Words Artists Don't Want to Hear!!

Financial Records

Data Entry

File Management 

System Back up. 

Not exciting stuff!!!

 New paint, art books,  art show.  Much better!!

I was recently involved in planning an Art Business Conference.  One of the sessions was on "Managing Your Files for Your Art Business".  It was cancelled, not enough interest. 

You are an artist. You sell your work. You are a small business.  Let's take a look at your computer. What's on it, files for all your paintings. Yes, and you are probably going to say that you make a copy once and awhile on a flash drive or CD. 

Wait a minute, what else is there?.

Christmas Treats for Mr. Jay - This picture file would be lost
if there is no backup and my computer dies. 

Your sales record, your financial trail, and tax information.  What about your email trails for special events, shows, commissions.  Your contact info for collectors and future clients.  Templates for advertisement, course outlines for workshops and demos, images for publicity.  Oh, and now videos, slideshows, and more. 

Scary isn't it, how your computers has become the backbone of your business.  Not too long ago you would have paper copies of most of this information but now it is all on your hard drive.  

Is this information backed up?  Is a flash drive or CD really the safest thing to do?  Flash drives are small, easy to lose and if not handled correctly are notorious for failing.  CD can get scratched, need I say more.

For Backup think - 3, 2, 1!

Three copies of your data, on two different media and one off site!  This is considered the industry standard.

Don't panic.

It doesn't need to happen overnight but this is the direction you want to head.  Learn about external hard drives (they have amazing space for very reasonable prices), off site storage (the cloud is one possibility) and setting up file storage programs (many programs and devices have built in software to regularly do full and incremental backups, you don't have to rely on your memory).   No, this isn't rocket science, the computer world is ready for us non-techies and this is totally doable.  (Well  after a bit of research and the usual computer learning curve that sends me to the wall!!)

 The words Artists really don't want to hear are - your computer is toast and your files are lost!!

Google Backup Strategy 3-2-1 and start your research today.

February is Marketing Month for Artists and coming up fast. My Marketing Workshop Shop dates are set.  See Workshops/Private Classes for all the info.

Special Note: 

Did you notice the Change on my site? As we head into winter, gray and black seems to be the overriding colour in our clothes and the weather.  I thought I would try removing a bit of black from my world and give something new a try.  What do you think of the colour change??

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Have a great artful day, Wendy