I just wondered how many of us here at AWN have sold ecards. I've sold about fifty to different venues, how many of the others here have found some extra money selling little micro shorts.
Think some of the new folks would be interested in this topic and a possible source of getting their stuff seen. Everyone lately seems to be fixated on features and making video ready stuff. That's not always possible in the short run.
I know Grega and Blue have. It's a great way to build your skills and end up with a little pocket money and exposure. Afterall that's how the JibJab guys got started.
—
Pat Hacker, Visit Scooter's World.
i havent really but i know one of the big flash studios in Bombay came up selling e-cards..
Hey Phacker, have many of the ecards you've done have been for those websites that don't pay you upfront but give you residuals based on how many people have sent it? I haven't seen many postings for ecards lately on AWN's career connections, but it seems like the ones that were posted seem to fall into that category and it's just not something I'm interested in.
What's your experience been?
Flash Character Packs, Video Tutorials and more: www.CartoonSolutions.com
I never considered trying to sell mine. I'm honestly not sure mine are of marketable quality. I'm also trying to be the source on the internet for biker e-cards. I've noticed all the biker e-cards are photos of babes or bikes, not much original artwork, so I may have something eventually.
I built good flash architecture to hold as many as I can make. Actually more. The flash they launch from is built to hold up to around 800. I've sent a bunch out to people, and maybe three to five have been sent out by people I don't know. But traffic's been up lately... A slow day is around 40 hits (on the site overall) and a good day is around 100.
Cartoon Thunder
There's a little biker in all of us...
No I tried a couple of those, but I've never received a check. The ones I've sold I've sold outright and just held onto the right to keep a copy on my website. The first ones I sold were through a contest for a marketing firm ABC not the network, but the group that sell wholesale merchadise through some sort of franchise. They wanted to add so content to their site so they held a contest. I sold my first three to them.
Pat Hacker, Visit Scooter's World.
I've lost count how many cards I have on my site Rupert, but I know it takes over 50 megs, so I had to finesse my site so I could keep my domain with the company it was with but have unlimited space and traffic for my creations. My current ISP, let's me pretty much upload as much as I want, and has never complained about my traffic, but then it holds steady around 1000 hits a month. They are a small time ISP here in the sticks, and I've talked a lot of friends into subscribing with them. Someday I know that's going to come back to bite me. But right now it works.
Pat Hacker, Visit Scooter's World.
There used to be a guy on Flashkit that had a contract with the European sector of Hallmark. I would really like to get in on a piece of that. He did some nice cards, I'll try to find some links to them.
Hallmark, and BlueMountain are pretty much a closed shop these days though, so newbies don't get your hopes up. They won't even take emails for spec work.
Pat Hacker, Visit Scooter's World.
You guys and gals should think about moble phones and iPods, that has got to be a market.
I tried to get into the mobile phone market about two years ago, but the phone technology was all over the place and no one seemed to have any set format. So I gave it up waiting for one standard for content developers. I wasn't going to make four different formats of my stuff. Sure if the software had an easy export option, but at that time, I'd downloaded the developer package from Macromedia for cell phones and palm devices and you had to do like three diffrerent formats to cover all your bases.
Grega though has branched out into that market.
Pat Hacker, Visit Scooter's World.
SInce September I've had a modest freelance job being sub-contracted Ecards.
This was my first one... for Hannukah:
http://www.stvdio.com/ecards/card2301.htm
This is for an obscure day on october:
http://www3.telus.net/drard/grouch.html
(This is the one I wnat on my reel..the way I submitted it; I like it silent)
This is for this past Chinese New Year celebration:
http://www3.telus.net/drard/cny.html
I did all the animation and design and direction . The sound was supplied by the studio.
It's fun but alot of work for the pay. Although in that approvals have been reasonable and I'm not running around the city wasting gas or transit money, working over the net, it's been a near perfect freelance job I've had in eons.
I tried that royalty game with a dot com that came and went. I made $75.00 dollars and won 1500. in a contest that I couldn't claim becausee I wasn't a U.S resident.
ANother company I wanted to contribute to. I asked several times if artists could relay their experience with the dot com before I created anything. Nothing. No response. SO I guess no one does that well there.
I'm never going to do that again. Get paid or use my own cards for self promotion or something.
Oh yeh!
I once animated prefab symbols for a little outfit called Cartoon Solutions on one of their cards.
Nice work if you can get it!;)
actually its not just that, the other hassle is the screen size and processing is different so u cant do anything unless its overtly simple.
i spoke to one of the biggest mobile gaming guys in the world and he said that making the game and coding is the cheap part. the expensive part is the testing and deployment you have to do across hundreds of mobile phones.
regardless im launching a mobile animation portal in 4-8 weeks shooting for bout 120 animations between 5-20 seconds some simple to slightly more elaborate.
Good stuff Graphite. Menorah Man seems like a strange concept, but it works. You have to love that Wonton font for Chinese New Year. And Office Grouch day, never heard of that before.
Pat Hacker, Visit Scooter's World.
I did a couple ecards at first to build up a portfolio. I was provided with the sound track (in my cases, songs) and had complete creative freedom from there. That was the great part. The downside, as was mentioned before, was that it's a lot of work for little pay.
I was approached by one place telling me about the 'percentage' payment deal, but that was after I turned down a job from them becase the pay was so low. I figured the percentage thing couldn't be any better, because they were so cheap to begin with. Also, I would have no way of knowing how many people actually bought that card, and I doubt they were about to hand over their sales record to me, so I never tried it.
THe upside is, it's great for experience, and it's nice to get some money while you're learning. Most everyone I emailed showed interest in having another artist, so the work wasn't that hard to find.
The phone thing looks tricky, and hard to earn money from, but this looks like it could be promisinghttp://www.gogags.com/ This is geared more towards comic strip cartoonists, but can work with simple frame by frame pictures. THis just started up, but I've worked with the lady who is behind it before, and she has nothing but the artists best interest in mind.
Who knows?
-S
http://www.suetheartist.com
Thanks. I didn't choose that font. I had a cheesier Faux-"Oriental" font. Come to think of it, most the fonts I include are changed....that's fine.....I'm not a graphic artist.
The end client comes up with the concept and a loose script.
Yeh, in Mennorah Man they originally wanted me to have him flying around carrying them under his arm, handing them to kids. I thought having an ability to materialize them is easier to animate and less cumbersome and more dynamic as a Super Hero would.