Another excellent podcast episode, with lots of food for thought. I have a minor comment, a question - or rather a topic for discussion, and maybe a suggestion for a future episode.
Minor comment: the Caldecott gets mentioned very frequently here and in many other videos and lessons on SVS in connection with highly successful book illustrators. For a while, I saw it a bit as the Holy Grail of children book publishing: the one thing that would allow a children illustrator to relax and enjoy the creative side of illustration. Then I realized that both the Caldecott and its corresponding writing award - the Newbery - are reserved for US citizens or residents only. While being aware that the goal is too lofty to be relevant for career planning, I still get a twinge of regret every time it's mentioned. Maybe it would be nice to mention other awards or accolades that foster an independent creator career and are less restrictive in their terms. Will mentioned the librarian association awards, for example. I think there are quite a few international artists here on SVS (and of course in the world in general) that would be interested in knowing that there is a range of goals worth achieving, rather than "the Caldecott takes it all".
Topic for discussion: The episode mentions the two types of artists: the one that focusses only on one thing and the ones that differentiate on a range of markets and opportunities. I've always wondered wether there is an "opportunity cost" with the latter choice. Is it possible that you really need to focus on one thing to reach a certain "status" within that specific area? To keep the metaphor of the table, maybe to put more legs under it you're actually taking what could be a really tall single leg and cutting it in shorter pieces - you have a stable table, maybe, but it's lower than it could be. It's again the old discussion of the specialist vs generalist. Since I have a day job doing editorial illustration and two kids and really want to write as well as illustrate children books, I am exceedingly conscious of how I invest my time and more than aware that time is a very finite and rapidly exhausted resource. My concern is that you need to focus that resource on one thing to be able to peep out from the crowd.
Possible suggestion for future episode: in relation to royalties, what can you do as illustrator to boost the sales of your book? Is that a thing at all or does the publisher take full ownership of marketing? What are the pros and cons (if any) of book signing events and school visits? Should you build a personal brand? Can or should you hire a publicist? Should you approach bloggers and how do you go about that? How do you collaborate with the author, especially when you don't live in the same corner of the world? I hear more and more that marketing is a collaborative effort between publisher and authors/illustrators and that terrifies me - also because resources are few and tend to focus on local circumstances. I understand this is a very narrow topic, but maybe it could be considered within the scope of a wider episode on self-marketing...