Justin Kistner

How to be a famous web developer

So you think you’ve got what it takes to play with the big boys, eh? But, you’re not sure how to make it big? Well, this post is for you. Just follow these simple steps and it will be you telling people you can’t take projects until sometime late next year.

Learn from the masters

It seems to me that there is a pattern among the web developing elite: develop with standards, maintain a website with a blog, promote a side project, write a book, and earn accolades for your work.

Developer	Website	Project	Book
Dave Shea	mezzoblue	CSS Zen Garden	The Zen of CSS Design
Shaun Inman	Shaun Inman	Mint and Designologue	N/A
Jeffery Zeldman	Zeldman	ma.gnolia	Designing with Standards
Molly Holzschlag	Molly	WaSP and W3C	30+ books, including The Zen of CSS Design
Eric Meyer	meyerweb	N/A	Eric Meyer on CSS
Cameron Moll	Cameron Moll	N/A	CSS Mastery
Dan Cederholm	SimpleBits	Cork’d	Bullet Proof Web Design
Todd Domney	Dominey Design, What do I know?	SlideShowPro	Professional CSS
Mike Rundle	Business Logs	9rules	N/A

The above is not an exhaustive list of the web developing elite, but it does help paint the picture of the success pattern. Be excellent at what you do, let the world know, help them for free, and sell an in-depth guide.

In addition to the master’s plan, here are a few more tips for building your name in the industry.

Submit your work to the CSS galleries

Promoting yourself includes gaining recognition for your work. Here’s a list of sites where you can submit your work:

Participate in the larger conversation

Other moves I recommend to bolster your reputation in the community are:

Submit an entry to CSS Zen Garden
Submit an entry to Designologue
Subscribe to the RSS feeds of industry blogs and leave comments and trackbacks
Get a MySpace account and make friends
Submit your site to directories
Submit your blog and feed to directories
Build your web presence using the tips that will be coming from my web presence building series