SEA Conference for Self Employment In The Arts 2018

Last weekend it was the Capricon Science Fiction Convention This coming weekend it will be an art business conference. The SEA (Self Employment in the Arts) Conference is a two day conference focused on helping creatives (artists, photographers, authors, etc.) manage, market, and grow their creative business. This conference is packed with panels, round table discussions, and how-to sessions. There is also a juried college art competition and an idea pitch competition for artists, not to mention entertainment. I had the good fortune to be able to participate in the 2017 SEA conference and was really impressed by how well organized it was and by the quality of the programming.

To give you a quick idea as to the nature of the conference programming, here are just a few of the programming items:

• Branding Workshop
• Busting Legal Myths: Contracts and Business Entities
• Creative Career Exploration
• Death to the Starving Artist Myth:  How to Eat, Live and Succeed as an Artist
• Getting Exposure for Your Creative Work
• Getting Started as a Creative Entrepreneur
• Making a Career as an Illustrator
• Making Money with Writing
• Pricing Your Creative Work
• Social Media Tools and How to Use Them

My participation in the conference will consist of being on one panel, leading two round table discussions, and being available for one of the conference's One-On-One mentoring sessions.

In the panel Marketing your Creative Talent or Business, we panelists will be addressing the wide range of ways in which creatives can market themselves and their business, including both traditional marketing methods and online marketing. Besides myself, the panelists are Ross Egan, J.C. Geiger, Lauren Ramsey, and Brandy Sales.

One of the round table sessions I'll be leading is Print-on-Demand (POD) where we'll be discussing how an artist/photographer/writer can go about comparing the different online platforms that are available and determining which one will best serve the individual's needs. In addition there will be discussion of how to market both your POD (Print-On-Demand) account/storefront and products.

The second round table will be Analyzing Your Web Site. While this will be most beneficial to those artists who already have a web site, individuals looking to create their first site will also benefit. The approach I hope to take with this roundtable is to use a SWOT (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats) analysis methodology in conjunction with an implementation of web design best practices.

I will also be available for one of the conferences many One-On-One Mentoring Sessions. The topic areas that would be of highest value are those of web design, content creation, HTML/CSS, WordPress, SEO, Print-On-Demand (POD) platforms, and web site analysis. Of course if someone wants me to mentor them on the subject of creative coding using the Processing platform, I'll be happy to oblige them.

As a part of supporting the SEA Conference, I've donated three items to the conference's raffle. One is the Eyeo Converge to Inspire 2011-2015 conference speakers and art book I got at the 2016 Eyeo convention. The book is a 1st edition and is out of print so this will be a nice prize for someone. The second and third items are two certificates each good for a two hour (120 minute) complimentary web design consultation (for more see my Web Consulting Services page).

Lastly, I have to say that I was very pleasantly surprised to see that the conference program book cover includes one of the artworks I submitted. The artwork Welcome to the Machine is the rightmost of the four images seen in the image at the top. Sorry folks, this one is not on my web site nor is it available in my Redbubble store.

SEA Conference 2018

February 23-24, 2018
Hilton Hotel, Lisle, Illinois
selfemploymentinthearts.com
@seaconference
#seaconf2018

| Return to the Blog Index | This entry was posted on Wednesday, February 21st, 2018 at 1:07 pmand is filed under Art and Artists, Art Business.

One Response to “SEA Conference for Self Employment In The Arts 2018”

1. Lexie L.@mxplayer says:

   February 28, 2018 at 9:11 pm

   Awesome experience with many well-informed guests! I learned so much and can't wait to apply all this knowledge!