Entry 2 of 12: July
I have totally surprised myself. I've made so much progress this month but, near the beginning, I thought I'd get nothing accomplished. I couldn't concentrate on what to do next or get motivated to do anything. Part of it probably had to do with the fact that I was missing my daughter horribly while working my full-time design job all week. I was miserable, but I worked my schedule out with my boss so I am able to work from home 3 days a week which made me a much happier and more pleasant person to be around.

In my lack of concentration and motivation I decided to go to to our local art museum to gain it back. The Red Grooms exhibit was in town. Great stuff! I love his dimensional work. When I was in college I had a classmate who said, several times throughout our years, that my work reminded him of Red Grooms (ego boost!). While looking at his work I immediately got my drive back.

At the end of last month I mailed out a press release announcing my new dimensional illustrations, as well as announcing some illustrations I had completed for a magazine. After mailing those out to my list of 30 people (boy, I really need to add some names!) I got 3 responses back, one of which said they had some upcoming projects they would contact me about them.

I also completed my postcard. I wanted to show off my dimensional work but throw a little of my digital work in there as well. I used Rocket Postcards after receiving their samples and comparing their prices. I ordered 500 4/4 postcards for $120.00. It took about a 2 weeks to get them and, while I was waiting, I received and email from the printer saying that my order had a very slight print production flaw which created some offset on the front (mail panel) of my card. They could either reprint them if I decided I didn't like them, or they would give me a 20% discount if I choose to keep them. When I received them, I could notice the offset but I don't think anyone else could. I did a test and mailed one to myself to make sure the offset didn't affect how it went through the post office. I received it in the mail 2 days later. It looked fine so I'm keeping them.

I have also been gathering more names for my mailing list. I got the idea to go to some online bookstores, browse their children's book section and collect all the publishers I could find that I think my illustration style would suit. I found so many names that were not in my Children's Writer's & Illustrator's Market book. I'm still compiling names in my database, but I hope to do my first mailing sometime next month.

I emailed a quote to a potential client to who had seen my website (via another designer's site) and thought my style would be appropriate for a t-shirt she was making. Sounds like a fun project and I'm eager to hear back from them. Three weeks later and still nothing, so I'm guessing they're no longer interested once they saw the price.

I did one very important thing this week. Since people constantly misspell my name (which is understandable), I went ahead and purchased hollyconger.com and redirected it to holliconger.com. It's just a little something to make sure people find me, but I think it was smart to go ahead and do it. I also revised my logo to emphasize the "i."

I updated my site (again) with more work, better meta tags (thanks to Neil!), a "How I Work" section and a downloadable PDF sample sheet. I've had several comments on it already.

Once I uploaded everything I sent out some emails to illustrators and designers offering a link exchange. I went through the sites of some of my favorite illustrators and the ones that had a links section, I sent them an email. I also created some little graphics to use as links if it fit their layout. So far I've received 4 reciprocal links. I just want to tell you all how beneficial reciprocal links are. I know some people don't like to send visitors away from their site but the reason for doing so is getting a better ranking in search engines. This really came to my attention when Cat started asking for them on the About Forum (and that conversation later grew into Creative Latitude). When I do a Google search for my name, links regarding to me fill the first 20-25 listings. That's pretty cool!! I still need to work on coming up when people search for Holl"y" Conger, but I've added some keywords, so hopefully it will show up soon.

I started concepting a little promo piece that I will mail to select Art Directors. I hope it turns out ok, but I'll tell you all about it next month. I've already gotten several emails of encouragement from my last entry but please keep them coming. There's nothing more motivating than knowing people want you to succeed. See you next month!

Click here to read Holli's previous installment.