I am officially the world’s worst blogger, I think. But this morning as I was running errands an idea popped into my head to write about– so here we go.

Head to a store and you’ll find prices jumping for food and supplies. The gas pumps are charging more all the time, flip on the news and you’ll invariably hear about airline expenses, businesses merging and cutting staff, the job search becomes harder and harder, and then there’s rationing… Whether we’re in a recession or not, things are changing and it’s not really for the better, at least not right now. It’s kind of depressing, but it started to make me wonder– how is it affecting illustrators?

Do you think our future is still bright? As the cost of necessities rises, will we still have much of a market? Will magazines discontinue (or switch to photography or stock) because they’re more like extravagances than food or shelter? I wonder. I would like to hope not– publications are my bread and butter! But I’m curious of your thoughts.

Also, how are things affecting you currently? I find that I’m spending a lot more at the post office mailing out artwork than I used to. Cost of plane tickets and fuel make me reluctant to travel (though I didn’t drive– used to bike til someone stole mine recently!), which means I have to cut out any public things like comic conventions or craft fairs. And then there’s the worry about the art I make to sell (as opposed to illustrations)– will people stop buying because they need to worry about more important things? I worry that somewhere along the line creative people will be out of work. I doubt a doctor will ever have that problem– but an artist unfortunately doesn’t have that same clout in society.

I may just be a worrywart right now, but I do wonder– how good will we have it in the next several years? And if there is a lingering concern, should we be considering a plan B? I honestly don’t know what I’d do besides what I do now! So tell me what you see and predict– the good and bad, because I want to know!

Been slowly working my way around on getting a feeling for what I’m doing– sometimes I gotta admit I feel like someone replaced my hands with clumsy dog feet and blindfolded me and said “OK, now make some fun drawings!” On the other hand I do think far too much about what I’m doing right and wrong in this business. It’s one of those things I have to work on– not that thinking is that bad, but too much of anything is a good thing! Emailing my illustrator friends and asking their opinions has been a nice experience though– part of me is like ‘Wow! They’re going through what I’m going through!” and the other part is like “Wow! I’m totally jealous!” But still, I’m getting a better idea of where I feel more comfortable and where I could see myself. Ultimately though I just have to have fun– and stop thinking so hard!

I’m curious though– are any of you working in the children’s books field? Several pals of mine keep telling me they’d love to see me tackle that field, and I’m definitely interested. So if anyone has any suggestions/resources/contacts/advice on how to get into it, or know someone who I should talk to about this, that’d be great! Anyone willing to let me pick their brain? My sister and I have a book idea also, though it’s currently in the wrong format (comics) and we’ll need to rework it.

I’m all for the give and take of information obviously. I’ll answer what little I know in return!  I’ll try and write a more advice-worthy post sometime in the near-future, too. Bear with me!

Anyway, it’s time for this lady to stop thinking so hard and start putting the pen to paper. It’s been a while. How are you guys doing?

Let me just say as a freelancer, I still very much hate filing taxes. I’m not an accountant (though I wish I had one!), and taxtime fills me with impending dread. Schedule C, forms, paperwork, deductions, expenses, assets…. For me it’s blinding. Yesterday I tackled my taxes, and while it didn’t take as long as I expected, there were a lot of things I found eating up my time. And a lot of time spent gnashing my teeth about the money I’m soon to owe sweet lady IRS. (IRS honey, let’s talk! Please don’t break my kneecaps or bankrupt me!) Needless to say it’s going to take many years to be comfortable about this, but this is what I’ve started to learn so far:

•  Document everything. You’re a freelancer, do you have a home office? Keep track of the square yardage of your dwelling and the office, and then make sure you keep track on the utilities and rent and all (and everything you buy or fix in it) so you can be compensated for it. Did you buy art supplies? Decorations for the studio? Media? If you can honestly justify it as being research or work related, it can count. And don’t forget cost of mailing/advertisement/gas mileage for the business..
• By documenting everything I mean DOCUMENT everything. Keep a book, or use Excel, or get a program, but every expense should be kept track of. It really comes in handy. (It also makes you realize you may have a problem when you add up all your art supply bills. I know it did for me) I grant you I didn’t really do this– I just went through my Paypal history and my bank history for the past year and added it up, but I’m going to implement it this year for 2009’s filing.
• Try and keep your paperwork organized. I couldn’t find some of my paperwork right off the bat and freaked out, thinking I threw it away.
• Pay and file quarterly so that the tax owed is not a big shock like it was for me.
•  When you get payments from jobs, set aside some of it into savings so you will have the money no problem!
• Don’t live check-to-check like me!
• If you can find one, an accountant sounds like the way to go– one who works with creative people, and knows what that means in a financial setting.

Any other ideas for easing that tax burden, I’d love to hear. I’m hoping I’ll implement all this stuff next year, because I’m tired of dreading April, really!

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We here at Trade Secrets are hoping to move the blog to a domain so we can revamp the site with a super-cool design (trust me, I peeked). But we’re having a little trouble figuring out a domain name to register. Tradesecrets.com/org/net and its ilk are all gone.  We have a couple of ideas, like the-trade-secrets.com, ourtradesecrets.com, tradesecretsforillustrators.com but how memorable will they be? I’m not certain. I’d love to hear your suggestions and maybe we can figure out a good new domain together! We’re aiming to keep the TS name, but what else could work?

One thing that has been floating in the ether in my brain lately is where I see myself heading. I think some illustrators are lucky; they know exactly where they fit in, or they just fall into working on something they really enjoy and that’s what directs their career. Having that foresight or ability to find their niche is such a good thing– really valuable when you think about it. But maybe you’re like me; you consider yourself a jack of all trades, and you can’t quite figure out where you fit.

My good friend Frank and I discussed our ideas of the ‘rules’ for being an illustrator: and we both agreed that while there are a lot of other important rules, the top one could be ‘Know thyself.’ For a while I was trying to work out where my weaknesses were graphically, stylistically– but that was sort of putting the cart before the horse. Without knowing who to show my work to and where I could feel comfortable, I’ve felt a lot of maybes as to where I could fit in– I could see it, but how could my potential clients? The thing I’ve heard lately has been: “You have a great style. You just need to figure out what you want to do and then pursue it.” So I guess it’s actually more obvious than I thought. Hence this hastily scrawled flow-chart, cementing a lot of things I knew in my head.

I find this indecision really troublesome, but indicative of how I’ve always been– fish or cut bait was the resounding mantra my parents often gave me. And when I actually dissect how my personal work comes about, I realize it’s less about thought and more about bizarre imagery, strange juxtapositions, which leads to a unique kind of language that I’m not sure is so easily translated. Which leads me to noticing a disconnect between my editorial work and my personal work– and I think this may be where one of my problems lie. I could see other peoples’ work collected into a book, both personal and editorial– but mine? It seems less that way. And maybe this means branching out from editorial is important.

Not that this post has really gained me any answers– but it has made me consider more heavily what I want to do. I may not know the hows of accomplishing what I want to do, but I think it’s a good starting point. If you’re at all like me, I would advise you to think about what really engages you and where you do and don’t see yourself. Knowing yourself– your capabilities, limitations, goals and the like– is just as important as developing a style, learning business practices, and promoting your work– after all, how can you start to promote yourself if you don’t know who you are and why you are doing what you do? Of course things change but you need a framework to start, and a sense of focus so you can actually attack the markets you’re interested in.

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Good news: In the coming few weeks we will be attempting here at the Trade Secrets HQ to overhaul the blog– along with a bit of a format change. It’ll be truly awesome, I assure you. So keep your eyes on the lookout!

As a sidenote-

How did you get to this sort of business? I’m curious. Me, I wanted to be an artist as a kid, and then when I went to college illustration seemed like the most interesting to me subject-wise, but then I fell out of it for a year or so until I saw its potential. (Instead I fooled around with printmaking, which informed me greatly really) And then from there I just plunged in after school. But what about you? What drew you to illustration as a job possibility, even if you’re just freelancing a bit so far?

Also, I’m asking you for help here on a quandry: Do you have a email mailing list for your website? How do you run them? Do you use a separate program to use it, or do you compile email addresses by hand and mass email them? What works best? And how hard is it to put a form on your site that lets you sign up?

See, the main reason I’m asking this is because I did try this once, and I used a feature that was with my webhost that just let me implement a list. But I found out like less than a month into it that somehow it got hijacked and all the people on my mailing list got porn spammail. And quite obviously, I don’t want to do that again! But I would like to do a monthly newsletter thing to keep people updated with what’s new and try to keep work going that way. So if you have any tried and true ways to handle a mailing list without it devolving into spam, I would love to hear it!