6 months in; starting a creative business

I flopped this month, totally flopped. What is flopping? I am not sure but it sounded like a great word to describe this month in creative business.

Last month was quite the month, I made my first income and I did a lot of amazing stuff and then this month nothing.

I did start 10000 ebooks (or 3) and I have finally started writing my blog post in advance (more than 5 minutes in advance) But it is the networking and promotion department where I just didn’t do enough this month.

I am happier with the content I made this month, I really am. I think it is more fun to read and I tried to include a lot more personality. But promoting it and interacting online seemed so much harder this time.

But this post is not the “let’s hear how Sofie whines about how hard life is “ post it is the “what will I do this month to make it better” post.

Blog

I went down to two posts a month in the hope that I would write better content. Overall I think I have written better content like I said, but I was worse at promoting than ever. That is why I cerated a new system for myself.

I have used this before to get through my exams. I needed to d some hardcore practise for my Beta classes like math and physics so I decided to do 3 exercises a day for every subject. I made myself a little grid so I could cross them off and I got quite aggressive about not breaking the chain.

So I made myself a new promotion sheet with grids.

Since I was so terrible at the whole promotion thing I definitely had fewer page views this month. My jetpack says I had 306 page views in this month which means just a little above 10 a day.

It is not terrible but not amazing either.

My google analytics puts me at 345 views thins month so that is slightly better. Also introducing my bounce rate, so the amount of people that only visit one page is just 26%. This means 1 out of 4 and the other 3 look at more than one page.

Really typing this out makes me feel a lot better about it all.

This month I really want to;

• finish one of my ebooks
• work more on promotion

(Btw you can download the sheet I will be using in the Library!)

Social media

Pinterest is still going strong, I didn’t really grow my followers but I did keep consistent repinning through the month.

I haven’t been that active on facebook. It is one of my least favourite social media sources and I am not even sure why.

I did pass 300 followers this month on twitter! I have been tweeting a little less consistent but it keeps growing.

Also, I finally did make and Instagram! I did it.

Now the quick story of why it took so long. I have a wonderful amazing friend who is an even better artist and very succesful on Instagram. I was kinda scared because she is so good that I can’t help to compare myself. Terrible habit and it doesn’t help anyone, so now I am operating undercover. I am sure I will get over myself eventually.

I did not create any new twitter cover but I will try to do that as soon as possible.

So this month I want to;

• change my twitter cover really this time

• work on my Instagram instead of hiding in a corner

Art

I definitely created more but I was terrible at uploading that stuff so for this month I will be trying to do 30 days of fanart challenge. I already started and I am on day 3 now so I might be doing good.

It really helps me with finding my style while trying out new things and learning how to copy things without really copying them.

I should have filled up my Etsy shop by now, and you can view the company too, but I didn’t. Mostly because I have been struggling a lot with finding my work good enough. It is one of the most annoying feeling that I know. I think it is something I really need to work on if I want to make it into a creative business.

However, I did really try to promote my art more this month. Mostly on Tumblr which is not the best or easiest place. But it is a platform where I am not that nervous about.

I did write more about art and creativity. I did some posts I enjoyed a lot like the art supply posts;

• 3 things to know about markers before using them

• fine liner vs dip pens

I am planning some more related art posts for the future like the draw this again challenge to talk about improvement and such.

I really like doing these posts and I think the represent what I am about a lot more than 3 blogging tips to do more blogging about blogging.

I still like to write these posts as well but I m just thinking about doing those different as well.

Total income this month;

0,02 euro

I think the big thing this month was just that I spend a lot of time feeling not so good and it really impacted my motivation for my creative business. I really hope I can turn that around this month while I keep going for my goals.

That is also part of why I wrote my perfect day in the life post. I hope it will give me more motivation to see what I am working for.

We will try again in this new month!

Let me know what you use as motivation to keep going. Also, if you have any tips or suggestions I would love to hear from you!