The real winner of Alt 2013 was letterpress. On thick, lovely cotton paper. With colored edges. Bingo.
So, I spoke on the panel with Jaime Derringer of Design Milk, Jordan Ferney of Oh Happy Day, and Ruth Harding of Windmill Words. These ladies are fantastic. Since I jumped on the panel last minute there was already an outline in place and all I had to do was add in. Easy squeezy. Our panel was a bit more conversational in that we all contributed throughout rather than divi it up in 10 minute intervals, which I think is a bit more helpful because we all could pitch in.
I led a segment on "what are you spending your time on instead of the things that will bring you traffic?" and I did an exercise that helped me prepare for it and maybe it'll help you too, if you'rea blogger. First, I wrote down what I'm actually doing on my blog, mostly the DIY process.
Then, I highlighted in pink what things I need to continue doing myself, and in orange what I could potentially give to someone else. Some are both pink and orange because I do like to have my hand in most everything (agh, so THAT's my problem!).
It helped me take inventory of how I spend my time and what things I do not ned to spend my time on and I recommend it too if you think you're at the stage where you need to hire out help.
It also helped me to see that I'm so grateful for my contributors and I work with a number of people for this blog. My photographers are ESSENTIAL and have been such a help to how I've shaped Lars. I've worked with some stellar photographers (Hilda, Amanda, Lina, Jessica to name a few) and stylists. I also have three great content contributors, Katie Farber, my sister Caitlin Watson, and Tori Bowman. My angle on the panel was how I hire help when I don't pay my contributors in money. This site is not monetized, but I hope to do so very soon (wink, wink, sponsors!) so I offer trades with those with whom I work. In the past I've traded my branding skills with photography. With my content contributors I will be doing a giveaway swap, link exchanges, advice, merchandise, ad space, portfolio building, and shout outs as much as I can. I know they are happy to contribute (at least that's what they tell me!), but "exposure" only goes so far before resentment possibly sets in so my deal/rule is: If Lars makes money, YOU make money. So here I go setting out to bring money to this site so I can make awesome projects and pay my contributors.
What do you think about working for exposure?
So, there you have it, there are all my recaps from Alt. Check out Recap from Alt Summit 1, 2,
Panel photos by Justin Hackworth for Alt. See the rest of the Alt Summit photos.
4 comments:
Great round-up, insights and tips. I am always stunned to see how professional blogging has gotten over the past years. It is an incredibly vivid business and definitely something to watch! Thanks for sharing!
I love the highlighting tip. Great exercise. When my blog just started, I become a food contributor for a much bigger blog. I got some decent traffic the days that my recipes went live on the site. I was star struck at even being picked by a blogger I so admired. At first I was inspired just to be connected to the blog, but after 8 months began to question if it was the right move. I was spending so much time on my guest posts and giving my very best to someone else's blog, and didn't have the energy to do the same each week for my own blog. I realized that contributing in that way was too much of a commitment and my own blog content suffered.
Managing time is always a hard thing. Your lists + highlighting exercise is brilliant.
I think for someone like me, who is just starting out, working for exposure is definitely something to consider. However, I think it's important to keep the communication open and keep checking in to make sure both parties are on the same page. Also, I think setting up a time frame (ie, so many months of work will get x,y,z in terms of exposure), which I think would help to keep it more balanced in terms of monetary values. But hey, that's just me!
Thanks so much for sharing your journey so we can learn along with you! Delegation is a tough one for me too, but I'm always happiest when I'm collaborating instead of working all on my lonesome. Let us know how you do with transferring some of your tasks to others!
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