self-marketing woes
I’m an illustrator. One advice I keep receiving in career workshops is to market myself, and I hate it. Crafting the perfect Linkedin profile? Running ads on Facebook and Instagram? Yuck!!!
Who knew pursuing an illustration career would involve so much screaming into the void? I didn’t. Social media feels particularly void-like to me. When I post my work, it feels like I’m butchering my child and serving the choice cuts on a small square altar, hoping that the algorithm would deign to cast its gaze upon me.
My original plan was to do some sort of weekly newsletter thing on Substack where I introduce cool stuff I find. But, other than me, who's gonna care? Cool is subjective. And the whole point of posting on Substack is to make people notice me, care about what I have to say and fork over their precious emails. Normally I'd be fine with fading into obscurity, but the path of an illustrator demands that I make myself known.
I still think Substack is the least gross way to market myself (though the constant "Subscribe!!" pop-ups for non-subscribers is pretty intrusive). I think I'll need to niche down, do one specific thing and do it well.
As for my more organic loose thoughts and cool stuff, I'll dump them here! I was introduced to bearblog through cinni's blog. I love how tiny and cute this website is. I feel like there's no pressure to promote myself or be known. It feels like wearing a pair of noise cancelling headphones. I feel safe.
In an ideal world, my digital presence would just consist of my carrd site and this bearblog.
...i really like the default theme for bearblog. It reminds me of old school tumblr. I think i'll keep it like this
