Asking advice from friends

Got a few mates who are busy out their trying to make it on their own.
One guy doing really well for himself is Craig Robson / Daggers for teeth. 
Great advice from him to make me think about things...


i sort of started to get a couple of jobs in my third year at uni, little shitty jobs for bands that paid nothing, but i did loads of them, really quickly but sort of well. i put it ALL on the internet but never really promoted anything, not directly in your face sort of promoting, but it was there for people to see if they found it.
it just sort of went from there, lots of word of mouth i guess, i was doing things that were sort of trendy and sort of cool and it was when about a million kids where starting up t-shirt lines, so i guess i got lucky.

theres no real way to get clients, there isnt a formula, i wish there was though! you just have to be visible all the time, the internet is brilliant but it can be hard to keep up, you have to blog all the time, keep everything updated and look as busy as fuck.

charging is a weird one, i started out taking whatever budget people had (obviously within reason, you dont want to work for minimum wage) and started to build up a client list and reputation, every now and then i would up my prices to see if it would work, sometimes it did, sometimes it didnt, the weird thing is that you can be cheap and do loads and loads or you can be pricier and do slightly less, it feels like less work but the money balances out alright.
its hard to decide what to charge but i always think its best to have at least an idea of what you need to earn a month and how many jobs you want that to be.

i charge people by getting them to sign a contract that details everything, i license my artwork so the client pays for the different ways they want to use it. for example t-shirts is one use..one payment...skateboard prints is another use...a second payment.

this way i can control the way people use my artwork and i can also make money off it a number of times, either personally by making prints etc or by licensing it again for different uses.

i accept paypal for payments, its worked fine but remember to charge for the 3% deduction they take.

instant bank transfers work too, no charge, paid right in.

just make a simple invoice with your details on it, works a charm to have everything in the same place, it also means that if they want anything like changes after the invoice is sent you can sometimes justify charging extra.

i guess thats everything?
if you want to know anything else and i can help i dont mind, i dont really have a story though and i am still trying to find my way around being self employed. its weird.