Category: WorkCategory: Work

This is not meant as hard and fast advice, but something to chew on:

Be yourself, and don’t confuse the market.

The simpler and more direct I can make my branding, the more genuine it will feel. Ultimately all I need to do is be true to myself (sometimes this is hard to do though!).

Read more: https://tomcritchlow.com/2016/08/01/brand

It don’t have to be pretty, it just had to be done.

I’m setting up at a the Lehigh Valley Punk Rock Flea Market this weekend with a friend, and I’ll be selling some musical equipment and records and Star Wars books.

Date: Saturday, September 6, 2025
Vendor Time: 10 AM – 4 PM
Live Music Time: 4:30 – 7:30 PM
Location: The Ice House, 56 River St, Bethlehem, PA 18018

I made a few of these for curious onlookers to pick up and discover the magic of Social Media Escape Club because there’s a great big world out there that might never know about this community!

The text, “Maybe centralized kingdoms of power and influence aren’t the answer,” is from a 2024 post titled “It’s time to do whatever we want.”

As in, we can spend a couple of bucks at a local print shop and make something like this, instead of paying Meta or Twitter to “boost” our posts for absolutely nobody to see.

At least this way maybe three people discover my work, right? And maybe one becomes a member?

Plus, I’ll be having a great day hanging out with my BFF as we try to unload gear we don’t use anymore. I’m forecasting a great return on investment.

Instead of posting 10 things on social media today, email 10 people you’ve never talked to before.

Hop on a Zoom call, swap ideas, ask questions, tell them you like their work.

What if just one of those people included your work in their next email? Or mentioned you on their podcast?

Posting into the void lets us off the hook. “Well, I tried!” we can say.

There’s tension involved in writing to 10 people directly, know that one person will most definitely read your email, and they just might respond.

Got this bit from ‘Discoverability for illustrators’ by Tasha Goddard via Robyn Hepburn:

“While emailing is more about outreach than discoverability, I have heard that art directors and art commissioners will actually use the search facility in their email app (e.g. Outlook or Gmail) as a first point of call after any in-house databases – so they might type ‘room illustration, colourful’ or ‘collage illustrator, newspaper’ etc. into the search bar to see if they have been sent any work by a relevant illustrator.”

Keep this in mind when reaching out to art directors and venues and other people you’re pitching for potential opportunities.

Hardly anyone knows about your latest project, let alone something you did three weeks ago (or three years).

Send a link to three people and let them know about it. Doing this takes minutes and is probably more effective than posting on socials for 95% of your audience to miss. Send via email, text, or DM. Just be cool about it.