Here's my final illustration that I posted half way done the other day. I really like it when books have a full page illustration and the other page has just text and pulled out a little image from within the page or book.

Today is Monday and I've named Monday's "Marketing Monday." I've been doing this for several months and it has really helped me keep up with promotion. Usually Mondays are a little rough on me creatively because it's the start of a new week, and usually I've worked all weekend on some kind of deadline, so I could use a little break.

Last week I mailed out a postcard and packet to some clients and prospects (packet went to places I'd really like to work with). It's been fun tracking them through my stats and see who liked what they saw through the mail.

Today I updated my listing on some online portfolio places:

Portfolios.com (it has paid for itself but I haven't gotten any work from it in several months, so I'm not renewing this year)
Childrensillustrators.com(gotten a lot of work from it so I'm renewing)
Theispot.com (signed up the first of the month and already got a job that almost paid for the year subscription)
Folioplanet (just updated my bio listing, I got one job from this and some traffic here and there, I'm thinking about upgrading and adding a little icon for more exposure)
Coroflot (got one pretty big design job from it a few days after I signed-up but that's it so far, but it's free)
The Digital Artist (I get clicks every now and then, but no jobs, but again, it's free)

I'm thinking about advertising on Altpick.com. My accountant wants me to spend, spend, spend this year for a bunch of write offs so I feel I have another good reason to try it out. They don't have much as far as children's illustrators up there...yet, but I emailed a girl who's on it and she said she's gotten some work so "go for it."

I also made some lists (thanks Mom for passing down that trait) and bought a couple of domain names that redirect to my site.

Promotion pays off for me. Just last week I got 2 jobs as a result from childrensillustrators.com Don't know how much I can say about either one of these, but I'm illustrating 4 postage stamps (how cool would it be if I receive a letter with my stamp on it) and the other is a job with a breakfast product company (I'm not saying names, but you can make great "treats" out of them).

Promotion can be a challenge, but sometimes you just have to buckle down and focus. My wheels are always spinning. If you haven't read it already, take a look here for some promotion tips.