Category Archives: Funding for Creatives

Redbubble update!

(Bear in mind, I’m trying out the new editor, this is very interesting but uh, hard to get used to, haha.)

I’m very pleased to report that my first valiant attempt at a complex, seamless repeating pattern was a success! Eventually! I’m selling it on some items right now as a pattern on Redbubble and may choose to do a non-pattern version soon as well. Here’s a preview that shows the three background color options that I’m offering with it!

tricolor seamless pattern containing bones, eyes, teeth, rabbits, bees, sharks, nautilus, deer, axolotl
Screencap of a color example for my first-ever pattern on redbubble, starring: the cast of the spacedad novel I’m working on!

You can take a look at the pattern itself on my redbubble account, here!

Udemy SEO course by Moz review!

Alright well! Obviously with Halloween and various personal events and whatnot, it took longer than I expected to finish the course I mentioned, BUT:

Do I Recommend This Course: A Short Essay By Me, A Sharo

Yes actually! Okay, does it assume that you already know some basic, introductory-level terms and phrases and programs/services? Yes. I feel like a link to a glossary or even an Intro-to-Intro lecture explaining some of these basics would have been super useful, and since there wasn’t one I’ve basically been going back over my notes highlighting things I don’t immediately understand so I can research them on my own. A level-zero beginner like me should have probably looked for an even more basic course first- however, none of the content of the lectures was so incomprehensible that I couldn’t follow along with the concepts, despite having blank patches here and there. Somebody who’s even very slightly more educated than I am about this subject will not have this problem.

One thing that was a little confusing a handful of times was that they referenced rules, programs, or sites that might not apply anymore- some of this content is from as far back as 2014, and for a lecture series that mentions periodically that rules and practices are constantly shifting or changing, this is kind of disheartening. At one point they mention using Google Plus to see if somebody is a trustworthy subject matter expert like… come on bruh, haha… that’s not a sentence that aged well.

Is this all information that artists, especially artists with web-based businesses, can use? Yeah I think so! I’ve started making changes to this site based on the info in the lecture course, and while it’s too early to tell if it’s having the kinds of effects I’m looking for, I was hit with a number of ideas for ways SEO type info can help with future projects and business ventures. Is this course going to be the THING that gets your art out there in a way that actually means making the kinds of sales you’d need to survive AS an artist?

Hrm, we’ll see, of course. But here’s the link again, since it certainly can’t hurt to learn this info! As well, I noticed that when I finished the course, I got this thing that popped up that said I could get credits that could go toward paid courses (most of the courses on Udemy seem to be paid, but this one is free.) However, I did not do the thing that would have led to the free course credits, so, ahaha, maybe the next course I do will have that same popup and I can put the link here so people can sign up for other, similarly free courses through me. I’m actually enrolled in a couple other short courses right now, so we’ll see how that all goes!

 

Just a quick side note-

-I decided to take an introductory online course for SEO on udemy and I’m really enjoying learning again. It’s been eight and a half years since I was in a college class or had to really learn anything in earnest, outside of small, minor skills or trivia here and there.

But anyway! SEO is so far really interesting, because it’s kind of hitting that middle ground between “marketing for humans” and “learning how computers think,” which are both subjects I’m very interested in. Plus, it’s giving me a look at skills that I definitely will need and want to have for if/when I manage to start that business I’ve been thinking about starting. And even before that, I think it’s the kind of skillset that a lot of artists could definitely benefit from having both in regards to their personal brand and in gaining access to the types of valuable work that can be done remotely or as a single contracted gig.

I’m about 65% through the course itself (it’s 3.5 hours long, but I haven’t been able to sit through it all in one go due to various reasons) and I think that someone who has more experience with SEO would definitely be able to get through the whole thing in less than a day. But! For someone like me, who has zero prior knowledge or experience other than knowing what SEO is conceptually, having it in this form is really helpful- I’m able to pause it and rewind to take down more accurate notes, and giving myself time between the lectures is giving me a chance to review previous notes and try to look up answers to questions I had about some basics that seemed to be understood implicitly.

If you’re not like me and don’t have to take physical paper notes in order to hammer in the lesson though, this is the sort of thing you could do on your bed at any time of the day or night. It also looks like there are paid courses for the same kind of thing available, too- not sure if those come with an “official” certification or if, like the free course, there’s an “unofficial” certification you can get for them, or if there’s a real or major difference in terms of skill level/job attractiveness between the two. I’ll post a more full review along with a link to the course once I’m done!

KO-FI Art Reward Roundup!

A quick update! Thanks to my lovely ko-fi contributors, my original goal was met, so I’ve gone ahead and updated my page to reflect the new goal. At this time there are still about 2 weeks left for my “donate to my kofi and get a drawing” offer, so anybody itching to get $3 worth of drawing out of me should head there now and see about chipping in for the current goal!

Please note: “Six Sights” and all versions of the Six Sights Stan are from/inspired by A Thousand Natural Shocks by WDW/Dubs!

Sharo’s Creative Funding Chronicles Pt 6

Ugh! Alright, here for another update on this venture.

So 2 months ago, almost exactly, I decided to go for something that might help me get healthier as well as help me earn money, and after some debate on what would work the best I went with Sweatcoin.

There are… a number of issues with attempting to use this as a platform to earn money. The first and biggest issue is that there is simply no actual way to translate earnings into cash- theoretically, if you walk the maximum amount of steps every day for 18 months, you should be able to turn the accumulated coins in for 1000$ in Paypal Cash, which is a good chunk of money but not really very time-effective for an 18 month period. Being able to earn faster depends on 1. having a large number of friends willing to sign up and use the app so you can receive bonuses, 2. being willing to use some amount of your earnings per month to “upgrade” your account so you can earn more than the maximum number of coins per day, and 3. being physically able to walk 10000 steps or more per day.

I think on my best day I got up to 8000 steps at a theme park, but it has trouble/often can’t count steps that happen inside buildings, and any amount of physical disability (asthma, mobility/joint issues, etc) limits your ability to use this app productively. There’s also another significant drawback- it takes up a HUGE amount of space on my (admittedly, several years old) phone, and eats up data and battery life like candy.

Ultimately, I think- if you already walk a couple miles a day outside with your newer phone on data, then this app may be beneficial to you in the very long run. But as far as alternative fundraising for creative professionals goes, this is essentially just a very depressing stepcounter that means you can’t also play Pokemon Go.

I’m probably going to uninstall it when I have a minute.

Sharo’s Creative Funding Chronicles Pt. 5

Not a huge update! Mostly that after a couple weeks of total inactivity I decided to try to play Lucktastic one more time, because I was super close to getting enough points for a $15 Restaurants.com gift card. And I got the points, I clicked redeem- it asked me to log in again because apparently I had to log back in to prove I was a registered user… so, yeah, I deleted it.

Actually, because my friend is going to Las Vegas, NV for Electric Daisy Carnival (?) this week, and promised me to bring back ANY SOUVENIR I WANT if I prove that I downloaded Tinder and spoke to at least five different people, I used the newly freed-up space to download Tinder. Apparently it saved all my settings from that time two years ago when I reconnected with someone I dated in high school and was too awkward to tell him that I couldn’t meet him because I was in recovery for major surgery so my solution was to delete the app. So all my photos are 2+ years out of date!

It’s not gonna be enjoyable lmao but I’m gonna GET that cool Las Vegas keychain and postcard that I want assuming she doesn’t forget, which is forgivable as I expect her to be. . . . . busy.

KO Trivia is still my favorite right now. I’m still learning how to maximize my trivia knowledge but 2-5 dollars a week isn’t a terrible reward for doing something I’d want to do anyway.

Ah well! Here’s hoping May contains a few good surprises for me!

Small site update!

I have decided, after some debate, to go ahead and temporarily re-open my Redbubble account- this, you’ll notice, has some different artworks on it, and I may decide at a future date to close it back down, but for now I’m hoping to use it to gauge interest in creating prints and printed works in the future.

I have also updated my About Me page to include links to my Patreon and my Redbubble accounts! Please let me know what you think!

Sharo’s Creative Funding Chronicles Pt 4

WELL… HM.

Total Trivia is not really working out as anything other than a warmup for closely related (owned by the same company if I am reading this correctly) KO Trivia, which is an elimination-style trivia tournament app that mostly uses the same questions and answers as Total Trivia. I’ve been mildly successful- I’ve won small amounts of money, maybe 5-6 dollars total when it’s all added up over the past two weeks- and it’s something I see myself continuing to utilize. Still not a perfect fundraiser, but it seems like if you’re 100% lucky with the answers you could theoretically win something like 26 dollars a day not counting prizes that are smaller than a dollar or ‘intangible’ like extra lives. In April they had regular larger tournaments, which might not be available during May because I haven’t noticed any, but you could win the larger tournaments for 100$ a day, 1000$ a week, or 10000$ per month. If that’s a regular feature, that’d be pretty great. Also, you watch an advertisement to gain access to the trivia tournament, so literally all play is free, and you can watch an ad for a second life- meaning you’d only need to use any of your stored lives if it’s something you really want a third life for.

I’d recommend it to anybody who wants to make a little chunk of money on lunch breaks or after work, since even if you lose, you’re building the skills for earning more lives for the stockpile later.

Other tidbits: opened up a Fiverr account, not feelin’ extraordinarily hopeful since the rates I charge on it are the same as the rates I charged for Everybody Loves Chlamydia, but we’ll see. I’m thinking of opening up an Etsy store but my crafting attempts keep getting thwarted- I’m looking at specifically painting/decoupaging little wooden boxes for this, maybe some other types of things. Again, we’ll see!

Sharo’s Creative Funding Chronicles Pt: 3

Well, I don’t know. My initial hope that Lucktastic would become some kind of small-scale income generator- and then later resignation that it would turn into a moderately steady source of entertainment- has finally crumbled into the dust of boredom. It’s become something of a thankless chore. I’m probably going to hold on to the app until the 8th, because I’m curious to find out how the sweepstakes contest system works, but I’m done trying to make an effort to play it every day.

As far as Total Trivia goes, I tentatively think it’s a good time as long as you don’t actually have to do anything for 20 minutes in a row to try to get up to 6000 points on a single item so you can gain IQ points. Trying to answer questions once or twice more than fifteen minutes apart and you’ll probably not get those coveted IQ points which lead to trophies that have increasing benefits. I think I’ve come across a way to make it work, though, so, we’ll see.

And today is a new app day! I’ve downloaded Panel App and I’m not entirely sure if it’s going to be for me, but I thought I’d try anyway. I thought at first it was some kind of survey response app, but it seems to also collect location data, maybe other kinds of phone data? This one… you… should probably not download without more research. Luckily for you, I’m doing this research myself, and by research I mean……… taking a chance that it’s not some terrible datamining your-personal-NSA-agent-getting-to-know-you-better scheme. I’m sure it’ll be fine, though!

Previous Creative Funding entries can be found here: 1, 2

Sharo’s Creative Funding Chronicles Pt 2

Not a lot to report. Largely this update is to keep track of the date I started the second app I’m cautiously attempting to play for personal gain : Total Trivia.

I chose it because the ads on Lucktastic made it seem like a faster, non-chance-based alternative. (The idea being… either I play for things that are of immediate value to me, like Amazon gift cards and stuff I’d purchase anyway, or I play for things that I wouldn’t necessarily need or want and either sell locally or like, through Ebay, or possible- depending on the kind of items- repurpose them into artworks or other things that might be sold.)

So far I do like the ability to play a bunch of trivia games for free or for “watch this sponsored ad,” and so far I don’t like that it has an option for you to purchase “discount tickets” (in-game items that are used to purchase more chances to answer questions and accrue points towards the final score.)

Hm, I’m not sure. I’ll hold on to it, since I’m not expecting to be great at it on my first day, but I’m not sure how much longer I’ll be holding onto it. Also- wow, so y’all really want your players to know trivia about your sponsor, Kamikoto Knives, huh? I’ll admit, if I gave a darn about knives or cooking I’d probably be tempted.

Edit: I forgot, but- in case this stirring endorsement convinces anyone to download or play this app, try using my referral code ” sharofeels ” and see if that benefits you. I’m not actually sure if it will or not, so comment if it actually gives you anything or what.

Edit #2: Mispelled the name of the knife company!