Anya is live and ready to show you everything. Watch her strip, dance, and perform exclusive shows just for you. Interact in real-time and make your fantasies come true.
✓ Live Streaming✓ Interactive Chat✓ Private Shows✓ HD Quality✓ Free Actions
Free to watch • No registration required • HD streaming
Here’s my new tumblr project that needs YOU to get involved.Â
www.artofgettingstarted.com
I want you to get started on all those things you’ve ever talked or dreamed about and then show the world! You can submit absolutely anything as long as it’s focused on doing, and more importantly, STARTING things.
As well as accepting random submissions there will be an ever growing list of assignments for you to complete. I’ll be adding new assignments weekly and the first 2 are up now and waiting for your submissions!
You DO NOT have to be “arty" to submit and there are NO wrong answers!
So what are you waiting for? It’s time to get started!
—
I’ll be cross posting and promoting this project here quite a bit in the early stages to try and get as many people involved as I can. I’ll post the assignments and also some of my favourite submissions here.
But don’t forget to follow the blog (it’s a tumblr) if you want to stay updated and see everyone’s submissions.
cathrinadulay asked: I love your self-promotional mailer. I'm a freelance designer in the process of marketing myself and I'm wondering how you found the prospective clients and collaborators you sent your mailer. I'm not entirely sure where to begin!
I think knowing where to begin with self promotion is the hardest part of the process. I read a lot of blog posts and articles about how best to promote yourself as a creative, and most of them were no real help to be honest. They all gave the same advice "make something cool and show it to people". Which is good advice, but every now and again some actual specific details are what will really help. I've wanted to write a post about my experience with self promotion for a while, so I'm going to use your question as a chance to do that. Hopefully some of it will be helpful to you, and anyone else getting started with self promotion.
It's going to be a long post, so here goes…
What to send
I don't think there's any "right" thing to send out as a mailer. I'd say the main thing is to make something that represents you and the work you really love to do. As with anything creative, the best work you produce is always the work you love. By focusing on that you'll come to realise that the reason you want to work with the people you do is because they have the same creative tastes as you.
The biggest thing I've learned is how time consuming sending out mailers can be. I custom made all my envelopes and personalised each one with the recipient's logo. While some people (me included) really loved that element, I think it took up too much of my time if I'm honest.Â
I had to cut and fold each envelope, draw the logo on, wrap the postcards in a belly band, and write a cover letter. It doesn't sound like all that much, but when you're putting together 100+ of them it really adds up. I think that's something to keep in mind. My next promo mailer will definitely be something that I can put together and send out much quicker.
Budget
I read somewhere that freelancers should spend around 10% of their income on self promotion, which sounds like a reasonable figure to me. But essentially you just have to work with what you can afford.
I had no real money at the time, but I still wanted to create something that had a good initial impact. That's why I decided to use a custom made envelope so it was a little different from the norm. I got 5 different postcard designs and a ton of little stickers printed cheaply, and then I printed the envelope, letterhead, and belly band on my own printer. It was a pretty cost effective way to do things. I ended up with enough to make 200 postcard packs for under £200 ($300).
That doesn't include postage costs and that's definitely another thing to keep in mind when you're designing your mailer. If you're sending promos all over the world postage costs can add up really quickly, especially if your mailer is heavy or an unusual format.
Making a list
This is the part that can seem really daunting in the beginning, but as soon as you've started you'll see it's probably the easiest part of the process. I started by listing every brand or company I could think of that I REALLY wanted to work with. I think off the top of my head I made it to somewhere around 50.
Then I put those into a spreadsheet and expanded from there. I used Google Docs, mainly so I could access the list from anywhere. You'll find yourself constantly adding to and editing this list, so it's good to be able to access it on the go. Again, it's about finding a system that works for you but it's really important to keep track of everything you're sending out or there's no point doing it.
I separated my prospects into sectors such as: Publishing, Agencies, Brands, Stores, Etc… You'll constantly find new people you want to work with, and separating them into sectors means you can expand easily without your spreadsheet getting out of hand. I've found that it also really helps when you're trying to think of more people to contact.Â
As well as the contact details I have a couple of columns on the spreadsheet to help me keep track of things. I list the date of last contact and I colour code each prospect with a kind of traffic light system so I can easily see where the relationship is at. I also make a note of their response so I don't have to trawl through emails to remember what someone said to me.
Finding contact details
THIS is the hardest part of the process for me. Listing people you want to work with is easy, but sometimes finding details for the actual person you need to contact is impossible. You can very often find the details on the website, but if they're not listed it's a case of hunting around a little.
I used Google a lot, it sounds so simple but putting "MAGAZINE/BRAND NAME Art Director" will usually get you the result you want. It can require a bit of patience as you often have to read through a few different entries to find the exact details you're looking for, but stick with it.
The 2 sites I found contact details on most often were LinkedIn and Twitter. I don't have a LinkedIn account because I hate the bloody website, so I'm not sure if you can search the site directly if you do have an account. But I quite often found the person I wanted by finding a link to their LinkedIn profile on Google.
Another good website is coverjunkie.com, it's basically a constantly updated gallery of magazine covers and 99% of them list the Art Director. All magazines will list their team somewhere on the first few pages too, so you can always get details by going into a store.
The last resort is to address your mailer to "The Art Dept." or "The Art Director". I had to do this quite a few times with brands and companies where it was much harder to find out who did what job. I've read plenty of art directors saying that there's nothing wrong with that and they're not put off when they receive things which aren't addressed to them by name.Â
Replies
Every advice post I read said things like "you'll be lucky if you get even 1 response" or "prepare not to hear back from anyone" and I'm not sure if that's to prepare you for the worst or that the people writing these posts have had bad experiences. In my experience it's not quite as doom and gloom as that. I think I've heard back from roughly 10-15% of the people I've contacted so far, which I'm pretty happy with.Â
From those responses they roughly break down into:
10% - Resulted in an actual project.
80% - We'd love to work with you at some point so keep in touch.
10% - Your work isn't really right for us but we'll keep you on file.
Don't get disheartened by the times you don't hear back. It can be crushing when you put so much effort into something and people don't respond in any way at all. But most of the people you're sending promos to will be receiving 100s of similar mailers over a year. You just have to keep going. It's all about getting your name (and work) out there, and the more you get it out there, the more chance it'll land in front of someone who loves it.
Following up
I can't stress enough how important following up is! Over half of the people who responded to my mailer actually responded to my follow up email rather than the mailer itself. I even got two projects as a result of following up with people who I'd assumed didn't like my work.
This is where a clear plan will help again. I haven't followed up nearly as much or as quickly as I should have with this round of promotion, so next time I'm being much more strict with that. Basically, send out a batch of mailers and follow up after a set period of time.
And don't forget emails!
I also have a bunch of people on my list that for various reasons I'm only planning to contact via email. In this case I've learned that the best thing to do is keep it short and sweet. Introduce yourself, give a brief line about why you'd like to work with them, and link to your portfolio.
And as a wise ghost once said, "If you build it, they will come."
Anya is live and ready to show you everything. Watch her strip, dance, and perform exclusive shows just for you. Interact in real-time and make your fantasies come true.
✓ Live Streaming✓ Interactive Chat✓ Private Shows✓ HD Quality✓ Free Actions
Free to watch • No registration required • HD streaming
Here's a few pages from my new book The Art of Getting Started.
Whether it's the first page of a new sketchbook or a blank Photoshop document, the very start of the actual work for a creative project has always been my least favourite part. I love coming up with ideas and I'm fine once I get into a flow with the final piece. But joining up the two has always been tricky. I know a lot of creative people struggle with the same feelings too, I've had plenty of questions about how I tackle the "first blank page" and creative block.
That's where this book comes in. It's full of activities and ideas to help break the habits of procrastinating and avoidance at the start of a creative project. The activities are really varied and include drawing, writing, brainstorming, cooking, and even doing absolutely nothing at all. It's all about finding the methods that work best for you and practicing them until getting started comes naturally.
It doesn't even have to be a creative project, I hope the ideas in this book will seep into your subconscious and stop you delaying that dentist appointment or difficult phone call.
There's a few more pages at:Â www.leecrutchley.co.uk
And I'll write some more about the pre-order giveaway/competition when I've finalised all the details.
Earlier this year I started sending out my first promotional mailer. It's a simple set of postcards inside a custom envelope, and one of those cards is an interactive "feedback" card. The idea is that the recipient fills that card out and mails it back to me.
This is a selection of the cards I've received back so far, and hopefully there will be more to come in the next few months.
There's pictures of the mailer at: www.leecrutchley.co.uk
Progress is lines on a page. Progress is creation. Progress is making mistakes and learning from them. Progress is making new friends. Progress is listening. Progress is thinking big. Progress is feeling better. Progress is going outside. Progress is growth. Progress is recycling. Progress is making our lives easier. Progress is both too fast and too slow at the same time. Progress is feeling worse. Progress is everything looking the same, but different. Progress is sensationalisation and desensitisation. Progress is money and power. Progress is The 1%. Progress is working more hours and earning less money. Progress is false. Progress is treading water. Progress is drawing a line on a map. Progress is the Atlantic Ocean. Progress is beyond the horizon. Progress is the unknown. Progress is writing something bad and being judged. Progress is not caring. Progress is all of this and more.
For years and years May 21st has been known the world over as a wholly unremarkable day. But May 21st 2013 is different, for me at least. Because I'm pretty excited to be showing you the cover of my brand new book!
The Art of Getting Started will be released on November 5th this year, and I hear a ton of people in England are going to be having huge firework displays to mark the occasion!
I don't really know what else to say about it. I should probably tell you about the content right? But I'm going to save that for some other time. You guys are smart anyway, and I'm sure you'll start to figure it out.
Ooooh! There's a maze on the cover, did you catch that bit? That's a pretty good representation of what the book is about. It's a real life maze too, one for you to solve with a pen of your choosing. I realise that writing and drawing on the cover of a book you've paid good money for will seem alien to a lot of you. But that's something you really have to get over, and the sooner the better.
In the next few months I'll be talking some more about the book and what's going on inside. I'll also be talking about a few cool related things.
There's going to be a pre-order reward type deal. Which will be either everyone who pre-orders the book gets something cool, or they get entered into a draw to win something REALLY cool, or hopefully both of those things.
There will also be a new blog to accompany the book. I'm not really sure what that's going to involve yet. I'm just going to start it, have fun, and see where that takes me. Well, where it takes us actually. Because like the book it's something we're going to do together.
Anya is live and ready to show you everything. Watch her strip, dance, and perform exclusive shows just for you. Interact in real-time and make your fantasies come true.
✓ Live Streaming✓ Interactive Chat✓ Private Shows✓ HD Quality✓ Free Actions
Free to watch • No registration required • HD streaming
To be more pro-active about getting projects that I'm actually excited to work on while trying to avoid thinking about how there's "no time".
This is my first ever self-promotional mailer which I'm sending out to a bunch of potential clients and collaborators.
There's more pictures at leecrutchley.co.uk/self-promo-mailer
If you know anyone in a position to commission illustrators who you think would like to receive one please let me know so I can add them to the list.
Anya is live and ready to show you everything. Watch her strip, dance, and perform exclusive shows just for you. Interact in real-time and make your fantasies come true.
✓ Live Streaming✓ Interactive Chat✓ Private Shows✓ HD Quality✓ Free Actions
Free to watch • No registration required • HD streaming
It's the 2nd month of the new year and it finally feels like it's properly starting for me. I recently finished a couple of projects that I knew would give everything (me) the jolt it (I) needed to get things moving.Â
One of those projects was to refresh my website. I was happy with the structure of the existing site and how it all worked, so I just refreshed how it looks. There are still a few things I need to finish off, but it's finished enough for you to look at.
Essentially I just wanted to make the site feel a bit more "me". That's something I'm going to be working hard on this year, making my work more "me" I mean, which is something I'm sure I'll write more about in the future.Â
s-u-f-j-a-n-s-t-e-v-e-n-s
areudirty
origamiaround
stormborns
izzy806
dailybridgerton
2087
