Thread by @Planetpinto

Look, #VisibleWomen is great. HOWEVER it brings to light an issue I talk about frequently: how few women artists email their work to Art Directors directly. There are SO many women currently sharing their work that I know 100% know AD names & should be emailing us their...

...work 3-4 times a year but do not. From what I hear from women it is fear. There is nothing to be frightened of! You will email your work & there will be silence. You will do it again. There will not be responses, but we are seeing your work! We are keeping you in mind...

...I see it all the time, a woman who should have been emailing a dream client YEARS before is still too scared to send their work in. There is not ONE chance! You cannot blow it! You send emails over time, we see consistent quality, even if you are not ready to hire yet...

...it is ok! You should be emailing your work BEFORE you are “perfectly ready”-you are still building a relationship with that AD over time. Besides many ADs are super excited to see an artist improve! One of the most rewarding things for me is to hire someone Ive watched develop

Look I am a very active social media user & still I miss a lot. I need your work in my inbox! I need to know you are interested & available.

(There are easy ways to get AD emails, thats another thread, go follow @DrawnAndDrafted & #DearAD we talk about that all the time)

Ladies, if you knew how many male artists who are SO FAR in skill from being hireable by me still email me work all the time youd see what I mean. I dont hold that against them! (Examples would be mean & unfair of me Im not shaming them Im encouraging you, but trust me on this)

But at the same time there are SO many women artists I PERSONALLY KNOW who should be emailing me their work but are too scared to. People Ive given portfolio reviews to & said “why are you not sending me your work?!”

I get it, youre scared of being judged. Of missing your shot

BUT THERE IS NOT ONE SHOT TO MISS! You are “missing” your shot by not taking it at all. Stop thinking of it as a one time opportunity. An art career is relationships. You build those over time. Some social media, some cons if you can get to them, AND in today’s world MOSTLY EMAIL

When an artist doesn’t email ADs we think maybe theyre:
➖too busy to take more freelance
➖focused on other “dream” clients
➖not interested in what we do specifically

We’re human-you need to stay towards the top of our mind! Do you know how many artists are crammed in there?

Also, remember, not all ADs are as social media saavy as I am! Also I am a single woman w/ no kids, I have more time to be online. And more so I literally cofounded @DrawnAndDrafted to help artists figure this career shit out. I am the most invested in finding new artists...

...what about ADs w/ families? What about ones who just dont like social media all that much? How the hell are they going to see your work?

All ADs have systems of filing artists. Most of those systems involve being at work computers. Not half asleep scrolling twitter at 3am...

What all this boils down to, the basic building block of an art career is MAKE IT EASIER TO HIRE YOU. Email is critical.

Again, check out @DrawnAndDrafted for tips, we have so much free info & downloads & even an artist support slack group gumroad.com/drawnanddrafte…

Look, I know the world makes it hard for women to put ourselves out there. We are judged more harshly. We become perfectionists as a defense mechanism. But you are hamstringing yourselves. Perfect is the enemy of good here.

Right now, go put a recurring “email day” on your cal

Ill go easy on you, twice a year but an EMAIL DAY on your cal (if youre making a lot of work it should be 3 or 4 but we’ll get there)

That day you take your list of dream clients (15-20 tops) & write those ADs a very short email w/ 2-3 jpegs most suited to their work & links

Then you have a longer list of ADs, fans, fam, whoever & thats your newsletter (@Mailchimp is easy & free to start), which you send more frequently & is generic. (Also pit on your cal, you will forget) Show new work, news, etc. Some ADs will be on both, thats ok.

Think about why it is scaring you to email your dream clients. Visualize what the worst thing that could possibly happen would be. I promise you are not going to get a nasty “how dare you email me this crap art” reply. In 99% of cases youll get nothing. This in itself will be...

...discouraging! But ADs are busy AF & get a shit ton of emails. I really want to reply to the ones I like but I cant or Id never get my job done. Expect no response. It doesn’t mean you’re doing it wrong. Email anyway.

Please ladies, trust me on this. Ive been an AD for like 15yrs. One of the biggest things holding women back is fear of emailing the people you actually want to work for. Put yourselves out there. You might encounter a discouraging response every once in a while but its worth it

Now I have to get to my work for the day but Im going to keep this rolling by asking you to reply - anyone, not just ladies - if you finally emailed a dream client & got the gig. If you realize you should have emailed years before. Ill be back later to check in

Also: my email is really easy to find online. But if you really dont have it & Im one of your dream clients, DM me what your promo email would be. Ill crit it & give you my email (everyone not just ladies)

Finally Im going to get this rolling by tagging someone I had this was true of. I know recently she finally emailed her dream client (after at least 2 ADs yelled at her for years to do it) & I hate calling folks out but I want her to talk about it. Please tell them @CrystalSully!

Ok, I'm back. A few things I've noticed popping up in replies: But how do I FIND AD emails? Why is there not an easy list I can just refer to?
1. People change jobs, who keeps up the list? Thats a f/t job in itself

2. Artists copy the whole list, clogging up every AD's inbox w/ unusable work. I don't mean the style is a little outside the company's box. I mean my inbox gets full of kids, sequential comics, food styling, etc. In fact, I know when a new list has sprung up bc my inbox crashes

Sorry, Artists, THATS WHY YOU CANT HAVE NICE THINGS

That said, AD emails are not hard to find. We give them out all the time. Pool resources w/ your peers. GOOGLE. If you have any email address from a company you now have the formula for anyone's email you have the name of too

The point is, quality over quantity. You want a smaller better list, not a huge scattershot one. Artists complain sometimes that they are sending 400 emails & not getting answers. NO SURPRISE bc not a single one is tailored to the recipient's needs. Research where your work fits

And seriously, if you want to know more about finding ADs follow @DrawnAndDrafted & go read thru the over 5 years of posts on #DearAD bc it is by far our most popular category.

dearartdirector.tumblr.com/populartags

Ok, everyone that's replying that fear is stopping them. Fear of what EXACTLY? It's easy to have amorphous dread & harder to be scared of a specific thing. Literally tell me what you are scared of. Do you think someone is going to email you back & say HOW DARE YOU EMAIL ME?

The worst someone might say is (& I say this often) is your work is not suitable for our company. Usually thats bc it's the wrong industry, not bc of the work. It doesn't mean its bad, it just means you have to retarget that dream client list, or figure out what they DO look for

And in the real extreme case that someone sends you a legitimately nasty email back, then hey, they're doing you a FAVOR. You didn't want to do work for that person, trust me. I don't care what company they work for.

Ok, one more note then I have to get back to actually AD-ing some bookcovers. How do you know your work is suitable? Don't obsess over style, think about it as industries. If you do kids illustrations then thats a whole different list of clients than adults.

Read this great thread by @RovinaCaiArt - I cant promise your dream job immediately answers but it COULD

https://twitter.com/rovinacaiart/status/1275408218533986306