Free course for the next five days, Start publishing on Medium.com. Linky: https://skl.sh/2N9RejV
Turns out the techy problems I was having uploading to Skillshare were account based not internet provider-based. We assumed it was a provider issue as it’s been blocking random things for months now. I’m not banned, I have no payout problems and nobodies sure why there’s an issue.
So I have a temporary new Skillshare teacher account that will hopefully be merged with my old account at some point.
As a tester, I put up a 30-odd minute course on getting started on Medium.com. For those that don’t know, it’s a publication platform focused on writing. It’s for fiction, news, opinion pieces, blogs and anything else you can write.
It has publications you can submit to, or create yourself. A buzzing community of writers and readers. You can even join the Medium partner program and earn a few quid from your writing.
If that sounds like something you’re interested in, hit the link below, skip anything that asks you for payment, and enrol in the class. Once enrolled, it’s free forever. So if you’re interested, get in there quick.
Now, you may not have noticed this, but I’ve been putting a ton of original art on my Etsy store this week. It’s working out quite well as a creative horror outlet while my daily tales are running the current ongoing story.
A couple of things have occurred this week though. The main one being I have run out of the smaller paper I have been using. That’s not much of an issue right? Just go buy more. But I have a larger pad of the same stupidly thick, 240gsm card that I have been promising to use once the smaller pad ran out. That’s a fear for me. Use big fancy paper? Heck, the current 5-inch by 7-inch paper is the biggest scale I have ever drawn at. I have made bigger prints, but my actual illustrations are usually tiny. So yeah, this week, I have a fear of big paper.
Something else has occurred. I have been reunited my fancy paper that I left behind in London and the printer. So I can return to art prints again. Awesome. BUT! There’s another but… But I am pricing up a Moo.com order for the future of my art prints. Why? Well, I love my current canvas effect paper. But ordering the paper in batches of 50 then using official HP ink costs far more money than it ever should for something as simple as my prints. There’s also no difference in quality between my prints and the Moo prints. It’s just a different paper type. Moo use flat matte instead of canvas paper. By ordering 500 or more prints at a time through Moo I can bring down the costs to me and start hitting the markets up in Scotland. Though this is of course once I have a house and space to separate and organize 500 prints. Eesh. Nearly there. So, yes, if you still want to order my prints on fancy arse canvas effect paper, you have a couple of months at most before I’m ready to move onto bulk orders and new paper for my prints.
One last wee thing. I’ve mentioned ACEOs a great many times to fellow artists. Never done them properly myself. So this week I’ve put in an order for 200 or so cards of different paper types, and I’ll be having a go at them myself. What’s an ACEO, I hear the uninitiated cry? Well, it’s an original art piece on a canvas, card or paper the size of a playing card. You get fancy frames and sleeves for them. They only sell for about £6. But (another but? Really?), I think they will work well with what I do. Compact and quirky. The perfect creative outlet for the Little Fears. Keep your eyes peeled for them, they’ll be about in the coming weeks.
Now I know after all this, you’re busting to see my Etsy store right? Well, you’ll need a link, just like the one below.
I have another suggestion for you creatives while you’re here. It’s a Skillshare class by one of my favourite teachers. Melanie Greenwood. How To Sell Your Art Online With Etsy.
As always, my Skillshare sign up links offers 2 months of premium subscription for free. There’s no obligation to carry on past 2 months, you can cancel any time before your 60 days are up and you won’t pay a penny. It’s well worth it. Thousands of courses by creative lords and ladies. From photography and art to blogging and marketting.
OK, so, it looks like the sale of my house falls through after four months. ShitBuggerBumFart. I wasn’t prepared for my run of bad luck to continue into 2018. No worries. I’m now plotting out where the Fears, work, finances and I go or the next six to twelve months.
On the upside for the Fears fans, a series of plans that I had been delaying will now be crashing into effect this next couple of weeks. We have a Threadless free shipping sale. Digital rewards for my Patrons. The Little Fears studio, in which I offer design work. Including logos, book covers, website banners and anything else the Fears can help with. A new shop on this site where you can purchase my canvas paper Little Fears art prints. More Skillshare classes and of course, the release of the next Little Fears presents book, Grey Moon.
Hold your horses before you dash off to Amazon. As always, with the release of a new book, I will be giving the ebook away free for five days. The free ebook is intended for Little Fears followers and subscribers, a thank you for the continued support you all give me. You ladies, gents and those in-between are fecking awesome. Grey Moon is officially released, and free on Amazon, from Friday the 9th of February. I will post links to the Grey Moon ebook on the day.
A super short update today. The character portrait for this weeks #Colour_Collective is Seed. One of my four main bugly characters. Seed used to feature in an art print I sold on Etsy. I have it in my head, and once I have a studio, I want to do a stop-motion animation of the bugly’s. Roughly tear them out of card leaving rough edges and cement them in hairspray, so they hold shape. A South Park’esque style animation with Fears style humour.
A very big thanks and shout out to mcaimbeul of BongDoogle for a donation to the Fears this week. Thank you again, sir!
Next week, new stories as three ladies walk into a bar. I hope you all enjoy!
You noticed I have sorted out my Instagram game right? I have flip-flopped on Instagram for ages. This last month I have finally started to dedicate a small amount of time each day to pruning my Instagram feed. It now looks more consistent, a lot of fluff posts have been removed and the following is growing with it. I’m up about 1,000 followers this month. I think that’s good. All my posts get plenty of interaction too. I need to reduce my hashtag usage but otherwise, I’m doing alright there.
This website will always be my main home for the Fears. But I have learned repeatedly that I need to spread myself a little across the net. The days my websites down my income from the Fears stops dead. Medium, Ello, Twitter and Instagram are my favourite social networks. You can say hello to me here:
And now a free course and a premium course for you to try on Skillshare. The first course is free. Completely free. Follow the link, sign up, and go to the course page. Skillshare is just a learning platform that hosts free and premium courses. Skillshare premium costs 0.99$ for 2 months and gives you access to thousands of courses on hundreds of subjects.
In this non-traditional class, you’ll gain access to a series of interviews that cover essential topics for the creative entrepreneur like marketing, design, and branding. These interviews were originally part of an initiative called The Board, which is a group of 100 creators that are working together to redefine the K-Swiss brand.
Blogger Natalie Suarez sits down with some top creative entrepreneurs to go through their experience building their businesses. You’ll learn from:
Sharmadean Reid, founder of WAH Nails over in London, will provide some pointers on developing your business plan.
Scott Sasso, founder of 10Deep here in New York, will speak on brand positioning, which will allow your consumers to distinguish your brand/business from everybody else.
Tyler Gage and Dan Mccombie – founders of Runa Tea, a tea company supporting indigenous farmers in the Amazon. They’ll give some tips on building community and conscience into your business.
The Fat Jewish, everyone’s favourite Instagrammer, who gives some insight on social media strategy and how you can leverage today’s platforms to build your brand.
Rachel Wang, fashion director of Allure Magazine, speaks on the importance of your lookbook and Brand Imagery as a product company.
Jeff Staple provides tips on telling a story through your products.
Make yourself known on Instagram with this 45-minute class with designer and illustrator Sophia Chang. You’ll follow along as Sophia walks you through how you can build your personal brand on Instagram — covering everything from photo editing to analytics and community engagement on her favorite platform.
You’ll start by identifying your own passions by category, then you’ll zero in on how to:
represent those passions through photography
engage the communities around them on Instagram
interact with them in a meaningful way
set goals for growing your following
track your growth through analytics
With tips on maintaining your authenticity throughout, this class is great for anyone looking to get their work or their personal brand out there in a creative, authentic way by leveraging the power of Instagram. By the end of this class, you’ll have your own perfectly crafted online presence to share.
Ahhh, look at him. A lovely fella. Road Walker for this weeks #Colour_Collective on Twitter. His image has appeared in two stories, but he’s never been named. Always represented as an incredibly tall and in both images has been seen on the road to the afterlife. Has anyone got a groovy name for him?
Yuffie & Hydra
I adore Yuffie and Hydra. They now have their own Tee on the Little Fears Threadless store.
Their relationship will be explored a touch over the next month and have a focus in my next book, Seeking Hydra.
Seeking Hydra
Speaking of, that looks like a book cover to me. My fourth book in the Little Fears Presents series. It’s coming! Want to check out my first three books? Click the links below.
Hey, there’s a thing. My first proper Little Fears collaboration. This week I shall be collaborating in a series of tales about Yuffie. Writing stories with me will be Mel Gutier from Fiction in my Head, Anthony Renfo from One Writer Ranting and Layne from Chewing on Glass. We hope to post this Wednesday, have a nosey at their blogs, give them a follow and keep an eye out!
Patreon
Have you noticed my weekly update posts have had links to my new patrons? Do you want a shout out at the bottom of my weekly update posts? Head on over to Patreon and pledge $10 or more a month and not only will you help with Hydra’s feed bill, but you will also get that weekly shout out with a link back to your site. Hit me up on Patreon here: https://www.patreon.com/littlefears
Whoosh, another busy week has whizzed by! But check it out, we have new things!
Pewter Fear for Colour Collective
Fuen & Lucy on Threadless
Events, TellyTube & Socialization
Social Media for Creatives (free course)
Pewter Fear
Pewter was originally doodled for a post-apocalyptic story (3 books away in the future, ack!). All the characters are named after different metals. Alas, Pewter didn’t make the cut. But this week’s Colour Collectives is Pewter Blue. Can’t think of a more appropriate character to use. I do think she looks like H.R. Giger’s Alien. Oops!
Lucy & Fuen on Threadless
Lucy has joined the ranks on Threadless on a new art print. She’s the devilish creature who appeared in Terminal and Balcony, two stories in the Little Fears horror anthology, Capricorn.
Fuen makes another return. This is my all-time best-selling tee. Had to get the model mocks done and didn’t get everything perfect enough in time for the Threadless store relaunch last week.
Lucy’s art print prices start at $12 and Fuen is available in tee form from $12.95.
In the coming months, I shall be joining in NaNoWriMo, Inktober and reprising my daily moustached funnies for Movember. If I continue to post everything on my WordPress blog, I am going to swamp it with up to five posts a day. That’s too much, obviously. But it’s not too much for social media. My Twitter, Instagram, Ello, Tumblr and Medium will take most of it.
I am also approaching a starting point in the current Fears tales where a plotline develops. It will make no sense later on if some of the characters meet. So I have stopped posting the old tales on the blog. The blog will start running as one continuous story five days a week for the Hydra storyline with odd unrelated Capricorn horror tales twice a week. I will still put up odd January and Spiders videos on YouTube and slot them into playlists.
You can follow me on social media and YouTube by clicking a link below or the wee icons at the top and bottom of my website.
While talking about social media, a Skillshare find I thought I’d share. Social media for creatives by Chelsea Matthews. It’s about an hour and a half long and gives a pretty good overview of how to use the main platforms for marketing as a creative. It’s 100% free. If you want a few tips on social media, just sign up to Skillshare, skip anything that asks you to pay, and give this course a watch through. Linky: http://skl.sh/2fa2eyo
“So he roped you into teaching blogging with him?” asked Yuffie.
“Yeah,” grumbled Fuen.
“Do you know,” said Yuffie, “I had almost forgotten the illustrator is a blogger.”
“He dabbles,” sighed Fuen.
“I don’t know what I would blog about if I had a blog,” said Yuffie.
“Anything you want to say,” asked Fuen.
“That’s the thing,” said Yuffie, “I have nothing interesting to say.”
“Neither does the illustrator,” sighed Fuen.
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Illustrator : Ouch. Well yes I roped the Little Fears into teaching a course with me because I am awful at talking to cameras. How to create a media kit for your blog on Skillshare. The first 25 sign ups are free.
Little Fears 