Here comes the “This blog is coming to an end” message.

I started this blog five and a half years ago to share what I knew to help other freelancers, particularly direct market designers and copywriters.

I’m still going to share, but likely not in this spot. (Notice how I qualify that just in case I change my mind six months down the road?)

Let me give you a bit of background, and then tell you where you can find me if you want to continue taking advantage of what I’m learning.

If you haven’t noticed, the main site of www.mikeklassen.com has just gone through a total redesign. My old site was HTML-based, and while it was fine and did the job, I wanted to take the appearance up another notch.

Goodbye HTML and Dreamweaver. Hello WordPress.

The change allowed me to add some new areas that I’ve gotten into: speaking and consulting. (This goes back to my last article on Expanding Your Business Boundaries.)

As part of that change, I didn’t really feel this blog had a place. All the content for this blog will remain for now. But there won’t be a link to this blog from the main site. The only way people will find it is through searches that link to the content.

Having said that, helping people is still a part of what I do. And it hasn’t just been happening here.

You may not be aware of where else you can find me…

1. The Magalog Guy’s MagaBlog. This is updated weekly. It’s geared to businesses in general, not just freelance designers and copywriters. But since you are a business, the content applies to you just as much as anyone else.

2. The Increase Sales & Build Deeper Connections Podcast. These are short messages from me, covering similar areas to what I cover on the blog. I’ll include interviews from time to time.

3. The Neanderthal Marketing Radio Show with co-host Traci Hayner Vanover. This is a weekly podcast, about a half hour in length, where Traci and I talk about different business-related topics. Very informal and a lot of fun for Traci and I.

4. The Magalog Guy Facebook Page. I try to share a few links of interest or bits of business info each week. I don’t believe in using this page to send out dozens of messages each day. So if you “Like” this page, don’t worry about me flooding your FB stream.

As you can probably guess from that list, it takes some time to put together that content on a regular basis. Between that and my work for clients, something had to give. And taking the hit was this blog.

I appreciate everyone who has read this blog. I hope you did more than read it… I hope you took action on it.

And I hope that you’ll find at least one of the other avenues I mentioned to follow me as I can continue sharing what I learn.

Thanks!

I dislike the idea of reviewing someone’s book. I’ve done it in the past, both here on this blog and professionally for others.

Instead, I’d prefer to give you a couple of thoughts that stood out for me from a book, point you to the book’s site, then let you decide for yourself whether it’s a good buy.

The book in question is Smarter, Faster, Cheaper by David Siteman Garland. Garland is the passionate personality behind The Rise To The Top. If you’re not subscribed to that in iTunes (or getting it some other way) you should check it out.

By going to Garland’s book site, you can learn more about its focus and what he covers. But the subtitle clues you in: Non-Boring, Fluff-Free Strategies for Marketing and Promoting Your Business.

I want to highlight two things that stood out most… enough that while reading in bed, I reached over for pen and paper to make sure I didn’t forget to share them with you.

(There are far more than just two good things in the book, but I have blog length issues as it is.)

First, people generally link to (or tweet) your content, not your home page. I’m not even sure Garland said those exact words, but what I read in his book inspired me to write that down to pass along to you.

I watch the stats of all my sites closely and I can see very clearly that my blog content is bringing in more traffic than my home page. And that shouldn’t be a surprise.

On this site alone, I’ve covered a lot of ground in five years while my home page has remained pretty static in terms of covering what I do. So the blog content increases my chances of being found when someone is searching on topics I’ve written about.

And that content is generally not about the hard-sell. On this site, it’s about my passion for some topic that I wanted to share with other freelancers. That’s what people relate to. It’s what can open the conversation to a sale down the road. Or maybe it leads someone to reach out for possible business partnerships.

If all it does is inspire other freelancers to keep pushing on, in my mind that’s just as good.

So… do you have a blog for your site? If not, why not? (If you’re not sure on the value of a blog, or worried about what to write about, check out my 1/9/11 interview with Christine Whittemore on my podcast.)

The second thing that stood out was the question of what would happen if Twitter went away tomorrow and something new popped up. How many of your Twitter followers would make it a point to connect with you on the latest social networking tool? How many of the people you follow would you want to track down on the new whiz-bang tool?

This is something I touched on recently in my article, Here’s A Novel Idea: Connect With Your Connections. A lot of us are connected to people we know nothing about. And we couldn’t name most of them if our life depended on it.

We got wrapped up in the numbers, not the people. For every tweet that someone sends talking about meeting someone new, I’d bet there are twice or three times as many tweets of people talking about hitting some Followers milestone.

We tend to measure things with numbers because numbers are concrete. But it can also get the best of us.

Sure, it’s not like all our connections are total strangers. But could we do better at reaching out and learning more about the people we’re connected with without trying to make it into a sale. Of course! (And that applies to Facebook and LinkedIn, too.)

And this, to me, ties into one of the themes of Garland’s book… making sincere connections with people.

I’m not a blog… I’m a person sitting on a chair in my studio (Canucks hockey game in the background if you’re really curious), sharing what’s on my mind in the hopes that you get some value from it.

And you’re not a browser connecting to my site. You’re a person who is likely looking to be a successful freelancer.

I think that’s important to remember as we send out messages each day on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and whatever other tool we might be using.

So those are two key things among many that I walk away with after reading Garland’s book. Check out his site and see if what he’s saying resonates with you. If so, grab the book. And if  you do that, take an even more important step… put the advice into practice.

If you didn’t know how old you were, how old would you be?

I like questions like this. (A related one is, If you didn’t know what day it was, what day would it be?)

The idea is that, if you didn’t have the facts in a given situation (or relied on the opinions of others), what would your interpretation of that situation be based only on your gut feeling and personal experience?

The reason I’ve been thinking about this question is because, if I didn’t know (through the media) that times were tough economically, would I know it based on how my freelance business is going? And the answer is no. I’m about as busy as I can be at the moment.

That’s not to dismiss the true suffering people are going through in certain areas. But there is a lot to be said for creating a career where there’s generally always some sort of need for your services, and where you have more control over the decisions that create success.

Sites you should know about

I’ve always had an appreciation for people who freely share some of their knowledge and experiences with others in their field.

Two blogs I’ve stumbled across recently are:

Direct Creative Blog – http://www.directcreative.com/blog/

ProFreelancing Blog – http://profreelancing.com/

Both are worthy of being added to your bookmarks.

Is the (design) world telling me something?

In the space of a couple of days, I’ve been talking to separate people about new ways to present material online that go beyond presenting that same material as PDFs.

This isn’t new, just interesting that it has come up so often in recent days and may soon affect how I do some layout projects.

Sites like BlueToad and WebIOB offer reading experiences that, when used properly, can make reading material online more interesting and interactive. At the same time, it might help with some security issues that direct marketers have with PDFs they sell that can be easily passed around to people who didn’t buy them.

There’s a lot more that can be said on this topic. But my point is that, as a designer, you’ve always got to be ready to see how these technologies will affect what you do. Not to mention being tuned into what people are talking and thinking about in terms of different ways to present content.

To me, that’s part of the excitement of this career… there’s always something new to learn which means you’ll rarely be bored.

…Michelle from eastern Washington.

Thanks to everyone who took the time to send in their name.

As you can, try to find time each day to learn something new about the design tools you use, whether it’s in a book like the one I gave away, or through a podcast or newsletter.

This week I learned something new about InDesign that totally changed how I do certain projects. It wasn’t any type of hidden feature or “trick”, it was just something I wasn’t aware was available to me.

The trouble with some of these programs is that there are just so many options, some are buried a bit out-of-sight or it’s not clear exactly how you’d use a given feature.

But if you learn how to use them (or even that they’re available), it can really save you time on projects.

…The look of this blog has changed. One thing led to another, and now it looks like this. I shouldn’t complain because it’s free, but the templates that are offered on Blogger aren’t so great…functional, but not great. And I don’t have time now to create something more original.

Related to that, I’m swamped with work at the moment. The jobs are out there and it doesn’t take more than a few before you have as much as you can handle.

Not sure if I mentioned this before, but in 2006 (which was a good year for me) I only had about six different clients. Of course, they gave me multiple projects. But the point is, it doesn’t take a lot of clients to fill your schedule.

This year, if the jobs aren’t coming from existing clients, they’re coming from referrals from those existing clients like the one I got about a week ago: “Hi, my name is ______. You don’t know me, but _______ gave me your name.” Ya gotta love when that happens.

Changing subjects…

Being someone who loves to read, I love lists like this. If I didn’t already have a stack of new books waiting on my shelf, I’d probably start picking up a few of the titles on their list.

When I have more time, I’ll tell you about a good book I just read dealing with design and creativity. Actually, I found two books, but one was much better than the other.

Changing subjects once again…

Never underestimate the value of being easy to work with. This is another topic I’ll probably address in more detail at a later date. For now, let me just say that how easy you are to work with is probably equal (give or take) to your design abilities when it comes to a client making a choice on a designer.

I know of a couple of recent cases where some good designers got scratched off the clients’ “call back” list because they were a pain to deal with. So keep that in mind when a project isn’t going as smoothly as you’d like…do your best to ride it out and keep a high standard in your conduct.

Today marks one year since I started this blog. I never intended to start one, but I was goofing around with Blogger and within a few clicks, the blog was created. Sometimes these tools are way too easy.

Anyway, I hope you’ve learned something from this blog along the way and will stick around for year two. There’s so much out there on the Internet trying to get your attention that I’m pleased you make your way here from time to time.

Sorry for the gap between posts.

We’re in the process of selling our house and moving to another city. Those of you who have gone through this need no further explanation.

When you add the move process to keeping up with design projects, you can understand that something had to give temporarily. (Hint: It’s this blog.)

Here’s the positive take-away, though: By working for yourself, you’re free to go house hunting during the week while still having time to work on projects for clients. Clients don’t generally care what hours you work, only that you get things done on time.

Plus, when you’re working freelance, you increase the odds of being able to move when and where you want.

I don’t want to leave you empty-handed, though. While I haven’t had a chance to watch all of them, I’ve added this podcast to my list of great, free resources:

The InDesigner

Ok, that’s no help if you use Quark. But for you InDesign folks, you can’t knock free video tutorials like this.

By the way, if you’re a direct market designer or on that path, you need to get yourself to AWAI’s Graphic Design Bootcamp. Yes, I’m one of the presenters, but ignore that for a moment and look at the names of the other presenters. You will not get a group of designers who specialize in direct market design in one room like that anywhere else.

I know for some of you it’s a financial stretch, but if you’re serious about making this a career, you should strongly consider going. My career got a big kick-start when I attended Bootcamp in 2004 as a total no-nothing newcomer. This year, I’m one of the presenters. Goes to show what can happen when you’re serious about making this a career.

I love to read and I probably enjoy reading magazines the most. I like the fact that magazines are current and a new issue arrives in the mailbox on a regular basis.

I subscribe to many magazines, most related to design.

But here’s the problem…those magazines – with all their useful articles and tutorials – begin to pile up. That has created a problem in my studio: I’m running out of space.

So I took drastic action and started tearing out the useful information and throwing away the rest. As a kid, I used to collect comic books for pleasure and investing. For the investing side, one little nick in a comic book and the value goes down. The obsessive behvior of keeping the comics in “mint condition” now applies itself to books and magazines I own.

I’m not kidding…you could take just about any book off my bookshelf, even if I’ve had it for a decade or more, and still sell it as new because it still looks perfect even after having been read.

Now you can understand the trauma when I considered ripping pages out of magazines.

But, I had to face facts. First, the likelihood of me finding a specific article or tutorial was remote. I simply had too many magazines. Second, there’s the space issue I already mentioned. Third, do I really need old reviews of software I already own or don’t care about? Do I really need the editorial column from a magazine that’s three years old? Do I really need all the ads for stuff that either doesn’t exist anymore or is in a new version? No.

This is what I did and it may help you.

I have a small file cabinet that had an empty drawer. I bought some hanging file folders and started labeling them with things like Photoshop, InDesign, Dreamweaver, Photography, Fonts, etc.

I started going through my magazines and ripping out everything that might be useful, mainly tutorials or articles that I might want to review later. I took those pages and stuck them in the appropriate folder, then threw away the rest of the magazine.

Now, if I want to work on my Photoshop skills for example, I simply pull out that file folder instead of going through stacks of old magazines.

At some point, if I have time, I could even scan those articles to have digital copies. But one step at a time, right?

Doing this has cleared the clutter and made me for more efficient when I’m looking for something that I know was in some magazine. If magazines are taking over your workspace, this idea is something to consider.

By the way, a big thank you to those who have already bought my first book, I Still Can’t Draw Stick Figures. There’s a tremendous sense of satisfaction not only in completing the project, but in having a project that helps other people. If you think you have a book in you, please pursue it.

For those of you into RSS feeds and seeing what’s new on your favorite sites from a central location, you can now subscribe to this blog.

On the main page of this blog, there are some Quick Links to the left and the top one has an icon and the words, “Subscribe to this Blog”.

There are all sorts of newsreaders out there. I’m using the Yahoo reader. You can learn more about it at http://my.yahoo.com/s/rss-faq.html.

What’s the advantage? Well, once all three of my blogs are setup for RSS, you can go to one spot to find out if there’s something new. And depending on your reader, new updates may scroll across your screen.

Basically, it’s a time saving device for you.

In addition to this blog, you can also subscribe to Freelance 101 and soon to Affiliates 101.

Have fun with it!

I spent part of the day working on the layout of an HTML-based e-mail promo for a client. It looks much like one of the direct marketing mini-websites you see, but it’s intended for e-mail.

I wanted to print the draft layout to a PDF and send it to the client, but by default, the long HTML page (about 6 pages) would be broken up by pages in the PDF.

That’s…well…lame.

But there is a way to take just about any website and print it to one, long scrolling PDF file. That way, it’s not broken up into pages and looks a little more professional.

This may be possible to do in other PDF creation tools, but here’s the way I know to do it in Acrobat 7:

1. In Acrobat, press Ctrl-Shift-O to bring up the Create PDF from Web Page dialog box.
2. Put in the URL of the site you want to capture. (It could even be an HTML page on your hard-drive.)
3. Click the Settings button and go to the Page Layout tab.
4. Page Size should be set to Letter, but make sure you unclick the “Scale wide contents to fit page” box.
5. Click OK.
6. Click Create.

The result is a PDF that allows the client to view the work as you designed it.