Art & Business

09 Jan

Posted at 00:00h in Art & Business
Recently I wrote a two-part post entitled "How To Bid Out A Project" (Part 1 and Part 2). One of the first things I mentioned was that, to cover expenses, a freelancer needs to charge much more per hour than he/she would normally make as a salaried employee. There has been some discussion of my article on another website, and someone apparently misunderstood my comments to mean that freelancing is a great way to get rich quick. I can assure you, it is not. That got me thinking, there are probably a lot of misconceptions about freelancing out there. So I've decided to list a few of the pro's and con's of freelancing, straight from the horses mouth. I've been freelancing for over ten years, so I know of what I speak. I don't want to start positive and then end on a negative note, so I'll cover the "con's" first. Tomorrow I'll touch on some of the "pro's". If this post is a bit of a downer to read, I don't mean it to be. I enjoy freelancing very much! In my view the benefits far outweigh the drawbacks. But I want to paint a fair and honest picture for anyone who may be considering freelancing as a career.

07 Dec

Posted at 00:00h in Art & Business
Continuing yesterday's post on tips for pricing your freelance services.... 7. Talk about money at the very beginning. You may be tempted to put off talking about money, perhaps with hopes that the client will eventually bring it up or that you can just figure out a price when the project is over. This is a huge mistake, and very unprofessional. The sooner you can negotiate a price, the better. The worst thing you can do is keep a client guessing about what the project will cost them. Discussing the price up front will help you to appear more confident and professional, it will keep you from potentially wasting valuable time on a dead-end project, and it will help you weed out clients who have tiny budgets or who simply want to take advantage of you. Under no circumstances should you begin doing work without having first negotiated a price.

06 Dec

Posted at 00:00h in Art & Business
Recently I was approached by a potential client to illustrate a coloring book. The artist she had originally chosen had backed out, so the deadline was now very tight. Since I was already committed to several projects I wasn't available to help, but I gave her the name of a talented, up-and-coming illustrator whom I happened to know was in-between jobs. A few days later, I received an email from the illustrator asking for advice. He had started writing up ideas for each page of the coloring book, and even did a few thumbnail sketches. The client liked his work and decided to hire him, but said she could only pay $10 per page! (A laughable sum, considering it would take the artist several hours to illustrate each page. She was essentially asking a skilled professional to work on a rush job for a fraction of minimum wage.) The artist was understandably upset and asked me what he should do. I felt awful for having handed him a lemon, but decided the whole experience would make a nice springboard for a blog post. It's an extreme example, but it illustrates the difficulty many artists have (especially those just starting out) when negotiating a freelance project.

28 Nov

Posted at 10:37h in Art & Business, Illustration

As I mentioned in yesterday's post, the magazine industry has seen better days. Overall readership is on a slow decline, resulting in lower subscriptions and lost advertising revenues. It looks like C. F. Payne is not the only artist being affected by it. I just learned that Disney Adventures, the snazzy comic-book magazine, is officially no more. The November issue...

12 Nov

Posted at 23:14h in Art & Business

As a beginning freelancer I really struggled with this question. When I bid out a project, how much is too much (or too little)? Do I bill per hour or take on the project for a flat rate? I don't want to under-sell myself, but I also don't want to lose the job because I'm too expensive. I also want...