Bernskiold Media » Business

Getting A Passive Incoming Going Part 3: eBooks and Books

Erik Bernskiold — Mon, 07 Sep 2009 12:00:51 +0000

In the two previous parts, we’ve talked about things you can do if you are a designer or a photographer. In the final part I wanted to talk about ways you can get a passive income going if you know how to write and are an expert on a subject. Today, we are talking eBooks, books and articles!

Requirements

If the requirements for the two past weeks have been that you should been a good designer/photographer, things won’t change much for this week. In order to earn some passive income in this field, you need to be a good writer and be an expert on one or more subjects.

What to expect?

Book sales are not known to make anyone a fortune and if you only look at book sales vs. time spent, it almost never equals (at least not in the technology field). What a book can do for you, is get you a lot of great marketing. Just by being able to say that you have written a book on the subject you practice will get everyone’s attention.

Think about the marketing aspect as well. What better way is there to get your name out there than having it on a book that is in store both online and in book stores?

It takes time!

Writing a book takes time. It takes time to research it, write it and put it together. If you are lucky enough to get a publisher, you will save some work when it comes to editing it (most of the time) but if you are going to do self-publishing, you will need to remember that it takes even more time. You should also be prepared to (unless you are a good designer) get many to proofread it and someone to design the actual book layout!

Is it worth it?

In the end, you will have to weigh the good (you get great marketing) against the bad (takes up a lot of time) and decide for yourself. It is a kicker when it is finished and you have a book, with your name on it, in bookshelves however!

Getting A Passive Income Going Part 2: Stock Work

Erik Bernskiold — Mon, 31 Aug 2009 12:00:03 +0000

Last week we went through some different options if you want to start getting a passive income, as a designer by doing templates. This week, we are going to focus more specifically on stock work, for both photographers and designers. I am going to define the stock work today as the smaller bits that are used in larger projects, like photos, videos or buttons. You name it!

Photographer: Stock Photography

There is a big market in stock photography, especially microstock. Before you start shooting for stock photography websites, you will have to have understood and agreed upon the basic principle that the idea here is to sell in volume, not make a large sale to a magazine and earn a lot! There has been much debate over this recently but as long as you are in on the deal from the start, you know what to expect!

What to Shoot?

You want to try to shoot scenes, preferably of what the demand is. Browse through some different stock websites and have a look. What are there loads of different images for and what are there fewer? You will probably want to get shooting scenes that do not have as much of a variety already!

Camera? Settings? Resolution?

You ideally want to have as large files as possible. Many stock photo websites force a restriction, where they will not accept files under a certain pixel size. They usually also have a lot of guidelines as to which images they will accept in terms of noise and artifacts. Generally though, noise is bad as always!

Videographer: Stock Videography

There is also a lot of demand for stock videos out there although there isn’t as many, microstock websites for video. As I am not a videographer myself, I don’t have much experience with stock videography, but in the basics, the same as for stock photography do apply! It is the same principle! What is nice here though, is that intro effects and animations are great to sell! EVen if you don’t shoot with a video camera, but work inside of an application like After Effects, you can do video stock videography!

Designer: Stock Work

While the principle is the same, it differs just a bit for designers selling buttons, banners and graphical elements. Website elements are usually the things that sell the easiest and these need to be top-notch in terms of quality.

As a designer, you don’t really have that much to think about in terms of resolution. What you want to think about is colors and variations. If you are selling a button, make sure to include a lot of variations of the same button. If you do this, the chances of the button working with someone’s website is much larger which increases your chances to more sales!

Good Websites

Photography

Videography

Designers

Getting A Passive Income Going Part 1: Templates

Erik Bernskiold — Mon, 24 Aug 2009 12:00:25 +0000

As a creative professional, we are at a great spot of making passive income, especially as designers! This week, I’m starting a series about getting a passive income going; income that will keep coming in without you doing anything after the initial push! For this first week, we are going to talk about templates!

What Do I Mean By Templates?

When I say templates here, I mean not stock photography and elements that can be used into putting together an artwork (that is for next week), but more the finished designs that are used by people. For example, if you are a web designer, you can create a website template so that people can use it for their websites.

Now, this can also be other types of templates. Print templates (brochures, letters, tri-folds, etc.), advertisement banners and so on!

What To Think About?

The most important thing when designing a template, in my opinion, is of course that it needs to look great. Nowadays, no person will really buy a template that isn’t top-notch all through. Another important thing, especially if you are selling a complete website template, is that it needs to be coded very well, in an easy to read manner. It is better to over-comment the code, than not to do it at all.

When you purchase a template, you often want the ability to easily customize it. You do after all, purchase the template in knowledge that everyone will be able to purchase it. If you send with the source Photoshop file, make sure it is easy to understand, with layer groups and names so that you can easily modify what you want!

Instructions are key! You will definitely want to send along detailed instructions on how to modify and customize the template (or use it). The more value you can pack in, the happier the customer will be and maybe he/she will purchase more of your work in the future, or even hire you to do custom work! You never know!

Sites You Can Sell At

My favorite site to sell templates at is in the Envato Marketplace, Theme Forest. They have a quality system and a great reputation. They also just allow really good work in there, so visitors only come there for really great work. When it comes to templates, I work fully with Theme Forest as it is the simplest and easiest method for me.

Freelancing And Attending School

Erik Bernskiold — Mon, 17 Aug 2009 11:00:45 +0000

Time has come to enter one of the most difficult topics that I know about myself. Being both a freelancer in several fields and attending school, there is quite a lot to fit together into just 24 hours (including the well needed sleep). Some would say that I myself take on a lot (you know who you are), but in the end, if you just learn to plan it out in a good way, it can work out. Today, I’m going to share my experiences in the field.

Background: What I do!

Perhaps it isn’t such a bad idea to start by sharing what I do on a daily basis so that you know what I try to plan into my days. My normal week includes five days of school, pretty much 8 in the morning to 3 or 4 in the afternoon. There needs to be quite some time for homework on top of that as well. Now, that is school. As you perhaps have gathered, I run this blog and also MacAppZone (in Bernskiold Media Group) with two podcasts (one per site), as well as my design business XLD Studios. As if that wasn’t enough, I also play the Pipe Organ and the Flute (now that I write it out, it does sound like a lot!).

All that needs to go into my daily routine, coupled with a good nights sleep. If there is one thing I’m especially determined about, is not to let my sleep suffer. I know it’ll just make me stressed, tired and grumpy.

Solution: How I Do It – Planning Methods

The key for me, to plan it, is to force myself into become an excellent planner. I’m nowhere near excellent at the moment, but I am getting better at it. Almost by nature, you’re a bad planner in this age and admittedly, going against this is necessary.

I rely heavily on two systems. My calendar and my to-do list.

In my calendar (iCal, syncing with my iPhone as well as Google Calendar and Mobile Me) I have all fixed things that take up a fixed amount of time. I have all my classes in there, all other activities that have fixed times (organ practicing times, meetings etc.) as well as some general sweeping things that applies specifically to a period of time.

As a to-do list I use Things both on my Mac and my iPhone. In there I keep all things that I need to do and try to do this according to the Getting Things Done method. Say I get Maths homework. I immediately enter that in my calendar, right from my phone while I’m in class. It then shows up on my computer when I get home and sync the things libraries.

Managing the Blog/Sites

I’ve got a fixed writing schedule on both of the sites (this and MacAppZone). I write all articles on Friday/Saturday and post them up and schedule them on Saturday, the one exception being the Wednesday News (which may sometimes be cancelled due to my workload on Tuesday evenings, as I am sure you’ve noticed). By having the articles written, I can completely take my mind of these, rather stressful parts, the rest of the week.

I also try to record my Appthroughs every two weeks, if not every month, when I’ve got a little less homework to do. These I do any time during the week when I get time over. I try to record in batch so that I have a few to select from. The same goes for the now monthly Creative Suite Tips and Tricks. I record all in batch so that I don’t need to have the burden to record every week, which never seem to work out anyway!

Managing the Business

After consolidating the blogs and sites to Friday evening and Saturday, I actually have quite a lot of time to focus on the design business (I guess it varies on the definition of a lot of time…). After making sure I’ve got school and homework covered, I have got time to work on client projects.

Putting It All Together

The hardest part can be putting all these separate practices together. Fixed events like school and my organ practice times are fixed and I want to make sure I can have my best attention at these times, to save me time in the long run!

Doing homework efficiently and trying to do some things in advance, helps me keep busy weeks organized. Speaking of busy weeks, when I know there is going to be a busy week, I make sure to blank that out for client projects and try to write an extra article or two per week the weeks before, so that I don’t have to stress with that.

If you can push yourself into working before deadlines, instead of just at them, this can work out. I am by no means following my practice fully myself, but I try my best to improve this every week, and as school is just about to start. Now is the best time to make sure I do it, and save me a lot of stress!

The Importance Of a “Usergroup”

Erik Bernskiold — Mon, 03 Aug 2009 11:00:28 +0000

Do you belong to a usergroup? Whether it is online or actually getting together with a bunch of people, a usergroup can do a lot for you. Chances are that you after a while stick to standards that you develop and become fixed in your habits which might cause your work to appear stunningly similar. If that might be the case, read on and join a usergroup.

Online or In-Person

It doesn’t really matter if you join an online or in-person usergroup for this first purpose. I would recommend that you join both! Nothing beats chatting away with people (who will become friends) in-person instead of just at the computer. If you are a freelancer, chances are that you work alone a lot of the time. If you are, then take the chance to be able to meet other people as well!

An online community is always a no-brainer to join. There are some associations that you can join, with great forums. I’m a member of the National Association of Photoshop Professionals, a great resource for design, photoshop and photography. There is also an amazing members only forum where you can get help with just about anything.

There are also some great forums that you can be a part of. Just do a google search on your subject of interest. At the bottom of this article, I’ve listed a bunch of great forums for different topics!

Sharing Is Improving

By sharing your work with like-minded, creative professionals, you will get critiques and comments that, while they may hurt at first, will drastically improve your work and make you a much better artist and designer/photographer/illustrator, or whatever your profession is. Even if you are a writer, you can probably find some writer communities to get feedback, critique and comments on your work that you produce.

The point here is, just do it! Join either an online or in-person usergroup, or why not both! You will not regret it once you notice a) how much better you become and b) how much fun you have!

List Of Commmunities

Photography

Design

The Client Is Always Right

Erik Bernskiold — Mon, 27 Jul 2009 10:00:23 +0000

There is an old saying that we’ve all heard many times before. It goes: “The Client Is Always Right”. It shapes us when we go shopping, and it shapes us when we begin to sell things as well. Naturally the client should be pleased! However, I’ve started to notice a decrease in this mentality in the design business to where the client is a “stupid person” who just makes it harder for us. I would like to compare and disagree with this mentality.

Comparing With Selling In Store

Let’s compare doing a web design by selling in a store first. I work in a camera store a bit, and this being technologically focused, many don’t know a first about what they want or what they should choose when purchasing a new camera.

I as the seller, know the ins and outs of all the models, comparing them to the others, know the differences, weaknesses, strengths and so on. Frankly, I don’t blame my customer for not knowing what I do when they come to purchase a camera.

Why Should They Know — They Are Hiring Us

As I said, I don’t blame my customers in the camera store for not knowing everything about the camera they are looking it or can compare the three in detail.

In the same way, I don’t blame my web design clients. They’ve had the good sense to come and hire me, just because they know that they don’t know enough about design.

“The Client Is Always Right”

When doing any design work, I’ve found that every client has some really good thoughts only that he or she might not be able to express them as good as we would have liked. It may take some dragging before you get to the good stuff.

As I wouldn’t get frustrated when that happened in the store and keep my calm (there is just no other way to do it in a store), I shouldn’t when I deal with design clients, albeit over email. In the end, the only thing that keeps us as designs alive are our clients.

Use Calendars to Schedule

Erik Bernskiold — Mon, 20 Jul 2009 11:00:35 +0000

I used to have my days very relaxed during the time that I would get the opportunity to work full day at freelance projects. The day would be going as it went and usually had no type of schedule at all. At the beginning of this year, I talked here on the site a bit about finding a new workflow type (and batch processing) and with that, how to re-think how my working days look. Now when I’ve had more time to work through this and been in it for a while, let me share how I am now using my calendar to schedule my working days.

Plan Important Day Events

For all the days that I have school, I have my entire schedule in iCal (my calendar application of choice) and synced to my iPhone. Even though classes are far more strict in school, I try to replicate a bit of the mindset into my workday.

The first thing I plan out in my schedule is of course at what time I need to be up and working. It depends on the amount of work I need to do. Sometimes I work longer into the night (because of timezones and contact with the US that way) or I get up earlier in the morning.

When I’ve decided that, I set up a lunch hour. What time I’m supposed to get some lunch. I also make sure to eat it away from the computer to make sure it really gets to be a break from work.

If you have other things as appointments, these might control the work day and lunch time and should definitely go right in at the start, taking into account the time required to get there.

Do or Don’t Plan Time For Projects

What I typically don’t do is plan in certain times in the day that I am going to be working on a certain project. This is mainly because my mind shifts a lot and at that specified time, I may not be able to work at that certain project, but another one. What I’ll do however is plan in the time that I’m going to record, if that is on the to-do list.

With all the other projects, I just use the time not planned for anything else to work on these in the order that I chose then and there. For the project stuff, I also use a to-do list more than my calendar for the reasons I mentioned previously; I pretty much cannot commit to that certain time.

New Project? Ask, Ask, Ask

Erik Bernskiold — Mon, 13 Jul 2009 11:00:49 +0000

All the time as a creative professional, clients expect you to straight off know what they want and many continue to do so through the whole process. Between you and me, I know we cannot read minds and therefore we have a great tool that can help us gather as much information as possible before committing to a new project. Questions.

Client Questionnaire

I’ve got a standard questionnaire written down, with questions that I usually ask before I start a project. Having a set of questions like this can usually tell a lot about the project as a whole and get you the information that you need, instead of just asking them to provide as much information as they can (which is a hard task).

Below you can see some of the questions that I can ask a new client:

What is your website’s nature? (pick only one)
- Business to Business
- Business to Consumer
- Combination
- Branding
What is the purpose of your website?
What are the goals with the website?
What are the target demographic?
Do you have a business logo?
Are you looking for us to brand your website (new logo for example)?
Font Style Choice (multiple picks allowed)
- Arial
- Times
- Courier
- Georgia
- Verdana
- Geneva
Do you have a colour scheme you would like to use?
List a few websites you find compelling and note why.
Will this site use existing content?
Are there any elements you wish to have on every page? Which?
What are your short-term marketing goals?
How will the site help to meet them?
Do you have a marketing strategy for the site?
Who will do the updating of the website?
Do you want to be able to update the website through an online control panel (using a Word-like interface)?
Are you interested in our hosting services?
Target date for the website to be finished (if applicable)?
Do you have a special budget set?
Other

Save the Information

When you get questions back, don’t forget to save them in a good place. I prefer a database where I keep all client information as well as project statuses.

Reasons For Outsourcing Work

Erik Bernskiold — Mon, 06 Jul 2009 11:44:26 +0000

Something that could potentially be good for your business and your health is to outsource some work to a third-party. At a start-up time, you might not want to take on an employee with all the obligations it brings, although you still want to get that extra thing done that you don’t have the time to do. It might also be the case that you want to get your work burden down to a lower level if there is much to do. In these cases, outsourcing part or the work can be a good idea.

You Can Become Less Stressed

Perhaps the best part with outsourcing a part of your project is that you can have more time to work on other parts. If a certain part is making you super stressed, hire someone to do it for you. This is something you’ll need to think about when estimating preferably, at the start of the project, so that you still have money left in the end for yourself.

Get More Things Done

You can get more things done at the same time if you outsource parts of your project. You’ll again need to think about the costs there and be fine with the fact that you will not get as much at the end. Just think about the scenario that you have four projects running, that suddenly all needs urgent attention in a certain stage. Might be worth it with the outsourcing.

Tip: Look For Start-Up/Learning Freelancers

I know a couple of people who are just starting out and learning the trade, in my case, web design. You can do them a big favor by outsourcing parts of your project to them. You should only do this of course if you are confident that they can get it done right in the timeframe required.

Planning For Vacations To Get It

Erik Bernskiold — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 11:00:34 +0000

It is summertime and that can be a complex time for being a freelancer. On the flip side, we have the ability to take out our vacation whenever we want, however, on the down side, vacations can be hard to schedule. Being in the middle of this scheduling period myself, both as a blog writer and designer, I’m going to share some tips on how you can gear up for a vacation and take some time off!

Blog Writer

As a blog writer, you have a big advantage unless you cover breaking news stories. You can schedule posts. I’m sure you might already to that on a weekly basis already so it won’t be much new things other than the fact that you might do it for two weeks in a row. Think about topics well in advance, several weeks before the time you plan to go away (at least a couple), and start to write the articles for those weeks. You’ll be doing double writing for some time, but just take the time and do it well in advance! It’ll lower the stress levels later on.
Currently what I am thinking about myself is regarding the social media. It is really the first major summer holiday time that we’ve had the big influence in Twitter for example and how to manage it while you are away is now a new problem that you haven’t really been faced before. I don’t believe that scheduling tweets over the day is the way to go. I’ll even go as far as saying it is destroying the principals of Twitter. I very well think that you can have an automatically posted tweet when a new post goes live (which I have myself). What I am thinking of doing is ask some friends to help me promote some of the tweets by retweeting and generally linking for me. Otherwise, depending on the vacation, I might log into Twitter too as it is more of a fun thing than a work related thing for me. You can also just announce that you go away and won’t be tweeting for a while (but be mindful of the fact that burglars could read your Twitter).
As for emails, comments, possible advertisement requests and more you might get. I’d just set up an auto-responder on my email address announcing that I am on vacation and when I am returning, thanking them for the email. It’s the age-old trick that still has a good purpose.

Web Designer

Here it gets a bit more tricky. When being a designer, developer, writer or anyone who has to look after clients, you have deadlines to meet and clients to make happy. You might also have incoming estimates that, if they don’t get a quick reply, might not opt to wait. I would do a couple of things to prepare here as well.

As before, with the email, you are probably going to have to put an auto-responder on your email account saying that you are on vacation and when you are going to be returning. You might not think it, but a lot of clients will understand it. The ones that don’t you may not want to work with either way.
Make sure to plan out a schedule for what you want to have done by when and alert your client about the fact that you are going to be away, well in advance. Let him/her know the planned process and try to make it as good as you can. Preferably, have your vacation planned out a long time in advance so that you know when it crops up that your client might just have to expect that week or two delay in the project, or not scheduling anything then at all.

Planning is the key for any type of freelancer or blogger. If you carefully schedule and plan your regular activities during this/these week(s) you are going to be away, you can likely have a relaxing vacation without needing to check back on everything all the time. The most important thing is that you can get some time off, fully off, and recharge your batteries.