Promotional Mailers Tips - by Eliza

When doing research on how I should go about putting together a first promotional mailer, I got mixed messages from different sources. In the past, illustrators wanting to introduce themselves to publishers would send out a sample packet consisting of letter-size sheets of images (basically a paper portfolio), which the art director would put in a file. After that first mailing, illustrators would keep in touch via single image postcards, reminding the art director of his/her existence. Nowadays, it seems mandatory that illustrators have their portfolios online. So I questioned the necessity of sending that first mailing of a paper portfolio to art directors.

I went with this question to our group's mentor, Cecilia Yung, Art Director at Penguin Books for Young Readers, and the advice she gave was based on her personal preferences:

"I would prefer to get one large well designed postcard with one central image and two smaller supporting images (perhaps on the back). These samples should show characters and setting with a strong narrative quality. If I am interested, I will go to the website. A down-loadable PDF [on your site] will be a good feature. If there isn’t enough information on the website, I will usually contact the artist for further samples. I don’t usually need extensive illustration samples on file unless I’m interested, so I think a large promotional mailing may not be a good use of time and resources."

One important thing to note is that some publishers post their preferences on their sites, so it's very important to check there before sending mail to them.

Do you have a preferred format for promoting to art directors? Please do share with us what has worked for you in the past!

Many thanks to Cecilia for sharing her advice.
Good luck promoting everyone,

~Eliza

Taking Mentorship Advice: my revamped business cards

One of the pieces of advice I received at my mentorship sessions last year was that I needed to revamp my business cards. As in I really REALLY needed to revamp my business cards.

Here are my old cards:

I used MOO to do these cards, which I admit to putting together at the last minute. For the front of each card, I had one of my Inkygirl.com comics for writers. On the back, I had the image you see in the bottom right, with my name, contact info, websites, etc.

While writers tended to like the cards because of the cartoons, they (the cards, not the writers) are graphically WAY too busy.

In fact, Cecilia Yung (Art Director of Penguin) said that when she looked at my card near the end of the judging process, she had to go back to look at my portfolio to remind herself about WHY she had picked me for the Mentorship Program.

Eek.

Anyway, my graphic designer friend Ray Vankleef from One Trick Pony helped me revamp my card design (thanks, Ray!). And I admit that I did find it a challenge to include so much WHITE SPACE. The writer part of my brain kept screaming, "What a waste! You could be including more information!" But I resisted.

Here's the revamped card:

Thank you, Ray!

When I went to meet with Cecilia at Penguin last month, she told me she was so proud of me. :-D

What about the rest of you? Did you design your own cards or get help? Feel free to post samples of your own cards.