Good Stuff I Use & Love

I often get asked about the tools and things I use to run my business, so I created this page as a one-stop-shop of stuff that either makes, or has made, my life better and/or my business run more effectively.

Most everything on this list is stuff I use, or have used, love and wholeheartedly recommend.

Unless the company/product has no affiliate program, I’m an affiliate partner for everything on this list, which means I’ll earn a commission if you click through and buy. Just fyi.

Especially for Artists

The Abundant Artist – If you’re a visual artist and want to learn the business of art — as in how to make a living from your work — this is the site for you. The blog is chock full of really useful info, and the courses are top notch.

ArtSquare – Going crazy trying to digitize your artwork on your own? ArtSquare is a pretty cool new service that not only provides museum-quality digitization for a reasonable fee, but also provides image storage and backup, automatically makes different versions of your images (for your website, for Instagram, etc.) for you to download anytime, and makes it easy to share your images, too.

Spreesy – Easy, one-step way to start selling your work on Instagram.

Life-Changing Stuff

YNAB – AKA, You Need A Budget – Powerfully transformative system and software (plus apps for all devices) for having total control over your financial life. Brilliant! Changed my life! I use it for my personal finances with my husband, and for my business finances. If I had had this years ago, I never would have gotten into debt! There’s a 34-day free trial, and save 10% if you click on my link and end up purchasing the software license.

Courses, Coaches & Communities

The Abundant Artist – If you’re a visual artist and want to learn the business of art — as in how to make a living from your work — this is the site for you. The blog is chock full of really useful info, and the courses are top notch.

Playing Big – Tara Mohr’s signature program to get women playing bigger. Life-changing.

Tara Gentile – Tara is another whip-smart cookie who’s leveraged her experience with creative businesses into a full-on enterprise. Your go-to girl for learning to earn from your creativity. I got to interview her for ArtEmpowers.Me, and have also met her in person (she’s just as awesome there as online). I’m a lifetime member of her Kick Start Labs community, and if you’re looking for straight-up business advice, she’s your gal.

TeachNow – Jen Louden’s stellar course for anyone who has the slightest interest in teaching. I’ve taken it twice, and may just become a lifer.

Unconventional Guides – Chris Guillebeau’s Unconventional Guides are awesome. I have a lot of them. Here are some of my favorites:

Empire Building Kit – Chris’ multi-media toolkit to build your empire in one year. Rocks. Read my reviews here and here.

Travel Hacking Cartel – Not really a guide, per se, this is a fantastic subscription service that is guaranteed to earn you 100,000 frequent flyer points in a year. The site (designed by the brilliant Reese) is amazing, but I confess I almost never visit it, because new deals land in my inbox a few times a week, saving me the trouble. If you want to travel without going broke, the THC is truly awesome.

Unconventional Guide to Publishing – So you wanna write a book? This is your secret weapon to navigating the waters of the publishing industry.

Mailing Lists/Email Autoresponders/Email Marketing

I’ve used three different mailing list services, and they’re all designed totally differently. Of the three, I used to like AWeber the best, but I’ve become more of a MailChimp fan, largely due to their ease of use and widespread integrations, and the fact that you can segment people in your list so easily — so you don’t have to be charged double if someone’s on two different lists — plus they’re just plain fun! Any of the services below are great, but MailChimp and MadMimi are probably easiest to get started with.

ConvertKit – I switched to ConvertKit in 2016 when I needed more functionality than MailChimp could offer. Formatting emails is much harder than with MC, and CK is more expensive, but it allows me to do much more.

MailChimp – BEST FOR BEGINNERS! I used and loved MailChimp for most of 2015, and still use it to deliver some of my ArtSpark newsletters, thanks to the handy MC Snap app that allows me to send a pic directly from my phone! Cory Huff and I also used MailChimp for our JV course for artists, ArtEmpowers.Me. I love how easy it is to make pretty emails with MailChimp! I only switched to ConvertKit because there were certain things MailChimp wouldn’t allow me to do. If you’re just starting out, though, MailChimp is a great one to start with.

AWeber – This is what I used for Living A Creative Life from 2010 to 2015.

MadMimi – I was curious about MadMimi, so used it for some JV projects (including Playing Around Workshops).

Computer Backups

Backblaze – Back up your stuff. Automatically. Set it and forget it, and sleep easier knowing that all your files, photos, music and everything else are SAFE!

Website-Related Stuff

WordPress Wonder-Solution

Rainmaker Platform – Rainmaker is an entire WordPress eco-system, which eliminates the need for everything else below. Though it offers less flexibility than cobbling together your own patchwork of solutions, it is infinitely less of a headache (ZERO maintenance! ZERO plugin incompatibilities!) and is saving me money in the long run, too! I am kind of in love. 🙂

WordPress Site Maintenance

WP Curve – If you’re tired of updating your plugins and themes, and fixing all the little stuff that inevitably breaks, it’s time to get out of the WordPress development business and get some help! I signed up for WP Curve after researching a lot of different companies that do that same kind of thing, and it has been so great to be able to send an email and get my issue resolved within a day (and often less), rather than having to dig around in code for hours on end!

Whether you want to change a font, or move an image 10 pixels to the left, or resolve a bug that’s driving you batty, WP Curve has got you covered.

Web Hosting

BlueHost – My host for many years, they have excellent 24/7 tech support, and have helped me out of many a jam.

Synthesis – When my site got big enough that performance was suffering with regular hosting, I switched to Synthesis, by the folks at Copyblogger, and they have been absolutely fantastic.

WordPress Themes

Elegant Themes – My last two site designs have been Elegant Themes. I lovelovelove my Elegant Themes! My one complaint is that their support forum leaves a little to be desired, but the designs are top notch (especially great for creative types), and my current theme, Divi, not only lets me create gorgeous pages easily, but was recently awarded the Safe Theme Seal after a security audit by Sucuri.

Genesis Theme – When I moved my hosting to Synthesis, I switched most of my many websites over from Headway Theme to the Genesis theme platform. They each have their pros and cons, but I have to say I’ve been very pleased with my Genesis sites. My ketubah site is still running on the Genesis platform, on the Clip Cart child theme. The folks at Copyblogger know their stuff.

Headway Theme – The amazing “drag and drop” premium theme that gives non-coders unheard-of control over their site design, plus includes excellent SEO and other features. The Bomb. (Though I’m now able to do even cooler stuff running the Divi theme from Elegant Themes, and I haven’t kept up with Headway over the past few years, so can’t say much about its current functionality.)

*iThemes – Although I don’t use any of their themes (since I’m in love with Headway now Genesis Elegant Themes) they offer an amazing array of plugins in addition to their themes, many of which I do use and love, especially BackupBuddy,. (In fact, I have their full-on Plugin Developer Package.)

Thesis Theme – Before I discovered Headway, I used Thesis as my platform. I haven’t kept up with their developments, so I can’t speak to how it compares to Headway, Genesis, or Elegant Themes, but for awhile it was the premiere premium theme platform. Allows for lots of control, but as a “non-coder,” I found it frustrating to try and get it to do anything outside of the default. If you’re comfortable with CSS and html, Thesis could be a good option for you.

WordPress Plugins

ESSENTIALS: Backups and Security

BackupBuddy – ESSENTIAL! This is the first plugin I always install on every new site or blog. Allows you to easily schedule as many automatic backups as you want, AND automatically sends them offsite to the destination you select! Killer. Do yourself a favor, and don’t build a WordPress site without it. (Though if you’re hosted by Synthesis, they do daily backups automatically, so backup plugins become less essential.)

Sucuri –ESSENTIAL! Okay, this isn’t actually a plugin — it’s a site monitoring and security subscription service — but if you have a website or blog, you cannot live without this. All you have to do is type in the URL you want Sucuri to monitor, and not only will they notify you if your site is hacked, they clean it up for you. All for your annual subscription.

People, I have been hacked multiple times — before I signed up with Sucuri, my ketubah site, the site that pays my mortgage, was downed by malware for a solid month. Not good. Since signing up with Sucuri, though, I had NO downtime — Sucuri took care of everything before my site was even flagged.

You will get hacked if you’re online. Your best protection is to backup, backup, backup, and sign up with Sucuri. (NOTE: if you host with Synthesis, Sucuri is included, which is one reason I chose to switch to them when I outgrew Bluehost.)

Landing Page Plugins

I now make my landing pages without any plugins, thanks to the Divi theme, by Elegant Themes, which allows the use of a Blank Page template, to remove headers and footers from any page. I’ve tried these three plugins, though, and they all have some amazing features. 

Instabuilder – Easily make landing pages, plus this plugin contains a lot of short codes that you can use all over your site, not just on landing pages.

Premise – This landing page plugin by the folks at Copyblogger Media does more than just make it easy to create landing pages. It contains an entire copywriting course inside! Brilliant.

PT Instant – Another brilliant landing page plugin, which I like MUCH better than Premise. Although the lessons inside Premise are fantastic, and Instabuilder offers some great shortcodes that I use a lot, I actually never use either one for pages anymore, and now make all my landing pages in PT Instant.

Membership Site Plugins

Digital Access Pass – I used DAP for my first membership site, the Thriving Artists Project. If you don’t need a forum on your membership site, DAP is pretty freakin’ awesome. The fact that DAP requires users to have a different login from the WordPress login makes it a pain in the ass when using Simple:Press forum, so I can’t recommend it if you’re running a forum. But it has TRUE content drip capability, plus the ability to create an email drip right inside the admin. Very cool.

s2Member – I used their free option for awhile, because it integrates with BuddyPress (which I’ve since given up on as too buggy). A very easy-to install and operate membership plugin. Good support community inside, too.

WishList Member – This is the membership plugin I currently use for my LACL online courses (all housed over at a separate website, called the Creative Ignition Club) and for ArtEmpowers.Me. Imminently flexible and expandable. I do recommend joining their WishList Insider program, too — you’ll want access to the forums inside, plus that’s how you can get your hands on their amazing plugins and extensions to add super-cool functionality.

Shopping Carts

WooCommerce – An awesome (free!) shopping cart, with lots of (not free…) addons to provide amazing functionality. This is the shopping cart I use here on Living A Creative Life.

Cart66 – Awesome shopping cart plugin for WordPress, with a FREE version that’s really good. I use Cart66 + GravityForms to run my very complicated ketubah store.

Premium Web Cart – Incredibly easy to use, great support, customizable, incredible functionality, and less expensive than the better-known 1ShoppingCart. I used this shopping cart to powers Living A Creative Life for awhile, but ultimately switched to WooCommerce for a variety of reasons.

Miscellaneous Plugins

Gravity Forms – Who needs forms? When you sell customized artwork with as many options as I do over on my ketubah site, you seriously need forms! Gravity forms integrates with Cart66 shopping cart plugin to allow me to create the most complicated wedding art store with the least amount of headache. Seriously awesome. (Though WooCommerce should be able to create the same functionality using some of their paid addons.)

Popup Domination – Their marketing tactics are, I grant you, excessively annoying. But they do make good products. My sign-up form popup has brought a lot of new subscribers my way. (Note: please, for the sake of all that’s good and decent, do NOT set your popup to go off as soon as someone lands on your page! Nothing is more off-putting. Use the power for good.)

Scribe SEO – Nifty plugin from those same crafty folks at Copyblogger Media, that helps you easily optimize every post and page on your site for SEO. (Note: The “lite” version comes free with Synthesis web hosting, and gives me all I need.)

Essential Grid – This is what I used to make the grids on my ArtQuotes page and in my art shop prior to moving to Rainmaker. Infinitely flexible and powerful. I LOVE this plugin!