Starting a business is always on the top of my mind, mainly because starting an automated business is one of our keys to success during retirement. If we do everything else right, we won’t need to have a huge automated business in our golden years.
If we have a small automated business, wouldn’t it be nice to do our own advertising, marketing, and content creation? Taking the time and effort to learn about creativity and design can pay dividends in the long run.
Not only will it save you money via reduced business expenses, but you will also save time searching for companies to assist your business. The world will tell you to hire professionals, but can we learn how to do some creative tasks ourselves?
Automation Can’t Replace Creativity
I am living proof that a person with sufficient motivation can learn creativity and design. I want to keep my business a “Company of One.” I do not fear being a leader or having a team; I just don’t want to do that later in life.
The benefits of doing your own creative and design work outweigh the negatives. Let’s take a look at the pros and cons of learning to do things yourself.
Benefit #1. You will save money in the long run. I am not talking about saving money on creating one book cover but doing 20 book covers.
Benefit #2. You have more options. If I have a book that is not selling well, I can create a new cover and have it up in 20 mins. If I hired a freelancer, it would be a 5-7 day process. I can pivot my business as fast as I can do the work myself.
Benefit #3. Only you know the ideas in your head and bring them out the way you envision. Why have your vision funneled through someone else’s mind?
When I was stationed in Beaufort, South Carolina, I wanted to redo the unit logo. It was 2013, and I definitely didn’t know anything about design. I hired a freelancer from Fiverr and worked with this person for two weeks. I paid the guy, but I wasn’t happy with the product.
What is a Sales Funnel?
Benefit #4. Consistency of design. If you are doing the lion’s share of design work, then your work will be consistent. My book covers and article works are weird by design, but they are unique.
Negative #1. Your ideas may suck. Chances are they will, at least until you become better at envisioning your design process. They say it takes 10,000 hours to master something—are you ready to put in the time?
Negative #2. You will spend a large amount of your time doing design, writing copy, or creating content. You must love what you are doing to get quality results. Do you think you will love creating?
Negative #3. Someone will be able to do it better and faster. Yes, hiring someone will probably yield better results. However, if we keep our business small, then having top-notch professional results may not be the best use of our capital.
Print Your Own Money
In the end, you have to go with your gut. I am a US Marine (of 22 years) and have never designed anything in those 22 years. However, over the last eight months, I have been creating content and developing artwork every day.
I have learned so much over this timeframe that it is life-changing. I now read other people’s work and understand their writing better. I look at products and understand why they are soothing to the eye.
I bought some hard seltzer water (a trendy alcoholic beverage) and was impressed by the look of the cans. I reviewed the four principles of design and could articulate why the cans were so appealing. Becoming a creator has opened my eyes to a whole other world.
How do we learn to create and design? There are many ways to learn how to create and design. The first of which is to go to college or some sort of technical school. If you plan on making a career of assisting others with their creative work, I would recommend this path.
We live in a society that values a college degree more than the work it produces. So if you plan on becoming a professional, “certification” of your abilities will be necessary. I have no idea what college courses or seminars to attend, as I have never taken a college class in my life. You can find the appropriate methods to put yourself on track for a creative career with some research.
Can You Achieve Work-Life Balance?
For us semi-professionals, an alternative to college is reading books, taking online courses, watching YouTube, and putting in the work. I call this the “sweat equity” route. You learn by doing, therefore, forging your path.
I always lay out the same books that helped me on my journey, and I repeat my same guidance. Sorry to sound like a broken record, but these books have helped me immensely.
For Writing. The book “On Writing Well” helped me understand the philosophy of being a writer. Writing isn’t just a bunch of words on a paper; it is supposed to have a natural flow. The words, sentences, and paragraphs should all fit together smoothly, almost like a poem.
The more I write, the better I become at smoothing out my writing style. I still have years before I achieve mastery, but sometimes I read my writing and cannot believe I wrote it myself. Reading this book changed the trajectory of my writing career and made me start to focus on the words, not the content.
For Design. The book “The Non-Designer’s Design Book” is the best book on design I have ever read (and the only one). Seriously, I have never downloaded so much vital information into my brain. Learning the four principles of design, plus fonts and colors, was life-changing.
The Magic of Royalties
The author, Robin Williams, says that you will start to see the four principles of design everywhere around you in the book. She was so right. I see it everywhere, and I love it. Designing has become a part of my life, and it makes me excited every time I log into Pixlr to look at stock photos with which to work.
Every day I write an article, design article artwork, and build a pdf book with the main article and related articles. I open Pixlr with a mild idea of what I want to create.
Sometimes, nothing strikes me, and I just go completely random. Sometimes, everything works out, and I find artwork that relates to my title. Sometimes, I see artwork that is so compelling that I create an article about it.
I recently found some fantastic pictures on Pixlr that had oranges and Christmas decor. It was a striking combination, so I decided to create an article called “Orange You Glad You Have Passive Income?”
I did a similar mantra when I saw some lemon artwork and created the article and book “When Life Gives You Lemons…Make Passive Income Lemonade.” That is the best part of being your own designer; you can do whatever the heck you want. If it doesn’t work, do another one.
Sustainable Riches: Return to Earth. Make Green.
Luckily, I created an article series covering the four principles of design titled “The Basics of Design.” Take a look at these, but go and get the book. It will change your life.
For shipping creative work. Now, it is time to ship your creative work on time. Artists are notorious for being off-schedule. However, we need to eat, so we must produce our creative works on time.
The book “The Practice” tells us how to ship creative work. This book has helped me stop over-analyzing my work and just release it into the wild. The market dictates what it wants. Interestingly, most of the artwork I didn’t like became my best-selling stuff.
You cannot predict what the market will demand, and you cannot cater to it—giving the market what you think it wants makes you a “hack,” There is nothing wrong with being a hack, as long as you know what you are doing.
I Have Everything I Need in Life…And Then Some
For example, if my lemonade book did well, then I produce four more books displaying lemons. Then the market wants limes, and here I come with lime books. I am attempting to follow the market, not my heart. There is nothing wrong with this, but do not call yourself original. Understand that you are a “hack” and live with it.
Movie stars, musicians, and authors do it all the time. They need to eat, and if they can make a considerable amount of money by making a series of movies or books, why not? Once they are rich, they can be in a better position to ship their artistic works.
You have to decide if you want to become a “starving artist,” a “hack,” or something in between. I like beating my own drum, so that is the way that I am going for now. However, I can change upon request, especially if becoming more mainstream sheds more light on my other works.
Conclusion. As you can see, there is much to talk about with creativity and design. I truly love this world. Every day I get nervous that I won’t produce the artwork or article that I did yesterday. That constant self-challenge is highly addicting. I always want to create high-quality work.
If becoming creative is something you want to do, do it—NOW. Most importantly, release your work into the world. You have to. The hardest part of being creative is shipping creative work and letting the market decide its value. No matter the result, your work will have value to you!
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Disclosure: I am not a financial advisor or money manager, and any knowledge is given as guidance and not direct actionable investment advice. I am an Amazon Affiliate. Please research any investment vehicles that are being considered. I wrote this article myself, and it expresses my own opinions. I am not receiving compensation for it. I have no business relationship with any company whose stock is mentioned in this article.
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