Okay, so this week, we got a brilliant letter from cat, and it's got a really great title, because it says, Help. I'm shy. Don't make me go to the book fairs. So by the book fairs, I'm guessing she means the Bologna Book Fair, where lots of illustrators, picture book illustrators like to have a nosy around. So she goes on to ask. She says, I'm brand new to the illustration business, and unfortunately, a terribly shy person. That's not unfortunate, that's yeah, just super most, I have to say, most illustrators I know are more leaning towards shy than extrovert. Yeah, I'm drawing and developing my portfolio and website. But despite everything, I feel at a lost, at a loss. How do you really get started? Do I really have to go to the book fairs? Because I can neither imagine nor plan that at the moment, are there possible first steps from home that really lead somewhere, and how do you manage it? If you're not a tough business type, I would be very happy to hear your answer. Best regards. And she lives in Bavaria, nice.
Katie:Well, I'd say, firstly, I would say, you don't actually have to be a tough business type. You don't have to be an extrovert at all and all, like Helen said, most illustrators, not all hashtag, not all illustrators, but most illustrators are, you know, but like, stay at home. They could work by ourselves all day. Just get lost in illustrations. Do work creatively. So there's you can do all the first starting steps from home. Can you totally,
Helen:I like to the analogy you always say Katie about lie down in the middle of the road and wait for somebody to drive. So set your website up. Do all of those outward facing things, put your folio on your website, set out your stall, and people will find you. That's definitely a really good starting point. Yeah,
Tania:lots on Instagram as well. Just if you can manage the social media aspect, put your work out there so it drives people to your website
Helen:thinking about, sorry, Tanya, I was just thinking, or think
Tania:of all the people, like writers, illustrators, painters, musicians, they're all They're all creatives who are, more often than not, introvert, because you need the time to spend alone to make these things, otherwise you'd be out there being sociable, being a marketer, or something like that. You know, cat, you're with your people, and there
Helen:is absolutely no need to for her to go to the Bologna book fair at all. I'd had a number of books published before I ever went. You really don't need to be there. In fact, if you're looking for a publisher, it's probably too busy, you can go for an inspiration, top up and find all the other shy illustrators there, but it's not a necessity. In fact, it'd be really hard to it happens. People meet publishers and end up with a contract, but it's overwhelming. There's such a lot to see. It's really best to go there as a huge inspiration boost and meet other illustrators, really, because we're
Tania:also a bit of a nuisance to them there, yeah? Like, we're just trying to sell the book rights to some foreign companies. Could you SWAT get these illustrators out the way cheering up with their portfolios? I mean, that's a part of it, but yes, definitely, no one's in the mindset in four crazy days to they might just see some of your work on. But anyway, you don't need to go there. That's the main thing.
Katie:Yeah, we did an episode a few episodes back about where you're feeling overwhelmed and starting out what to start on. And I think we talked about, like your website and things. So that is the thing. Like planting seeds, making sure people know you're an illustrator, and they know that how to work with you, and that they can work with you. And you don't have to do any, I don't do any pitching to people, because I find that really scary. I just used to
Tania:that that the old dinosaur days where you'd phone people up and say, Can I bring my portfolio to you? You'd have to stand there. They'd make nice conversations. They've nice and then you'd flick through the pages. I'm so glad we don't have to do that anymore. It's really cringy. It's great. You can just stay at home now and put things online.
Helen:See, you're fully online. Yeah, I used to have those meetings as well. Go into magazines and things so hard, wasn't it? You'd have one meeting. You'd be exhausted for the
Tania:whole day. I don't know how the editors got any work done, because people were asking to see them all the time, and they had a magazine to produce, and they had to keep looking at, you know, new illustrators coming in, nervously looking for reinforcement and validation and because, yeah, it would really knock your confidence. Now you can just sign the road and get people to trip over you with your Instagram and your website. But the other thing is, about making nice work, isn't it? Just make, make about six pieces you could. You really care about, because it's always those good pieces, and it's never that many that get used over and over again, that people remember you for. And you know, obviously you'll have more work than that, but if you can just feel great about single digit number of images, and that might take a little while,
Helen:I think, a tiny bit of something every day, like, yeah, be working on the actual work. Pick out some images, like, make your website. This isn't all in one day. I'm talking about a tiny bit every day, just a tiny bit towards that goal every day. It's amazing how that can add up over six months to quite a substantial leap forward from where you started out and put. You could do a post, or you could, you know, you could do an Instagram post, or progress a piece of illustration, a tiny thing every day, and it'll really add up. Yeah,
Katie:and finding what you really like doing, like, how, how, what way of sharing your work feels really fun and good to you, because I remember the golden days of blogging, like 2012 I used to love blogging because you'd find one image, write a load of words, put another image, write load of words, and then Instagram was a bit like that at the start as well. Wasn't it like you'd put a picture up that you thought was all right, and then you'd have a little chat in the in the caption. You can still do that to an extent, but it's not quite the same. But like sub stack, I feel is the new that. So if writing feels fun to you, definitely don't be shy about writing. There's
Helen:some great sub stacks that are just images as well. And I really like the voice record feature, so it's almost like you're putting a little podcast out on sub stack. But you can just record a voice note on your phone, stick it in your sub stack and send it. So easy. Wow.
Tania:What a time to be alive.
Katie:It's a golden age for introverts. Yeah, marketing, because you can just find the fun thing and do it, and then if you keep doing it, people will eventually notice that you're doing it consistently. Because I was going to say, like, obviously working on your creative stuff and getting your work as good as you can is really important. But you also can't forget about telling people about it, because, annoyingly, it's not you build it and they'll come Yeah. And when you look at illustrators that are air quotes successful, they talk about their work and they share their work and they show what they're working on.
Tania:Yeah, there's no way of avoiding that, is there? So bit brings in the old business car analogy again, doesn't it getting out of your creative car to drive your business car and talk about what you've made. And those two activities have to happen all the time. And we talked lots about this on the business course, which was, frankly a blessed relief after talking about creativity and only creativity, and fly your freak flag and picture book. And lots of people were like, Yeah, but tell us how this work gets out there, and how do we connect with clients? We're like, we can't talk about that. No, it's too confusing. But we had all this stored up information we really wanted to talk about, not muddy the waters, and because you can't think about that audience when you're creating good work, otherwise it will compromise you. If you if in your mind, you've got your viewer at the end of it, it can be, yeah, it doesn't allow your creativity to be totally free. So there's a time to take that blindfold off and have a think about how you start showing this to people, but they have to be two very separate activities.
Helen:I'm also thinking about how, if you're a shy person and you haven't shared your work yet. I suppose there might be that fear of you share your work on Instagram and somebody writes something horrible, or you imagine somebody in your family that you don't feel great about sees it and you get a horrible comment. So I think the best advice is to imagine you're just talking to a group of illustrators at your stage in the game. Just imagine that, and put your post out as if you're only talking to those illustrators. And any comments that come in that are not the nice comments. I mean, they don't. I feel as if I'm making people worry about something unnecessary, because I barely ever had a bad comment. But they do come, I suppose, and people worry about them. They're just there's not even worth replying to you. Just ignore it. Just completely ignore it like it didn't happen. But
Katie:sometimes the worst comments are the ones that people haven't even written but you're imagining them. Everyone thinks I'm an idiot. Everyone hates me. I'm so embarrassing. I still feel embarrassed sometimes when I meet people in real life and they're like, Oh, I saw that on Instagram. Oh, you don't look at my Instagram. Do you? I know you in real life, don't look at my Instagram. It's not for you. Yeah, I don't think that ever goes away, especially if you are on the shyer side or just more sensitive, which I think most illustrators are more sensitive, because we feel feelings, and we see it
Helen:makes us good illustrators, because we get feelings come out in our drawing exactly
Tania:yes, and look at us here, blabbing away. We half the time we have to pretend we're already talking. Well, all the time you have to pretend we're just talking to each other, because if we think anyone's listening, it would just be so embarrassing. But you just get. Over it, don't you just have to ignore that stuff and push forward. If it's important to you, you've got to get subjective about these things. And also, obviously we were talking about earlier that let them that new Mel Robbins book, and I listened to her talk to Oprah, and she was talking about her new book. And I love the idea it's just like, Forget trying to control any of it. Just yeah, let them say what they want. Yeah, yeah. It's a very good theory. I think I've read the book now, yeah,
Helen:yeah. My my editor once said to me that she has this philosophy, philosophy of FM. Just FM. If you have any amount of success, there are always going to be a few people who don't like it. Just F, well, she uses the proper word, but yeah, I'm not gonna swear Yeah. So, yeah, it's a good philosophy.
Katie:It's so good and it's so true. Like, when sometimes, if I do get worried or sad about what I think people like, I'm an expert mind reader, so obviously I know if I get too much into that, then I remember things like, some people don't like chocolate, but then I'm just like, why? If people think chocolate is horrible, then nobody's like people got stupid opinions. People are wrong.
Tania:It's still a real paralysis for some people have not used any social media, and we keep talking about Instagram. We should talk about Cara and other stuff like that as well. Find out or the other the illustrator Instagram, I don't know whether to how it's gone on, but and blue sky and other play threads, there's loads of illustrators on threads using it as a new X, but all these different places, you could try them out, and don't think that everyone will see you. In fact, the it's the opposite you're worried about, dipping your toe in it, thinking people are all time around. And look at and say, What do you think you're doing? Who do you think you are? But actually, be lucky if anyone notices, because everyone's on these platforms trying to get attention. So you can go on it, thinking, I'll just do what I want, because no one will notice anyway. And I think once you start it, you desensitize yourself to all those negative feelings of, I'm showing off. People think I'm an idiot. There's no other way to get work. All you're doing just getting his business. Yeah,
Katie:it doesn't have to feel sleazy. Just sharing what you're up to is marketing,
Tania:yeah, and you're not saying you're great or anything like that. You're just saying, Look, I did this, and you
Katie:should say you're great, because you probably are. Look at me. I'm so good. Refreshing, wouldn't
Helen:it? Sure, I always really loved that when Pi was little, every time she did a drawing, she told you,
Tania:brilliant children are just born with it. Can channel that again and not care. Yeah, say to people, I'm bored of listening to you. I'm going now
Katie:straightforward stuff we've been doing potty training recently, my little girl was on the potty, and I heard I quietly say to myself, I'm so proud of you. I'm gonna cry anytime. I'm so proud of you. Well done to herself, yeah, okay,
Tania:the mission for this week is for everyone to say, I'm so proud of you to themselves. Give
Katie:yourself a chocolate button as well every time you do some sharing online, yeah?
Tania:Maybe we could send those out with the badges. Yeah?
Katie:No. GSP rules might be allowed, yeah.
Helen:So cost doors are open for freak flag, because we're not opening and closing the doors anymore. They're just open all the time. So if you've got the website, you can read all about it, yeah, if you've been eyeing it up for a while now, is your time to shimmy on in? Yeah? And if you join before the end of January, you get a little pack of amazing, good ship stickers in the post in real life, and you get the chance to win a one on one mentoring session. Yeah? So
Katie:one on three, really, isn't it? Because you get all three of us live. Got all three of us, yeah, yeah, overwhelming.
Tania:It's a pile on basically, kind, really nice. Don't be afraid and and that goes into the course as well, doesn't it? So everyone on the course gets to see the mentoring and benefit from it. And
Katie:it's not random. You do apply for it, so we will select the winners, and everybody will benefit from the feedback.
Helen:Yeah, because we get people to send in a selection of their work and a question, which makes it really useful, because we can choose commonly asked questions or problems that a lot of people associate with. So we choose strategically and answer those questions for everybody.
Katie:Yeah, it's the Goodship illustration.com, forward slash freak flag or one word well done. I know so good memory. I'm so proud of myself.
Helen:Chocolate, butter, thank you. Bye, bye, bye bye.