Writing is a rough gig. Get paid where you can. Here’s a bunch of places that will pay professional rates for genre (fantasy/science fiction/horror) short stories. All these markets take (and actually publish) unsolicited submissions – you don’t need an agent, and you don’t need to have previously published works.
Remember to format your shit, write a simple cover letter, don’t send the same story to more than one place at a time, make sure submissions windows are actually open, and never respond to rejection letters ever. Have fun!
(Information gathered from both Submissions Grinder – an essential resource for people actively submitting their work – and my own excessive and somewhat ridiculous reading habits.)
Current as of May 2018. Markets are listed alphabetically. Detailed info below the cut.
If you’re involved with Patreon as a subscriber or a creator, you know by now that they’ve screwed the pooch. Again. For the umpteenth time. It’s unfortunate, because Patreon offers a lot of stuff that’s good, but they also have a lot of major issues that, quite frankly, shouldn’t be happening. There is a lack of communication that is both confusing and frustrating. Furthermore, I know that a number of creators and patrons both have jumped ship already because of Patreon’s policy changes and growing unreliability.
I am not dropping Patreon, don’t get me wrong. I don’t know how many of you here are patrons, but if you are, don’t worry. I’m going to keep it going.
However, I am investigating alternatives that I’ll be running alongside Patreon for a while. I’m early enough in my Patreon life cycle that I can expand and dabble a bit, then go where the money takes me. With Patreon losing both creators and patrons, I’m losing potential audience. So I want to diversify in case Patreon’s reputation tanks really hard. I want to make sure I have places that people will feel comfortable supporting me and subscribing to my work. Places where they won’t feel at risk of being screwed over. So here are options I’m looking into.
GUMROAD
Gumroad has been advertising a tiered subscription service for a while now. Its interface and setup are different from Patreon but the overall concept is the same. If you pay $2/month you get X, if you pay $10/month you get Y. When I set this up, the reward tiers will be as close to my existing Patreon tiers as I can get them. So if you have a Gumroad account you can join almost seamlessly.
It also has the advantage of a built-in storefront. Subscribers will have easy access to any products I want to sell and I can offer easy subscriber discounts and such.
Finally, if I understand this right, Gumroad also shoots emails when there are updates – or it gives subscribers an option to receive emails with the content. I’m not entirely sure about this but it seems to be what they’re suggesting. I’ll look into this more as I set it up.
KO-FI GOLD
Many of you have probably heard of Ko-fi, the tipping service for creators. You can “give a coffee” to someone at $3 a pop. The payments are processed through PayPal, with all the ups and downs that entails. I’ve never had a lot of luck making Ko-fi work for me, but I also make very little money on my art right now.
Ko-fi Gold is their subscription-based service. Regular Ko-fi doesn’t have recurring payment options, but Ko-fi gold does. I don’t think it’s a complete Patreon substitute but I think it will at least offer an option for people that don’t use Gumroad or Patreon. And those that don’t want to subscribe won’t have to. The single tip option is still available!
PAYPAL SUBSCRIPTIONS
PayPal itself allows subscriptions and recurring payments to be set up. I might not use this because with PayPal you have to use some kind of external thing to use it. Like, I have to tie it to a website or something, where you log in and if you’re subscribed, you can get the cool stuff.
I’m going to investigate and see if I can use this for some kind of email list with similar tiers to my Patreon. This one’s not a guarantee, and it’s kind of the thing I might do once I’ve set up Gumroad and Ko-Fi Gold.
DRIP
This one’s invite-only right now, but it’s basically Kickstarter’s version of Patreon. Same kind of tiered subscription thing. When it opens to the public, I’m going to jump on it.
I’ll update you all when I have these alternatives set up. Like I said, I won’t be leaving Patreon anytime soon. I’m just covering my bases so I have a plan if Patreon really goes to shit.
It makes a difference depending on what you mean by “job”:
—Freelance Art Commission: Degree 0% Portfolio 100%
—In-House Job: Not so corporate/small company: Degree 15% Portfolio 85%
—In-House Job: Corporate company big enough for an HR Dept: Degree 30% Portfolio 70%
And that said, it depends on the field you’re going into. Design jobs tend to care more about where you trained and illustration jobs less so. But overall, Art is one of the few fields left where you can be 100% self taught and still get the same jobs at the same pay a degree-holder could.
Stop thinking: “I’m not talented enough to execute this concept.” Start thinking: “I’m going to be a stronger artist when I’ve finished this piece.”
This is a fixed mindset vs. a growth mindset.
Your abilities are not static, and any challenges you have, anything that turns out different from how you imagined, is not evidence of failure, just a struggle towards improvement.
From Latin planta (sole of the foot) + gradi (to walk, to step). Plantigrade animals, which include humans, bears, and raccoons, walk on their phalanges (finger/toe bones), metapodials, and podials (the bones of the wrist/heel & ankle).
Digitigrade
From Latin digitus (finger, toe) + gradi. Digitigrade animals, such as cats, dogs, and birds, walk on multiple phalanges, but not metapodials or podials.
Unguligrade
From Latin ungulua (hoof) + gradi. Unguligrade animals, such as horses and cows, walk only on the distal phalanx.
The horizontal lines in the image above show where the ankle is on each diagram. And because this was too perfect to pass up… here’s what a human foot with plantigrade, digitigrade, and unguligrade bone structures with a bonus wading bird foot on the far right (
honestly? starting to flip the canvas during the drawing process improved my art so much yeehaw
top 10 art tips from chaboy in no particular order:
1. canvas flipping good even if painful
2. draw whatever makes u happy. be self indulgent. draw nonsense that caters to only you personally
3. just fucking fake being able to draw things like hands and eventually you can actually do it without even thinking about it
4. take breaks when it doesn’t come out right
5. remember that you’re the god of this reality and can draw WHATEVER THE FUCK. be absolutely drunk with power. nobody can stop you. unless its like morally wrong like dont draw incest or whatever. incest is bad still
6. use references
7. originality is a myth and literally every artist started copying their style from something or someone, that’s how you develop your own style. everyone does it. people who make fun of kids for copying the styles of their favourite shows/artists can choke
tumblr backup 