Self Promotion

It's been a while since I last actually wrote a blog post. I've often tried to get back on top of it to no avail, which leads me to writing this post.

As I'm sure you're all aware we have been in and out of covid induced lockdown for the last year and a bit now. This has meant we have all had to adapt in both life and business. For me personally I got diagnosed with ADHD during it which has had quite an impact on me, for the better I'd like to add. It has also made me aware of many of my strengths and weaknesses. One such weakness is my planning and time management. Now in day to day life I've managed to put some things in place to help with this, however one of the most difficult parts for me to get on top of is social media and promotion for the business. As with most people with ADHD when it's fresh in my head i'll be all over it for a period of time then something will happen that is more urgent and take my mind away from it. 

This is incredibly frustrating as I know exactly what I need to do to advertise my business and promote myself and my products, its just incredibly difficult to translate this knowledge to action. I realise that is probably not the greatest thing to admit to the world at large, however I feel that it is all too easy to think of freelancers and self employed business people to be all screwed together and know exactly what they're doing. This isn't necasserily the case and that's fine we don't have to be good at everything and knowing where we are weakest is a great place to start when looking to progress ourselves. 

Self promotion has always been difficult as it feels a bit alien blowing your own trumpet and telling people how awesome you are. It's bad enough taking compliments sometimes and I'm sure many of you can appreciate that. But and this is a big but it is hugely important as a self employed person to be able to sell yourself and your services/products to customers and clients. It's about knowing your self worth and more importantly believing it.

Now that I have all of that written down I can get to the meat of this post. I am now much more aware of my worth as an illustrator but I'm still not great at blowing my own trumpet. This is where you the reader hopefully come in. Im on the look out for practical tips on self promotion for a self employed illustrator preferrably from an ADHD view point as I know there are a great many people out there in the same boat.

If anyone has any advice or maybe I can help them in a similar way then please do get in touch on :-

info@clumsypickle.co.uk

 
All the best folks

 

Michael (aka The Pickle)

  


  

August In the Pickle Jar

Hi Folks

Its time for another post and things have been super busy here in the Pickle Jar. For starters I have been painting and creating bunnies left, right and centre. I have also been retaking all my photographs for the Etsy page and just generally sprucing things up.

As well as this I have been organising new packaging for everything including fancy new stickers and fully recyclable boxes, postage bags the works. All ready for the upcoming end of year craziness.

On top of all this I've been busy with some commissions, Including this fun little kids menu and colouring page for Riverhead Coffee here in Grimsby and Cleethorpes.

 

  So as you can see I've been a busy bunny and there's still plenty more cool stuff on the horizon.

Totally Locally

I've recently been doing some work with local businesses in the Grimsby and Cleethorpes area as part of a big national project called Totally Locally. The whole project is about shopping within your local community to keep the money where it belongs and not in some fat cats pocket. I thought I'd share one of their posters because well the figures speak for themselves!!!

April in the Pickle Jar

Welcome to this month's Pickle Jar. It's been a busy one this month. I've been working on  various unfinished Landmark prints as well as rephotographing them all and updating the Etsy store. 
Below is my finally finished Tatooine print which I can't wait to get printed. If you're interested in a copy drop me a message and I'll do a pre-order list. Might even do a special offer with the other Star Wars prints!!

I've also been busy working on Apple Tree Pirates pages in particular puzzle pages which has been great fun. The creative genius that is my 9 year old has come up with some more characters for me to draw at some point too.

Right well I'd best get back to the drawing board and get some work done. Speak to you all soon.
Mike :-)

Pickle Mail

I've been a busy pickle today working on all sorts of cool stuff to progress the business. One of which is a funky new mail list so I can keep you all updated with whats going on and to offer some cool special offers to subscribers only. I've popped in a box below so you can drop your email in and get signed up but as you can see in the picture at the bottom I've added it into the side of the blog itself.  So get subscribing folks and lets see what offers we can pull out of the Pickle Jar. 

Subscribe to Pickle Mail
 

March In the Pickle Jar

In the Pickle Jar this month I've been super busy getting everything back up and running so I can push forward with all the plans for this year. As such I thought I'd share some of it with you. I also thought I could do a monthly 'In the Pickle Jar' to keep you all updated.
So what have I been doing?!? Well I've been updating the Apple Tree Pirates Patreon page and cracking on with drawing strips and puzzle pages for them.

As well as the Apple Tree Pirates I've been busy working on some new LIA's (Literary Invasion Art) where as before they were mostly single page pieces like in the front of the pile below, I've now started work on some much bigger pieces including a couple of secret ones I'll tell you about another time. All of this and new landmark prints coming for the Etsy store too. So watch this space for more funky updates.

Patreon Reborn

The Apple Tree Pirates has been a pet project of mine for a number of years now. A few years back I made a Patreon page to support it and so I could get things made and out there for the world to see. Sadly with life taking the twisty windy road that is normally the way it kind of got shelved and left to gather dust. Now this has bugged the hell out of me because a project as cool as this should be made and published not left to languish. 
As I said in my previous blog post my priorities have changed a lot recently and the Apple Tree Pirates has been pushed up the list...... a lot. So with that in mind I've gone over the Patreon page again and modernised it a bit, rewritten some of it and want to launch it anew. 
This is where you guys come in. My intentions are to crack on and draw the Apple Tree Pirates comics, kids books, and activity books and get these little dudes into the public eye. To do that takes time and some new gear wouldn't go a miss either but that can wait. If I can earn enough money from selling my artwork online and the support on the Patreon page then I will be able to work less hours in my day job and spend much more time on making these books a reality. 
So if you feel you want to become a patron from as little as 64 pence a month or you know someone who would then share it around and lets see if we can get the Apple Tree Pirates published and in your local book shops.