Work for Exposure? ...Yes(!)*

*Under the right circumstances.

It happens all the time. You, as a creative professional, have content/services that you offer. However, the people who want those creative services don't seem to see the importance of paying for those services. Instead, they offer "exposure."

They'll do you a favor and use your work on their site (to their benefit), and, in return, your work will be "exposed" to their copious traffic -- which results in you rolling in money. Right?

Sometimes, I guess. But not often.

However, I'd like to propose a new way of handling a Work-for-Exposure offer.

Accept it.

However...

 Log in to read the entire post.

Saturday Deep Dive: Packing 'em in

Today's dive into the deeper archive of Webcomics.com comes from Nov. 23, 2010, and it features some useful tips on packing and shipping -- which, hopefully, you'll be experiencing more of during the holiday shopping season...

With the holiday season coming up, you're bound to be shipping a little more than usual, so it might be a good time to review your shipping technique.

Good shipping technique ensures that your customers will be happy when their merchandise arrives -- and that means you don't have to eat profits by re-sending books that were damaged in shipping.

Here are some tips.

Read the entire post and join the discussion.

Friday Archive Dive: Holiday Push

Today's post is from November 8, 2012, when I posted a guide to ending the year strong.

Well, folks, we're in November. The election is over, and the holiday advertising season is in full swing. Here are some things that ought to be on your radar.

Read the entire post and join the discussion.

Using Google Analytics to track your social-media effectiveness

We spend a significant amount of time discussing the importance of social media, but let's take a moment to see how to use Google Analytics to track how well your social media efforts have been -- and which efforts yield more results than others/

Open up Analytics and click on Acquisitions in the left-hand menu. Click All Referrals in the submenu.

Google Analytics displays referral traffic as one of several "mediums," including (but not limited to):

• Organic: Unpaid search
• CPC: Paid search
• Referral: A link from another Web site to yours
• None: Direct visit -- the user plugged your URL into their browser to get to your site.

I'm going to suggest looking at a relatively large data sample -- maybe three months or so -- to get a good look at your incoming traffic...

 Log in to read the entire post.

Epic Fail

If you're like most people, you've probably got the wrong attitude about failure. You think it's a bad thing. How bad? Your mistaken attitude will almost ensure that you'll fail even more. And even though failure itself isn't bad, continuous failure is.

Here's what I mean...

 Log in to read the entire post.