Posted at 02:19h
in
Art & Business
Designer/illustrator Clay Cantrell writes:
"How important do you feel a blog is as a part of an overall business model for a freelance visual artist? Does it make good business sense, or do you think that only other artists read them, as opposed to potential or current clients?"
This is an excellent question, one I've been thinking about a lot lately. My blog has been something of an experiment, and frankly I'm still undecided as to whether or not a blog is a worthwhile way to promote myself and my work.
I started getting serious about my blog in July '07, posting five times a week and making efforts to publicize my blog on other websites. My readership has steadily grown; I currently average about 700-800 page views every weekday, and I'm very flattered that so many people are interested in what I have to say. I suspect most of my readers are other artists who will never hire me, but I know for a fact that at least a few are art directors or past clients who have a serious interest in me and my work.
Nevertheless, from a purely financial standpoint my blog so far has been a bit of a disappointment. Maybe I'm doing something wrong. But then again, I've only been working at it seriously for about eight months. Everything I've read about blogging describes it as a very slow and gradual build towards success. Blogging is not for the get-rich-quick crowd. So I'm planning to hang in there a while longer and see what happens.
I've read about freelancers who started a blog and before they knew it job offers from readers were pouring in (this is more common among freelance writers than artists, which makes sense). While I'd love to say that I'm one of them, that has not been my experience. I can count on two fingers the number of job offers I've received in the last six months as a direct result of my blog. One fell through, the other was actually a writing gig for which I made decent money.
Yesterday I received my copy of Stephen Silver's latest art book, Life.
For those who don't know, Silver is an amazing animation character designer whose credits include Disney's Kim Possible and Nickelodeon's Danny Phantom. He's a versatile artist and I find his work very inspiring. Silver also teaches an online Character Design course through Schoolism.com. I took the course last year and I learned a ton. It's expensive but well worth the investment for anyone serious about character design.
Silver has published several popular sketchbooks in the past, each one jam-packed with his amazing drawings.