My 10 Part Freelance Lifestyle Project ended a few weeks ago— you can go back to the beginning and read it from start to finish by searching the little box for FREELANCE ADVICE, but I’ve decided to add a couple of BONUS posts— here is Part 11 SURVIVING A CRISIS! (in fact I’m going to expand this to Thirteen Parts soon) This one might be the biggest one of them all because Freelance first requires a scary jump from a regular paycheck to a world of managing your own destiny— and Uncle Andy has some bad news for you— it’s not all going to be smooth sailing and you will deal with some rough seas. You’ll have to learn how to get through it.
The pandemic was a perfect example of a crisis— it affected a lot of businesses and publishing was hit especially hard when bookstores were deemed non-essential. Let me take you back to an earlier crisis to give you some context, because this Pandemic Crisis was not my first one.
WHEN THE WALLS COME CRUMBLING DOWN
I had a contract with a book publisher who was based in London, I really enjoyed working with them and from about 2006 to about 2011 I did several books for them and got paid quite well. Best of all it was a steady flow of income during a time when I needed it (divorce ain’t cheap). In early 2010 we laid out plans for more books when I would be back from my honeymoon in Japan— the publisher had arranged a deal with Borders Books, a company founded in 1971, to provide a slew of How To Art Books and I would be their guy because I had some expertise in several mediums.
Suddenly in 2011 Borders closed all of their stores, their contract for books of course was cancelled and so was my workload with them. The resulting wave through publishing with the closure of one of the biggest booksellers in the world (and in my opinion they were far superior to rival Barnes and Noble) caused my publisher to completely restructure so all of the folks I had such a great working relationship with were now gone. No longer was I the go to favorite guy of many editors, I was now the “who?” guy to the new editorial team.
During the period of 2009-2011 I had turned down many lucrative contracts because I had this regular client, losing them suddenly and without warning nearly capsized my career completely. Those contracts were no longer available and many of those editors had moved out of publishing all together.
DON’T PANIC - EASIER SAID THAN DONE!
It’s easy to panic during something like that— and trust me there will come a time when panic sets in, but I’ve learned that successful Freelance is truly a matter of wash>rinse>repeat — it’s a cycle and you cannot break the cycle.
Go back and read through all Ten Chapters I’ve written and make sure you’re doing the things now that you did when you first started out. Many of us get comfortable and think we no longer have to promote, we always do, because as you land one gig you should have a second gig you’re discussing to follow it and a third gig ready for the job after that and ideally a fourth gig asking about your availability. Does that seem impossible? It does but it happens more than you think.
Keep your website up to date with new work. Never anything that you have to apologize for or explain why it’s not as good as you’d hoped it would be. Nothing older than ten years either.
If you have a BLOG update it AT LEAST WEEKLY and if you can’t do that get rid of it. Nothing says busy more than a blog with a last post in 2014— but it also says ghost town, it can make a prospective client think you’ve moved on and they will too.
Work on your social media promotion. I hate social media, but it generates work. Keep it all work related. IF you’re trying to get work as an illustrator posting pics of the meals you’re making or the model kits you’re painting might be interesting to a lot of people, but if it has nothing to do with your work goal so start a second account that is work only.
Don’t get desperate. That old expression never let them see you sweat is valid for Freelance too. If you do this right work will come your way. That doesn’t mean you can’t reach out to an old contact and see if they have any needs, but it does mean you don’t send out a mass email talking about how you’re about to get in line for Marble Rye and Cheese at the government handout center.
Sometimes a great project sits right behind a good one you missed out on. Sometimes bad things happen. We had a contract for a project with a large publisher for a job that would pay about ¼ a year’s worth of salary— for about a month’s work— that’s a nice return. We started on the project and got about 1% of the way in when they pulled the plug on it through no fault of ours. They apologized profusely, paid us for the work that had been done, and offered to look for replacement work for us. It’s slightly more sad because in addition to the good money we’d turned down a project we would have liked to have done to accept this one, now that this one was gone the other one had already been assigned to someone else. We barely had time to commiserate over the loss of this project when two others came our way.
So how does balance work? It’s like a rock rolling down hill, once you get it going it’ll build a momentum that makes it easier to keep it going. Start with promoting, talk to prospective clients. Keep your expenses low and don’t consider a job yours until you sign a contract. Arrange your deadlines and make a schedule for getting the work done. Don’t agree to deadlines you can’t meet. Now start working on what we’ll call Project A, and let’s assume this project will take you three months to complete. On Fridays you should assess your progress and make note of where you are on the deadline. If you’re falling behind say goodbye to your weekends. Now as you’re a month in (⅓ of the way through the project) on those Fridays in addition to assessing Project A’s status you are now actively looking for Project B.
Project B might involve 3-4 prospective clients, make sure they know you can’t start on their project for two more months, keep in contact with them. The process of landing a client usually takes anywhere from a few days to a month. Let’s say it took a month so now you have Project B lined up to follow Project A- if B Is a shorter project, let’s say a week to complete, you’re going to need to look for Project C right away because in five weeks you’ll be out of work again.
Fridays are going to be busy because now you have to assess where you stand on Project A, set up a deadline schedule for Project B and Project C (let’s assume this is a nice long five month project) and you’re going to start uploading whatever samples you can from Project A (making sure its OK with the client) to help you generate more work. On your social media you start posting process work because people love to see that and it generates still more interest in what you’re doing.
You need to repeat this process all the time, good calendars are your best friend. I like to do project summaries on Fridays because Mondays are already bad enough.
Stay organized, stay promoting and stay fresh on your website, deliver on your deadlines and you’ll see the work come in.
Andy Fish is a freelance artist and writer who has been living the lifestyle longer than there has been an iPhone on this planet. The advice given has worked for him, it might work for you, he hopes it does. But like all advice, take it with your own situation in mind. If you want to contact him shoot him an email andy@andytfish.com