jeliza: custom avatar by hexdraws (headshot-bw)
I need a backup freelance designer for my wedding album company, à la carte albums, to handle overflow during peak periods (August/October/November usually, but also other times less predictably.)

  • compensation varies by album size, starting at $100 (flat fee per album)

  • must work with recent enough Photoshop to use Smart Objects

  • MUST be able to do album layouts with clean, unembellished design with plain background; additional styles welcome, but that is by far the most important. (You can see some sample styles on my portfolio page)

  • templates not provided

  • flush/coffee table albums only, matted album design not expected

  • conversant with dropbox or google drive; will be delivering layered PSD files.

  • independent contractor position, not employee; payments will be reported on 1099-MISC; US resident/authorized workers only

  • designs to be delivered within 1 business week.

E-mail cover letter and link to portfolio to admina @ alacartealbums.com

--

I will be spreading this out to craigslist and such this week, but since my last hire ended up coming through LJ, I figured I would start it here first. :) Please pass it on.
(And feel free to tell me parts that don't make sense!)
jeliza: custom avatar by hexdraws (tentacles)
It is apparently "make random sales at sites you haven't checked in ages" month. Which is to say, out of nowhere sales on 3rd party delivery sites

  • RedBubble (which I do at least have a pointer to in my artfire shop, and even if it is just a sticker, am really happy someone out there digs that carnation piece)

  • Alamy (haven't uploaded in ages, but those SPAM Museum pictures just keep on popping up in tiny editorial usages in the UK. That I probably should take the time to send new work to, if, um, I get any made -- I do have huge amounts of Long Beach pictures from this winter I haven't processed yet.)

  • Cafepress (RuPaul for President, since 2008.)

  • GreetingCardUniverse.com  -- apparently I put some designs up in 2009?


Of course, since all these places have minimums before they send you a check, who knows when, if ever, I will actually see proceeds of the sales. Though Redbubble might come through by, say, 2016, and CafePress probably will sometime late this year, since they have less than $25 minumums.

GCU has $150 minimum payout, and in these 5 years I have made less than $2 of sales, at ~20 cents each. That's... possibly an argument for removing my account altogether.

I'm hiring!

Jan. 9th, 2014 06:17 pm
jeliza: custom avatar by hexdraws (edna)
Job posting is here: http://www.flexjobs.com/HostedJob.aspx?id=200118
And apparently flexjobs is being stupid about who they let see and apply, so, craigslist: http://seattle.craigslist.org/est/sls/4280561296.html

And hey, it's LJ, there is space:

Seeking customer communication and sales assistant
(part-time, telecommuting/home office.)
You will be responding to potential customer inquiries for custom wedding albums, mainly answering questions and offering information, and then following up over time with potentials who do not immediately book.
Client communication is done via e-mail; you will need your own computer and internet connection. Excellent written communication skills are a must. An appreciation for handmade books and/or weddings is helpful, but not required.
This is a no-pressure sales environment, with a focus on finding the right option for the customer, ranging from minimal to luxurious budgets.
You will need to answer e-mail 5 days a week, but can choose which days; time of day can vary.
Initial training will be in person in the Seattle/Shoreline area; and there will be occasional in-person meetings (monthly or less) once training is completed. Training is paid.
2 hours/week is guaranteed, but I expect that to almost always be higher and to increase over the year. The work is somewhat seasonal, with the first half of the year being much slower. I do not expect there to be more than 12 hours/week.
Must be Washington State resident. Work-from-home parents welcome.
Send resume and cover letter explaining your interest to jane @ alacartealbums.com
Company website is alacartealbums.com
$11/hr to start.
jeliza: custom avatar by hexdraws (sidelit)
I want to file my state business taxes RIGHT NOW. (Since I happen to know I won't be getting any more payments in before January.)

I am stupidly excited to be sending in the sales tax to the state. It's like, Look! I'm helping fund my school! Whee!


(I'm actually going to go to sleep, but I just keep going over to Quickbooks and pulling up the Sales Tax Payable report and grinning. Yes, I'm weird, I know.)

Yay!

Dec. 7th, 2013 05:02 pm
jeliza: custom avatar by hexdraws (atlantis)
Today's craft fair, while not lucrative, was very gratifying. Multiple people, many of them parents of my kids friends, really liked and instantly understood the Space Whimsy series. I don't even show most of them at Norwescon anymore, because the more traditional fen audience has been very ehh about them, but I love them, and can't seem to stop making them.

The Sparkle Happy Fun rings also went over well.

It was also good preparation for doing the Lovesick Expo in January.

The only downside to this is that a ton of people took my card, so I am actually going to have to get at least the pieces they expressed interested in up on my artfire shop. And, um, photograph them first. Taking clear, flattering pictures, of layered translucent glitter under glass is ... kind of a pain in the butt. And I'm not really out of the woods in my main business Christmas rush yet. But these are good problems to be having, really.

jeliza: custom avatar by hexdraws (sidelit)

Originally published at pixels, light and hot wax. You can comment here or there.

I am in a take-a-breath moment in the holiday album design onslaught at the moment, and when I was putting some client albums up on blurb, I saw (clever them) a little popup about how they were doing notebooks now.  I tend to have 2-3 notebook/sketchbooks going at any one time, and it bums me out that the only ones I can usually find with gridded pages are moleskine, which aren’t the right size and aren’t pretty.

So I made one. It took maybe 10 minutes, and that’s NOT my book design expertise talking. I am pleased.  It’s mostly photos from the Oregon coast landscape photography workshop from 2009 because well, my camera and I don’t talk too much lately with all the busy.

The default layout has a picture every 7ish pages, and all the rest grid. On uncoated paper that can be written on. Yay!

(Yeah, that is an affiliate link, because I don’t mark up the blurb books I make, but I send them lots of business, so one of my colleagues pointed out that a bonus for me that doesn’t cost my customers anything is a good thing. And while I’ve got the business hat on, if you wanna go gonzo and make your own, HOLIDAYTHANKS gets you 25% off through ”cyber monday” on books you make, and MERRY will work on other people’s books.)

And that is just a little something on top of this big gorgeous thing:

I started carrying a new kind of flush album; it’s really stripped down as flush albums go, with superthin pages, limited cover design choices, mostly things you only notice if you make a lot of albums, really, and all streamlining rather than quality reduction. And the pricing is amazing as such things go, right in the range a lot of my more “budget” clients are aiming for. (Budget being a relative term when you are talking about custom designed, handmade photo-page books.) So I needed samples, stat, but I was in love with the 12×12, and I didn’t have any 20 page 12×12 designs hanging out that I could use.  But, well, I did have a set of really awesome photos that are intended to be seen only REALLY LARGE and this thing is 2 feet wide when open, so …. I made myself a super luxe artist portfolio. That I totally got the studio sample discount on because I really am going to use it to show wedding album clients.

(Pictures are craptastic because it is raining and I haven’t fetched my lights back from the person I lent them to yet.)

12x12 skinny basic flush with black linen and cover inset, abstract botanical portfolio

12x12 portfolio open to purple tulip

for scale, that’s my cell phone:

Isn’t it pretty? I want to pet it. (You can see the whole design here if you like). The photos are smaller than they are when I show them as framed prints, but still big enough to get the right SO MUCH BIGGER THAN LIFESIZE effect.

(Sorry if this sounds super-promotey, but you have to understand, BOOKS! that I get to KEEP and USE instead of mailing away! It’s like working in a chocolate shop and never getting to eat any to do what I do normally. )

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