"Boshemia" is the online name of a Colorado-based woman who runs a store in the virtual world known as Second Life. (Links follow below.) At her store, La Cirque Boheme, she helps people personalize their "avatars" – the artificial beings who represent visitors in the Second Life world.
I recently chatted with Boshemia via email to learn more about her SL business and her other home-based activities online.
RRR: Tell us a bit about yourself.
BOSHEMIA: I live in southwestern Colorado, about two hours from the Four Corners. I am also located two hours from the nearest Safeway, Starbucks, or stop light, in a small town called Nucla. Nucla probably has more cows than people. It's about an hour from Telluride, Colorado.
Regarding Second Life, I actually just finished a Squidoo page that has a lot of images and information on what we do in SL, at http://www.squidoo.com/secondlifetodo. There is a lot of technical jargon involved, but my store La Cirque Boheme specializes in Skins and Avatars to personalize your Second Life experience.
As for blogging, I have been doing some form of blogging since 2002. My main blog at http://www.sugarpatch.com/ gets about 600 page views a day on average. I chose self-help and personal growth because it is something I have always believed in. I've been through some tough times in my life, and had to work hard to overcome them. Now I share the lessons I learned the hard way with others so hopefully they can learn a little faster than I did.
Another huge part of my life is Squidoo, which I mentioned before, at http://www.squidoo.com/lensmasters/boshemia. Anyone can build free pages and make money there, with minimal web design skills. Since I am a writer by nature it was a perfect fit for me; the community is amazing. They are kind, and helpful, always willing to give a little bit of advice to a newbie. I only began writing there in December, but I expect great things. I absolutely love it there.
Diversity is key, make sure you have enough irons in enough fires that you aren't fully dependent on one income stream.
RRR: Given the entrepreneurship in your activities, did you have any entrepreneurial role models?
BOSHEMIA: I've been blessed in my life to have many positive role models. I come from a family of people who have found their own success; they will give anything to help another succeed, and have always been very supportive. I've also had a lot of family involved in multi-level marketing. I tried it out and discovered it was not for me. I'm just not the kind of person who can do what they have to do, but my experiences with MLM had many positive residual effects.
When you spend a lot of time with dreamers, you become a dreamer yourself. When you spend a lot of time with doers, you learn how to do. More than anything, they taught me that the world owes me nothing. If I'm not willing to get out there and do the work, I'm not going to get the rewards, plain and simple. There are no free rides.
RRR: How would someone go about launching a store or otherwise becoming a vendor on Second Life?
BOSHEMIA: The first thing I recommend is checking out the SL forums, at http://forums.secondlife.com/. I could have shaved months off my learning curve if I had stopped here first. There are people here willing to teach you anything you want to know. Then get out and meet people who already do what you want to do. Some of them aren't willing to help another person who is just learning, but many of them are.
Joining SL is free, so don't waste the money on a membership unless you just have to own your own land. There are a lot of places that "rent" land to others for very little money. You can get a nice-sized lot for under $10 a month, and small "booth space" for under $5. A membership will cost you nearly that, so in the beginning save your money and just rent the land.
There are a lot of people who sell items for resale, also called full permission items, but I don't recommend them. They appeal to new people, but after awhile, a user has seen them in so many places they will just write you off as an amateur. Unless you find a way to personalize your items and make them something of a one-of-a-kind, people will just pass you by.
SL does not charge for building materials, called prims, which are used to construct objects within SL. Prim work takes a little practice; it's a bit like playing with resizable legos. SL does charge to upload images (textures), about 4 cents per image. A skin, or the external surface of an avatar, requires three images, but you usually have a few mistakes you have to fix before your final cut.
Clothing and tattoos use the same template, available free at SL. You have face, upper body, and lower body. You will probably want to add prim work to finish clothing, the parts that stick out – pieces like suspenders, pockets, belts, skirt panels, etc.
People also sell sounds, scripts, animations, how-to books, etc. They teach classes on any number of subjects, and offer consulting and promotion services. If you have a skill, there is a good chance you can find a way to market it in SL with a little bit of imagination.
You can also get started with very little money; that's how I started. I just wasn't willing to put out a lot of money on something that might not work. I've made enough to cover expenses from my first month in business.
RRR: Roughly how much money do you make per year from your SL activities?
BOSHEMIA: The projections we have for 2009 are estimated to be about $10,700 after expenses. A lot of our profits will be turned around and placed back into purchasing land to rent to others. Renting land is not required, but it is by far the highest paid field in SL. Just look at Anshe Chung! [Chung was one of SL's first millionaires. Much of her money was made through SL real estate. For more, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anshe_Chung –- Ed.]
We didn't just run out and buy a bunch of land, and that was key for us. We added it slowly as our business grew. SL does charge a tax for owning land; ours currently sits at $125 a month. With both myself and my husband disabled, I couldn't afford to risk jumping into a huge monthly land payment at the outset. So as we've grown, we have bought our land a piece at a time. We currently own 1/2 of a simulator (sim).
Much of this year's profits will go into purchasing additional private simulators so we can rent land to others.
SL also makes their financial statistics available to the public, for example here:
http://secondlife.com/statistics/economy-data.php?d=2009-02-05. In January there were 407 people within SL making $2000-$5000, for essentially playing a video game.
If anyone is interested in Second Life, I'd be happy to give them some tips on getting started. If anyone has any other questions or wants a more in-depth explanation on anything I've covered, they are always welcome to contact me anytime, through my website or on twitter as @boshemia.
[This interview first appeared in the Rat Race Rebellion Telework Bulletin. To subscribe (it's free), see the signup box on our home page. -- Ed.]
Recent Comments