{"id":1045,"date":"2016-09-22T21:23:57","date_gmt":"2016-09-22T21:23:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/microcosmpublishing.com\/blog\/?p=1045"},"modified":"2016-09-22T21:23:57","modified_gmt":"2016-09-22T21:23:57","slug":"punk-rock-entrepreneur-an-interview-with-caroline-moore","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/microcosmpublishing.com\/blog\/2016\/09\/punk-rock-entrepreneur-an-interview-with-caroline-moore\/","title":{"rendered":"Punk Rock Entrepreneur: An interview with Caroline Moore"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Punk<\/a>Caroline Moore came to us with a book that really hit home: Punk Rock Entrepreneur: Running a Business Without Losing Your Values<\/a><\/em>. We’re thrilled with how the book turned out. Moore’s examples are drawn from her own life, other scrappy entrepreneurs including bands like Green Day. This is like the anti-startup guide. Instead of coming up with an idea and looking for funding, this book is about turning your craft and art\u2014what you would do no matter what\u2014into a viable business without the benefit of having much (or any) money. <\/p>\n

You can find out more about Moore’s design, illustration, and photography on her website<\/a>, and check out her sweet goods (some of them Punk Rock Entrepreneur-related) in her Etsy shop<\/a>. Oh yeah, and we still have a bunch of signed and doodled copies of her book. Order soon and snag one of them<\/a>!<\/p>\n

1. What’s the origin story of Punk Rock Entrepreneur? Where’d the idea come from? How did you end up with Microcosm? <\/strong>
\nDepending on how far back you want to go, the origin story is an interview I did with a group that focuses on entrepreneurship for teens. They asked what made me want to start a business, and I didn\u2019t have a great answer for them, so I spent some time thinking about it. The truth is, when I started out, I didn\u2019t even really think of it as starting a business, in an official way. I was used to my punk friends touring, starting zines, making and selling art, and that\u2019s what I did\u2014starting my photography business was very unceremonious. <\/p>\n

After I\u2019d put some serious time and thought into it, I found that a lot of what I knew about starting and running a business was from that DIY scene. I had been volunteering for a few years with Weapons of Mass Creation Fest<\/a>, and it seemed like the kind of thing that would go over really well with their crowd. So I pitched it to Jeff Finley and Joseph Hughes (Jeff founded the Fest, and Joseph was handling the speaker lineup that year), and they let me have a spot on their stage. So the idea got upgraded to a 30 minute\u2026 well, it was supposed to be 30 minutes, but closer to a 40 minute conference talk. One of my favorite comments that someone tweeted about that was something like \u201cpunk enough to get kicked off stage, professional enough not to knock down the podium on her way out.\u201d<\/p>\n

My process for writing conference talks is that I basically write an essay, exactly what I want to say, and then practice that and make an outline to actually use as a reference on stage. Which meant that I had everything all typed up, so I posted it to my blog<\/a> after I got home for anyone that had missed the talk. I was still doing contract work for a design agency a few days a week then, and my boss there said \u201cyou should turn this into a book.\u201d I knew I had a ton of material that I had to cut for time, so I started putting together proposals to send out to publishers. I had heard of Microcosm because I\u2019d done some interior illustrations for Bobby Joe Ebola\u2019s book<\/a>, which they published. After meeting with Joe and Elly at a Dinner and Bikes<\/a> event in Pittsburgh, and looking over the catalog, the book seemed like a really good fit both for the types of books that Microcosm puts out, and the way that they do business. <\/p>\n

2. This is your first book (congrats!). What has surprised you about writing and publishing a book? Any advice for other first-time authors now that you’ve been around this block once? <\/strong>
\nThanks! One of the first things that surprised me was the sheer volume of words that I needed to write. It seems like you have so much to say, but then you type everything up and it\u2019s six pages. I had gotten used to writing for blogs, for twitter, for conferences, for things that are meant to be short form. You have to be really concise and get to your point. Which is still important in longer form books, no one wants to read you droning on belaboring a point, but you do have a lot more room to really flesh out a concept. I also say something in the book, \u201cyou can\u2019t edit a blank page, but you can edit a bad one.\u201d Staring at a blank sheet messes with you, so just start putting words down. Even if they\u2019re terrible, stupid words, just start writing for the sake of having something that you can work with. We learned to write in chunks when I was in college, and that\u2019s still how I do it. The introductions are the last thing that I write, I start in the middle. <\/p>\n

3. In Punk Rock Entrepreneur you propose the counter-intuitive idea that not having a lot of money or resources can actually be the best thing for someone starting a business. Can you elaborate a little bit on this?<\/strong>
\nIt\u2019s certainly not the easiest way. Having a huge pile of money to throw at a project would make things much easier. But not having a ton of cash up front does make you think creatively about how to get your business off of the ground, and it makes you look at the money and resources you do have VERY critically. In particular, you\u2019re very thoughtful about what you\u2019re getting for spending that cash. A band with a trust fund might be able to get an RV to tour in, spend a lot of cash on hotel rooms, food, top of the line gear, clothes, you name it. But that stuff might not be helping them bring in any more money (or fans). They have a lot of money going out, but may not have any more money coming in than the band that\u2019s touring in their car and sleeping on floors. Those folks are keeping their overhead low, so they get to keep the money they bring in. <\/p>\n

4. What are you listening to or reading right now that inspires you?<\/strong>
\nI\u2019m actually giving a talk in Louisville in October (at MidwestUX<\/a>) about how routine input leads to routine output. I\u2019m really big on interdisciplinary education, because I think the bigger your pool of experiences, the more connections you can potentially make to create interesting work. I\u2019m actually working on condensing that entire chapter (“We Live Our Lives Another Way”) down to a 10 minute lightning talk. I don\u2019t have a ton of dedicated reading time right now (I have a 15-month-old), so I\u2019m reading a lot of psychology articles. Why people behave the way they do is really interesting to me from both a human perspective and a business one. I just discovered the joy of Instapaper to keep track of all the things I want to read. <\/p>\n

As far as music, I\u2019m a little all over the place. My husband and I just discovered Smoke or Fire\u2019s The Speakeasy<\/a><\/em>, which is great because they stopped being a band in 2004, which is a recurring theme when we find albums that we both like. I\u2019ve had that in the car on loop lately. I just picked up Signals Midwest\u2019s new one, At This Age<\/a><\/em>. We did a joint book launch\/record release show, and I don\u2019t have enough nice words to say about those guys or the music they make. And the last show that we went to was Sikth<\/a>, which is sometimes hard for me to listen to, because they\u2019re super erratic. But they\u2019re doing some really cool things that I don\u2019t hear much elsewhere, so I find it really interesting even though sometimes it makes me agitated. <\/p>\n

5. What’s next for you, in business, art, and life?<\/strong>
\nThis is always a super busy time of year for me, for some reason October is always booked solid. We\u2019re taking our kid on his first plane ride, to go to his dad\u2019s work conference. We\u2019ve already done a work conference each this year, and we both have another one coming up where we\u2019ll be separated. So for this one, we\u2019re going as a family to spend some time together, plus also the hotel is right next to Legoland. I have a few events coming up, Whiskey & Words<\/a> in Pittsburgh, then Midwest UX in Louisville. I\u2019ve got a wedding to shoot, and I\u2019m setting up mini portrait sessions to benefit Children\u2019s Hospital\u2019s Free Care Fund<\/a>. Definitely more speaking engagements coming up, and some more events where I can set up and talk to folks about the book.<\/p>\n

Things tend to slow down in the winter, and I can get into my \u201csomeday\u201d list. Throughout the year I\u2019ll have ideas for art that I want to make, and it just goes into the giant someday pile for whatever time I carve out for personal projects. Sometimes I don\u2019t write up the best description, though, and months later I don\u2019t understand my own notes (like that episode of 30 Rock<\/em> where Kenneth has a notebook that just says \u201cbird internet.\u201d) I\u2019m also rebranding the photography site<\/a> over the winter, Ryan Troy Ford<\/a> agreed to work on a new logo for me, and I\u2019m pretty excited to update that. It feels weird to hire someone to design anything for me, since my undergraduate degree is in design, and I\u2019ve spent a lot of years working as a designer. But designing for yourself is so much harder than for clients, and fighting the urge to just tweak it for all eternity is difficult. Getting someone a little more removed from it is definitely going to be good for the project.<\/p>\n

For the business, this is the first time I\u2019ve very intentionally done it part time. Even when I had a full time job, I was still really treating the business as a full time endeavor (which was not great for my health, but that\u2019s a whole other interview.) Being our son\u2019s primary caregiver, I can\u2019t also work full time. We decided I was going to stay home with him, instead of doing day care, so my hours are limited. It\u2019s a good balance for us right now, and I\u2019m happy with the direction it\u2019s taking. But the rebrand is part of a bigger theme of refocusing what I\u2019m putting out there, so that I\u2019m really getting the right clients to work with during those limited hours. Another thing that comes up in the book is how important it is to be attentive to your goals, and to revisit those goals to see if that\u2019s still what you want. I can\u2019t just look at someone else\u2019s business to see what they\u2019re doing, I have to really consider what I want out of my own business, and whether my actions are getting me closer to that. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Caroline Moore came to us with a book that really hit home: Punk Rock Entrepreneur: Running a Business Without Losing Your Values. We’re thrilled with how the book turned out. Moore’s examples are drawn from her own life, other scrappy entrepreneurs including bands like Green Day. This is like the anti-startup guide. Instead of coming… Read more »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[14,11,29,27],"class_list":["post-1045","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blogifesto","tag-books","tag-interviews","tag-punk","tag-punx"],"my_excerpt":"\"Punk<\/a>Caroline Moore came to us with a book that really hit home: Punk Rock Entrepreneur: Running a Business Without Losing Your Values<\/a><\/em>. We're thrilled with how the book turned out. Moore's examples are drawn from her own life, other scrappy entrepreneurs including bands like Green Day. This is like the anti-startup guide. Instead of coming up with an idea and looking for funding, this book is about turning your craft and art\u2014what you would do no matter what\u2014into a viable business without the benefit of having much (or any) money. \r\n\r\nYou can find out more about Moore's design, illustration, and photography on her website<\/a>, and check out her sweet goods (some of them Punk Rock Entrepreneur-related) in her Etsy shop<\/a>. Oh yeah, and we still have a bunch of signed and doodled copies of her book. Order soon and snag one of them<\/a>!\r\n\r\n1. What's the origin story of Punk Rock Entrepreneur? Where'd the idea come from? How did you end up with Microcosm? <\/strong>\r\nDepending on how far back you want to go, the origin story is an interview I did with a group that focuses on entrepreneurship for teens. They asked what made me want to start a business, and I didn\u2019t have a great answer for them, so I spent some time thinking about it. The truth is, when I started out, I didn\u2019t even really think of it as starting a business, in an official way. I was used to my punk friends touring, starting zines, making and selling art, and that\u2019s what I did\u2014starting my photography business was very unceremonious. \r\n\r\nAfter I\u2019d put some serious time and thought into it, I found that a lot of what I knew about starting and running a business was from that DIY scene. I had been volunteering for a few years with Weapons of Mass Creation Fest<\/a>, and it seemed like the kind of thing that would go over really well with their crowd. So I pitched it to Jeff Finley and Joseph Hughes (Jeff founded the Fest, and Joseph was handling the speaker lineup that year), and they let me have a spot on their stage. So the idea got upgraded to a 30 minute\u2026 well, it was supposed to be 30 minutes, but closer to a 40 minute conference talk. One of my favorite comments that someone tweeted about that was something like \u201cpunk enough to get kicked off stage, professional enough not to knock down the podium on her way out.\u201d\r\n\r\nMy process for writing conference talks is that I basically write an essay, exactly what I want to say, and then practice that and make an outline to actually use as a reference on stage. Which meant that I had everything all typed up, so I posted it to my blog<\/a> after I got home for anyone that had missed the talk. I was still doing contract work for a design agency a few days a week then, and my boss there said \u201cyou should turn this into a book.\u201d I knew I had a ton of material that I had to cut for time, so I started putting together proposals to send out to publishers. I had heard of Microcosm because I\u2019d done some interior illustrations for Bobby Joe Ebola\u2019s book<\/a>, which they published. After meeting with Joe and Elly at a Dinner and Bikes<\/a> event in Pittsburgh, and looking over the catalog, the book seemed like a really good fit both for the types of books that Microcosm puts out, and the way that they do business. \r\n\r\n2. This is your first book (congrats!). What has surprised you about writing and publishing a book? Any advice for other first-time authors now that you've been around this block once? <\/strong>\r\nThanks! One of the first things that surprised me was the sheer volume of words that I needed to write. It seems like you have so much to say, but then you type everything up and it\u2019s six pages. I had gotten used to writing for blogs, for twitter, for conferences, for things that are meant to be short form. You have to be really concise and get to your point. Which is still important in longer form books, no one wants to read you droning on belaboring a point, but you do have a lot more room to really flesh out a concept. I also say something in the book, \u201cyou can\u2019t edit a blank page, but you can edit a bad one.\u201d Staring at a blank sheet messes with you, so just start putting words down. Even if they\u2019re terrible, stupid words, just start writing for the sake of having something that you can work with. We learned to write in chunks when I was in college, and that\u2019s still how I do it. The introductions are the last thing that I write, I start in the middle. \r\n\r\n3. In Punk Rock Entrepreneur you propose the counter-intuitive idea that not having a lot of money or resources can actually be the best thing for someone starting a business. Can you elaborate a little bit on this?<\/strong>\r\nIt\u2019s certainly not the easiest way. Having a huge pile of money to throw at a project would make things much easier. But not having a ton of cash up front does make you think creatively about how to get your business off of the ground, and it makes you look at the money and resources you do have VERY critically. In particular, you\u2019re very thoughtful about what you\u2019re getting for spending that cash. A band with a trust fund might be able to get an RV to tour in, spend a lot of cash on hotel rooms, food, top of the line gear, clothes, you name it. But that stuff might not be helping them bring in any more money (or fans). They have a lot of money going out, but may not have any more money coming in than the band that\u2019s touring in their car and sleeping on floors. Those folks are keeping their overhead low, so they get to keep the money they bring in. \r\n\r\n4. What are you listening to or reading right now that inspires you?<\/strong>\r\nI\u2019m actually giving a talk in Louisville in October (at MidwestUX<\/a>) about how routine input leads to routine output. I\u2019m really big on interdisciplinary education, because I think the bigger your pool of experiences, the more connections you can potentially make to create interesting work. I\u2019m actually working on condensing that entire chapter (\"We Live Our Lives Another Way\") down to a 10 minute lightning talk. I don\u2019t have a ton of dedicated reading time right now (I have a 15-month-old), so I\u2019m reading a lot of psychology articles. Why people behave the way they do is really interesting to me from both a human perspective and a business one. I just discovered the joy of Instapaper to keep track of all the things I want to read. \r\n\r\nAs far as music, I\u2019m a little all over the place. My husband and I just discovered Smoke or Fire\u2019s The Speakeasy<\/a><\/em>, which is great because they stopped being a band in 2004, which is a recurring theme when we find albums that we both like. I\u2019ve had that in the car on loop lately. I just picked up Signals Midwest\u2019s new one, At This Age<\/a><\/em>. We did a joint book launch\/record release show, and I don\u2019t have enough nice words to say about those guys or the music they make. And the last show that we went to was Sikth<\/a>, which is sometimes hard for me to listen to, because they\u2019re super erratic. But they\u2019re doing some really cool things that I don\u2019t hear much elsewhere, so I find it really interesting even though sometimes it makes me agitated. \r\n\r\n5. What's next for you, in business, art, and life?<\/strong>\r\nThis is always a super busy time of year for me, for some reason October is always booked solid. We\u2019re taking our kid on his first plane ride, to go to his dad\u2019s work conference. We\u2019ve already done a work conference each this year, and we both have another one coming up where we\u2019ll be separated. So for this one, we\u2019re going as a family to spend some time together, plus also the hotel is right next to Legoland. I have a few events coming up, Whiskey & Words<\/a> in Pittsburgh, then Midwest UX in Louisville. I\u2019ve got a wedding to shoot, and I\u2019m setting up mini portrait sessions to benefit Children\u2019s Hospital\u2019s Free Care Fund<\/a>. Definitely more speaking engagements coming up, and some more events where I can set up and talk to folks about the book.\r\n\r\nThings tend to slow down in the winter, and I can get into my \u201csomeday\u201d list. Throughout the year I\u2019ll have ideas for art that I want to make, and it just goes into the giant someday pile for whatever time I carve out for personal projects. Sometimes I don\u2019t write up the best description, though, and months later I don\u2019t understand my own notes (like that episode of 30 Rock<\/em> where Kenneth has a notebook that just says \u201cbird internet.\u201d) I\u2019m also rebranding the photography site<\/a> over the winter, Ryan Troy Ford<\/a> agreed to work on a new logo for me, and I\u2019m pretty excited to update that. It feels weird to hire someone to design anything for me, since my undergraduate degree is in design, and I\u2019ve spent a lot of years working as a designer. But designing for yourself is so much harder than for clients, and fighting the urge to just tweak it for all eternity is difficult. Getting someone a little more removed from it is definitely going to be good for the project.\r\n\r\nFor the business, this is the first time I\u2019ve very intentionally done it part time. Even when I had a full time job, I was still really treating the business as a full time endeavor (which was not great for my health, but that\u2019s a whole other interview.) Being our son\u2019s primary caregiver, I can\u2019t also work full time. We decided I was going to stay home with him, instead of doing day care, so my hours are limited. It\u2019s a good balance for us right now, and I\u2019m happy with the direction it\u2019s taking. But the rebrand is part of a bigger theme of refocusing what I\u2019m putting out there, so that I\u2019m really getting the right clients to work with during those limited hours. Another thing that comes up in the book is how important it is to be attentive to your goals, and to revisit those goals to see if that\u2019s still what you want. I can\u2019t just look at someone else\u2019s business to see what they\u2019re doing, I have to really consider what I want out of my own business, and whether my actions are getting me closer to that. ","my_excerpt_rendered":"

\"Punk<\/a>Caroline Moore came to us with a book that really hit home: Punk Rock Entrepreneur: Running a Business Without Losing Your Values<\/a><\/em>. We’re thrilled with how the book turned out. Moore’s examples are drawn from her own life, other scrappy entrepreneurs including bands like Green Day. This is like the anti-startup guide. Instead of coming up with an idea and looking for funding, this book is about turning your craft and art\u2014what you would do no matter what\u2014into a viable business without the benefit of having much (or any) money. <\/p>\n

You can find out more about Moore’s design, illustration, and photography on her website<\/a>, and check out her sweet goods (some of them Punk Rock Entrepreneur-related) in her Etsy shop<\/a>. Oh yeah, and we still have a bunch of signed and doodled copies of her book. Order soon and snag one of them<\/a>!<\/p>\n

1. What’s the origin story of Punk Rock Entrepreneur? Where’d the idea come from? How did you end up with Microcosm? <\/strong>
\nDepending on how far back you want to go, the origin story is an interview I did with a group that focuses on entrepreneurship for teens. They asked what made me want to start a business, and I didn\u2019t have a great answer for them, so I spent some time thinking about it. The truth is, when I started out, I didn\u2019t even really think of it as starting a business, in an official way. I was used to my punk friends touring, starting zines, making and selling art, and that\u2019s what I did\u2014starting my photography business was very unceremonious. <\/p>\n

After I\u2019d put some serious time and thought into it, I found that a lot of what I knew about starting and running a business was from that DIY scene. I had been volunteering for a few years with Weapons of Mass Creation Fest<\/a>, and it seemed like the kind of thing that would go over really well with their crowd. So I pitched it to Jeff Finley and Joseph Hughes (Jeff founded the Fest, and Joseph was handling the speaker lineup that year), and they let me have a spot on their stage. So the idea got upgraded to a 30 minute\u2026 well, it was supposed to be 30 minutes, but closer to a 40 minute conference talk. One of my favorite comments that someone tweeted about that was something like \u201cpunk enough to get kicked off stage, professional enough not to knock down the podium on her way out.\u201d<\/p>\n

My process for writing conference talks is that I basically write an essay, exactly what I want to say, and then practice that and make an outline to actually use as a reference on stage. Which meant that I had everything all typed up, so I posted it to my blog<\/a> after I got home for anyone that had missed the talk. I was still doing contract work for a design agency a few days a week then, and my boss there said \u201cyou should turn this into a book.\u201d I knew I had a ton of material that I had to cut for time, so I started putting together proposals to send out to publishers. I had heard of Microcosm because I\u2019d done some interior illustrations for Bobby Joe Ebola\u2019s book<\/a>, which they published. After meeting with Joe and Elly at a Dinner and Bikes<\/a> event in Pittsburgh, and looking over the catalog, the book seemed like a really good fit both for the types of books that Microcosm puts out, and the way that they do business. <\/p>\n

2. This is your first book (congrats!). What has surprised you about writing and publishing a book? Any advice for other first-time authors now that you’ve been around this block once? <\/strong>
\nThanks! One of the first things that surprised me was the sheer volume of words that I needed to write. It seems like you have so much to say, but then you type everything up and it\u2019s six pages. I had gotten used to writing for blogs, for twitter, for conferences, for things that are meant to be short form. You have to be really concise and get to your point. Which is still important in longer form books, no one wants to read you droning on belaboring a point, but you do have a lot more room to really flesh out a concept. I also say something in the book, \u201cyou can\u2019t edit a blank page, but you can edit a bad one.\u201d Staring at a blank sheet messes with you, so just start putting words down. Even if they\u2019re terrible, stupid words, just start writing for the sake of having something that you can work with. We learned to write in chunks when I was in college, and that\u2019s still how I do it. The introductions are the last thing that I write, I start in the middle. <\/p>\n

3. In Punk Rock Entrepreneur you propose the counter-intuitive idea that not having a lot of money or resources can actually be the best thing for someone starting a business. Can you elaborate a little bit on this?<\/strong>
\nIt\u2019s certainly not the easiest way. Having a huge pile of money to throw at a project would make things much easier. But not having a ton of cash up front does make you think creatively about how to get your business off of the ground, and it makes you look at the money and resources you do have VERY critically. In particular, you\u2019re very thoughtful about what you\u2019re getting for spending that cash. A band with a trust fund might be able to get an RV to tour in, spend a lot of cash on hotel rooms, food, top of the line gear, clothes, you name it. But that stuff might not be helping them bring in any more money (or fans). They have a lot of money going out, but may not have any more money coming in than the band that\u2019s touring in their car and sleeping on floors. Those folks are keeping their overhead low, so they get to keep the money they bring in. <\/p>\n

4. What are you listening to or reading right now that inspires you?<\/strong>
\nI\u2019m actually giving a talk in Louisville in October (at MidwestUX<\/a>) about how routine input leads to routine output. I\u2019m really big on interdisciplinary education, because I think the bigger your pool of experiences, the more connections you can potentially make to create interesting work. I\u2019m actually working on condensing that entire chapter (“We Live Our Lives Another Way”) down to a 10 minute lightning talk. I don\u2019t have a ton of dedicated reading time right now (I have a 15-month-old), so I\u2019m reading a lot of psychology articles. Why people behave the way they do is really interesting to me from both a human perspective and a business one. I just discovered the joy of Instapaper to keep track of all the things I want to read. <\/p>\n

As far as music, I\u2019m a little all over the place. My husband and I just discovered Smoke or Fire\u2019s The Speakeasy<\/a><\/em>, which is great because they stopped being a band in 2004, which is a recurring theme when we find albums that we both like. I\u2019ve had that in the car on loop lately. I just picked up Signals Midwest\u2019s new one, At This Age<\/a><\/em>. We did a joint book launch\/record release show, and I don\u2019t have enough nice words to say about those guys or the music they make. And the last show that we went to was Sikth<\/a>, which is sometimes hard for me to listen to, because they\u2019re super erratic. But they\u2019re doing some really cool things that I don\u2019t hear much elsewhere, so I find it really interesting even though sometimes it makes me agitated. <\/p>\n

5. What’s next for you, in business, art, and life?<\/strong>
\nThis is always a super busy time of year for me, for some reason October is always booked solid. We\u2019re taking our kid on his first plane ride, to go to his dad\u2019s work conference. We\u2019ve already done a work conference each this year, and we both have another one coming up where we\u2019ll be separated. So for this one, we\u2019re going as a family to spend some time together, plus also the hotel is right next to Legoland. I have a few events coming up, Whiskey & Words<\/a> in Pittsburgh, then Midwest UX in Louisville. I\u2019ve got a wedding to shoot, and I\u2019m setting up mini portrait sessions to benefit Children\u2019s Hospital\u2019s Free Care Fund<\/a>. Definitely more speaking engagements coming up, and some more events where I can set up and talk to folks about the book.<\/p>\n

Things tend to slow down in the winter, and I can get into my \u201csomeday\u201d list. Throughout the year I\u2019ll have ideas for art that I want to make, and it just goes into the giant someday pile for whatever time I carve out for personal projects. Sometimes I don\u2019t write up the best description, though, and months later I don\u2019t understand my own notes (like that episode of 30 Rock<\/em> where Kenneth has a notebook that just says \u201cbird internet.\u201d) I\u2019m also rebranding the photography site<\/a> over the winter, Ryan Troy Ford<\/a> agreed to work on a new logo for me, and I\u2019m pretty excited to update that. It feels weird to hire someone to design anything for me, since my undergraduate degree is in design, and I\u2019ve spent a lot of years working as a designer. But designing for yourself is so much harder than for clients, and fighting the urge to just tweak it for all eternity is difficult. Getting someone a little more removed from it is definitely going to be good for the project.<\/p>\n

For the business, this is the first time I\u2019ve very intentionally done it part time. Even when I had a full time job, I was still really treating the business as a full time endeavor (which was not great for my health, but that\u2019s a whole other interview.) Being our son\u2019s primary caregiver, I can\u2019t also work full time. We decided I was going to stay home with him, instead of doing day care, so my hours are limited. It\u2019s a good balance for us right now, and I\u2019m happy with the direction it\u2019s taking. But the rebrand is part of a bigger theme of refocusing what I\u2019m putting out there, so that I\u2019m really getting the right clients to work with during those limited hours. Another thing that comes up in the book is how important it is to be attentive to your goals, and to revisit those goals to see if that\u2019s still what you want. I can\u2019t just look at someone else\u2019s business to see what they\u2019re doing, I have to really consider what I want out of my own business, and whether my actions are getting me closer to that. <\/p>\n","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/microcosmpublishing.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1045","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/microcosmpublishing.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/microcosmpublishing.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/microcosmpublishing.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/microcosmpublishing.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1045"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/microcosmpublishing.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1045\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1046,"href":"https:\/\/microcosmpublishing.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1045\/revisions\/1046"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/microcosmpublishing.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1045"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/microcosmpublishing.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1045"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/microcosmpublishing.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1045"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}