The internet has brought an enormous wealth of tools to help individuals compete on an even playing field with other artist. TalentSpeaks.com is a place to share the tools to really Do It Yourself. Without further adieu, I give you my first round up of tools and ideas to make your life as an artist in the 21st century easier.
Get a Domain: Nobody remembers a long educational .edu web address, and few remember a myspace.com style address. Make finding you, your information and art as easy as possible. Grab a fun, memorable and preferably short domain name. There are 100’s of ways to register domain names, my favorite is GoDaddy.com– you can setup an email address a your domain name as well so you’ll never have to share an embarrassing @aol or @yahoo.com email again. $9 to $30 a year depending your plan is not a lot to pay for this kind of self-branding.
Send Large Files: Everyones done it, sent a file and had it bounce back from someone’s email box because it was too large. If you’re sending a file larger than 10 megs, I recommend using DropSend.com, a free service that will let you send files to people without bogging down inboxes. They’ll simply receive a notification and a link to download, very simple and incredibly effective!
Start A Blog: Actually, I take that back– Start a blog only if you have something to say. Art to post every day? Stories to share? Dates of shows? If you start a blog make sure to update it at least 1-2 times daily to keep your audience pleased. There’s nothing worse than a dormant blog. There are dozens of free blogging services from Blogger.com to Wordpress.com, sign up and get your blog masked and forwarding with your domain name so when you send someone to your website there is dynamic and constantly changing content.
Network: At least until theInspirit talent network launches, you’ll have to make due with other networking sites. Get profiles setup on MySpace.com, Facebook.com, etc and start making friends. Share art, design, show dates and more– the worst case scenario is that a few people pass by and like your work. The best case? You make a connection that can turn into a real profitable business contact.
Send and Store Photos: Stop sending huge emails with photos attached by using a site like Flickr.com. Their free service is great, the premium service is even better.
Get Paid: Track payments and send invoices and get paid with the best free invoicing site in the world: BlinkSale.com
Josh Spear is the publisher and editor in chief of JoshSpear.com, one of the worlds most popular trend spotting blogs. It’s considered an authoritative souce regarding trends, emerging technology and marketing among industry advertisers, marketers and brand managers. Josh is also the Managing Director of his boutique and no-holds-barred style consulting agency, Spear Creative Group.
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December 19th, 2006 at 3:34 am
great advice
December 23rd, 2006 at 4:30 am
DIY is also the way to go when the built-in spell-checker proves fickle. “Without further adieu…” Much ado about nothing, perhaps. “You’ll have to make due…” I sound snarky, but you’ll have to make do with just a touch of pedantry from a long-time subscriber to JoshSpear.Com!
December 26th, 2006 at 11:37 am
Good tools on and all. If you’re having a hard time finding a good domain name, the best tool I’ve found is Instant Domain Search.
Glad to see you’ve got a blog up and running too. I’m looking forward to seeing your new app when it launches.
January 22nd, 2007 at 6:53 am
very creative and artistic. keep it up.
February 27th, 2007 at 6:53 am
Yes, the article indeed provides a useful information. Even I use godaddy as as domain registrar . Their service is good and the domains at godaddy at cheaper price.
February 27th, 2007 at 7:22 pm
I like the dropsend one…didn’t know such a thing existed. Useful for sending stuff when people have cheap emails that don’t allow large attachments.
June 17th, 2007 at 7:19 am
This is exactly what I expected to find out after reading the title DIY Tools: Roundup One. Thanks for informative article
July 16th, 2007 at 2:45 am
I try flickr. It is great…very easy to use and navigate. Thank you Josh for your advice.