Creative Entrepreneur

Back-to-School time is an exciting time even if it’s been years since you last stepped foot into a school of any kind. It’s a mindset that we’ve all grown up with. It’s a time for new clothes, fresh crayons and backpacks that express our latest interest. It’s also the best time to get super deals on school supplies that you can use in your home business. Here are our 5 favorite, must-have items:

There are the same number of days in the first half of the year as there are in the second half of the year, but it sure doesn't fell like it, does it? Once September hits it's like the days are only ten hours long and it has nothing to do with the creeping darkness. What it does have to do with is the back-to-school, Halloween, change in season, holiday havoc that leaves us breathless until we shout Happy New Year. It’s coming soon and there’s little you can do to avoid it. What you can do is use the month of August to prepare.

As a small business owner who has just learned how to go ahead and take a vacation from your business, there is nothing wrong with also including a little profitability during your time off (as long as you still get some down time too)! Depending on what your plans for vacationing include, you may be able to make a little or a lot of extra profit from your travels. Read on for some suggestions on how to turn that vacation into a money making venture:

With summer in full swing many people are thinking about getting out and exploring new lands or just finding some downtime to relax. If you are like one of several other entrepreneurs though, the idea of taking some downtime may seem a little daunting. The fact is, you may feel like you can’t actually take time off, but the reality is you can and you really should! Taking time off is good for the soul and is good for your business too, as you will be able to recharge and get ready to focus on your business when you return. Read on for tips on getting out of town when you own your own online business!

In the first part of this series, we talked about the importance of building an email list. Now, we need to talk about how to grow that list. The most common way to get people to sign up is to offer them a freebie in return. This is called a lead magnet and you can read more about that in the previous post. Here are a few additional ways to collect names for your email list.

I’m super when I’m not trying to be my own client. And I’m not alone in that. There are dozens of old sayings to back up this point; the best barber has the worst hair; the shoemaker’s children go barefoot. We’re always better at tending to others than we are about tending to ourselves. To solve this problem, you could spend the next ten years meditating quietly in a zen garden or you could join a mastermind group.

Jennifer Rapp Peterson explains why spending time and/or exhibiting with your artist friends is valuable for any creative entrepreneur.

A chance encounter led Seth Apter to the art world and now he's leading others down the same path with his international workshops and print publications. Today, he's here to talk about his work as a mixed media artist and how he balances both sides of running a creative business.

When Lillian Marek was a little girl, her mother would constantly tell her to put down that book and go outside and play. She'd obey - sort of. She'd go outside, but the book would go with her. Lillian's love of words led to a career in journalism which eventually led her to writing fiction books of her own.