Recommend you listen to ABBA's "Money, Money, Money" while reading this post.
Launching your own business means you have to spend money to make money. But some of us have tight budgets. The trick is not letting a budget cost you your originality.
I'm very fortunate to have in-house talent, but that also means more software, subscriptions, books, and courses. So despite the cost savings of a spousal art department, we must be extra creative.
The current project is website development. I have a brand style but we're laboring over the hook. After all, the home page is the first sentence. It invites a viewer in to stay and visit.
So what's on an author's home page? A picture? ... Yeah, well pictures suck.
Like most people, I'm hyper critical of photos of myself. I may be in my secret lair building an octopus to suck you in, but I don't enjoy looking like Frankenstein's monster. Or as if I have a broken neck. Or like my eyes are two different sizes and my gums want to take over New York.
If my picture is out front, not buried on the About Me page, I need to be cooler. While searching for inspiration, I found an amazing drawing by a comic book artist. ME WANT.
Me can't afford.
So what to do?
Make my own drawing. Would it be easier to dig quarters out of all the couches in my neighborhood? (Ding dong - Avon wants to talk to you on the porch while I dig in your living room cushions.) Actually, yes. I could mail a sack of quarters to Mase One and have a beautimous drawing. But I've started down the path of doing it myself (with A TON of help from Hubs/PixelTwister Art Department) and I'm not ready to quit.
Stay tuned for the BIG reveal of our labor of tears, raised voices, explanations in an extra calm voice, and me letting Jreamy do his thang.
Cross your fingers my marriage isn't the cost of originality!
