But thank you to everybody who has contacted me to see if I’m ok with respect to the tragic fires that are still happening in my part of Australia. While the fires were close to my home (about 15 km) we were never really in danger. However, over 1000 homes have been destroyed, over 180 people have died and the community is grieving.

When I’m not drawing, I’m a Baptist Minister and so volunteered my time to go up to one of the relief centres to do some chaplaincy and pastoral care work.

Here’s an account of what happened:

Like everyone, I’ve known some families deeply affected by the fires. Words can’t describe the pain.

I spent the day at Whittlesea yesterday as a chaplain offering pastoral care to those returning from the mountain having seen their devastated homes and properties for the first time. Much of my time I spent with families with young children.

I spoke to little Jess who was five. She introduced herself, “My name’s Jess and my home burnt down”. She told me about how hot it was and how scared they were. Her little brother Jake told me the bricks on his house were glowing orange. They were lucky - both they and their parents got out alive.

I met Paul outside the relief centre, dazed and confused. He could barely see, was having trouble breathing, was walking with a limp and had some obvious pain in his back. He had been up at Kinglake since Saturday and this was the first time he had come down to the relief centre. A neighbour had forced him into a car and brought him down to get help. He had lost everything he owned and many friends. He told of bodies over the roads and footpaths as well as dead animals everywhere. “I can’t describe it” was all he could say. I got him to the first aid centre, where the nurses called an ambulance for him. He wouldn’t go to hospital though. He was going back up the mountain. There was still too much to do.

I met another guy who seemed to be in good spirits. He was joking with me and asked if I had my cheque book with me. I told him I was a minister and didn’t have any money! He told me he helped erect a cross on one of the churches in my denomination and I joked with him that he had put it on upside down. We shared a few laughs. Then he grabbed my arm tightly and looked into my eyes. He didn’t say a word, but I could see the horror of what he had been through in his face.

A Mum and Dad with two kids the same age as mine (4 and 6) came in to the relief centre. They were fine and lived out of the fire zone. But they came looking for friends who they hadn’t heard from. They found their school teacher and there were many hugs and tears on both sides. Then the Mum asked me, “My sons best friend died in the fire. How do I tell him?”

I came across an older man who was standing on the side of the road sobbing. He was almost the stereotypical Aussie bushman. He had been protecting his home from the fire when we saw two little girls running down the street terrified. He grabbed them and put them in his home and continued to do what he could to protect the house. But the fire was too much and it soon took hold. He desperately tried to find the girls but the heat and spoke drove him back and the girls died as the house burnt around them. Trembling, he repeated over and over again, “I murdered those little girls. I murdered those little girls…”

I’ve seen some awful things in my journey, but nothing compares to this. The stories just kept coming. From the man who saw his neighbour running down the street burning alive, to the bloke who had lost his wife and kids, to the reporters that couldn’t cope with the emotion of it all. Every so often I would retreat to a quite space and call my wife to tell her I love her and to tell my boys I would be home soon.

I’ve also seen some amazing examples of the strength of human spirit and the power of community in my time, but again, nothing like this. The number of people volunteering their time and resources, walking together with the victims and sharing in their grief, was simply staggering. The politicians were there. As were the celebrities and sports stars. So were the counsellors and volunteers to help sort through the mountains of donations. But there were no titles on this day. We were all human beings united by a tragedy, equal in the face of suffering and walking the path of recovery together.

And I remain in awe of the work of the CFA and SES volunteers who are STILL up there fighting the beast, even though they’ve lost everything themselves.

I’ll be back there in the coming days to do what I can, little as it may be. But I do want to bring you a message from a lady who managed to survive the fire with her home intact. She had been up in Kinglake since Saturday as well, and needed to come down to get some food and supplies from the relief centre. when I saw her, she was weeping. She said to me, “I’ve been up there all these days and hadn’t seen or heard from anybody. I didn’t think anybody cared. I didn’t know the roads had been blocked and you couldn’t get up to us. Now I’m here I can see that everybody cares so deeply. I don’t know what to say. Please pass on my thanks if you can.”

That’s why I’m posting this.

To say thank you for caring and praying and giving and loving.

On behalf of those that haven’t yet got the voice to say it for themselves.

If you haven’t been the FFA yet and would like to, send me an email. And if you have sent me an email and haven’t appeared yet, I’ve lost your stuff!! Send it again!

Have a great weekend everybody!

Hilarious, but true!

Remember, the aim is to make money form drawing cartoons. And making money means you are operating a business. And clients will only deal with you if you are business-like. So as uncomfortable as it is, we have to get our heads around this side of what we do.

Here’s what I had to say last time I wrote. Feel free to add any comments about some of the things you have learnt from being a business cartoonist!

Tip 8:- Become business minded (Part 2).

In the previous tip for becoming a professional cartoonist, I began to explore what it meant to become business minded. I briefly covered tax considerations, business plans, copyright law, marketing, contracts and communication. In this entry I continue with the same theme by looking at a further six points.

8. Charge appropriately. This is perhaps one of the most frequent questions asked of me by other cartoonists/illustrators - how much should I charge? It is difficult because while we want to make some decent money out of what we do, we don’t want to scare paying work away by quoting too much. However, to be true to yourself and the cartooning/illustration industry as a whole, there are a few things you should stick to:

* Never work for exposure only. Exposure doesn’t put food on the table, and you can’t get more exposure than the Internet anyway. If the editor, writer, printer and publisher is being paid, then you should be too. Feel free to do some charitable work for causes you believe in, but don’t make it a habit to give your work away.

* Be prepared to negotiate. Use the standard rates for your market as a starting point and work from there.

* If you are charging by the hour, quote around $100/hr and negotiate from there.

* Ask for 50% of the expected fee upfront and do not start any work until it is in your account. Make this part of your standard contract, and point out that it is non refundable. Sometimes this is referred to as a “kill-fee”, which is basically payment you receive if a client pulls the plug on a project before you are finished.

* Charge extra if your client asks for changes to be made to ‘almost finished’ work. I charge anywhere from 10-70% for changes, depending on their complexity.

* If a client requests copyright, charge them 100 times the amount of the individual cartoon for the privilege. It is never a good idea to sell copyright, but if a client really wants it, make them pay - and pay big! Recently I had a client request full copyright for a series of 10 cartoons I had done for them. I said they could have it for $10 000. They declined, but we did negotiate a re-usage fee which meant I have received an additional amount every time those same ten cartoons are reprinted anywhere outside of the original project. My income from those ten cartoons has continued for over twelve months now. This is what is meant by selling a ‘license’ to your client and, again, should be made clear in your standard contract.

I have found that quoting the standard rates for the initial work and then an additional 25-50% for any subsequent re-usage has worked well and generally been accepted by my clients.

9. When I worked in research, one of the points in our mission statement was to deliver ‘in full and on time.’ The same still applies now that I am a professional cartoonist. When a deadline is given and agreed to by both parties in a contract, the burden is then on the cartoonist to meet that deadline with whatever was promised. The client is not interested if your monitor explodes or your pencils are blunt - they want what they are paying for. So, make every effort possible to meet those deadlines. Constantly missing them is unprofessional and will see you miss out on repeat work.

Having said that, sometimes there are personal reasons that make everything work-related grind to a halt. Most clients will be sympathetic to these if you are upfront and honest with them as soon as you can. Recently a previous client contacted me to do some work to which I agreed. Later that week my eldest son was taken to hospital by ambulance and life suddenly was turned upside down. It wasn’t on the top of my priority list, but as soon as was appropriate, I let my client know what was happening. As it turned out, they also had young children and were quite understanding about my situation, extending the deadline a few weeks.

10. Send invoices and receipts with all work. Invoices should include your contact details, a breakdown of the work completed, the cost for each one and the tax component. Make sure the terms of payment relate to the invoice date and not the date of publication as these can be months apart and there is a good chance you’ll be forgotten in the process. Again, make this clear in your standard contract. Receipts should be the same as the invoice, with the only addition being a large, clear ‘Paid’ stamped across it.

11. Getting money out of some clients is next to impossible. Thus it is a good idea to have a standard ‘late fee’ notice, and a ‘warning of impending debt collection action’ letter. It is unlikely that it will be ever cost effective for you to engage the services of a debt collector, but there are consequences for clients who get a reputation for not paying their freelancers. Don’t crawl under a rock and hope the money will just ‘turn up’ one day…

The ALCQ have some good information for artists and debt collection here.

12. Keep, and backup, good records. Use a simple spreadsheet to record your expense and income by date and client. This makes your tax reporting much, much easier. And keep all of your client details in your address book for future reference.

13. The longer you are in the business, the longer your list of previous clients becomes. Do your best to keep in touch with them, even if they change jobs or move companies. Send them Christmas cards and your newsletter if you have one. Stay in the forefront of their minds and when they need a cartoonist, they will call you.

We rarely expect to be working in the business world when we start to draw. In some ways, it is a little like playing a game, so we need to know the rules, as well as some of the short cuts to gain an advantage. If you can master the business side of your cartooning, you will find yourself far, far ahead of some of your competition.

How long have you been drawing cartoons?

I started drawing cartoons twenty years ago and had a six month period where i got stuck into it but working shift work and having 5 kids under 6 really made it difficult to get some continuity in it.

What made you start to think more seriously about making some money out of it?

In the last six to twelve months me and my wife thought it would be great to travel around Australia in a winnebego and do itinerant work along the way, but i remembered when i used to draw in the younger days and thought it would be great if i could make money out of it as we travelled.

Have you done any formal training? If so, what and where?

I took a correspondence course years ago in cartooning through a group called ics in melbourne, but got a bit dissallusioned with it because everything i sent in got top marks even though i knew i wasn’t that good.

Where was your first cartoon published?

My first cartoon was published in the now defunct Australasian Post, i remember they were great supporters of cartoons with a double spread of cartoons in the middle pages and others spread throughout the publication.

What materials do you use to create your work?

I use felt tip pens for my drawings and like the pigmented type because of the depth of black they produce, when it comes to sending cartoons to publications i think they should reproduce more effectively

What hardware and software do you use?

I use photoshop elements and corel painter to finish my cartoons, my knowledge is fairly basic but as i’ve said i’m learning all the time through trial and error basically, though the tips on chewingpencils are fantastic

From where so you draw your inspiration?

I am inspired by other cartoonists most notably Randy McIllwaine and Mike Baldwin

What are some of the resources you’ve found most helpful?

Chewingpencils is probably my best resource i find it very helpfull when just starting out.

Matt: It didn’t cost me anything to have Peter say that!! Really…

What is the best piece of advice you have EVER been given? The worst?

I don’t really take any notice of advice unless it’s from other cartoonists who have been there done that. I have already received some good information from people like Dan Rosandich about how to get noticed on the net.

Take us through the process you use to create one of your drawings:

To draw a cartoon i first sketch out the scenario on a piece of office paper, tweaking it as i go to get the right effect and wording.

Then i scan into photoshop, clean it up with the eraser tool and save it as a tiff file. From there i use corel painter to color it and put in the wording before resizing and then saving it to the web

How long does it generally take to create one piece?

Depending on whether i’m drawing a strip or a single panel cartoon, it can take anywhere from an hour to three or four. to finish a drawing.

Usually i’m doing three or four things in the meantime like watching a show or cooking dinner

What do you find the hardest to draw?

I haven’t struck too many things i can’t draw as yet, usually with a bit of practice i can create something passable though i’m hopeless at caricatures.

What do your friends and family think of you being a cartoonist?

Family and friends think it’s good that I do what I do, my wife gets a laugh out of my cartoons but my friends don’t think i’m funny at all lol.

What do you think is the best part about being a cartoonist?

Definately the self satisfaction when you come up with an idea you think is funny, and then complete the cartoon.

What has been the standout post on Chewing Pencils for you? Why?

The post that has helped me the most i guess is the one about using photoshop and how to finish your work, and even though i’m still struggling with the layers part i know by going back over the instructions i’ll be able to produce more professional work in the future.

I think Peter means this post, even though it’s about Painter, not Photoshop.

Anything else you’d like to say….

It’s been good to get other cartoonists insights through the friday feature artist and i enjoy checking out their work online as well.

I’ll send you the questions. You send me the answers. You’ll appear on Chewing Pencils and be launched towards fame and fortune.

Maybe…

Of course, drawing is part of what we do, but like everybody who works for themselves, if you’ve no idea about running a business, you won’t make any money. In fact, it could cost you dearly.

Sadly, the business side of cartooning is where many aspiring cartoonists give up on their dream because it all seems far to complicated. Rest easy - while it’s difficult to navigate through in the early days, you’ll quickly find it second nature. Before you know it, you’ll be a hard nosed, high flying cartoon business executive!

Here’s what I had to say when I first wrote about the ‘business’ of cartooning:

Tip 7:- Become business minded (Part 1).

The difference between a hobby and a profession is pretty simple. The professional has a goal of making money from what they do. I don’t mean to sound like some greedy capitalist, nor do I wish to belittle those who produce wonderful works of art for no remuneration. All I am saying is that a professional artist (cartoonist or otherwise) supports their family and lifestyle from the money they earn from their work.

For those rare few that are employed to draw full-time, the pay check comes in every week and all is good. For the 90% or so of cartoonists who are freelance, we need to rely on a number of skills to obtain new clients, keep current clients satisfied and encourage previous clients to call on us for repeat work. This means we put down our pencils, take off our pyjama’s, put on a suit and start thinking like a business person.

The business side of cartooning and illustration is where most artists encounter hurdles that they find impossible to jump. Indeed, the move from drawing for fun into the ‘wheeling and dealing’ world of price negotiations, contracts and deadlines is very daunting. And when the rejection letters start to arrive by the truck load the temptation to give it all away becomes great.

Like any job however, once you get into the swing of things and develop a greater business sense, you will find that the hurdles become a bit easier to jump.

The tips below relate mainly to the type of job where a client asks you to produce a particular piece of work for them. Often, however, a cartoonist will submit some cartoons directly to an editor in the hope that they will like what they see and then publish them. This is part of being a freelance cartoonist, but the business side of things still apply. You have a better chance of being published by an editor who recognize your name and work than by a stranger.

Anyway, here are a few tips to help you become more business minded.

1. Before doing anything, make sure you are set up properly to comply with your tax system. In Australia, you need to have what is called an ABN (Australian Business Number) to operate. This applies to corporate giants and freelance cartoonists alike. Many clients would have nothing to do with me if I didn’t have my own ABN, so it was important, before anything else, to have this set up properly. Yes, it has meant lots of reporting and electronic paper work, but it is essential to get this right from the very beginning.

Make sure you know what the tax laws are for your region and get set up NOW!

2. Put together a business plan. A freelance cartoonist doesn’t have a board of directors to report to, shareholders to be accountable to or annual reports they have to write. Nevertheless, it is worth putting some effort into putting together some type of business plan that sets a few goals for the future. Goals like the number of cartoons you want to draw per week; the number of submissions you want to make; the amount of income you want to generate; and how you will invest some of the money you make on expanding your business. Be realistic (you’re not going to make a million in your first year) but at the same time, recognize that the plan is not set in concrete. It acts as something that will keep your mind attentive to more than just the drawing side of the business.

3. Become conversant with copyright law. Unfortunately, the area of copyright is misunderstood by many cartoonists and even more clients. I’ve posted an article that outlines copyright law for cartoonists here, but also try to keep abreast of what is happening in the legal system when it comes to copyright. As I type this, there is a debate happening in the US about the copyright of art works to which no artist/author can be linked - so called “orphaned works.” It does not bode well for artists and will require different strategies for producing cartoons and illustrations should it get through. These are the sort of things all professional need to stay on top of.

4. Market yourself. This is where you start letting people know you are around. Emails, phone calls, visits are all good. Submit your website to the search engines and increase your ranking. Pay for some advertising if you can. (Google, yellow pages etc). Produce your own stationery, making sure your website and email address appears on all your letterheads and business cards. Approach the right people directly about doing some work for them. Find out the name of the editor etc.

5. Set up a standard contract. Some clients will have contracts that are more or less non-negotiable. Only sign these if you have read and understood it thoroughly and seek some legal advice if you are not sure. A standard contract should be used for all other clients, without exception, that includes what is expected of you and the client. Make sure it mentions the payment terms and in no instance should it hand over copyright. Ensure that the client is clear that you retain the rights to your work, they are simply buying a license to use it. This means you can negotiate an extra fee for the same work if the client wants to reuse it down the track.

6. Communicate well. Right from the very beginning, let your client know that they can be honest and upfront with you about how the job is going. Ask as many questions as you can about the job and NEVER assume anything - even if they say, “it’s up to you.” Give your client some options and make them choose.

Good, open communication makes the business relationship run smoothly and gives it a better chance for a long life.

7. Part of communicating well is to let your client see the progress you are making. At the end of each day or week, post some drafts of what you are doing on a private website so they can see the project taking shape. This gives the client an opportunity to respond early in the project should they want to change anything. You’ll be amazed at how much some clients look forward to seeing each update of your work!

In Tip 8, I will continue the theme of being a business minded cartoonist or illustrator and look at how much to charge, keeping to deadlines, invoices and receipts, and debt collection.

Some of the jobs that have come through my site have attracted a five figure fee. Other have made me smaller amounts, but have given me a steady, ongoing stream of income. Over the years, the website has got me jobs that earnt enough to pay off my house.

And this is as a very part time, freelancer.

This week I had another reminder about just how important the website is for my business. I received a phone call on Friday from a lady named Leonie who was looking to interview a cartoonist for her radio show. She had found my site, liked my stuff and gave me a call. We chatted for a while and made a time for her to call me back and do a live interview on the radio (Hi to all ABC West listeners that might be visiting!).

The interview lasted about ten minutes and we chatted about much of the stuff I talk about here on Chewing Pencils. She thanked me for my time and the interview ended. I enjoyed it and thought it was nothing more than a bit of fun.

I had mentioned my site during the interview and though I might get a few extra visitors that day, but not much more. I was disappointed to see that the level of traffic hardly changed at all! However, I did receive two emails out of the blue from potential new clients. I’m still waiting to hear if they have accepted my quotes, but if all goes well, these two jobs will earn me around $2000 - $3000.

ALL OF THIS HAPPENED BECAUSE OF MY WEBSITE!!!!!

So if you haven’t got one already, get onto it. You’re missing out on potential business that could earn you some extra dollars to help you pay for your petrol bill!

In the coming weeks we I’ll be running another Group Drawing Project that will require you to have your own website to participate. It doesn’t have to be elaborate (mine isn’t) but if you’d like the chance to win the prize on offer, you’ll need to find your place on the world wide web.

I’ll say this just once - if you want to make some money from your cartoons, forget about the newspapers!! Yes, the papers are a potential market, perhaps the most obvious market, but the chances of you ending up there are slim.

Sorry to be so blunt, but they are!

So while you aim for fame and fortune in the papers, remember you still have to eat. There’s plenty of money in other areas, which is what this post is all about…

Since first writing this post, one of the niche markets that I’ve seen cartoonists trying to break into is the mobile phone market. Now that screens have such high resolution and the phones can do everything but change your underwear, there is potential for your work to not only be displayed on a person’s fridge, but on their phone as well. I’ve never got around to exploring it at much depth, so I’d be interested to hear if anyone has had any success.

Anyway, here’s what I had to say about looking for your niche in the cartoon world:

When I am introduced as a cartoonist to new people, often they will ask what newspaper I work for. Despite the rapid expansion of markets for cartoons to appear in, it seems that the newspapers are still “the place” where people most expect to see your work. If you’re in the paper, then you must be a real cartoonist. I did work for one of the local papers for about a year early on in my career. They weren’t great to work for as a freelance artist and the pay was terrible. But at the time, I thought that this should be my ultimate goal.

The newspaper is, without doubt, the most obvious and well known of all the cartoon markets. Spot gags, editorial cartoons and comic strips have featured in the paper for as long as we can all remember, and most of the famous cartoonists are all newspaper based. It’s an honourable goal to aim for this type of work. But if you’re wanting to make some money from drawing cartoons, holding out for that newspaper job will see you and your family go hungry.

The reality is that full-time positions with newspapers are rare and only become available when the present cartoonist is head-hunted, retires or dies. One noted US cartoonist suggested that a person has more chance of becoming a top NBA basketballer than becoming an editorial cartoonist in America. Ouch! There is some good news though. There are plenty of cartoonists, who make a decent living, that never have their work published in a newspaper. They have realised that to achieve and maintain high levels of income means looking for niche markets and exploiting them (in a nice way) to their full potential.

Amongst other things, the dictionary defines a niche as a special area of demand for a product or service. For a cartoonist, that means an area of special interest or need in our community that could benefit from the addition of cartoons. A niche could be a particular type of sport, religious belief, occupation, environmental concern, health issue, hobby, craft, finance option and so on. All of them could use cartoons and many of them will pay well to do so. Like I mentioned before, I’ve only worked for a newspaper once. In terms of income, they were the worst paying customer I’ve ever had. I’ve had far more success targetting journals, corporate training departments, consulting businesses and educational institutions. To put it in dollar terms, the amount of money I received from one cartoon for a journal, for instance, was the equivalent of nearly a dozen cartoons for the paper.

In my experience as a freelancer, it has simply been a waste of time and money spending all my energy targetting the newspapers. But with so many niche markets out there, where do you start? Here’s a few tips for helping you identify and target some niche cartoon markets:

1. While the newspaper might be limited in terms of making money from your cartoons, it is a great source for identifying niche markets. Turn to the classified section and you’ll see listed hundreds of small business - many of them could use a cartoon or two in their classified advertising. Why not contact them and suggest it?

2. Your local newsagent is a good source of information on niche markets. Take an hour or two to browse the magazine section to see what people are writing about and, by extension, what people are reading about. If there are lots of magazines on, say, horses then there is a good chance that an opportunity exists for some decent horse related cartoons to be published. Ask the owner of the newspagent if it is ok for you to write down the contact details of the publisher and editor or, if money allows, purchase a few magazines and study them at home.

3. The local library is a similar wealth of niche market information, as is your university or college library. These tend to hold more technical journals designed for a much smaller market, but you would be surprised how many journals there are.

4. It goes without saying, but the internet is perhaps the best source for identifying markets. The disadvantage it has over the newsagent or library is that you need to know what you\’re looking for in the first place. But, if you know your niche, you may be able to find a market for your horse cartoons in Brazil, New Zealand and Zambia by some well thought out searches on Google. However, you will find advertisements appearing on many sites - like Chewing Pencils. As competition for advertising space increases, these text based ads will soon move to image based ads aswell. The advertising company may be a niche market. The advertisers displaying their ads may be too. Options are everywhere on the internet!

5. The best clients in terms of dollar value are corporate businesses. Particularly big corporate business like oil and finance companies. These companies are so big that they have there own, in-house publications that are distributed to employees and customers. Take a trip into town with your folio one day, visit some of the corporate giants, and ask to see the editor of the in-house magazine. Also ask if you can speak to the manager of the training department as their training manuals will need illustrating too. The annual report could probably use a cartoon or two, and some upcoming marketing brochures might need some artwork. These types of jobs are gold to the freelancer, and much more readily available than newspaper work. The government is also a potential niche market, but I’ve always run into copyright and ownershp arguments with them - tread carefully.

6. Diversify. Just like putting all of your cartooning eggs into the newspaper basket is a bad move, so too is relying on just one niche. While one niche might supply you with a steady stream of work and income for a little while, chances are that it will only last a short time. So make sure you continually look for new and different places to get your work published.

7. Be selective. Your local knitting group is a niche market, and they might really, really want a cartoon for their newsletter that has a distribution list of twenty people. Don’t bother with clients like this - let one of their grandkids do it as a school project! Remember, that cartooning is a serious business, and while it is ok to do some charitable work from time to time, you will want to focus your efforts on clients that have the capacity to pay and pay well. Not all of them will be able to pay recommended rates, but $5 and a wooly jumper won’t pay the gas bill.

If you’ve got stories (good and bad) of unique niche markets that you’ve drawn for over the years, tell us about it by leaving a comment.

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