Establishing My Own Business

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A few years ago I started thinking about creating an at-home business over the internet, about doing something I love and making a living off of it in this vast digital space... but anxiety and self-doubt got the better of me and I shoved the idea to the back of my mind.

However, it's come to a time now where I've been seeking employment for far too long and I'm sick of being looked over because I'm in my mid-thirties and cheaper, younger people are preferable for the fields I'm actually qualified for.

It's time I buckled down, let go of the anxiety and self-doubt, and employed myself since no-one else is going to employ me. 💪

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My idea is far from unique and there are hundreds of others out there in the space. Editing. Proofreading. But there are other things I'm planning on, also. Book covers. Writing advice. Reviews. Reasons to click and browse. An Author's Wonderland, if you will.

I also have something else to offer: a casual yet professional attitude that is severely lacking on other people's editing/proofreading business sites. There is no need to sound pompous and overly smart with technical terms the average person doesn't understand - these businesses are losing half their market. They sound too... intimidating to actually work with.

I will be there for the average person and I will not be overly intimidating with jargon. 🤗 I am also more than happy to read and edit things other people may be too politically correct to bother with.

Different authors and editors and readers also have different voices they like and don't like. You know what I like and can help people improve upon?

Purple Prose.

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There is a place for purple prose in writing, if done correctly. I will agree that there is prose out there that is far too jarring and out of place and needs to be eradicated, but there is also flowery, ornate prose that belongs, and other editors will cut it straight out without a single thought.

I aim to beautify and preserve.

And that's why, after two months of deliberating, I have decided to call my business the Purple Preserve.

I've got my web domain, Twitter account, and, of course, made a Hive account for it. Is Steempress still a 'thing' for Hive? I must investigate!

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I'm not quite ready to actually publish a website and get it all up and running just yet. I'm still studying. Although I know enough to be a proofreader and very basic editor, I want to be better. I want my qualifications first.

The course that I'm studying is endorsed by the Institute of Professional Editors and once I've completed it and become more learned, I can apply to become a registered member.

I look forward to that day.

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In the meantime, I've been learning the intricacies of Paintshop Pro and have been working on a few covers I intend to sell.

I have no idea if they're considered 'good' or not, but I like them and think they look a lot better than some other premade covers I've seen available (which literally look like two images badly photoshopped onto one another). And! I'm enjoying the creation process. What do you think? The one above, with the sun and red sky and wolf howling is my favourite so far. It's really fun to make these!

Each one has 3-5 different stock images in them and takes me a few hours to do. Hopefully they'll appeal to some people out there. 😊 I'll be making heaps more. I want a lot of stock at the ready for whenever it is I finally open my digital doors.

I'm not naive enough to believe I'll get more than one or two visitors in the first month or so. Neither am I naive enough to believe I'll even get my first job within the first month.

But I am trying.
I will not let the self-doubt talk me out of it this time! 🏆

 

Until next time,


Thanks for stopping by. ❤️

 


 

Header image courtesy of Pixabay. All other images in this post are courtesy of me, @kaelci, and involve several stock images all mashed together into my own marketable creations.



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12 comments
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looking neat.. good luck to you. best wishes!

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Thanks! 🙂 I'm hoping it all goes well!

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Congrats and good luck! I too have recently taken on the role of a self employed creative and am doing my best to settle in to new routines and get all my business "infrastructure" together as well.

Steempress does still exist but has been rebranded to @exxp, so you'll want to look for it that way. I love that tool but I was just working on getting my own site up over the past couple days and I just have grown to hate Wordpress unfortunately! So it looks like I'll probably go with Squarespace instead even though it won't allow me to integrate with Hive as fully as I'd like.

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Ahh! Thank you! 😊 And I wish you luck in your own self-employed adventure! 😃

I'm glad to hear that the Wordpress plugin still exists -- I remember using it a couple years back when I had my personal website active and I really liked the integration.

What problems have you found with Wordpress?

I'm not exactly as website-savvy as I'd like to be. I used to dabble in HTML back in the late 90s/early 2000s, but things got a lot more complicated with CSS and whatnot and I found the "dumbing down" WYSIWYG of Wordpress such a relief. How does Squarespace compare?

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Squarespace is more or less a further dumbed down Wordpress... and that brings it right about to my web design skill level! 😅 Wordpress definitely gives me all the plugins and flexibility to do just about anything... but I just find that's added way too much time and complexity for me. There's just neverending updates, plugins breaking, etc. I think if you keep it super simple it's fine, but I just can't leave well enough alone! Squarespace seems to do a nice job integrating analytics, SEO, email marketing, online shop options (because WooCommerce just adds another layer of insanity for me on top of WordPress!) and it is convenient for me since I also do some conventions and have already processed physical payments with a Square card reader I can use the same account, link up my physical/online inventory, etc.

Bear in mind I'm just in the trial phase and haven't even published my Squarespace site yet... but in a couple hours of dabbling around I was pretty happy with the functionality. They do offer a 14 day trial where you can pretty much log in and create a whole site and then just pick a plan and input your payment info if you want to actually publish it.

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Ahh, all of that is good to know! I haven't even attempted to dabble in anything overly-complicated on Wordpress. The most I have done includes adding a couple of widgets and cheering at myself because the most basic things worked. 😅

I'll need to get a handle on the commerce aspects this time around too, which is terrifying...

I'll have to keep SquareSpace in mind if things get a bit too... headachey. 😬

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Good luck with all your new endeavors! Love the book "Excuses Be Gone!"

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It's a fantastic business idea, and I'm sure you have all the skills. All the best!

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If any of my writing projects ever get to the point where they will see the light of day I will be keeping your services in mind!

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😃

Thank you for the confidence!

How are your writing projects going? I'm a mere 700 words into my newest one, haha! 😂 The ideas are there though.

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Well, I've been "worldbuilding" on and off for a few years, and haven't really sat down to do the writing part yet. I mean, I have, but I don't think any of that material will be used. It might be though. I have a concept for a Zombie novel and I always joke that if I procrastinate long enough I'll finish the book just as Zombies become a popular genre again! XD

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