In the meantime, in 1901 he performed a song, "Save Me Not", in Miss Margaret M. Sheehy’s Dramatic and Musical Society performance in the Antient Concert Rooms (the 19-year-old James Joyce performed in a short play on the same bill). He drew advertisements for Dublin businesses, and published a book called Light and Shade: Phil Blake's Xmas Sketch Book 1902. In 1908 he illustrated a controversial novel, The Moneylender by Joseph Edelstein, about Jewish moneylenders in Dublin.