Hey my brothers and sisters of arms!
Darren Yeow just posted some awesome tips on his facebook about getting more work as a freelancer. If you are just starting and have a lot questions about going freelance, then i really recommend you to read all of this:
Freelance Tip: Get more work
There are two major reasons why you're not getting enough freelance gigs:
1. Your portfolio isn't good enough / appropriate to the jobs you're going for.
No one likes to hear this, but it IS the foundation of your freelance career - without strong art, spending a lot of time marketing is premature and most likely going to end in frustration. How strong do you need it to be depends on which field you're targeting and objectively comparing how your art sits in direction comparison with the luminaries of the chosen field. If you're lacking, forget marketing for the time being, make your product offering stronger.
If your art is good, then it's important that the stuff you're presenting is in context - meaning that if you're going for cartoony cel-shaded gigs, then submitting highly rendered dark fantasy is going to be next to useless. But the art director should be able to SEE my skill! Sorry pal, but it doesn't work that way. If you have no comparable art, it's in your interest to get some mock ups done to submit and show that you can pull off the work.
Showing your portfolio is all about risk mitigation for a client, if you can't show the type of work they expect to receive, then it's perceived as a very big risk and there is a long line of other artists who can provide that assurance with their portfolios.
The onus is on YOU to make sure that your portfolio communicates that you can do the job well - it is not the job of the art director to "see the potential"
2. You aren't marketing your services adequately.
Assuming your art is good, marketing tends to be the downfall of many would-be freelancers. It has to happen regularly and without fail.
Many freelancers shoot off a bunch of emails sporadically in one spectacular money shot and hope to land a gig, then they sit back and wait to hear replies. There is no system and there is no ongoing consistency. Chances are, if you only carry out your marketing every now and then, you won't get in front of the right people at the right time to get gigs.
CRM or Customer Relationship Management is the name given to a system of following up on clients, recording important information (like when they will be hiring freelancers, or what they said the last time you emailed) and reminding you to do your marketing regularly. The CRM can either be a simple one that you record in Excel or there are programs specially created to carry out this function - Base CRM on iPhone, Android, Windows and OSX is one example of a relatively simple system that is fully functional up to 100 clients.
Another thing to think about is that if you are only hitting one particular segment of the market that requires your skillset and aren't meeting with a great deal of success, there is nothing stopping you from looking at alternative industries. It pays to keep in mind that different segments of the economy will be going through their boom-bust business cycles at different times, so if the industry you are hitting is doing it tough, look to greener alternative pastures for a while.
How often you market is up to you - when I started my freelance business 4 years ago, I spent around 30 hours a week marketing my skills - these days it is a lot less than that and I am always stacked with client work, but I couldn't have gotten to this stage without hustling like a mofo early on.
Hustle on art fiends.
Darren Yeow just posted some awesome tips on his facebook about getting more work as a freelancer. If you are just starting and have a lot questions about going freelance, then i really recommend you to read all of this:
Freelance Tip: Get more work
There are two major reasons why you're not getting enough freelance gigs:
1. Your portfolio isn't good enough / appropriate to the jobs you're going for.
No one likes to hear this, but it IS the foundation of your freelance career - without strong art, spending a lot of time marketing is premature and most likely going to end in frustration. How strong do you need it to be depends on which field you're targeting and objectively comparing how your art sits in direction comparison with the luminaries of the chosen field. If you're lacking, forget marketing for the time being, make your product offering stronger.
If your art is good, then it's important that the stuff you're presenting is in context - meaning that if you're going for cartoony cel-shaded gigs, then submitting highly rendered dark fantasy is going to be next to useless. But the art director should be able to SEE my skill! Sorry pal, but it doesn't work that way. If you have no comparable art, it's in your interest to get some mock ups done to submit and show that you can pull off the work.
Showing your portfolio is all about risk mitigation for a client, if you can't show the type of work they expect to receive, then it's perceived as a very big risk and there is a long line of other artists who can provide that assurance with their portfolios.
The onus is on YOU to make sure that your portfolio communicates that you can do the job well - it is not the job of the art director to "see the potential"
2. You aren't marketing your services adequately.
Assuming your art is good, marketing tends to be the downfall of many would-be freelancers. It has to happen regularly and without fail.
Many freelancers shoot off a bunch of emails sporadically in one spectacular money shot and hope to land a gig, then they sit back and wait to hear replies. There is no system and there is no ongoing consistency. Chances are, if you only carry out your marketing every now and then, you won't get in front of the right people at the right time to get gigs.
CRM or Customer Relationship Management is the name given to a system of following up on clients, recording important information (like when they will be hiring freelancers, or what they said the last time you emailed) and reminding you to do your marketing regularly. The CRM can either be a simple one that you record in Excel or there are programs specially created to carry out this function - Base CRM on iPhone, Android, Windows and OSX is one example of a relatively simple system that is fully functional up to 100 clients.
Another thing to think about is that if you are only hitting one particular segment of the market that requires your skillset and aren't meeting with a great deal of success, there is nothing stopping you from looking at alternative industries. It pays to keep in mind that different segments of the economy will be going through their boom-bust business cycles at different times, so if the industry you are hitting is doing it tough, look to greener alternative pastures for a while.
How often you market is up to you - when I started my freelance business 4 years ago, I spent around 30 hours a week marketing my skills - these days it is a lot less than that and I am always stacked with client work, but I couldn't have gotten to this stage without hustling like a mofo early on.
Hustle on art fiends.
"Stand tall, and shake the Heavens!"
Tumblr for my comic!: http://rainfallcomic.tumblr.com/
Sketchbook: http://crimsondaggers.com/forum/thread-1227.html
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/eduardogarayart
Deviantart: http://eduardogaray.deviantart.com/
Tumblr for my comic!: http://rainfallcomic.tumblr.com/
Sketchbook: http://crimsondaggers.com/forum/thread-1227.html
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/eduardogarayart
Deviantart: http://eduardogaray.deviantart.com/
