The root of all evil is shameless self-promotion. It’s even worse when you get tons of other bloggers in on the act.

The root of all evil, John Chow is giving away a Nintendo Wii. To enter, all you have to do is write a blog post about it. He suckered a sponsor, 1234Pens.com, to help him linkbait his contest. They make promotional pens.

If you were as forthcoming and aggressive with what you had to sell, you’d probably sell more, right? Get out there and sell your ideas, your writing, your paintings, what have you.

John’s going to get a TON of links into his blog and a lot of PR, all because he was shameless. And I’ll be honest, all I really want out of this is a Nintendo Wii. So yes, I am just as shameless as he. I feel dirty.

To make myself feel better, I’ll also link to the blog I found out about this from, Freelance Writing Jobs.

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I highly suggest you subscribe to The Show, by Ze Frank. Hilarious.

When I’m not laughing at his videocast, I’m appreciating a lot of the insights he has. Today, he posted a good two or three minutes about creativity and confidence that you should check out.

The best point he made was that creativity is a lot like Sudoku. No matter what, you always start out with empty spaces. You’ve got to start somewhere, and you can’t figure out the rest of the puzzle without figuring out another piece. You won’t solve them all. But you know, no matter what, that it can be solved.

Enjoy.

Watch the clip

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Here’s a short film I just made for Steven Spielberg’s reality show, On the Lot. I submitted it awhile ago and heard nothing from them. Finally they got back to me and told me it was in the wrong format.

I was hoping you could all go there, vote for me and propel me to stardom and fame. Until then, you can say you knew me when.

Even though I didn’t make the show, which was my whole motivation for making the film, I still learned a lot. I learned to pay more attention to audio. I learned that having up-to-date equipment is not a luxury, but a necessity for making the exporting process easy.

Even if you try something and don’t make your goal, learn as much as you can from it and do it better next time. Work on projects that make you happy and make you better. Even if you’re not a star, you’ll have your happiness and a career that shows a continuous body of improvement, something that a lot of people can’t say.

Enjoy the film.

Watch Blind

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The scariest part of creativity is getting started. There’s nothing like looking at the blank page of death and knowing where you have to go to get the ole’ procrastination excuses churning.

There are a ton of techniques to brainstorm and to grease your neural wheels. One I like to do fairly often is the mind map.

A mind map is essentially a blank page of death you beat into submission by writing and scribbling thoughts on as quick as you can.

You start with your central idea. Then you draw a line and connect that to another (hopefully related) idea. Repeat.

Maybe along the way one of those ideas sparks you into thinking of something else. Draw a line between said ideas. Soon enough, you’ve got a page filled with lines and words. Yes! You accomplished something! Right?

It’s something alright. What you’re looking at is a brain dump. The mind map keeps you from dwelling too much on any one thought. Dwelling during brainstorming sometimes turns thunder and lightning into a light drizzle. Once you’ve got all your ideas out, you can go through and pick out the choicest bits and kill the rest without stressing too much. After all, you’ve got a hundred or so to pick from. Some of them HAVE to be good.

All you need is a pen and paper. There are some online mind mapping software programs out there you can try out too if you want. Maybe I’ll try them out and review one for you.

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My friend Matt just tipped me off to Wonder Pizza, a vending machine that stores, cooks and delivers you a piping hot pizza from a vending machine in less than two minutes.

I’m wondering:

• What does it taste like?
• What happens if my pizza gets stuck? (Huge, cheesy mess)
• How much does it cost?
• Does the machine keep the pizza frozen?
• Would I actually buy a pizza from a vending machine?

If I saw one of these, I know I’d get one at least once. If they want me to try it again, they better deliver an amazing pizza or be ridiculously convenient in a place where I’m going to be very hungry.

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If you’re just dipping into freelancing, or even if you’ve been at it for awhile, you could be grossly underpaid for what you do and not even know it.

So how do you know what you’re worth? You may think it’s not much, judging by the dearth of no-pay and low-paying jobs out there. But your creativity is extremely valuable. If everyone could do it, you would expect to receive commodity type rates for work.

But not everyone can do it, and you should be paid as such. Companies that employ creatives full-time understand this, and you should turn to them to figure out what you should charge.

If you need a guideline or a starting point for negotiations, this method is a good place to start. It’ll always be an inexact science based on the project, but this way you’ll be able to confidently ask for what you know you’re worth, which is half the battle.

Step 1 - Go to a free salary wizard like Monster’s. Are you a writer? Designer? Project manager? You’re trying to find a job description close to yours. Check the advertising category, they employ creatives.

Step 2 - Some salary calculators differ, but you should be able to enter your years of experience, education or location.

Step 3 - Find out how much someone doing what you do at a company makes. Pick the median number, or a little bit higher if you feel you’re stronger than the job description implies.

Step 4 - Add the costs of your healthcare, industry subscriptions and other business expenses. At a company, these are benefits. As a freelancer, you’re on the hook for all of it. The company you freelance for is saving money by not having to pay you full-time and cover your overhead, but you should still charge them for the time period you’ll be working on their project.

Step 5 - Divide the number you have by 52. This is what your weekly rate should be. Divide it by 40 and you’ll know what your hourly rate should be.

The numbers will probably vary by the market, so this number is one of many factors you should consider when pitching yourself. Ask what other freelancers you have a good relationship with charge. Get a good feel for the market you’re in, and you’ll have a more accurate idea.

Remember, a company is paying you for your time. You know how much your time is worth, and if a job is paying you 5 or 6 bucks an hour, you may as well go work at Starbucks instead.

The company you’re freelancing for wouldn’t pay their employees bottom dollar for the work they do, so why should they pay a freelancer a rate like that? Especially if you have experience no one in their company has.

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If you’re an aspiring filmmaker who wants to brush up on their technical knowledge, Cinematography: Image Making for Cinematographers, Directors, and Videographers is a decent resource for learning the hard facts about image making, lighting and film theory.

Unlike a book I wrote about earlier, this one is definitely not for a director or cinematographer making things on the cheap. At lots of points the author says things like “You need a minimum of four people working the camera except for the smallest of projects.”

Personally, I think that’s a load of bull. If you’re making films in the budget bloated world of Hollywood, yes, fine. But for most indies, advice like this doesn’t cut it.

What the book does do well is instruct you on the theory and the practical nature of cinematography. If you commit half of the knowledge in this book to memory, you should see a noticeable bump in the quality of your images.

Everything from exposing a scene properly to an analysis of what types of lights will produce the least flicker is in there.

That said, there’s very little discussion about how to use these theories and techniques to achieve a desired creative effect. But I don’t think the book set out achieve that, so we won’t knock them there.

One last minor detail that got me about the book was that a few of the images they showed as examples were pixelated and out of focus. It was a HUGE distraction in a book that’s supposed to be telling me how to create professional looking images.

Rated - 5 out of 10

Pick Up a Copy

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The Idea

Super-small, super-affordable hotel rooms

Why It’s More Than Average?

Got a spare dresser? You could be sitting on a wasted pod hotel! Rent that bad boy out!

If you go to New York, San Francisco, Chicago or any big city for that matter, you may find that downtown hotel rooms lacking in terms of space. They probably cost more than their roomier brothers out in the burbs.

These rooms are great for people staying downtown, because they’re probably the type of people that’ll be out in the city sightseeing during the day or partying it up at night. The only thing they’ll use the room for is sleeping, so why give them anything more?

Will It Succeed?

I’m willing to bet there’s a large number of people who just want a bed, maybe some internet access and a place to wash up when they stay in a different city. It could be the American answer to the European hostel.

Less is sometimes more. When people try to come up with new ideas, they often try to complicate or add to something that already exists. There’s a lot of opportunity in recognizing a niche like the “bed only” traveler.

How I found out about it

Fodor’s Travel Wire

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Tons of aspiring creatives spend their lives sending out query letter after query letter, hoping against all hope that some unknown pair of eyeballs on the other side of the mailman is going to get their letter.

“Stop the presses!” he’ll yell. “We’ve got to find this person and make them famous!”

It doesn’t work that way. Surprised? Don’t be. The best way to get someone to look at your work is to have an “in.”

What’s an “in?” It’s a friend of a friend who works in the industry. A real person you can talk to that’ll give your work to the right person and vouch for you at the same time.

This person is out there, you just have to find them. And here’s the catch, they have to know that they can help you.

Here’s how you do it. Whenever you start a conversation, anywhere, and the other person asks how you’re doing, respond in this way.

“Busy. I’ve been working on (insert novel, screenplay, painting, etc. here).”

It’s that simple. If you can work this line in to every single one of your conversations, you WILL meet someone who knows someone. I have a friend who talks to everyone about his writing, and he’s got tons of “ins.

Some people are better social creatures than others, and that makes it all the more critical that the creatives with fewer opportunities for conversation maximize every one.

After that, it’s up to you and your work to shine.

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