Tag: blogging

Going Freelance – 3 Free Skillshare courses

LittleFears8 Comments

I do like to have something playing in the background while I doodle, write and blog. Bonus points for something educational for the grey-matter to absorb.

A browse of Skillshare this week and I found three free courses on freelancing. Figure there’s enough artists, writers and freelancers out there following for them to be a helpful share.

They are all 100% free. Just follow any links to the website, sign up, skip anything that asks you for money, and yay, free courses. If you do subscribe to Skillshare, you can get a two-month trial for $0.99 with no obligation to continue which gives you access to thousands of courses on every subject you could imagine.

So, without further ado, free freelance courses!

Going Freelance: Building and Branding Your Own Success

Now more than ever, we live in a freelance world. Eager to take the plunge or level up your own freelance game? Join Working Not Working‘s Justin Gignac and Claire Wasserman for a 50-minute dive into the essentials of going it on your own. 

Each video lesson shares stories, examples, and tips to spark your thinking about ways to seek out the work you want  — and draw work back to you. You’ll leave inspired to:

  • Develop a strong body of work with a clear mission and side projects
  • Craft a portfolio that catches a recruiter’s eye
  • Market yourself on social media
  • Pitch traditional media
  • Seize opportunities for authentic networking
  • Set yourself up for financial success

This class is meant to be an overview, laying the foundation for going freelance and all the things to consider. The goal is to empower, enlighten, educate, and arm everyone with the itch to go freelance!

Course Link: https://skl.sh/2GAPcnk

Bookkeeping for Freelancers: How to Handle Your Finance

The secret to becoming a successful freelancer? It all starts with bookkeeping — and it’s easier than you think!

You don’t have to be a math wiz or budding accountant to better understand and manage your business’s revenue and expenses. In this easy-to-follow class, Bench’s Emily Simcox demystifies bookkeeping and provides you with the tools you need to take control of your finances. Emily’s straightforward, step-by-step process will help you understand your options and plan your next steps with ease.

You’ll learn how to:

  • Choose the right bookkeeping method for your business
  • Easily categorize and track your expenses
  • Stay organized throughout the year

Whether you’re a freelancer getting ready to invoice your first client or a small business owner looking to organize your business’s spending and expenses, you’ll gain an arsenal of tools to help you streamline your finances and optimize your bookkeeping. After taking this class, you’ll be better positioned to make decisions with confidence, grow your business, and focus on the work that matters.

Course link: https://skl.sh/2DEU2iS

Building Your Freelance Business: From First Steps to Getting Paid

Join ANDCo’s Oliver Ginsburg for a step-by-step guide to the logistics of freelancing. Whether you’re new to freelance or have years of experience, you’ll learn essential tips and tricks to help you run the behind-the-scenes aspects of your business. From writing legally binding contracts to navigating your taxes, discover the tips, tools, and techniques that will take your freelance work to new heights.

Key lessons include:

  • Taking your first steps: Choosing your business entity and picking a name
  • Writing legally binding contracts
  • How (and when) to find professional help
  • Pricing your work & getting paid
  • Understanding expenses and write-offs
  • Paying your taxes

Every lesson is packed with facts, resources, and expertise compiled from the experts at ANDCo. Whether you’re a side-hustler for life or a full-time freelancer, these lessons will help you build a solid business from the ground up, allowing you to be your own boss, create your own path, and focus on the work you love.

Course link: https://skl.sh/2GBaaT6

Thanks to Warren for the continued $10 Patronage. 

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Brass

LittleFears4 Comments

The Little Fears presents, the complete story of Brass. The Fears seventh series.

[frontpage_news widget=”9900″ name=”Brass Chapters 1-30″]

[frontpage_news widget=”9901″ name=”Brass Chapters 31-60″]

[frontpage_news widget=”9905″ name=”Brass 61-84″]

[frontpage_news widget=”9908″ name=”Brass Chapter Four”]

I lost two episodes during the WordPress 5.0 troubles. If they turn up, I’ll slot them in. Until then, I hope you enjoy Copper and Irons complete story.

Further lessons in collaborations

LittleFears11 Comments

Some further lessons, thoughts and misc wotsits on the Little Fears Sunday collabs. It’s a long, but maybe an educational post for any bloggers wanting to collaborate with each other. Some links to start with, for reference.

Little Fears Sunday collaborations
Guidelines & initial email

Tracking collaborations

Straight up, I screwed this up so badly. On the initial posting, I had over 100 people email me. I reckon about 20 will follow through, but I got lost in the first barrages of emails. I know of at least three people that I’ve left hanging that I need to speak too. Liz, I was meant to send a story. Anonyole and Willow I was meant to send an image for approval. One of them has been waiting for two weeks. I just keep forgetting to do it because my I took on too much. I tried noting names on pen and paper. That only worked for so long.

This was confounded because I initially said, hit me up on social media or email. So I had messages coming from every direction. It wasn’t like I could just search my emails because I had DMs everywhere. Doh!

I’ve come to the conclusion I should use a spreadsheet. Four columns, name, email, website and collab progress. I can’t do that on previous collab contacts because then I’m collecting data. To do that I’d have to include a GDPR notice in the initial email stating what data I’m collecting, what I will do with it and how will I protect it. That’s something I’ll definitely do going forward.

Usernames, pen names and real names

My focus on always referring to peoples pen names has confused a few folks. It’s another thing I need to add to the initial email.

People post under pen names for a variety of reasons. The embarrassment that they write fan-fics. Not wanting family or friends to see their art. Hiding from a nutty ex-partner. Or sometimes, they just want to be identified as someone else. An imaginary online-persona. All valid reasons to respect someone’s username.

Privacy is darn near non-existent, online and real life, nowadays. What little control we have over privacy we should try to respect.

So if someone leaves comments on my website under the username AlphaDog345 but emails me under the name Robert, I’ll do my best to refer to them as AlphaDog345 unless corrected.

WordPress scheduling

I was asked by Nobbin how we could synchronize posts and link to each other’s stories ahead of time. Well, in WordPress Gutenberg, when you make a post you get a little link icon next to the post name. Click on that, and you can copy the URL of scheduled posts.

Videos pre-schedule

I’ve explained why I’m sticking with WordPress Gutenberg before, despite my straight up hate for it. But one issue that’s been noticed is that I can’t schedule videos that haven’t been published on YouTube already without resorting to classic blocks. There is no workaround in current Gutenberg because it’s crap. So I end up with classic blocks in my HTML or I leave it until 9 am, then post everything.

This has meant, when one collaborator copy pasted my entire post it came out janky as heck on their own site. It’s also meant most of my posts are never bang on 9 am.

#PeterHatesWordPress5.0GutenbergEditor

I think in future I’ll change my initial email to read “around 9 am,” unless someone wants to sync posts. Then I’ll pre-post the video so the URL is usable in WordPress.

Story length

Oh man, haha. Yeah. We had a laugh there. I’m flexible on the 512 character limit. I just didn’t want people writing essay-length stories. Not only would they not fit or work on the Little Fears, but I want the collaborations to be fast and fun. Not tireless hours of work.

This was taken to an extreme by an ex-subscriber, who sent me a chapter of a book he claimed was a short story. Some back and forth and he ended up saying he was trialling me to narrate his entire novel. For free. In the spirit of collaboration.

Yeah… No…

Got a bit pissy when I said I’d have to charge for that amount of work. Anyone who’s ever done audio work will tell you, it takes a staggering amount of time to record, edit, re-record and check through even short stories. A novel would take me a full working week. At least!

I find a lot of folks are up collaborations when asked. But try to be respectful of others time, aye?

Already published stories

I was asked by Ederren on the briefs post if I’d do stories that were already published. Eventually, yes. I’d love to narrate some of the funny stories and creepypastas I’ve read. Especially if they fit well.

Right now though, I’m getting my feet with collaborations. As you can see from this post, I still have refining to do. The initial email explosions died down now, but I got a lot of people submitting any old random story. Out of 40 stories sent to me without an email convo/brief first, maybe 5 worked for the Fears.

Taking submissions for pre-written poetry and fiction is something I need to work into the initial email. It all comes down being specific from the start. Otherwise, writers sending submissions and I are just wasting each others time.

So, pre-written stories. In the future, yes, but not yet.

Some collaborations, already published

Knife Skill by Silk

Iron Nick by Peter

The Swing by Alex

Olivia’s Tree by Layne

Masked Sin by Jay

Conference art by Dee

Beau by Sue

Bad Karma by Tre

Conquest by Jessica

Saved by Aimer

Dark Paths by Lauren

I think that’s everyone…

Want to collaborate?

As you can see, I’m still refining my process. If you’re interested in collaborating with me, drop me an email to Peter at fears@gmx.co.uk

Want to support me in some way?

In the mean tie, if you love what I do, and fancy supporting me in some way, you can buy me a cuppa on Ko-Fi. Nobble one of my tees on Threadless. Buy one of my books on Amazon. Grab an original art or a print on my Etsy. Or, hit me up on Patreon for as little as $1 a month.

Thanks as always to Warren for the continued $10 Patronage. 


Tomorrow, we pun

LittleFears7 Comments

Tomorrow, we pun again. It didn’t quite feel right posting puns immediately after yesterdays retrospective on Brass, age-related memory changes and dementia.

Copper and Iron will return in future stories. I haven’t written them into any more tales yet. It wouldn’t be right to forget the duo when the focus of their story was on remembering lost loved ones.

For anyone that’s subscribed to my website, I’ll be reworking my front page this week. I’ll be adding posts linking to each complete series. There’ll be a single post for each of the 7 series so far. I haven’t figured out a way to publish a post without it going to all subscribers yet. I shall Google before I do. Sorry in advance if you get a few posts in a day linking to older stories.

In the mean tie, if you love what I do, and fancy supporting me in some way, you can buy me a cuppa on Ko-Fi. Nobble one of my tees on Threadless. Buy one of my books on Amazon. Grab an original art or a print on my Etsy. Or, hit me up on Patreon for as little as $1 a month.

Thanks as always to Warren for the continued $10 Patronage. 

Jellyfish’ed

LittleFears33 Comments

Wobbly and ambiguous. I’d say that describes the Brass story. It’s a story that would suffer from over-explanation or specifics.

I’ve witnessed three people losing themselves in their final days. It’s hard on everyone. Not remembering a 16-week long hospital visit or asking when we hung a painting that’s lived on the same wall in their house for 30+ years. Picking them up when they’ve gotten lost in the 1/2 mile long high street they’ve lived next to their entire lives. Sitting in the back seat of our Volvo and asking why there’s no steering wheel in the car.

I do firmly believe, sometimes the best we can do is keep everyone laughing. Laughter is often all that keeps us going in our darkest hours. It’s a coping mechanism with no equal. When our loved ones do finally pass on, remember the best of them. Keep their ideas, hopes and dreams alive just that little bit longer.

Also, keep telling their favourite jokes. I’ve told you about my mate Sid, right? He was the victim of ID theft. He’s now just called S.

If you’re supporting someone, or know anyone, suffering from age-related memory changes or dementia, there are good charities out there who can help.

Dementia UK – https://www.dementiauk.org/

Age UK – https://www.ageuk.org.uk/

Alzheimer’s Society – https://www.alzheimers.org.uk/

If you know of any good ones outside of the UK, please do drop their name and a link in comments.

Cheers.

Double-Puns

LittleFears22 Comments

Looking at my calendar and having a ponder on my desire to move onto new projects (ref, online serialized fiction). I think I’m going to post the last thirty’ish tales, two per day.

Not only am I eager to move onto new projects, but the serial has also become more of a continuous story. It makes a bit more sense to bunch it up when I’m asking people to come back continuously for each new episode. I’m neither Netflix or a TV station. Dragging the story out now is more frustrating than engaging.

The bonus to you, my good ladies, fellows and others, is that you get double the groaners every single day. Heck, Saturday and Sunday you’ll be getting three stories a day as I’m still collaborating and doing the Colour Collective portraits.

Double bonus to anyone who buys me a cuppa this next two weeks on Ko-Fi. I always give cuppa buyers a shout out with a link to their own site in the next days’ posts. So for the next two weeks, you’ll get at least two shout outs the following day.

I hope you still enjoy Copper and Irons journey.

Cheers, gang!

Thanks to Warren for the $10 Patronage.

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Swarm

LittleFears34 Comments

A bit of a swarm for this weeks #Colour_Collective.

A couple of Fearful things today. First, I believe I’ve responded to everyone who emailed me about a collaboration. If I haven’t replied to you yet, or if you want to collaborate with me, drop me an email to fears@gmx.co.uk and poke me.

I know some of you are waiting on images and audio. I got most of it done yesterday and I’ll be spamming out emails to everyone later today.

Second thingy. I mentioned about a month ago Brexit had finally taken its toll on the companies I’d been getting regular work from. I’ve helped two of them close this last week. Distributing the websites, social media accounts, hosting and all promotional media too other companies buying up the broken-up brands. I’ll be helping to dismantle the company I worked at for 17 years later in the year too. Boy howdy, do I hate Brexit and both major political parties in the UK, right now.

The upshot is I’ll have a lot of time on my hands and work to replace. If anyone needs to hire an artist/designer/writer/vocal bloke for anything, from blog logo design too growling the audio for a YouTube video, poke me. Happy to work for individuals, brands, companies and packs of mutton-chop wearing rockabilly lobsters.

Thanks to Warren for the $10 Patronage.

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Serialized Fears

LittleFears26 Comments

It was a fear I had myself back at the start of the year. I’d done serials before. 30 posts for each of the Lost Leads crime stories. I was concerned about doing anything longer than 30 stories as it felt like an attention span limit. My current story is about 53 tales into an 88 tale long story. So yeah, the ongoing, serialized fear story that is Brass, just ain’t working for me.

There are a few reasons for it. I thought I’d run through them in a post. Do something, learn from the experience and then explain.

The internet has a short attention span.

100% including myself there. I cannot tell you how many blog/fiction serials have hooked me in the first few chapters. Then I forget to visit. I delay catching up and fall further behind. Then I skip a few chapters and miss something important. It doesn’t apply so much with the Brass series. But psychologically, it matters. For both readers and myself.

Some folks hate serials.

Like, straight up. There’s some real hate for web-serials. I’ve had a few comments from older Fears followers that said they stopped reading on the Brass serial. They check in to see whether it’s over. Although I always say, don’t write for other people, serialized fiction is rather polarizing.

People who join halfway, walk away.

A combination of both of the above. Folk that have been following Brass since the start, are not put off by the episode numbers in each post. Readers that first see the Little Fears, on chapter 40, will often read, laugh, then leave and not come back. They feel they’ve already missed out on a huge chunk of the story and can’t catch up.

The Fears are far less nimble.

I’m always miles ahead of where I need to be for content. I’ve pre-written years worth of stories. But, I mentioned all the big plans I have several times before, and I can’t seem to get them going. When I post too frequently outside of the ongoing Brass story, it seems to mentally disrupt my flow. It’s another psychological thing. The background story of Brass is vague. But it still feels disruptive when my feed bounces between the ongoing story and random “fear of ink,” stories. I think that’s the killer for me. Not being able to enact all my great plans. A story is now holding me back.

Going forward

As there are only 35’ish tales left in this serial, I’ll continue it to the end. I think in future I’ll avoid writing singular serials such as Brass. Instead, writing more one off’s that might have a theme and character progression. Seeking Hydra and Grey Moon style. As for different projects, one thing that is apparent to me from people coming to the Fears mid serial is that I need to have a home page, footer or header that can take you to a complete story/category of the website. Even a single post with links to all single tales within a particular storyline would help. I think I’ll get to work on that this weekend.

I’ll end by saying I’m happy with Copper and Iron, and that I started publishing Brass online. I’m a firm believer, that no matter how many “ten great ways you can write a story,” articles that exist out there, a lot of the time you’ve got to try things and see how they turn out. Sometimes you’ll hit, sometimes you’ll miss. But you’ll often never know until you take a swing.

Cheers, Fears!

Shout out to my new Patron Sue of Connects.live and to Devina of Hot Chocolate & Books for a cuppa Ko-Fi yesterday. As always, thanks to Warren for the continued $10 Patronage. 

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Fear Cats & Threadless free shipping!

LittleFears10 Comments

Srsly, screw them hairy, angry, hissing little fuzzbags!

Fear Cats is available now on the Little Fears Threadless store: littlefears.threadless.com

OK, as usual, we have a new Threadless design available on hoodies, pullovers, tanks and a gazillion types of tees in a gazillion colours. Prices start at $15 a tee.

Not, as usual, Threadless is running a free shipping deal on orders over $45 across all designs. Get in!

According to my new header banner thing, Get Free Shipping! Use Code “FREESHIP3197cca8e” Order minimum $45. Ends Mar 31 ’19 11:59PM CDT.

That link again, in case ya missed it the first time: littlefears.threadless.com

Thanks to Warren for the $10 Patronage. 

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Collaboration Briefs

LittleFears8 Comments

Boy howdy did a lot of people respond to my call for collabs.

I know there are folk that haven’t heard from me yet, sorry, I will get to you! Please be patient.

I wrote a few posts two years back on how to run a collaboration (best one here: littlefears.co.uk/2017/11/13/blog-collaborations ).

The one thing I’ve refined is the brief. I feel getting everyone on the same page is insanely important at the start. I always worry it sounds super serious, but most people comment on how helpful the first email is. Awesome.

Set out your goals together. Outline what you want from the person/people involved. If you need to set deadlines at the beginning, do so in the brief. Ensure everyone knows of any word counts, genres, post types, social media sharing requirements and required image sizes are laid out from the start.

Someone once asked me to collaborate with them giving almost no guidance. “Draw me an image showing *XYZ*,” he asked. So I did. Took me 30 minutes, scanned it, sent it over. He replied, “not enough colour.”

God damn. Could you not have told me that before I spent 30 minutes drawing something for you? Suffice to say, I walked away from that one.

The flip side of this. If you send someone a specific set of instructions and they ignore them, send you completely unwanted content or repeatedly ask you questions answered in the brief, you know that collaboration will be more trouble than it’s worth.

I’m still taking names for collaborations, but that’s not the aim of this post. If you want to collaborate with me, please email me at fears@gmx.co.uk BEFORE you write anything. I don’t mean that to sound rude or mean, but, well… You know…

The aim of this post is meant to be informative and a sharing of a process. With that, I thought I’d share my current brief for the Sunday collaborations. This goes out in an email to everyone who’s interested in collaborating with me. It changes over time. People ask questions on all sorts of things and I adapt my initial email to include all answers I can.

Feel free to copy/cut/paste/tear apart/rehash for use anywhere for yourself. I figure it’s helpful to see how people run collaborations.

Dear Sir/Madam/Alien/Demon/Puppdawg

(Something personal to each collaborator goes in this space, and then…)

The Goal

I’m trying to break up my constant telling of my own tales by bringing in a Sunday collab in which readers submit their own fearful tales. I love what I do, I just want to mix it up a bit. As for yourself, I’m hoping this will be a fun jaunt into the Fears world for yourself and give you a bit of exposure (urgh, the E word!).

The Collab

I’d love for you to write a story up to 512 characters long. I’ll draw the panel and make a video for the story. I post it to the LittleFears.co.uk and share it across all my social media. I’ll include links to your blog or social media of your choosing in every post.

The Story

There’s no specific genre I would like. Humor, kooky, philosophical and horror all fit. Whether it has a punchline or not, if you could imagine it being an episode of the Twilight Zone, Outer Limits or Black Mirror, then your spot on.

The length should be under 512 characters. It’s not an arbitrary limit. But I’m hoping this can be fast and fun for both of us. No 12 page essays are required.

You’re more than welcome to use my characters or make up your own. The only characters that I do not want a story written for are Copper and Iron because they’re part of an ongoing story.

Once it’s written, get it over to me via email, social media direct message or however else you fancy.

The Image & Video

I’ll then draw up a panel for the story and email it to you. If you’re happy with it, I’ll make a video. I’ll email you the audio along with social media specific panels (such as a Pinterest long image). If everything is good with you, we’ll get onto posting.

The Scheduling & Post

When all the contents made and agreed we can decide what Sunday we want to post it. If you want to post the story, image and video on your blog too, we can schedule a specific time and synchronize the posting with links to each other’s posts.

In the post, I’ll include a link to your blog/social media of choice. When the story is posted, I’ll share it across all of my social media with links to you in everyone. My total audience is about 80k followers and subscribers, so I’ll hope you get a bit of exposure from it (urgh, the E word again!).

If you would like to include a link to my site or share the post across your platforms, that’d be awesome, but certainly not required.

The Next Bit

If you’re up for this, please do let me know and start writing a story. Again, any questions, queries or anything else, please do drop me a line and a query.

Thanks

Peter

Phew, right. I hope ya’ll learned something. Hey, if you did learn something super helpful, you can buy me a cuppa tea on my Ko-Fi page. The Little Fears are fueled by tea, and without it, we can’t survive.

Not being melodramatic… Honest…

LINK! https://ko-fi.com/E1E6DSNP

Cheers. Erm. /endpost?

Thanks to Warren for the $10 Patronage.

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