TES 29/2/12 TES 29/2/12

Book Review: Creative, Inc. by Meg Mateo Ilasco & Joy Deangdeelert Cho

By Jodi Wiley Thinking of taking the leap from employee to self-employed? Or just want to dip your toe in the freelance waters and see how you go? If you're unsure about where to start, how to promote yourself, the etiquette of working with clients, negotiating your fee or even just how to manage a work/life balance, this book covers it all.

Subtitled 'The Ultimate Guide to Running a Successful Freelance Business', Creative, Inc. covers the basics of setting up shop, networking, winning jobs and bookkeeping before addressing the more advanced topics of when to increase your fees, grow your business and the pros and cons of hiring staff.

Aimed at creatives of all stripes, this book is deliberately general in it's information and doesn't focus on any one creative profession. (As an aside, Craft, Inc., which came before it and is also written by Meg Mateo Ilasco, is aimed specifically at crafters wanting to turn their hobby into a business. I haven't read this book but might be worth checking out if your business is a crafty one).

Creative, Inc. aims to appeal to a range of professionals by including freelancer profiles under each chapter. Interviewees include illustrators and photographers, animators and graphic designers, as well as a prop stylist, industrial designer, an art director and an accountant specialising in the arts. I liked reading these interviews. It's always fascinating to hear about an individual's career trajectory and the obstacles and big breaks they've encountered along the way. It was interesting to read that working with a big-name client actually hurt one illustrator's freelance business. A photographer credits his blog as being 'the number one thing in helping me get work'. Another creative was forced into going it alone after being made redundant and is now a very successful freelance animator. These little snippets of real-life stories encourage, motivate and invigorate.

As for the 'how-to' information provided, it's thorough, very accessible and seems to address every possible question that might arise about freelancing. But it probably couldn't serve as the single go-to guide for setting up a business. More research would need to be undertaken into your field of interest as well the finer details of legalities, especially for readers outside the United States for whom the advice about registering your business and tax information would be quite different.

I was drawn to this book because of it's subject matter, yes, but attractively designed books also catch my eye. This is a funky little book with cute rounded page corners, line illustrations and a little colour. I do like the way it looks.

Creative, Inc. does cover a breadth of topics but if you already run a freelance business the early chapters may be a bit too basic for you. But information on pricing your work, on whether to get an agent and how to grow your business may consolidate or extend what you already know. This book is probably most useful if your business idea is still just that, or you are at the very beginning of start-up.

Creative, Inc. is published by Chronicle Books.

Jodi Wiley is an artist, writer, teacher and blogger. She has written freelance articles and book reviews for magazines and newspapers, as well as education curriculum. She has been a finalist for several art and illustration prizes and has won awards for her artwork. Jodi is currently on maternity leave from high school teaching and is on a (quite frankly deranged) quest to update her blog daily: artbywiley.com

TES 2/2/12 TES 2/2/12

Book Review - No one Cares What You Had for Lunch: 100 Ideas for Your Blog by Margaret Mason

By Jodi Wiley After I made a very rash resolution to update my blog every day this year (well, every weekday - I'm not a complete masochist) my husband bought me a book with quite possibly the best title of all time, No One Cares What You Had for Lunch: 100 Ideas for Your Blog by Margaret Mason.

The title alone is worth the price of the book as far as I'm concerned. Happily, it's also chock-a-block full of great ideas to fill your blog with interesting content.

A blog is just about mandatory these days for any creative business, self-employed creative or individual wanting to connect with an audience for the purposes of showcasing their work, art, craft, design or writing. But how do you fill those posts with content that others want to read? Where do you get your ideas? And how do you build an audience and get people coming back?

U.S. blogger extraordinaire, Maggie Mason, is probably the best expert on that topic and so the perfect candidate to write this book. Her personal blog Mighty Girl, draws hundreds of thousands of readers a month. Her writing is engaging and conversational and good. It's really good. And laugh-out-loud funny. You can hear her voice in every post and can't help but feel like you know her.

She covers a wide range of topics from fashion to design, travel to personal stories. And her book reflects this diversity of interests. No One Cares What You Had for Lunch is aimed at anyone who wants to blog (rather than a specific blogging sub-set) and so the suggestions are intended to appeal to the widest range of readers. Depending on what kind of blog you write (business, personal or along a particular theme) not all of these ideas will appeal, but many can be tailored to suit your particular style and audience.

As you can see from my bookmarks, I found plenty to re-visit.

Here are some ideas I bookmarked:

#11 'Curate the web': refer and link back to other people's posts when you have a case of writer's block or are going on holidays.

#15 'Fill the gaps': use memory triggers, such as a photo or a book, and write everything you remember about it.

#18 'Spill everything': catalogue the contents of a private space: medicine cabinet, bookshelf, laptop bag, wallet. This can be done photographically or in writing.

Here are some more I like; the abridged versions!

With 100 short chapters, each containing a single writing idea, this is an easy read and a great reference for when you're stuck for ideas for your next post.

And really, how can you resist that title?