How To Bid Out A Project (Part 2)

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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.Read More

How To Bid Out A Project (Part 1)

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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.

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“Disney Adventures” Magazine Shutting Down

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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 (currently in stores) is the last one to be published by the company.

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Here’s the announcement from Ad Age, as quoted by Heidi MacDonald on her blog “The Beat”:

Disney Publishing attributed its decision to an effort to better focus resources and maximize long-term growth potential through new magazine and book initiatives.
The demise of Disney Adventures, which was introduced for tweens in 1990, closely follows the end of fellow child soldier Nick Jr., which MTV Networks closed with the April issue. It isn’t clear that there’s any particular exodus of children from magazines, but proliferating competition and rising costs are knocking out big magazines at a fairly regular clip these days; adults for their part have lost Premiere, Jane, Life and Child so far this year.

This is disappointing news. Disney Adventures has been a fun comic-book magazine consistently loaded with quality artwork. It’s one of the few magazines at the checkout stand I would actually pick up and thumb through. Occassionally I’ve even bought a copy just so I could drool over the artwork and keep up on the latest “trendy” art styles for kids. Recently I’ve even thought about putting together a submission package to send them in hopes of landing some work. Looks like that will never be. (Ya snooze, ya lose.)

Fellow fans can still enjoy some of the Adventures content. According to Wikipedia, Disney Press recently released theme-based collected volumes of various Disney Adventures comics (96 pages each):

Comic Zone Vol. 1: Lilo & Stitch
Comic Zone Vol 2: Gorilla, Gorilla
Comic Zone Vol. 3: Disney’s Tall Tails
Comic Zone Vol. 4: Kid Gravity

Magazines have traditionally been a solid and consistent place for illustrators to find work (although they don’t pay what they used to). Someday in the future I’d like to write a blog post about the effect of the decline of print media on illustrators.

Thanks to Tom Bancroft for the heads-up. Also, check out Tom’s blog which he runs with fellow artist Rob Corely. It’s nifty!

Advice For Building A Career As An Illustrator Or Cartoonist

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My friend and fellow illustrator Paul Fricke recently sent me a great link:

Advice for building a career as a freelance artist and/or paid cartoonist by Dave Roman

Dave Roman has been working at Nickelodeon Magazine for the last nine years. He is also a frequent lecturer at the School of Visual Arts. This article summarizes his advice for art students just starting out in illustration, comics, and/or cartooning. I’ve been freelancing for over ten years now, and I agree with what Roman has to say. His article is packed with good advice for the beginner (or even the not-so-beginner).

Along the same lines, here’s another great article I’ve blogged about before:

17 Lessons on Freelancing by Megan Jeffery.

How Much Should I Charge?

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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 to walk the line between two extremes, either selling myself short or ripping off a client.

If you’ve wrestled with these issues, have no fear. The folks at HOW Magazine are hosting a webinar (an online seminar) to address this very topic. “What Should I Charge” is the third installment in the HOW Webinars series put on by the folks at Marketing Mentor. For $69 ($49 if you’ve signed up for a previous webinar) you can listen live on November 15 and even email in questions during the webinar. Or, during the next 12 months you can log on and listen to a recording of the webinar. You can even download notes and slides from the presentation.

I’ve listened to the first two webinars and I got a lot out of it. Among other things, the second webinar had some great tips for shy introverts on how to network at meetings, parties, seminars, and other events where you have to actually carry on conversations with live people. Being an introvert who works alone, my people skills can sometimes get a bit rusty. I was able to use some of the webinar tips at a recent chapter meeting for the National Cartoonists Society, and I found them to be very helpful. I’m not talking about shallow Tony Robbins baloney. These were practical tips to help take the pressure off of so I could network and have fun at the same time.

As I’ve written earlier, my only gripe about the HOW webinars is that they aren’t really designed for Mac users (you have to use Firefox, not Safari, and even then I can’t get the “pause” button to work, meaning you will have to listen to the webinar straight through). Still, despite the glitches I’ve been very impressed with the content. Even though I’ve been freelancing for over ten years now, there were still quite a few things that I’ve learned.

For more information on “What Should I Charge?”, click here.

From The Archives: How To Be A Cartoonist

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Since I’m still swamped with freelance work and no time to write, here’s another re-post from the early days of my blog, way back in 2005 when only three people were reading it. (Readership has since doubled):

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Chris Browne (pictured) of “Hagar the Horrible” fame has posted some advice on how to break into cartooning. Should make an interesting read for all you aspiring cartoonists out there. Cheers!