Need Free Art? Here’s my Review of 5 Copyright-Free Clipart and Photo Sites

You may have noticed that from time to time I drop in a few pieces of clipart or photos in between my posts. I’ve taken some of the photos myself, other times I’ve relied on images tagged with Creative Commons because I don’t have time to focus on my graphic design skills but am very conscientious of the fact that like writing–art takes time, money and materials to make. Creative Commons has give me the ability to know what my rights are to an artist’s work, for some of the same reasons I described for writers in my post entitled, “When do you need a copyright?.

Finding these resources isn’t as easy at it might look because sometimes the word “free” simply means “you don’t have to pay.” That doesn’t always mean that there isn’t some other catch associated with getting the artwork or that there aren’t any copyright restrictions. From subscriptions to spam, there’s often other headaches that come with searching for open source clipart and photos.

Here’s five resources that I rely on from time to time. For your convenience I’ve reviewed a few of them in a more structured format to provide you with the highlights and a little bit more detail than I typically go into. The ratings are from 1 to 5, with 5 being the highest rating.

Openclipart.org

From the home page, Open Clipart is extremely straightforward about the goal of their site.

This project aims to create an archive of user contributed clip art that can be freely used. All graphics submitted to the project should be placed into the Public Domain according to the statement by the Creative Commons.

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Beware the Self-Titled “Expert”

When I first started this blog, almost a year ago, I wanted to add my voice to a community of writers and hope that one day there will be this magical exchange of ideas where we all sit down and treat each other like adults. Almost every post that I write I try to take the attitude that even though this is my perspective on what has (or hasn’t) worked for me, maybe this same thing works for someone else. Most writers will tell you that in order to be truly successful in the field you have to be in the right place at the right time and be open to criticism. I feel I’ve achieved moderate success based on milestones that I’ve set out for myself: this year I’ll have two publishing credits for novellas. But–and this is a big “but”–I’ve never published a novel before, never dealt with an agent before. Maybe someday I will; maybe I won’t. Since I haven’t been there and it’s not on my radar, I haven’t posted about it yet because I’m doing the research to provide relevant and useful information from whaddaya know–actual agents.

For the most part, I’ve had really great responses because I’ve learned to put the caveat on what I say: I am asking this question because… or I am asking for your opinion. You’d be amazed by how quickly attitudes and egos get out of whack when you either post directly about anything or postulate a vague-ish question to generate some interest or camaraderie.
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Oh Hai…Reading this Blog?

After dodging sunbeams and causing a rain of words to fall on my black umbrella…

I’m sorry to report that my blogging may be a bit sporadic over the next two weeks because I started getting some edits back on the first part of the novella I’m working on for Aletheia. While this is not a bad or a good thing, this is a function of the work. So Abstract Nova Press owns my soul, as one of the other writers so eloquently put it. I’ll have a proper write-up to promote the other two writers once we get done with this but for now—tappity-tap-tap until this is done.

In the promoting of other writer’s work arena, I had the pleasure of conducting an email interview with Tad Williams–one of the first fantasy authors I’ve ever read. He wrote The Dragonbone Chair Series, the Virtual Reality Science Fiction Series “Otherland,” and is currently working on a number of projects including the conclusion of his “Shadowmarch” fantasy novel series. Folks, this is one of the writers who is in that lucrative 3% I-write-novels-full-time-for-a-living bucket, a veteran within the industry who more than fulfills my requirement for writing big, fat, interesting books.

I’m also thinking about ways to be more specific about some of my blog posts, because I take a great deal of inspiration from the newbies out there who are putting the words on the page for the first time. It’s hard not to be heavily influenced by the lack of business-minded leadership from my college daze; while I truly enjoyed my college experiences I can’t really consider what I learned applicable in terms of writing as a business, which is an affliction many who “major” in writing share.

In other babbles, I’m resorting to cheezburger speak, guilty pleasure movies, soy mint chocolate chip ice cream sandwiches, the Justice League, and my idiot fuzzballs of kitty doom for intermittent entertainment. Going to see Iron Man this week–here’s hoping it does not suck. Hoping to see Indiana Jones when that comes out…I really hope that does not suck. Also going back to the gym whether it kills me or not; I can’t avoid working out and I’m excited the weather will be nice enough to do things outside but, like the rest of things these days, a bit spontaneous and unplanned.

Other than that, life is pretty status quo at the moment. Good news and change all around; it’s so easy to slip into the stream and be taken away by things you know will be positive.

Do you have any books or authors you’d like to recommend? Topics you’d like me to cover? Jokes you’d like to share? Feel free to post them in the comments and please, do not take it personally when I don’t respond to email during this busy time.

Protect your marbles and your doughnuts, folks. Things are no longer getting interesting–they’re already there.

Google Webmaster Central: It’s Not “Just” for Webmasters…

One of the things that can be a bit frustrating when you’re a do-it-yourself blogger, is to understand how all the different tools work together. Google Webmaster Central is really no exception, because the name is pretty darn intimidating — especially if you’re not a programmer or a designer.

Although I can’t classify myself as a programmer or a web designer, there are a number of tools within Webmaster Central that I’ve found pretty useful for my WordPress blog. I’d like to show you a few things that are pretty awesome, and what actions you might want to consider as a result. Before you can set it up, however, you’ll have to sign up for a Google account. If you have GMail, you don’t have to set up another account to use this tool.

After you log in to Google Webmaster Central, you’ll see a screen that will ask you to add your site. When you do so, you’ll need to verify your account in the method of your choice. For my blogs, I chose to verify my Webmaster Tools account by copying/pasting the meta tag into my WordPress header. Phew! Try saying that five times fast…

Okay, let’s take that a little slower.
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March’s Battle of Words: Nomination for my Blog

It’s almost been a year since I’ve started this blog, writing feverishly to bring relevant content for freelancers and writers from different aspects of the industry. I was surprised to see that my blog has been included in a voting process for March Writing Blog Madness at Poewar.com. Even more interesting to me was how it got nominated:

The rankings were determined by a simple formula based on the blog’s Google Page Rank and Alexa Site Rank.

It’s pretty awesome to see that there are other bloggers out there who are conscientious of benchmarking tools like Google’s PageRank and Alexa rankings. Whether you cheer me on or not, I encourage you to take advantage of the opportunity to check out these other fine resources for writers. Remember, having more points-of-view and information is never a bad thing.

Here are the current brackets:

March Writing Blog Madness Seedings

Happy reading!

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