When I decided to make the leap to freelancing full time, I wasn’t sure if it was going to work. My rough plan was to live off my modest savings, get clients from Guru and sign up at Aquent and iCreatives for temporary design work. So, did my minimal plan work?

Well, three years later and I’m still freelancing. I can’t say it has been easy or extremely lucrative, but I think it has been worth it. I have definitely learned a lot and improved quite a bit along the way.

Guru
Most of the jobs I got from Guru were small one time jobs, but I also picked up some long term clients as well. The Guru system seems to work a lot like ebay. The more work you do, the better your reputation gets. As your reputation grows, more clients will trust you with their projects. I think Guru is definitely worth the small sign up fee. You should make that back with one job.

Aquent & iCreatives
It took me a while to build up a big enough client list to stay busy, so there were weeks where nobody was calling me. The temp agencies are a good backup plan. Many of the jobs for these temp agencies are under 40 hours a week and short term, so it will leave you time to drum up more freelance clients. These companies definitely saved me when the coffers were running dry. I stopped using them mainly because I started getting enough work on my own and didn’t want to work on site anymore.

My advice to anyone that wants to start freelancing is develop a broad range of skills (illustration, design, web, painting, etc.) and get multiple sources of income going. Things like passive income and temp work are good things to investigate before you dive in. Also, Don’t rely on one client or one job. I like to have a few jobs going at once, so you have something to do while you’re waiting for approval or comments.

Hopefully, this helps you one your way to freelancing full time.

This post was written on IllustrationInfo.com. Content copyright 2007 Cory Thoman.

I finally had to kick my old Epson inkjet printer to the curb. It served me well over the years, but it finally quit on me a few weeks ago.

I decided to look at a color laser printer to replace it. They are supposed to be cheaper to operate and less temperamental. After reading a ton of reviews, I had narrowed my decision down to the Konica Minolta MagicColor 2530DL and the Brother HL-4040CN. I also was looking at the similar priced HP and Samsung printers, but both of those seemed to have had reliability issues.

I ended up going with the Brother HL-4040CN printer, and I have been pleased so far. I don’t do any hardcore printing. Mostly, I print comps of designs and illustrations for editing. That being said, I still wanted a printer that would give me a fairly accurate representation.

Here are my thoughts on the printer:

Quick Warm Up
The printer doesn’t take very long to warm up when you turn it on. This is compared to my inkjet which had a pretty raucous and long warm up cycle.

Quick Printing
It spits out high quality print outs almost instantly.

Large Size
This thing is bestial, so if you don’t have a decent sized sturdy table or desk to hold it, then you might want to look at another printer.

Good Prints
I thought the prints were fairly sharp. You get an occasional roller line. My inkjet printed a little nicer when it was cranked up to max resolution and performing well, but it was often slow and fussy. To be fair, I haven’t bought any high quality paper for the printer, so that may make a difference. It has a setting for higher resolution prints, but I didn’t think there was a big difference between that and the normal setting. Again, that might make a difference with better paper.

Good Color
It prints color that is fairly accurate. I thought the reds and blues were pretty spot on, but it seems to wash out my greens a bit. I wouldn’t use this printer for any sort of color matching or proof, but overall, I’m pleased with the color.

Good Cost
I bought this printer for around $400 and it is supposed to be one of the better cost per print in this price range.

Bottom line is that you have to buy a printer that suits your needs. I wanted something that was Mac compatible and printed good quality print outs quickly and with little or no fuss. I think this printer definitely does that. I also recommend going to the store to see the printer and get a test print from it. I bought mine from Office Max.

If you are looking for a good resource for color laser printer reviews, I’d start at PCWorld

This post was written on IllustrationInfo.com. Content copyright 2007 Cory Thoman.

I gave percentages of my microstock earnings last month, so I thought I would do it again this month. I have been uploading images for about a year, and, so far, microstock has been fairly profitable for me. I have images at several different microstock sites.

Here is the breakdown of my earnings from November 2007:

Shutterstock – 35%

iStockphoto – 31%

Dreamstime – 21%

StockXpert – 9%

Big Stock Photo – 2%

Fotolia – 2%

This month, I made the leap and added my whole portfolio to StockXpert in about the middle of the month. It seems like it was worth the time and effort. I’m thinking my monthly earnings on that site should be equivalent to Dreamstime. I haven’t bothered to do the same on BigStock or Fotolia because it doesn’t seem like my earnings increase very much when I add images.

This post was written on IllustrationInfo.com. Content copyright 2007 Cory Thoman.

[tags]Microstock, Stock, iStock, Earnings, Passive Income, Illustration[/tags]