The soft shoe shuffle

Some of my readers might be feeling a sense of angst about not yet having found a slim long white envelope arrive in their letterbox this year. Don’t worry ! You haven’t dropped off my mailing list. There have just been a few technical problems.

For the past two years I have been sending out a calendar to my clients (actual and potential), contacts and friends. It’s a soft form of marketing. A small gift that I hope brings some pleasure and will sit on clients’ desks to remind them where to turn when they need their texts healing.

In these harsh economic climes I have had to ask myself whether doing this makes financial sense. But I figured that I if I get one big contract a year out of it then it more or less pays for itself, and the added value lies in the goodwill generated. I also find it to be an important self-affirmation – of my business and the quality that it represents and generates.

The first year I used the resources I had to hand: some of the best photos I had taken over the past ten years, coupled with those of my (now) ex. The second year I tapped into a Buddhist friend’s creativity. This year I adopted a different tack (I am not going to spoil the surprise, but in retrospect I should have asked the Welsh Tourist Board for a subsidy). It involved using the work of seven different artists whose work is all themed around one area. That was mistake number one. Contacting and negotiating with seven different artists is seven times more complex than negotiating and working with one. I found three artists through direct personal contacts - and identified another five through seeing their work in galleries. But, (for understandable reasons - in these data-privacy sensitive times) the galleries were not prepared to pass on contact details, or were just so disorganized that they didn’t answer e-mail requests, or have the information- or the artists didn’t reply to e-mails.

So by the start of December I had six images lined up – and decided to fill the gap by using one of my one (rather than show favouritism and use two of anyone else’s). In mid-December I was in the UK and got a message from my publisher that three of the images were not of printable quality. Two of the artists rallied around immediately and sent higher quality images (thank you). One was unable to do so as she had sold the painting in question some time ago and the digital image she had was the best available. A shame because this was the key image that I thought made the whole thing hang together .


A few days soul searching about the balance between quality and timeliness ensued. I found an alternative image from the same artist for the last page of the calendar and decided that sending the calendars out within the first two weeks of January would be acceptable. “Don’t stress”. And then as the New Year hit in – the designer who had worked on these calendars for the last three years changed jobs and the company due to do the printing went into receivership. I was nearly ready to throw in the towel and say “no calendar this year.” But I am Capricorn and stubborn with it, and my publisher, not wanting to lose business, pulled together a new dtp guy and new printers within four days, just when I was on the edge of backing out. So hopefully on Wednesday the first calendars will arrive - and will be winging their way to your mail boxes soon thereafter. Apologies for the delay.