A Lesson in Freelancing

The sun is setting on my spring break.

Pardon me…

I can’t lie…Easter Break was good to me. I didn’t get to letter as much as I wanted…although I did get engrave a little bit…

But, all that was okay since my one and only wish was to get some good sleep before we had to head back to school.

Well, my 16-year-old had other plans for that…Her sleep patterns cared nothing for my itinerary. Any other #autismmoms can relate? Happy Autism Awareness Month to us, right? 😂

Still, her sleep schedule (or, rather her resistance to one) got me up early enough this week to tackle some to-dos I had for my week off such as submitting high-res images of the selections the art licensing company requested, catching up with some of the work of my online friends, updating my homepage….and one that wasn’t initially on the to-do list at all…introducing myself in a few online groups.

Do you know I learned something from each of those activities?

Let’s see…

Always Have Your Art Work Licensing-Ready

I learned I need to make my blog covers larger with high-resolution files.

In the beginning of the pandemic, I was interested in licensing my work. But, when everything went haywire, I let it shift to the back burner. At the time, I would’ve never guessed the art I was creating for my blog covers would make the cut!

I have already been creating everything at 300 DPI for about a year, which is a high enough resolution for printing. But, I have still been using fairly small sizes for blog covers. Although the company has not complained about that yet, I think it could be limiting for what the work could be used for at times.

Well, that changes today! If even blog covers are fair game for art licensing, I guess they’ll have to be treated with the same love as any of my other work. 🤷🏾‍♀️

Be Clear on What You Do

I also learned that you have to be clear on what you do, or what problems you are able to solve for others (or, better yet, want to solve for others). This is important because if you’re freelancing in any kind of way, you don’t want to get stuck doing things you don’t want to do, nor things that your audience doesn’t really need or want.

I freelance on the side for supplemental income. I already have a challenging career. So, I definitely want to enjoy the sides!

It’s also important to be clear on what you want to do, because people will ask…For instance, I was asked this past week if I could calligraph envelopes for weddings.

Of course, the answer is, “Yes.” I intend to share my calligraphed Mother’s Day cards here soon. ❤️

While I think it’d be much more feasible for me to complete projects like addressing wedding envelopes in the summer, I’d still probably only do that for my family. For offering services, it’s much more sensible for me overall to stick to one-offs like vows or lyrics/poetry, calligraphy engravings, or calligraphy that is meant to be wall art since the time commitment for any piece is shorter and I can tackle them throughout the school year.

I learned to introduce myself (and that Delaware, women creatives are mad-friendly)!

I have been part of a few online groups in my area for quite some time now. But, I’ve rarely engaged…Never even introduced myself.

To be fair, I have had a lot going on the past couple years. But, as things continue to relax in my world, I imagine I may be able to begin to reconnect with some of my former goals…though they may look a little different than they once did before the pandemic.

But, since I was on break, I had a chance to look at some past content by Alanna Flowers and I came upon her ten freelancing tips series again. I had forgotten how cool that series was when I first saw it! I remember thinking at the time, “Oh yeah, I’ll get around to these some day.”

In the series she talked about introducing yourself. So, since I was on spring break, I figured, why not? 🤷🏾‍♀️ I went and introduced myself in some of online groups…and it wasn’t so bad. Many of the groups had some very friendly folks.

But…once you introduce yourself, everyone wants to be clear on what all you do…and if you could potentially solve a problem for them, they may just take you up on it!

Case in point, after I introduced myself in one group, I got an invitation to attend an open house in Delaware next month to display my art work and services at a wedding venue. Ordinarily, I would’ve waited until summer. But, there’s just enough time to get prepped! So, I’m taking my own advice to get started right now because ain’t nobody got time for that mad rush! Stay tuned to see how that works out!

I also got invited to be part of a pop-up shop event that didn’t work too well for my schedule this time around. But, I visited just to see what a pop-up shop event was like.

I met a few cool ladies there working on their side hustles. I bought a few things in support.

I really want women supporting women to be a thing and not just something nice that women say for the culture.

I also kicked myself for not introducing myself sooner.

So all is well that ends well with this edition of spring break…and now, I’m back in my room, looking semi-rested, getting ready for the work week and brainstorming my next event.