Entry 8 of 12: January: It's Paying Off

January was a pretty good month for my illustration career. At the beginning of January I went into "full" client acquisition mode. I made out a to-do list that will help keep me on my toes. The list is as follows:

Daily
Find 3 new addresses for promo
Sketch
Blog entry (at least a few days a week)

Weekly
Update Portfolios.com listing
Illustration Friday
One clay or digital illustration (portfolio quality)
Look at freelance job listing sites

Monthly
Press Release
Update portfolio
Creative Latitude article

Believe it or not I have really stuck to it and it's been fairly easy.

With my quota of 3 addresses a day to meet, I have been scouring the internet and am amazed at the children's publishers and product makers out there. I haven't had any trouble finding  new an obscure little places to send my postcards to. I am needing to send something to those who I sent postcards to around October. I am still toying with the idea of doing a postcard mailer. I need to send something out, but I just don't know what. I don't know if I should do digital or dimensional focus if I do go the postcard route ... hum, I need to get something going though. I do have some promo/sample packets to put together and mail to some publishers I'd really like to work for. I'll need to let them sit a few days so the spray mount smell can wear off but then off they go.

Having a blog has helped my creative and motivational efforts greatly. I have already meet some many people who are in the same boat as me or they are already successful illustrators. Before I really knew no other illustrators with my same focus, but now I know several that I feel like i can call on for advice. Also participating in Illustration Friday has really helped me be creative and build my portfolio. Plus it feels good to get all though nice compliments about your work. I have posted all my creative latitude articles there as well and I've gotten so many comments about how much people have enjoyed them. I am just super motivated now that I have a network of illustrators and feel like I belong.

I've had a few prospects this month. One was interested in my dimensional style for a flash game, one for illustrating an educational workbook (I've got my finger's crossed on this one, should hear something about it next week),  an earlier prospect emailed me after getting my press release and wanted to let me know that they'd still like to work with me but the project was on hold for the moment, PLUS my first postcard and promo mailer paid off — I received a job from a children's magazine illustrating a calendar page for at least 6 of their issues. Needless to say things are really working out. I feel more confident now than I ever had!

That's pretty much it for this month. I hope February brings plenty of jobs and inspiration!

Click here to read Holli's previous installment.