Escape From Illustration Island – Illustration Resources and Community

Want to be better at marketing your creative business?

What follows is an interview with Alex Mathers, Illustrator and author of two wonderful Illustration blogs, Ape on the Moon and Red Lemon Club.  RLC is a site dedicated to helping freelancers and independent people learn to promote themselves.

Today, Alex is releasing a very intriguing new eBook called 10 Steps to Powerful Online Self-Promotion for Creatives, and I invited him to talk about this exciting new resource, and about why he is so passionate about the subject of promotion.

1.  Thanks for taking the time to talk to the EFII Community. Would you like to start by telling us about yourself and about Red Lemon Club?

I am an illustrator and designer living in London, UK at the moment. I studied geography at university, although I decided to return to my interest in art and design a while after completing the course and working in the property industry. I’m a fan of war films, obscure electronic music, writing, and contemporary design. I am currently running two sites. One is Red Lemon Club, a site for creative professionals aimed at sharing various methods and discussions on online self promotion. My other site, Ape on the Moon, is a blog showcasing the best in contemporary illustration styles and techniques, featuring a host of excellent illustrators. I also contribute to Design Taxi and am about to join the contributing team at productivity for creatives site: the 99%.

2.  What can creative professionals expect to find on Red Lemon Club?

Red Lemon Club was set up to focus my own efforts as an illustrator for researching the best online methods and theories behind effective and up to date self promotion, aimed specifically at creatives. I hadn’t seen anything like that when I was going about promoting my own work, so Red Lemon Club was the result of me scratching my own itch. The site was built to share what I found with the creative community, and I get a nice buzz doing so. Creative professionals will find a range of articles dealing with establishing an online brand, building an effective portfolio, the key ingredients to effective online promotion, driving traffic to sites, social media marketing, personal development and much more.

3.  On the RLC website, you describe yourself as a “marketing enthusiast”. What is it about marketing and promotion that inspires you?

My interest in marketing has grown since I began getting the word out about my own designs and illustrations. It was through seeing decent results from certain marketing activities which proved that by applying the right methods of promotion, especially using the power of the internet, we can experience the satisfaction that comes with success. Marketing is essentially a tool for not only getting clients and making sales, but in achieving success and the recognition we deserve. As such, I’m enthusiastic to learn about and share these tools.

4.  What are some of the easiest ways that creative professionals can improve their online marketing right now?

At the moment, one of the exciting things about the internet, is its ability to bring huge numbers of people who share the same interests or share the same goals, together into various online social networks. Even though the web is not physically tangible, people are being brought together through the links made via social media sites, blogs, creative communities and mailing lists. People are not only coming together, but they are connecting and they are engaging. It is through this highly connected online space that marketing for creative professionals is taking on a whole new method of delivery. So certainly social networks, when used in the right ways, are some of the best and easiest current self promotion methods.

Using the internet as a platform for sharing the work you do, your expertise, opinions and your passions in the form of blogs and micro-blogs is another easy way of increasing your online presence and improving your credibility as a creative professional and an expert as well.

My book will go into many more ways in much greater detail of generating exposure for yourself.

5.  You’re releasing what looks to be an exciting and useful new eBook today called 10 Steps to Powerful Online Self Promotion for Creatives. What can creative professionals hope to gain by reading it?

The book was written with the intention of dramatically improving the online self promotional effectiveness of all kinds of creative professionals. This includes being better prepared for self marketing even before you start marketing. The book is an in depth guide to not only gaining substantial online exposure, but in increasing the number, regularity and quality of clients, maintaining your promotional activity into the long term and, if you have products to sell, making more sales.

Thanks to Alex Mathers for sharing his thoughts with the EFII Community.

Check out his new eBook, 10 Steps to Powerful Self-Promotion for Creatives, for a more detailed look at the valuable lessons that Alex has learned from his experiences as a creative professional.  You can download it for just $27 USD until March 13th, 2010.  After that, the price goes up to $39 USD.

Related Posts:

• Creating Your Promotional Strategy
• 10 Rules of Effective Self-Promotion
• How to Stand Out and Be Noticed
• Weekend Forum: How Do You Promote Yourself Online?

Stay up-to-date with future Illustration resources via email, Facebook, and Twitter.

Do you work from home?

Do you struggle with constant distractions or lack of focus?

Yesterday, I made a case for my technique of creating a productive mindset by “dressing for success” just one day a week.

Part 2 of my How to Work From Home series explores the idea of separating your home life from the responsibilities of your freelance business.

The Challenge

With all the benefits of working from home come the challenges of staying focused, managing your time, and getting things done.  It goes without saying that building a successful Illustration business takes a lot of time and effort, and without a boss looking over your shoulder, it can be easy to get lured away from working by the many distractions of home and family.

The Importance of Separation

The best way to minimize this danger is to separate your workspace from your home.  As you will see in the artists’ perspectives below, there are many ways to do this either physically or mentally.

Ideally, your workspace will have a door that you can close to disconnect you from the obligations of your house and your family.  That way you can physically isolate yourself in your work bubble and focus on the tasks of the day, and the closed door will help to protect you from being interrupted.

Creative Solutions

In many cases, however, a cloistered studio/office space is simply not possible, and so a productive level of separation can be more difficult to achieve.  The nice thing is, this is yet another opportunity to inject some creativity into your business.

As an example, here are some ways that your fellow artists create a sense of division between home and work.  The following stories were among those shared in the comments section of How to Work From Home Part 1.

Artist Perspectives

Dave Aldrich: I too find working from home quite challenging.  My wife and I live in a small house, a cape.  My elderly mom lives with us so she has the one good spare room downstairs.  I tried creating studio space in our bedroom, but geesh, I was working out of my bedroom!  I tried working in our finished basement but there was just no natural light. I need natural light!

Finally (well hopefully not finally) I am working in what was our dining room. We tend to use it for dining only during the hoildays anyway.

I like the space. Plenty of light and room. The distractions are certainly there… the kitchen and its temptations, my mom and her occasional phone calls and other needs. And then there’s the sunshiney days that I just want to stay outdoors on the deck (I’m working on that).

Here’s a shot of my space and a story about a dry-erase white board that I recently made: http://aldrichdesign.wordpress.com/2010/03/01/making-my-own-whiteboard/.

Alex Mathers: The important thing for me is to establish a working environment that has a professional feel to it. You don’t want to be working in or next to your un-made bed with mess everywhere.

I work in the same room I sleep in, but I fold up the sofa bed and make sure the room is tidy and fresh, so that it puts me in a more focused, and work-oriented frame of mind. The room should still be a pleasant environment to work in, of course. Oh, and a plant helps.

How do you separate work from home?

Please share your thoughts in the comments section of this post.

Related Posts:

• How to Work From Home Part 1 – Dress for Success
• 9 Ways to Run a Smart Creative Business
• How to Turn Your Hobby Into Your Business

Stay up-to-date with future Illustration resources via email, Facebook, and Twitter.

Do you work from home?

Most Illustrators and other creative professionals work from a home office or studio space, because it offers all the comforts of home and the freedom that a freelance business allows.  In addition, you can save money and even claim a portion of your rent/mortgage and utilities on your taxes.

The Tradeoff

Unfortunately, working from home also has its own set of challenges, such as regular distractions and your many obligations to your house and your family.

To help you to confront these challenges, and hopefully increase your efficiency and focus, I’ll be exploring this topic in a series of posts here at Escape From Illustration Island.  If you struggle with working from home, then stay tuned to receive more tips like the one below.  I’d also love to hear how you cope with your own home business, so please share your thoughts in the comments section of this post.

(Update: You can now also read How to Work From Home Part 2 – Separation)

Part 1 – Dress for Success

One of the best parts of working from home is that you can hang out in your pajamas all day and nobody will know.  If you have children, this idea is even more tempting, because your time is more restricted, and you may not want to waste it getting “dressed up” to go to work.

I must admit that I spend a lot of time working in either casual clothes or pj’s.  It’s hard to resist when my 9-month old girls are hanging out in their onesies.

Every Monday, however, I try to be as well-dressed as if I were going to work in an office environment.  This helps me to “get in the mood” and set a productive tone for the day, and even the entire week ahead.

I have a little fun with it, and my fiance has a good laugh, but it really does make a difference in my ability to take my business seriously.  Getting dressed for work can have a psychological effect on your mindset, and can help to break you out of your usual home routines.

Today I suggest that you consider trying this for a few weeks.  Dress as if you are going to work in an office just one day a week, preferably at the beginning.  You might find that it increases your efficiency and keeps you on task.

You still have the rest of the week to dress casual, but hopefully this one small step will help you to be more productive even when you’re in your pajamas.

How do you cope with the challenges of working from home?  Please share your thoughts in the comments section.

Related Posts:

• How to Work From Home Part 2 – Separation
• 7 Time Management Strategies That Work
• 9 Ways to Run a Smart Creative Business
• How to Turn Your Hobby Into Your Business

Stay up-to-date with future Illustration resources via email, Facebook, and Twitter.