This Labor Day weekend you probably said YES to a few summer activities, which means you probably had to turn down others. Even relaxing and doing nothing but watching Netflix is prioritizing rest and saying no to other things. It’s just like that with work too. As a freelancer, we need work, but saying yes to too many projects by default means that oftentimes we don’t have the time to do personal projects that matter to us.
I’ve had a lot of practice saying NO to projects over the years mainly because I’ve grown to recognize the red flags about questionable projects. Does this person actually have a budget for the project’s worth? Is the person good about communication? Do I get a weird vibe from them? There are even some times where I didn’t feel comfortable working on the subject matter of a project, if it’s against my beliefs or morals. This is especially hard to do when all the other flags are green. As an artist, I do get some pretty weird stuff thrown in my direction! But we all need to make a living, so I’m not saying to turn down projects left and right, but it’s good to have some guidelines and boundaries for yourself so you don’t get overwhelmed and end up working on something you don’t feel right about working on.
Recently I said no to a project and I realized that if I hadn’t done that, I wouldn’t have been able to plan my Kickstarter to it’s fullest. It’s crucial to plan your campaign out thoroughly and it takes a lot of time. There are so many moving parts it’s mind boggling! Everything from building your page to explain your project, to writing press releases (EEK! something I’ve never done before) to planning a social media campaign and OH YEAH you still have to keep creating the actual art!
I said YES to my own comic project, AER HEAD! For the next month I’ll be going full speed ahead on trying to promote AER HEAD #1 on Kickstarter. Please keep an eye out for my Kickstarter LAUNCH this upcoming Wednesday, September 4th at NOON Eastern Time. Search Kickstarter for “Mindy Indy” or “AER HEAD”. I’d love for you to join me in this endeavor of making the printing of the comics actually happen! We need more surfer heroes in the world like Aer :) Many thanks!