It’s been a few weeks now since sending out my most recent mailers, and since I have not received any bites yet I am getting increasingly antsy and wanting to expand into some other means of marketing. I know a few weeks isn’t a lot when it comes to getting responses from promo cards, but that– combined with the fact that I never received anything from my cards in December (and that the only response I ever got from my dummy book was one rejection)– is just a little disheartening. I don’t want to sit around sulking though, so I’m considering some other avenues for promotion.

My goal until now has been to spend as little as possible on marketing, simply because I don’t have a bunch of $ floating around, but I am finally understanding the whole “you have to spend money to make money” thing and I’d like to try it out with a paid portfolio site (not right now, but in the semi-near future when I feel my portfolio is as strong as it can be). The trouble is finding sites that are actually worth it. It seems better to spend more on a successful site, then spend less on a site nobody goes to, but I am having trouble finding out which ones those are. There are so many! I’m listing the ones I’ve seen… let me know if you’ve heard of any other promising ones!

The I Spot - I heard a lot about The I Spot during college, with professors (don’t remember which) saying that once you can afford it it’s important to get there because everyone goes there, and every big illustrator has a portfolio there. When I checked out the site, though, I found it to be extremely lacking in the navigation area. I wanted to test how easy it was to find images, so I decided to put some terms into the search box. When I searched “cat,” I got 0 results. Seriously. Whaaaaat? So I searched “animal” and again got 0 results. I honestly thought I must have been doing something wrong. Next I searched “woman” with 0 results, and I was further confused. When I started typing “people,” though, a little box came up under the search bar that offered to finish the word for me. With that search I got over 5000 results. After a while more of tinkering, I learned how the I Spot handled search, and that it was completely counter-intuitive. It appears that what they have is like 25 keywords which you can use to label your images. If someone happens to search for one of these 25 keywords, they get results. If you search for the other zillions of words in the english language, though, you get absolutely no results. How does this make any sense? If you only have an option of 25 or so keywords to look through, why is there is a search bar at all? Why not just categories you can click?

I can’t imagine how anyone would ever find my work over someone else’s, with such a horrible labeling and search system. I can’t picture myself spending $750 to be on such a poorly designed site, unless all the art directors already know something I don’t about searching The I Spot. If anyone reading this has a portfolio there, please, let me know if you get jobs from it! I’m really wary from what I’ve seen, even with the rave reviews of my professor.

The other sites I am looking at are ChildrensIllustrators.com, Picture-Book.com, Altpick.com, and FolioPlanet.com. But how on earth do you determine which one art directors go to most? The only thing they seem to have in common is being expensive.

I know this is something I want to do fairly soon, but with the cost and the risk it’s hard to make a choice. I know that just one good project would pay for the whole year of hosting at these sites, but which ones actually get you projects?

I’m thinking about waiting a bit to take the plunge on sites SO costly, and starting out with one of the less expensive, but still paid, sites. I’ve got a few nibbles from my free Creative Hotlist portfolio, and for $70 a year they offer better stuff (like actual pictures) and improved search ranking. They are run by Communication Arts, so people trust them, and it might be a good place to start.

If any of you guys are paid members of ANY portfolio site, I’d love to hear your thoughts about whether it’s been worth it! This stuff is so overwhelming.

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In other news, I ordered some awesome rounded postcards from OvernightPrints.com to use as notecards to sell. I used the coupon code BC100 to get $10 off the order, so it was super cheap. If any of you guys need to order your summer mailers or business cards or something, these postcards came out amazing. They are really thick, and the satin matte finish is gorgeous. Also, rounded corners = automatic awesome. I have more on the way of 5 or so different art pieces, and I think I’ll be back for my next promo mailers, too. I’ll be selling them here, and at the Market Bazaar!

Though I’ve been neglecting my poor blog lately, it’s not for a lack of things happening! (Well… maybe it kinda is.) This last weekend I attended my third Market Bazaar, and since storms were forecast for the day I was nervous and prepared by lugging a tarp over there with me. Luckily, it ended up being a gorgeous day and a lot of fun hanging out with the other sellers. When I leave Savannah at the end of July, the market bazaar will be one thing I really miss!

I met an awesome lady at the Bazaar this month doing henna– I was sad because I couldn’t leave my booth to get some done, and she was sad because she didn’t have extra money to buy a print, so she ended up coming to my booth and doing my hand in exchange for a print. Hooray! My camera’s batteries are dead, but I took a picture with my really bad camera phone. It looks amazing, and I’m keeping my hand as filthy as possible so as not to accidentally scrub off skin cells. (I’m kidding. Wait. Am I…?)

In other news! I was delighted to wake up today and find that Hana at SupahCute.com was kind enough to feature my work on her blog of cute stuff! I love checking out her blog, and actually having work up there makes me so happy. Thanks, Hana!

After making a big Graduation cat out of a pillowcase as a last-minute thing to get all my friends to sign before we disappear forever, I decided it came out pretty cute and wanted to re-create it in a smaller, softer form. So I made these kitties out of flannel and t-shirt transfers. They are all one piece (besides the appliques) because I wanted to be able to make them quickly, and I think they came out well. I’ll have them for sale at the Market Bazaar to see if anyone likes them, but if not they can have nice kitty threesomes on my windowsill.

My next goal is to make a BIG one and sew a tube in it where I can fit an adorable kitten! Like Kitty Surprise:

…but with more umbilical cord (and catbutt).

I try not to spam my blog with constant shop promotion posts, but Etsy is doing a MASSIVE sale this weekend called the Yart Sale, and I didn’t want to be left out! The Yart Sale is from June 10-14, and features sellers all across Etsy hosting their own awesome sales. If you search “Yart Sale” or “yartfreeship” in Etsy, there’s a ton of sales going on right now!

I wanted on the bandwagon too, so I’m offering:

* Free shipping on all my dolls
* 20% off orders up to $25 and
* 30% off orders over $25.

At my Etsy Shop

Sweet! Let me know what sales you have going on too, and I’ll check them out!

Here’s some stuff I came up with when typing “Yart Sale Cat” into Etsy’s search. Weeee!