• Business Basics

    The Top 4 Mistakes Creative Entrepreneurs Make

    Feel Free To Share This   Let’s talk about some of the mistakes creative entrepreneurs make when building and growing their business. I know I have made some of these mistakes (maybe even all of them). We already know your a creative person. Heck, you have a ton of talent. You have honed your skills. You have way more ideas than you can ever implement. But fitting all that into running and growing your  business doesn’t seem to be working. So what is the problem?

  • Business Basics

    18 Places to Find Images To Use On Your Blog

    Feel free to share this post with your friends!     I love photography. Capturing the moment or the scene or even a still life is fascinating.  But sometimes taking the perfect photograph can be difficult. Maybe you just don’t have time. Or the subject isn’t something you can easily provide a photo for. That’s why it’s important to have access to online sources where you can either purchase or use free the stock images the sites offer. (and when you do have the time to take your own photos, you can submit them to some of these sites for pay:)) When using stock images be sure to read each sites terms of use. Some images can be used freely without providing attribution where it came…

  • Business Basics

    Finding Your Way Through the Fear

    Go ahead and share this post if you find it beneficial.     Well it’s been quite a week here already! Big snowstorm hit Monday night, giving us 12 inches of snow on top of the 12 already on the ground. It’s a heavy wet snow, and strong winds so we had major drifts across all the roads. On top of that our power went out at 9:30 am Tuesday and wasn’t restored until 8:32 on Wednesday. Needless to say didn’t get my blog post out.   Any way, today I wanted to touch on a topic that you might be struggling with.   It has to do with fear of going after what you want. It might be you are afraid of succeeding or failing,…

  • Business Basics

    Business Tools Worth The Money When Starting An Online Business on a Budget

    Go ahead and share this post if you like it!   When I first started my online writing and crafting business, I had very little money to spare. So I built a website (this is back before the ease of WordPress, Yea I have been around that long!) using free web builders. I think my first one was with Yahoo’s free web builder that included the shopping cart. I was selling handmade custom embroidery baby items at the time so I needed some way to for customers to get my products.  At the time, it served it’s purpose. Of course, now you can use Etsy.com for your marketing but you still need a site of your own. If I was starting again, though, I would spend…

  • Content

    Will the Challenge Be Worth It?

    On Monday, I will be taking part in Tiffany Dow’s freaking fantastic blog and traffic 30 day challenge. Will it be worth my time? I believe it will. It will definitely be out of my comfort zone. I am one of those bloggers who blogs only when I have something to say or when the time permits. But this year is all about pushing myself to the next level, to achieve the things I really want to see happen in my business and my life. Any whoo it begins on Monday Feb. 25 . I’d be thrilled if you stopped in to see how I’m doing. My goal is to bring you more great information and how to’s  so hopefully you will benefit from this challenge…

  • Book Creation

    Writing Exercises to Break Writer’s Block

    Writing Exercises to Break Writer’s Block Writer’s block. It’s one of those things that happens to many writer’s when they least expect it. I know it’s happened to me. I can have dozens of story and blog post ideas floating around in my brain at almost a constant rate  but then I sit down to write and not one single word will flow from my thoughts to my fingers. It’s like someone plugged the drain. I just can’t seem to get the story down. One way I have found to break the block is to do writing exercises. These are simple 5 minute writing drills to help you clear your mind. This is free-style writing. Don’t worry if the writing doesn’t make sense or if your…

  • Content

    Creating Your Book: How to Find Time For Writing

    Creating your book manuscript  involves taking the time to do the writing. That means, for me, to set aside time every day to do some daily writing on the book. In this post, I mentioned I was starting my kindle publishing career with a short story. While I am determined to get a book published I have been following along with Geoff Shaw’s Kindling course, so writing daily is necessary to have a book I can publish soon. It’s coming along. I have tried to write at least  700 words a day. Some days it’s been less some days more but I hope, barring no major interruptions, I will have the first draft finished by weekend. This becoming a published author is both exciting and scary.…

  • Content

    How to Research Your Content

    How to Research Your Content How to research for the content of your book or blog writing seems to be a subject that is being overlooked by many wannabe authors. Being a writer, one of my favorite parts of the writing process is the research. I love learning about new topics, history and places. Many blog posts, eBooks and even some self-published books  I have read online, though, seem to have skipped this step. Or maybe the author just doesn’t understand what good research is. Now if you already know your subject matter well or are an expert yourself, you won’t need to do much research. This post is for those who are writing on a subject they want to know more about, but haven’t become…