Friday Night Videos

While he is a bit heavy-handed in his rant against George Lucas, this 15-minute slideshow/lecture by Canadian SF author Robert J. Sawyer is an extremely interesting overview of the history of the Science Fiction genre in general, and how it has always excelled at discussing hot-button political topics — racism, war, segregation, women’s rights — perhaps better than any other genre:

The full lecture can be found here at TVO’s website, or you can listen to the full 40-minute MP3. Better yet, subscribe to TVO’s Big Ideas podcast. I didn’t know even about it till now.

(Thanks, Evan!)

Update #2 on pirated book: A small victory for our side

A little over a week ago, Darren at the Little Chimp Society blogged about this book, revealing how it had pirated all its contents from his site, along with hundreds of images by 93 different illustrators.

We then promptly started blogging about this, encouraging others to do the same, and flooded social networks with calls of “Don’t Buy This Book!” And guess what?

Our “shame campaign” has yielded more results: Index Books has agreed to stop selling it and has sent the remaining copies back to the distributor. Check out the update on Darren’s blog.

This is all due to YOUR help! Hundreds, maybe thousands of you, spreading the news around the net and around the globe, and cramming comments onto tagged blogs that talked about it. We can’t thank you enough for helping out! :)

It gets better. Index Books has also revealed who their supplier for this book was:

Sophia
Guangzhou Sendpoints Books Co., Ltd.
Add: #80 Xin Ya Rd., Haizhu District, Guangzhou, China
Tel: 86 20 89095121
Fax: 86 20 89095206
E-mail: spbooks@163.com
MSN: gzsendpoint@hotmail.com
Website: www.sendpoint.com.cn (strangely, it won’t display in Safari at all)
— Also —
Name: Lin Gengli
Mobile: 86-139 2519 7703
Skype: sendpoint
(When re-posting this information, please don’t create hyperlinks to their site)

Just send them a polite e-mail at both addresses above, briefly explaining what you know about the book. They may very well have no idea about the truth behind this book, so be nice! You may not get a response, but you can bet they’re getting your email.

Thanks again, and keep up the great work!

More advice for freelance illustrators

Call up five clients today, and ask them if they need any illustration work done. They can be five of your favourite clients, or best-paying clients, or clients you haven’t heard from in a while, or even brand new contacts. You choose.

The cost of five 3-minute long distance calls is a tiny fraction of what you’d spend on doing a mailer of 1000, or 2500, or 5000 postcards, but the feedback you’ll get is direct, immediate, and leaves a far better impression. Also, it’s the greenest form of promotion: no pollution, no cards ending up in the trash (which most do), and no toxic inks used.

Remember to keep it short, you have no idea how busy they are at that moment. Be friendly and cheerful, without being pushy. Here’s a sample script:

“Hi (CLIENT-X), it’s (YOUR NAME GOES HERE). We worked on (PROJECT NAME) together a little while back. How’s it going? (INSERT SMALL TALK HERE) Well, as you may have guessed, I’m calling to see if you need any illustration work done right now? …. Nothing right now huh? No problem. Maybe on the next project? …. Cool, well thanks for taking my call. I’ll keep in touch. Bye!”

This is probably how most of the calls will go, but you’ll be surprised at how many positive responses you’ll get. Maybe the client even knows someone else who needs your services; maybe in another department, or even another Art Director friend of his/hers.

I know you’ll feel awkward doing this if you don’t do it regularly (or have never done it). You may even feel like you’re begging them for work. But you’re not; you’re just running your business, keeping yourself in the picture, being active about your own self-promotion. All self-promotion and advertising is done with the exact same intent: to sell your services. It’s only begging if you have nothing to offer in return.

As they say on infomercials: “Pick up the phone, and call now!”