I wanted to add some follow up to my recent visit on the Self-Publishing Podcast and go a little more into my scrappiest networking tricks. If you haven’t checked out the episode yet, click here to fill your ears with good stuff. PS It’s not a kids’ show.
Aaaaand if you want all my articles on the sort of stuff, keep an eye on donovanscherer.com/conartist
Now, here’s your bonus stuff:
Networking with Peers
Comic conventions are bursting at the seams with talented people. If there’s something you need to help your business or some way you can help others, this is a great place to find what you’re looking for.
For one of my recent shows, I saw that Erin Mehlos, artist behind the Unicorn Western and Dream Engine cover, would be attending. While I didn’t know of anything we could do to help out each other’s businesses, I knew it would be cool to get a picture together with the covers we’ve both done for Sterling & Stone. Not some kind of big money-maker, but one of those cool brand-building social media thingamajigs. Scrappy, right?
Shows will generally have a list of the artists, celebrities, and exhibitors, so you can see who will be around. If you’re an author in need of a new cover designer or you find somebody who you would like to team up with, do some early research to see what they bring to the table or what you can do to help.
Scrappy Tip:
As authors, a lot of us also have little side businesses to support our wordsmithing. For example, I offer cover design and character illustration. By having that sort of work represented at my table through artwork, I’ve managed to pull in a bit of freelance work. My ZomBeans game has even gotten me a job teaching at the college I graduated from! If you have a side gig like editing, podcasting, cover design, or whatever, make it known and it may pull up some work. You could throw a little sign on your table showing what you offer, or just see if it comes up in conversation throughout the day.
And hey! This article has five pages in it, so make sure you get to them all. Trying to make the numbering a little more obvious but web design, right?
