mdashow

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I have been out of the publishing scene for two years due to life. Where does publishing live nowadays on social media? Is twitter still the preferred platform to interact and follow folks in the publishing world? It doesn’t seem like a whole lot still are active on there but maybe I’m wrong?? Are pitch events on twitter still a thing?

X - the website formerly known as twitter - is an absolute dumpster fire. I wouldn't participate in a pitch event on X if you paid me actual American dollars. The publishers who are still there are making a mistake and should STOP being there. For real. The only reason they are not taking the hint and dropping it is sunk cost fallacy -- they figure it took them a decade to get 50k followers or whatever it is, and they don't want that to have been a waste of time.

But that 50k followers is pointless if only 1% of those people ever see and engage with your posts (or are even people at all!)

PSST PUBLISHER MARKETING DEPARTMENTS, I KNOW YOU DIDN'T ASK AND YOU DON'T CARE WHAT I THINK, BUT PLEASE PLEASE MOVE OFF X ! It's a terrible website! Do you publish books for p0rn-bots, conspiracy theorists and white nationalists? No? Then your posts on X are not reaching their target audience!

Don't believe me? READ THIS.

Personally, if I were choosing a social media site for authors, I'd go Bluesky. The kidlit scene there is engaged, thriving and growing by the day, and the vibes are MUCH more chill than Twitter. Anecdotally, at the agency we had both X and Bluesky for a while -- our posts on X would get hardly any engagement at all compared to Bsky despite our having a fraction of the followers on Bsky. We've officially dropped X entirely at this point, it's just a waste of time and energy.

Be sure to follow Debbi Ohi - she has great tips for newbies to Bluesky. Every Tuesday night there is a kidlit chat - 6pm pacific time, 9pm eastern, follow hashtag #kidlitchat - there are customizable feeds (this is the KidLit Mega Feed that includes authors, illustrators, agents, and more!) -- and I don't know if there are pitch contests YET but if not I'm sure there will be.

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Today happens to be #KidLitArtPortfolio day, a monthly event (first Thursday of the month) where children's illustrators (current or aspiring) share a postcard of their work. Last month everyone posted winter scenes while I posted something warm and sunny (hey, I live in California!) so this month I'm making up for it by channeling my childhood growing up in Massachusetts!

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When not using her basket to carry away misbehaving children, this Krampus uses it to give a lift to her kid brother! An '80s styled entry for this month's Character Design Challenge (on FB.)

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Thanks for sharing my entry! :D

Art by Michael Dashow

October’s Theme: #MadScientist

Presented by CDQ Magazine

Discover the artists of the Character Design Challenge community and the current Theme of the Month in our Facebook Group! And when you repost your design on our Patreon page, you can also win awesome prizes every month and choose the future themes!

RULES | WINNERS | MAGAZINE | BOOKS

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Today is #KidLitArtPostcard day, a day when children's book illustrators (current or aspiring) share postcard art as self-promotion. Here's mine!

This is also a good space to note that I have a new portfolio site just for my children's illustration: https://mdashow-kidlitart.carrd.co

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HAWKEYE - The Incredible Hulkeye !

Art by Michael Dashow

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As it happens to be both #ThrowbackThursday and #DiaDeLosMuertos today, happy Dia de Los Muertos, all! Here's a slightly Coco-inspired alebrije I drew a few years back. (And a reminder that it's the day for my annual rewatch of Coco!) 😄💀

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Here's a new piece: I drew this as a sample middle grade book cover. (I made the typography, too!)

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about to drop literally the sickest insider knowledge you will ever receive pls use it responsibly:

are you a teenager? do you wish you had the space & resources & organization to do a thing, whether that's an anime club or a movie night or a big craft workshop or creative writing group or literally whatever? would you like to do your thing totally for free? yes?

okay, then bring it up to a librarian

seriously, teenagers are the absolute hardest group to engage at most libraries & we'll often organize programs that absolutely no one will show up to & it sucks. if you go up to a public librarian & say "hey, some friends & i want to do this thing. does that sound like a feasible teen program for the library?" most people will move heaven & earth to pull it off for you because we know there's an interest in our community. we will go balls to the freaking wall to make it happen

do you want a cosplay contest? a video game tournament? a free escape room? bring it up to the library. it's not a burden or an annoyance at all. it'll be like christmas came early for us

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I did this piece last year and have always loved it, but I originally put a rifle in his hands. As I revise my portfolio for more #kidLit work, that in retrospect wasn't the wisest decision... so here's an updated version that's not so gun-happy.

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Today Epic Games laid of ~900 of its workers by emailing. Some were already locked out of their emails and weren't even able to receive the message that they were no longer employed.

This year has been incredibly difficult for games workers - I read a statistic that this year the layoffs in tech number in the hundreds of thousands. Heck, I won't forget that earlier this year Microsoft laid of 10,000 of its workers. Layoffs are hitting the games industry incredibly hard.

If you want to learn how you as a worker in the games industry can take action to protect both you and those around you via organizing your workplace (an effective and time-tested method), CODE-CWA offers free training here:

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One of my favorite illustrations - originally painted in landscape format - revised and reformatted to look more like a middle grade book cover for my portfolio. (It's not a real book though. Sorry!)😄 (All graphic design by me, too!)

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Alice in Wonderland ♤

All of the illustrations I’ve done so far with designs by my little sister and I!

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I drew this sketch for a rockabilly witch ages ago and have been so busy that I only finally got around to painting it up last night. Took a while to decide on the colors but once I hit on turquoise and red, I was sold!

This will be available as a coloring page in my Etsy shop soon... 😁

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This is the funniest thing ever

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Facebook deleted this almost immediately. It's almost like the ultrawealthy don't want us knowing or talking about what's at stake.