I finished reading "Breaking into Freelance:  the guide for artist, designers and illustrators" by Holly DeWolf.  My initial thoughts were that it does contain some useful information that I have implemented into my work day to help keep my self organized and on track with my projects. Now comes the "but", the book itself seems more directed to the work from home mom than to the freelance illustrator.  It seemed more like a "How to become a Freelance artist for the stay at home mom" book. With frequent talks on how great it is to be at home with the kids and how to manage kids, work and household duties.  Which is fine, I'll be doing that as well but not the information I was looking for.  The book is a good book to keep you motivated with your decision to be a freelancer.  Its a nice little pep talk of a book without ever getting into the meat of what a freelancer needs to do in terms of managing expenses, contracts and agreements, marketing, looking for vendors and what to look for in those vendors, time keeping for billable hours, business status (becoming a corporation vs an LLC) which the book either briefly mentioned or completely overlooked.  If you want the meat and potatoes of what being a freelance really means and takes this is not really that book.  If you are knee deep in freelancing but down in the slumps and need a good motivational pep talk then this book can be useful in that sense.

The book I am now currently reading (I'm a little over halfway through it) "Starting Your Career As A Freelance Illustrator or Graphic Designer" By Michael Fleishman.   This book is very heavy on the meat and potatoes.  Delving into a lot of the financial aspect regarding taxes, expenses and the like. Also touching on lawyers and why one is needed to protect our interests as a designer or illustrator. Very detailed and informative really gets you thinking about everything that you need to keep track of and do to sustain a career as a freelancer.  Forms, contracts, artist agreements, invoices, estimates and all the necessary forms and paperwork that will be needed. Building a proper quality portfolio.  I'm still only half way through the book.  The next chapters are going to be:

Bringing in Clients, How Do You Get Noticed, What Goes In A Portfolio, The Magazine Market, Selling to Newspapers, Working With Advertising Agencies, Selling To Book Publishers, The Greeting Card Market (a market I hadn't thought of marketing to before), Working With Art And Design Studios, Selling to Small Businesses and Marketing to the Web.

Which I'm looking forward to some of these chapters and if they are as informative as the chapters I've already read I will be well on my way to kicking some serious tail in this freelance gig.

Michael Fleishman's book is very well written and lays everything out plainly and clearly with no sugar coating. Something I'm glad to have picked up and has been an invaluable resource of information.  Something I'd certainly recommend for anyone thinking about or is currently working as a freelance artist.  Though at points in the book its information is veered more to the Graphic Designer than it is to an Illustrator, but if you plan on doing both jobs then everything in the book would be pertinent.

Figured I'd share this review especially since I'm documenting my foray into freelancing full-time and the information in these books have certainly helped and influenced some of the decisions I've made so far.

Now for another page from my sketchbook

It's been a bit slow going.  Entered into an agreement with Agency Access.  With an impressive data library of unsuspecting future clients I created my first email campaign to send out.  Fore the most part I'm researching and putting together a small email group per week that I send out.  Maybe about 5 or 6 each week.  These I try to personalize the best I can.  Then about every 2 months I plan on a large scale email blast to all the contacts I've accumulated through Agency Access and other sources.  A direct mail campaign I was thinking once every 6 months with postcards, but I might change that up and do postcards once every 3 months and every 6 months try to do something more personalized to a smaller group of possible and current clients.  Part of going freelance the main thing is sustainability.  To do that I have to nab the proverbial white whale.  Which I certainly hope is not as elusive ass Moby Dick was to Ahab.  Pretty much need that one whale of a client that can offer consistent work and pay well for that work.  Easier said than done.  To continue with the fishing metaphors, I just need to keep casting out that line till I am able to reel in that one big catch that can sustain me long term while I  still can enjoy and continue catching the little fishies.  Right now I find myself needing to adjust my portfolio a bit for certain markets.  Which means doing more portraits (celebrities is what seems to always be in demand), some more monster/fantasy art for the RPG industry, more product type illustration for consumer industries and concept driven editorial art.  Something that my tee shirt and skateboard design heavy portfolio is lacking.  Though I do have a few editorial art and some product driven art that I, for the meantime will try to capitalize on.

Now to expand on Access Agency.  I just did my first email blast to about 900 unsuspecting future clients.  Access Agency does make sending out those emails an easy process.  With very specific category listing it helps narrow down or widen (what ever your intent is) to specific client list.  Then various easy to set up email templates that allows inclusion of a few images into the email that can be linked to your portfolio.  The only issue I had was coming up with decent copy introducing myself and what I offer.  I think I came off a bit to serious and formal in the copy.  Next time I'll try to be more my idiot self and see what happens.  Once the emails are sent AA offers a nice set of stats tools. I can see who opened the email and from those who actually clicked to the website. How many emails bounced back and a few other relevant data.  With this I can see how the response to the emails went.  Next time try out different image styles or copy style.  I'm still fairly new to using AA so I'm still looking through to see what else I can do with AA.  So far results have been a few we'll keep you in mind for future projects.  Not the response I was looking for but still its something positive and with periodic emails, I'm sure a lot of these we'll keep you in mind will become we have a job for you.

Now for todays sketch

One of my favorite movies as a kid mashed up with the iconic Action Comics No. 1.  You can almost hear Sloth yelping out "Heeey Yooouuu Guuuys!!"

A homage to Goonies all over the world.  This design has bee revised a bit form the original to look and fit better on a tee.  

Will be availble from www.riptapparel.com for ONLY $10!! Wow with a deal like that you should 3 or 4 DOZENS!!  Share this, tweet this, pass it along, tumblr it, email it.  Let Thursday January 19th of 2012 be the day the world says "Never Say Die"

I've got quite a few sketch cards selling right now over at eBay. Now is a good time to get some original art from me. A few are official Upperdeck and Marvel Comics "Marvel Masterpieces II" others are my own personal sketch cards. Bid and get them here:
http://www.ebay.com/sch/mrmisfit/m.html?item=230732201414&sspagename=STRK%3AMESELX%3AIT&_trksid=p4340.l2562

mrmisfit | eBay

www.ebay.com

eBay: mrmisfit

I have been sending out emails to potential clients but its been slow going.  Taking so much time researching these leads and sending out the emails.  I'm leaning strongly with taking up Agency Access on their offer especially with their 30 day free trial.  Needing to reorganize my work space to make it more conducive to getting all the needed paperworks, invoices etc in order and stay in order.  

The business and self promotional aspect of a career artist is seldom if at all touched upon in school.  Something so fundamental to succeed in this field yet so ignored.  Artist need to be better prepared for real world work environment, I know I've been out of school for a long time and have been steadily doing tees, skateboards and other client work but like I've said before never activiely looking for it and never keeping track of paperwork.  I've got to keep a full on business mentality but also stay creative.  

Among the other things that need to be re-evaluated is my Bio statement.  The one I have now is rather long and doesn't say much.  Well nothing important or anything any potential clients would care about. Thinking it through and based on some of the material I've been reading I need a long statement for the website.  One that gets right to the point, is clear on what I can do with a dash of personal information.  I need a medium statement for emails and newsletters, one that is basically this is me and this is what I do.  A short statement that I can use on direct mailings like post cards and finally a mini statement that I can put on my business cards.  This will take some thought and probably various drafts to get right.  Another question I need to ask myself is, should I do it in first person or third person. Third person seems a bit more proffessional and carries more weight.  Like somebody is recomending me as the talented artist which makes it feel like an established reputation.  First person though very personalbe, friendly and intimate but its an artist trying to sell himself.  Seems you have to go the extra mile to sell yourself but its easier when you are being recomended.  

While thinking about the Bio statement other questions began to arise:

Should I keep Raz as my artist name or go with my full name Ramsey Sibaja.  I not a graffitti artist so why should I have a tagger name.  I have been using it for years and many know me as such but will potential clients be turned off by it?  I don't know but it is something I definitely need to think about.  

In the meantime while I follow leads and try to drum up business and find new clients I need to generate some immediate income.  Creating some clip art packets that I can sell from my own website as well as tees and other products.  Ebay will probably be an option for getting some commissioned work and some quick money.  Get a fan based started at least till more client work is established. 

If I'm throwing myself into the illustrations field do I really need a designs portfolio on my website?  Probably not.  I wll be changing that, though I believe typography especially hand drawn typography is an important part of illuatration and design.  A good logo or slogan done will with some good original hand drawn typography is illustration in itself or combined with a drawing.  Might just change the designs gallery to a typography gallery.  I enjoy creating hand drawn text as much as illustrating a cool Robocop image.  I'll also be setting up a newsletter that I will try to get out monthly or bimonthly and start building a mailing list for it.

A lot of things that I need to think about right now and decided on what my next move is going to be.  Right now Agency Access seems like it will be one of those next moves.  I won't be tackling any website redesign anytime soon.  What I have currently works well for now. Creating a good eye catching mailer (postcard) is something that I will need to be working on as well.  

Thanks for reading and now another page out of my sketchbook:

I've been donig the whole freelance gig for quite a few years but more as a partime thing to suplement my income.  Decided that I would become completely independent and jump in head first into the fulltime freelance market.  I already have alot of things inplace to help support a freelance career.  Invoices, contracts and whatnot.  Mostly I've had a few word of mouth clients, some came via my website or through one of my other online portfolios.  Maybe 1 or 2 a month with an occasional dry month.  I've never really sat down and actively search out clients.  I've been lacking in the whole self promotional aspect of being a freelance artist.  This is where I'll we be having some difficulty.  I need to rearrange my block of time to fit the necessary client searches, networking, social media and promotion aspect, emails etc as well as setting time to work on client and personal projects not to mention managing persoanla and family life since I'll be working from home.  I need to average at least 4 to 5 new clients a month to sustain a freelance career that will cover my personal bills and home studio expenses as well as provide something to set aside for a rainy day on those possible dry months if they were to come.  Good, solid well paying clients.  Creating that list is what will be a challenge.  Where do I start, who do I target, how often should i send emails or direct maliers.  Thisngs I've gotten so far to help set me straight:

Artist's & Graphic Designer's Market I purchased the 2011 book back in February with the intention to start sending out postcards but never did.  Having a Fulltime job made it not as urgent thing to do.  Now if I want to sustain a living it is more of a neccesity now than before. the 2012 is out but will use the 2011 one that I have in the meantime.

Breaking Into Freelance Illustration: a Guide for Artists, Designers and Illustrators by Holly DeWolf

The Streetwise Guide to Freelance Design and Illustration by Theo Stephan Willams

Starting Your Career as a Freelance Illustrator or Graphic Designer by Michael Fleishman

It may seem redundant to get som many books on the same topic.  Inevitably lots of the same information will be the same but experiences from each of the writers will be a bit different and new ideas, advice and tips will be derived from that.  Different approaches to freelance, this way I can use what will work for me from each writer.

The Artist's and Graphic Designer's Market is a good resource for finding new clients but reading through each listing and finding the client that matches your style needs etc, is abit time consuming and at the end end up with maybe 100 possible leads, then researching online for clients which in the end is very time consuming, costly and tiring and never really 100% accurate.  

I will need more than that to sustain a freelance career.  So I need to find other resources for finding possible clients and something that is efficient wher I don't need to spend 4 hours sorting through listing to find the right clients.  Enter Agency Access.  i spoke with a representative from there to see what they services the offer and regarding client lists, and leads that can lead to new clients and paying jobs.  She walked me through a brief Demo answered all my questions.  Also researching into Agency Access on my own I've heard positive reviews from Thomas James from "Escape from Illustration Island" (Which another good resource I've found for someone getting into freelance.  Thomas offers a lot of good information. So researching I've found that Agency Access would be a good resources for establish a good solid client list pertaining to the industry I want to market myself to.  Be it children's books, editorials, book covers etc.  They seem to have a good email editing program to create nice professional looking emails with images and sending them to the right people.  I plan on implementing them into my client search process.  So as I go I'll be updating experiences, ups and downs of doing freelance fulltime.  Also my experiences with Agency Access.

Hopefully sharing the expereinces will help work through the pitfalls of working Freelance and at the same time helping those who are going through the same process or thinking about getting into freelance.

Here's some art.  I mean that's why your here other than learning something.