Happy (Mid) August!
Welcome back to Co-Work With Cherii! What are you working on today?
If you’re a budding client, be sure to stick around till the end for this month’s discount code!
To start off, I’ll be continuing my freelancing journey story which I first covered in my previous issue! (If you missed it or can’t be bothered to go back, I found out my hours and pay at work were being drastically reduced, and I decided I would dive into drawing for YouTubers.)
After the future of my job was left unknown in early October, I spent the rest of the week scrambling to put together an updated portfolio, making a LinkTree, and designing commission posts for social media.
I offered the following:
Thumbnail assets
Twitch emotes
YouTube Thumbnails
I already had a ton of examples with thumbnails boasting views in the millions, and connections to other youtubers, so I would surely get clients! Right?
…Unfortunately not. My socials have been inactive for years, and this was a massive pivot from my usual content. Who was going to see it, or care?
Between September and October, I earned just under $200 from commissions. This was mostly through mutuals or friends-of-friends who’d heard my plight. My hours at work were enough to cover my rent, so I felt like I had enough time to figure things out before it ran out all together. I knew what was possible in the commission sphere, and I needed to take more action!
I discovered a website called VGEN, which primarily focused on being a commission directory for VTubers and YouTubers to browse for artists. As an artist, you can only apply Via twitter or other avenues and pray for an invite. I didn’t quite know how much of a difference being there would make to my income, but it couldn’t hurt to try!
Me begging
While I waited for my chance at a VGEN invite, I took further action by offering free commissions from giveaways, and personally reaching out to more YouTuber friends to see if they wanted free art (I needed to build my portfolio, after all!) I even started mass-emailing YouTubers I didn’t know advertising my services, and received a single kind reply saying they would keep me in mind. Worth a shot!
I knew what was possible, and I had to keep pushing. I felt like all I needed was the right client, the right word of mouth that would avalanche the rest of my career.
And then it happened…
November 4th, 2024
More in the next issue!
Today’s topic will be How to Treat your freelance like a 9 to 5 (even when there’s nothing to do.)
A quick disclaimer: This applies to people like myself, who have no other paid work to be doing but want to progress their freelancing. 9-5 hours can also be whatever you feel is most suited to your schedule.
Even now that I’m 8 months into my commission journey, I still rotate between being overloaded with commissions for weeks, to having almost nothing in my queue. I’ve noticed this is a monthly occurrence and I always wonder if it has something to do with the American payout system. Do y’all get paid once a month or what?
I could treat these slow periods like a few extra days off while I wait for more commissions to roll in, but what if they don’t? To distract myself from the anxiety that it’s all over and I’ll never have another client again, I find things to fill my time. Maybe we can use this opportunity to expand with some marketing, service or branding ideas that I didn’t have the time to do prior.
Some things I like to do during slow periods:
Dust of my socials to show off my latest commissions.
Offer free or discounted‘ portfolio building’ work to friends/mutuals within the niche I’m looking to get hired in, or offer some guinea pig work for something I haven’t done before (like logo or shirt designs, etc.)
Update my website/portfolio
Start a newsletter so you have a backup way to reach clients (Me now FR!!)
Help my boyfriend with his work (May not be applicable to everyone)
Draw example art for new services, and launch said services. (I’ve found the more services I have, the more commissions overall I’ll receive, due to hitting wider markets.)
Network within the niche area. If you’re drawing for twitch streamers, hang out in the streams of your previous clients and make some friends!
I find filling your time helpful not only to stay active within your career, but also to train your brain towards the 9-5 freelancing schedule.
Being at home can offer a lot of distractions. Giving in to these distractions will lead to low motivation and lethargy when another commission does roll in. If you get used to chilling at 2pm on a Tuesday, why will your brain want to work at 2pm on a Wednesday?
Or, in other words, fake it till you make it!
What’s new on my VGEN?
Not necessarily new, but since going full time I’ve been able to open all of my services back up! I would occasionally put some services on waitlist as it was too much to juggle with work, but now I love having more variety in what I’m working on every day!
That’s all for now!
For getting this far and being apart of my first wave of subscribers, I’d love to offer you a 10% discount to your next invoice! Simply write “Happy August!” In the “Anything else you want to add?” Section of your commission ❤ (Excludes custom shop requests, expires 10th of September!)
I hope you have a wonderful month. I hope you’re keeping busy but staying sane! <3
See ya.