I run- or I suppose "will be running" might be more accurate- a business called The Zombified, which will offer my original artwork in a variety of incarnations, including but not limited to t-shirts, cards, pins/buttons (whatever you prefer to call them), pocket mirrors, etc etc. I'm also in the midst of writing a comic book series entitled Hallowhaus, about a girl risen from the grave one Halloween night, which will also be available on my website. I'll be selling almost exclusively online, with the exception of vendoring at the occasional relevant convention (I'm already booked for Fear Fest 3 in Dallas this year), and I'll be contacting individual comic shops myself- starting local to me- in hopes of them agreeing to carry Hallowhaus.

My business is extremely important to me, and making it a success has become something of an obsession- I feel I need to be able to do this for a living, as I'd likely be miserable doing anything else. I am entirely self-funding The Zombified, which does make things progress a fair bit more slowly than I'm happy with, and I try to do as much as I can to avoid outsourcing (for example, I hand screenprint the t-shirts myself). I spend a great deal of my free time reading small business forums, blogs, and other sources, and if I talked about my business half as much as I thought about it, I'd be driving everyone around me insane (which naturally brings me to the creation of horror_biz).

horror_biz is a community for entrepreneurs and artists to discuss all aspects of starting and running a darkly inclined, horror-or-Halloween-inspired business.

The main purpose of this community is for discussion and the exchange of ideas, experiences, and information. For now, promotions are allowed in posts, until I feel that that privilege is being abused. Please keep this in mind whilst posting and make an effort to contribute to discussion as opposed to only promoting your business. Members who only post advertisments will be removed from the community.

All images should be placed behind an LJ-Cut

A certain level of civility among members is expected. Criticism- though welcome- should at least be constructive. Try not to be a jerk.

For the sake of inspiring some start-up activity--
a list of potential discussion topics:

Starting a business
Website creation and critique
Legal issues and requirements
Advertising, PR, and promotion
Resources and helpful hints
Pricing and packaging
Shipping
Balancing your business and "real life"
Taking photos of your product(s)
Selling at fairs and conventions
Your creative process (and overcoming that damn artists' block)

As always, feel free to introduce yourself in a new post!

If you'd like to add your business website to the list, comment here.

Listing Guidelines
- Post your business name in the subject line
- Include a link to your site and a short description in the comment body
- You may include one image in the form of a 468x60 banner
- To modify your listing, either edit the comment if you're able, or delete your original listing and repost the edited version
- Duplicate listings will be deleted