How do you get children's illustration work without an agent?
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Hi guys, I hope you don't mind me asking this even though I'm sure the topic has been covered somewhere on here before. Basically I would like to get some ideas for how to find children's illustration jobs without an agent. I have sent out what seems like hundreds of queries over the past few years and I will continue to do so as I improve my portfolio but in the mean time I'm at a point where I need to start making some money. I am a member of SCBWI and I've gotten a couple small jobs for self published authors though my gallery on their website, but other than that I have no idea where and how I should be looking for work. Any help would be much appreciated. Thanks!
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@Mimi-Simon Hi Mimi! I am in the same boat... and I totally hear you!!! I don't have an agent, so I don't have anything to offer in this way. Querying is such an arduous process I am finding and can be heart wrenching too OMG.
I joined SCBWI also, and have gotten contracts through them. I love their conferences and have attended illustrator connects, had my portfolio critiqued, taking classes, and will always be on the path of improving my craft. However I am learning that I can approach making money in other ways. I am making products I want to sell and filming myself making them, and while developing a following might take time, I have realized in this massive sea of illustrators I have to find some way to stand out. So this is my solution, make the work I want to be hired to do, and create my own opportunities, then be open to what could come of that. Money follows joy! And people want to buy joy. I have also been readjusting my mindset after evaluating what I am doing wrong... I just got tired of chasing my tail, and figured I need to go back to what makes me happy. I'd say in the digital world it's really really hard to stand out because there is so much competition. It's a matter of finding that space of why we create and then attract the ones who are hungry for what we make.
Can you create a 5 page mini magazine and film yourself making it, and post it on Twitch or something like that? Or start a "follow along with me" draw session? I just talked to my brother yesterday, he is a branding genius and I learned a TON in just 30 minutes of talking to him. His boys are obsessed with an artist on YouTube that draws monsters (I forget his name, I'll have to ask him again) and he literally films himself drawing, with a voice-over and it's not fancy. But his boys LOVE it. And they sit and draw along! It's sooo so cool to hear things like this.
Sometimes you just need a fresh approach. Hugs to you!!! Hope this helps!
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@Mimi-Simon Hi Mimi!
Before I got an agent, I worked as a picture book illustrator for about 4 years on my own. My first book project with a publisher was when I submitted not only my portfolio but also a possible book project, they accepted it and we started working on that, later on, we collaborated on other projects as well. Thanks to this one book, other publishers in my country took notice of me and offered more work.
I would focus on smaller local publishers, and try to come up with your own book proposals (educational picture books, board books, picture books,...)
I also learned how to work in InDesign, how to layout a book, format a ready-to-print PDF and other publishing-related stuff - which was often a big thing for these small publishers.
Once I had my foot in the door with publishers in my country, the stream of incoming book projects was quite steady. I decided to find an agent because I wanted to focus on my own books and the US market, bigger publishers. But I am very grateful I could have this start with smaller publishers. It was an amazing work experience, very different from self-published authors.
Within the US market, what helped me get some book projects, was my Instagram. I try to keep it alive, and even though it's not giving me like a ton of book projects, from time to time an editor contacts me for a possible work... (I mention instagram because it's totally unrelated to me having an agent)
Hope my tips help you a bit. Good luck! -
Postcards used to be the go-to but I'm not sure how many art directors are back in the office and checking their mail regularly. I think trying to find emails for art directors a sending them a few low-res sample images is likely time better spent than printing and mailing postcards.
Make sure your SCBWI portfolio page is up to date and you've tagged your images with common phrases someone may be searching for. I've received a few inquiries from people discovering me through my illustrator gallery now that they've improved the tagging and search.
Your style looks like it could be great for chapter book covers. Have you tried creating some mock book covers for your portfolio? If you do that and send it out to art directors who specifically work on chapter books I bet you could find success there.
I think your style could fit really well with a publisher like Cottage Door Press but the images you show on your website and instagram are too mature for their target audience. If you want to get work with them you may need to focus on creating a series of pieces starring farm animals or pre-k to kindergarten age kids.
There are many sites you can use to help promote yourself. There are sites where you can pay to be part of a database (like childrensillustrators.com or hireanillustrator.com). You'll have to weigh whether the cost is worth it for you.
There is also reedsy.com. It's like Upwork or Fiverr but with more ethical pricing practices and it's only focused on gig work for publishing and self publishing.
Try and focus your social media efforts around creating more visibility with publishers, art directors, editors, and authors. Creating process videos or doing live drawing sessions will likely only attract other artists and illustrators which isn't going to help you get work. Look for and respond to art directors asking for portfolios. Mallory Grigg and Brian LaRossa used to post on twitter all the time looking for specific things but I think they've changed platforms and I'm not sure to where. Identify publishers you want to work with (smaller publishers or specific imprints will likely work better than trying to target Penguin or Macmillan). Follow them and engage with their content, reply to them with relevant piece of your work instead of just posting images to your own feed.
Hope some of these ideas help!
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@Mimi-Simon Querying is tedious but worth it! The main key is follow up. It's not about how many different companies you query, it's about how many emails you send to the same company. After 3-4 emails, most companies will reply even if just to say no. I usually email once a month with a couple new art pieces to show them!
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@mag Thank you for sharing your experience. My plan is that once I have my portfolio ready to start contacting local publishers first, I was wondering how useful is to have book proposals ready here
If you don't mind asking me do you have some more tips specifically for Czech/Slovak market like which events are worth attending for example? I am not sure if anyone here will benefit from it except from me but you never know βοΈIn any case, thank you for your time. -
They've talked about agents and stuff for several podcasts. This is some of the stuff I remember:
For finding an agent, they mentioned that it takes several emails (like 5 times) reaching out to each person, and helps if you talk about stuff more personal to them for why you want to work with them.
Art directors are going to be more interested in someone who can write AND illustrate over just an illustrator. So it might help if you make illustrations of story idea projects, and prep the beginning of a manuscript.
And include the work you did with self-publishers especially the covers.I noticed you have a few illustrations that say there's a book dummy, maybe add sequential art for each of them to show more of the story? You might want to also include cover art as portfolio pieces.
If you need a checklist for self-critiquing, Will Terry has a big "100 things" checklist for portfolio stuff, I believe it's called "portfolio perfection" the goal is to have each illustration check off multiple things.
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@evka8D Ahoj Evka! Another central European here I guess?
I can't recommend any specific events. I like to go to the SvΔt Knihy in Prague (Book World Fair), I was in Bologna, but neither seemed to help in promoting me as a picture book illustrator.
What was a real help was sending the physical postcards, since publishers here are not that used to receiving them, this probably stood out. But then again, what helped me to get my foot in the door was my own project, which got accepted and helped me to get more book projects unrelated to my first picture book. -
@mag Oh yeah I didn't expect to meet someone from "our region" here tbh I was thinking about going to Svet knihy but when I found out it's during ice hockey championship I gave up on that plan quickly. It would be too early to show anything anyways so maybe next year, hopefully I saw that you're coming tho, wish you good luck and thanks for that tip.
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For what is worth I have an account with guru.com. It's an online freelance artist site that connects you with people looking for people to do projects. This is where I've had a few good connections but for the most part I was just shocked at how the clients want a whole lot for very little cash and all your art rights , so keep that in mind. It was good for me to learn how to communicate with clients, set limits, learn about contracts, and learn a lot from my mistakes. They take a percentage of your pay but it's been years since I booked work through them so I'm not sure what it is now. They notify you when jobs match your description and you can choose to bid if you want.
Once I did the initial job I also continued to work outside of guru with some clients so fees were avoided.