of any design process — even if you can’t draw. But who needs to sketch? Just artists and illustrators are required to put pen to paper, right? Who Should be Sketching Everyone involved in the design process of anything, printed or digital. And you don’t have to know how to draw. How to Sketch The biggest pitfall of teaching someone to sketch, is helping him or her to understand that it’s just a simple drawing. What a sketch does is give you an idea of where the design might be headed. Sketches are often just preliminary suggestions of what a project can come to be as it develops throughout the design process and workflow. So how do you get started? Plan meetings where participants will be expected to sketch. Sketches can be a series of lines and shapes and words. It is important to distinguish the difference between doodling and sketching here. Benefits of Sketching Uses for Sketching
- Lori McNee Artist There are many benefits to you as an artist to start a blog. A blog is a great way to promote your art and you, to sell your art and to offer customer service. There is no better place to connect with a potential customer then on your blog. Your goal as an artist online: *To make your customer feel as comfortable with the process of getting to know you the artist, learning about your art and hopefully purchasing. You can see the power of bringing blogging to your art here with Lori, she is killing it on every level, having her blog has helped her get seen and approched by people that without her blog she may never have made the connections. Realize having a blog as an artist is no different from any other business having a blog. It really is simple to get your blog online, trust me, would this face lie? <<< Ok, now that you know the power and potential of having your own blog, let’s talk about how easy and inexpensive it is to set a blog up! Now YOU just need to Take Action!
10 Things Web Designers Should Know to Become a Master It is truly a nice feeling to be called a ‘Master’ at something. It gives value to your name, talent and skills. In addition to that, people will begin respecting you because of what you know about the field that you are an expert in. Truly, being called a master adds weight to your name, but there is more to value than just the name. What things web designers should know is vital here. As a master, you are afforded the respect you want because of WHAT YOU KNOW. It is in that sense that we have compiled this list of things a master should know. A Master Should Know What the Web is and How It Works Photo from Motherboard.vice.com The Web is the primary reason why you are a web designer. That is why, as a master web designer, you should understand how the Web works. Master this and you will find the world of web design easier to navigate. Amylove32 of WikiAnswers gives a very good point: A designer needs to understand the Web from an accessibility standpoint. Photo from pubpages.unh.edu See?
5 Small Business Mistakes To Avoid Guest author: Jason Dirks of Meylah.com What if it’s not clear that a mistake even exists? You may think your sales are just slow, but something is actually preventing you from selling your products and being successful. Here are 5 business mistakes that you’ll want to make sure you avoid: Mistake #1: Unclear Business Definition Ask yourself what you want from your business…and remember, an art business is a small business. Mistake #2: Undefined Target Market Yes, we all want to sell as much as possible to as many customers as possible, although success doesn’t usually happen like this. Mistake #3: No Value Proposition Sell a product or service that adds value. Mistake #4: No Differentiation Guess what…you’re a ME TOO! Mistake #5: Lack Of Commitment More often than not, this is the number one reason why most businesses don’t get off the ground. Making a commitment and sticking to it is a lot easier when it’s your passion because that desire rarely feels like work. 8 Tips to a Great Blog Post
Tam Duvarları Şenlendirmelik 10 Geek Poster (Tipografik!) Eğer “Ben Geek adamım, duvarım da Geek olur” diyorsanız, birileri size hizmet için erken kalkıp, erken yol almış. GeekMyWall adı altında Etsy’de satış yapan bir mağaza, birbirinden ünlü çizgi roman karakterlerini (ve daha fazlasını) tipografik hale sokup, poster olarak satıyor. 11”-17” boyutundaki posterler 25$ tutarında. V, Poison Ivy, Harley Quinn, Superman, Rorschach, Crow, zırla. Siteleri de şu. Orada tişört baskılarını da bulabiliyorsunuz. Bize sorarsanız bir odayı özelleştirmenin, “benim” demenin en güzel yolu posterler.
8 Ways to Improve Your Online Portfolio By Carolyn Edlund Is your website really showing your art to its best advantage? “Beaded Bead Bracelets” by artist Kathy King Photo Credit: Jason Dowdle I regularly review artist’s websites, and have visited thousands of them in the past couple of years. There is a huge disparity in online portfolios. Are you truly proud of the portfolio you are presenting to the public? 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. Vase (detail) by artist Charan Sachar 6. 7. 8. Artwork courtesy of Kathy King and Charan Sachar. Author Carolyn Edlund is the founder of Artsy Shark and a business consultant, helping artists and creative entrepreneurs market and sell their work more effectively. Share and Enjoy