Everything takes time! (just a short rant)
This post might come off a little bit on the whiny side, but that’s not my intention at all, I just want to make things clear for everyone about what is going on at the other end of the screen.
To make things less personal and avoid “poor little you” sentiments I will just pretend I’m talking about somebody else!
Meet Bob!
Bob has many projects and goals that he wants to accomplish in his life, so much so that Bob sometimes even questions whether he will even be able to do it all in the little amount of time the human lifespan allows!
But despite what reality says, Bob keeps chippin’ away, bit by bit… or in this case; byte by byte, (pats himself on the shoulder for basic nerd pun).
Bob works at least 12 hours a day, including the weekends, yet he sees very little progress, the time is consumed by research, testing thousands of variations, correcting errors caused by tiredness, sometimes deleting days worth of work due to errors or better ideas, or walking back and forth in the hallway talking to himself to come up with solutions.
Every single project is like this.
There is a reason why his novel is still a work in progress after 1¤¤&#¤%/%& 3-4 years, it has been on-hold while he tried different things. He has remade his website a couple of times, world changing changes that changed the world made him make changes now rather than wait until the bubble bursts.
Yes, the Amazon bubble will burst eventually and authors will benefit more by having their own website as a platform to reach out to their readers and it will also be much better for readers to meet someplace with similar interests.
The technology that allows for this is getting better and better, soon it will only be a matter of pushing a button just to set it all up! I mean, have you seen what LuLu has been up to for the last couple of years? their API stuff is awesome and will eventually take over the self-publishing world, although it is a bit too advanced for me to use right now. I meant Bob, too advanced for Bob.
Anyways, let’s move on or we’ll be here all day, Bob has a lot of issues to deal with!
“The most common denominator among all “new” authors, designers, websites, game developers, musicians – basically anyone “new” in any field – is lack of content.”
– Bob
You heard the man, and I do agree, Bob’s website has been basically empty since 2013… yes really. Sure there were some legal text, some links to social media, some links to some minor works and some links to some paintings he had made. And that was all.
“It felt like a lot of seasoning but without the stake, the meat.”
– Bob
Okay, I admit, I’m having too much fun with this quote-block thing xD
OMG, there’s a GIF-block too?
Ok ok ok, let’s get back on track.
The big issue with authors or any creative artist is that big projects do take time, and you can’t really do anything else during that time, which will leave your website, social media, etc kinda empty… wait, just one more…
And that has been – and is currently – the problem with Bob’s website. He has many big projects and so his website will remain empty and feel “unattended”, not up to date, finito, dead…
…until he finishes his big projects.
But then moving on to the next big project will present the same issue all over again, although there would at least now exist something on the website, but returning visitors will quickly grow tired of seeing a website that has the same content and zero updates.
So, what is the solution?
The solution is simple, although hard to chew. Why is it hard to chew? Because it will take you away from your big project.
So what I recommend Bob do is to set some time each month to work on smaller projects, and not mind that his big projects will take a bit longer.
What this means is, if your novel takes 1 year to write, then write a short story each month or each quarter, even if that delays your novel by the same amount. So once you release your novel after 2 years, you would also have written 24 or 8 short stories!
And this is what Bob started doing, 8 months ago! Well, that and many other things, like the failed drop-shipping store that lasted 2 month before… well, he said it best in his own words:
“Drop shipping was great until a customer received a damaged product, being the middle-man between the manufacturer, courier and customer took all my time and energy to the point I felt like dropping dead in my bed.”
– Bob
Sheesh, Bob can be dramatic at times.
After the big mess, Bob decided to shut down the drop-shipping stuff. Only to be inspired with taking his designs even further, why just on hoodies and coffee mugs, why not…
“…why not on E V E R Y T H I N G?”
– Bob
Ok…
But Bob didn’t stop there, he developed his designs further for a month or two, and chose to focus on Print on Demand sites like Pixels.com and Redbubble who takes care of all the orders, handling and returns without bothering Bob.
This way Bob can focus on being productive!
And that’s where Bob is right now.
So, long story short:
Excuse the mess and lack of content, but I’m working on it!
Adding products, for example, takes 2-3 days, per product category.
I have to get the product images, and then rename them so I can find them later so they don’t get lost among thousands of other images. This usually takes a full day.
Then comes the creation of products for each design, adding text like product description, links etc, this process is very slow and can take up to two days, sometimes up to three days even!
For now, the plan is to only upload a couple of product categories, and then move on to something else. Otherwise I will be stuck here for months! And it is redundant because you can still find everything else at my storefronts anyways, so make sure you take a look: Redbubble, FineArtAmerica, Threadless, or Society6.
Well, that’s enough of a peek into what is currently going on at the other side of the screen, please make sure you bookmark my website and pay a visit now and then to check on how things are going along!
I am planning on live streaming, just need to fine-tune my schedule and test some stuff out, so stay tuned!
Peace & GOD bless!
P.S.
May I interest you in these?
What do you think? Do you have any content ideas that “Bob” could use for his website? Comment down below!
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