Postcard Crit/Advice?

[LauraLane]

Hey everyone!

I'm making a postcard with my Wizard of Oz cover. I still need my portfolio to be a bit more focused, but I figure it can't hurt to send out and its not doing any good living on my website if no one is going to look at it. Basically I don't want to wait longer and want to get some sort of ball rolling. Wow I might be rambling...

Basically! I've got this postcard!

The front is gonna be the Oz cover. Is it okay that it doesn't have my name on the front? Is it weird to have a book cover as a postcard? And the back has a black and white image of the lion, tin man, and scarecrow. The idea is they could be a chapter spot in the novel.

I'm looking for crits on the black and white drawings, I want em to be good! I'm not done with the texture/value painting (gotta get the drawing final). As i finish I will for sure come back for more! And also looking for general postcard layout advice/ crits?

Okay, this is long enough. Sorry and thanks!

[NessIllustration]

@LauraLane This is super cute and lovely! I'm not sure postcards right now are the best idea though. With most people in the publishing work still working from home, it's very unlikely your postcard sent to their workplace will even make it to their hands right now..

[LauraLane]

ahh, I through about that but wasn't sure. It seemed like some people were returning? Thanks for posting it out! Do you have any other potential ideas? A lot of publishers say they don't want emails and I'm not sure how well those do anyways. Although, it doesn't cost anything, so in theory it wouldn't hurt anything more than time. I could also just wait, but waiting is such a bummer

[NessIllustration]

@LauraLane It does actually cost something though: it costs the printing fee for all those postcards, and especially it costs the postage for every single one of those postcards. Considering in a mailing you should send minimum 50-100 postcards, it actually can be quite expensive to send all those cards if you're not even sure they're going to reach their recipient. It also costs quite a lot of your time, which is your most valuable resources. Personally I did a couple postcard mailings at the beginning of my career, never got anything back from them and started balking at the cost so I switched to email and never looked back. I've built my whole freelance career on emails, got my first several books and my agent this way A lot of art directors and publishers accept emails, and many of those who usually don't may have changed their policy during this pandemic time since they haven't been able to get regular mail.

[LauraLane]

@NessIllustration oh sorry, I think I ment that emails don’t cost anything. But that’s really interesting! I appreciate hearing that, I would definitely give emails a shot. If you don’t mind me picking your brain, what would you usually send out? A quick hello, a few images and a link to a website? I’m also not sure where to find art directors emails. But I also haven’t looked very hard thinking it wasn’t as effective. Maybe searching LinkedIn?

[NessIllustration]

@LauraLane You can start by finding a publishing company and dig around their website, linkedin, twitter. Sometimes looking at book jackets can be a treasure trove of info too, because many of them list the art director or editor that worked on the book. As for email content, they are busy people so they always appreciate when we keep it short and sweet, with a portfolio link right at the top You don't have to include images to the email itself but if you do, resize and optimize them dramatically so you don't blow up their email inbox. Good luck!

[LauraLane]

Awesome! Thank you so much for the information! I really appreciate it

[TamaraDomuzin]

Something I've read about postcards and whether to write your name/website in front: it was mentioned that art directors might just pin them on a board (wall), so when they glance at them, it might be good that you name/website is something they can immediately see. I remember seeing this in one article, and it seemed like an interesting point to me .