Stay in the know with my illustration news from shop updates, new projects and announcements, along with tips and tricks of the freelance illustration trade I’ve learnt along the way!
Last week, The Life of Stevie Smortberry : Nana’s got the Electric Touch, finally got released!
Attending the launch in Crystal Palace, meeting Genea in person, and finally seeing my illustrations printed in the physical book, felt almost surreal! And to know they are also available in Waterstones and Foyles is even crazier, the two biggest suppliers! I’m so proud of this project and can’t wait for more and more people to see it!
With all freelance project coming to an end last month and social weekend plans getting in the way of market stall opportunities, I decided to focus my free time recently into some content creation, to try and promote my products, create more online sales and draw in more audiences and hopefully new commissioners.
Most of my content creation was done on Instagram in the form of reels, as this seems to be the main area of focus on social media at the moment, but I will admit I’ve experience a disappointing result and I’m loosing faith in the platform all together… However, I’m sure having this additional content out there can’t hurt and even if it brings just a few more sales and a new project here and there then it will be worth it. Just at the moment with sales and work being at a real low point, it’s quite a deflating space to be in. I’ve also been up-keeping my activity of other platforms including LinkedIn, Pinterest, Behance, Dribble and The Dots, again with limited outcomes for now.
Content creation has never been my favourite part of freelancing, but saying that, I’m quite happy with what I’ve created. I feel my posts are reasonably professional, showcase my work in an interesting way, and there’s also a recent amount of variety amongst them! It’s also nice just for me to remind myself of some of the work that I’ve done as I haven’t had the time or motivation recent to do much drawing at all.
As May draws to a finish, I’m feeling reflective on my busiest month of market stalls, having ran a stall 4 weekends in a row! As always, it was a learning curve with mixed results from each weekend.
I started off at the M32 Flea Market, I initially had doubts about this one, thinking my work was potentially a little too up market for their target audience. However, I ended the day on a high and decent profit. This was also my first market trailing framed prints and I sold 2 to one customer! So definitely a good move introducing framed prints with an easy profit margin increase. I also, as always, met a bunch of lovely people and got some pointers for upcoming markets.
Next was The Creator’s Market Bristol at Strangebrew. Having previously attend during the Christmas period, and it being my most successful market, I had high hopes, but the spike in good weather, meant everyone wanted to be in the sun and not at an indoor market in town. Despite the organisers best efforts to increase the foot traffic, I ended up actually making a loss due to the cost of the table and taxis there and back. But hey, you live and you learn!
The 3rd was Bath Independent market, one with what felt like a fairly fancy clientele and reduced costs as I travelled with my fellow market maker Ashleigh. The day once again was pretty quiet due to nice weather and being indoors but I achieved a decent profit in the end.
Finally was a last minute spot shared with Ashleigh at St Nic’s Market, supposedly one of Bristol’s best. And despite having just half a stall, again a pleasant profit!
Overall I learnt a lot which I can bring to future markets and hopefully only improve my profits even more!
Although it’s obviously hard to predict, aim for indoor markets on rainy days and outdoor markets on sunny days.
Having your prints on display, up high (eye-level) is super helpful to reel customers in
Share a stall and a car if possible to reduce costs
Framed prints and deals on 3 or more prints are a great way to convince customers of additional sales!
I don’t plan on attending lots more markets soon, maybe just a few here and there to boost sales and marketing around summer plans, but November/December time I plan to do as many as possible and make the most of the Christmas rush. Hopefully with a few more products to add to my options!
