Let's get discoverable

Every month the Illoguild gang answer a question related to the world of children’s publishing and illustration. This month it’s all about how to become known. This might mean catching to attention of a literary or illustration agent, or a publisher, or selling a book, growing a social media presence… etc etc. I have written previously about how I was discovered by my agent, and you can read that here. In a nutshell, I was happily posting into the void everyday on Instagram, as I participated in the 100 day project. On day 72, an agent at Plum Pudding Illustration Agency (now The Plum Agency) reached out asking if I wanted representation, and the rest is history!

And that’s the end of the story, good night.

Don’t be daft, that’s CLEARLY just the beginning. So what happened next? I had my golden ticket and I skipped happily into the sunset, sat down at my desk and the work rolled in, right? It’s all free wheeling from there? No, ok, no, it’s not. This is when the hard work starts.

I guess my story is kind of unique because I got picked up by an agent so early, I did all my growing and made all my mistakes and terrible art with an agent. This is BRILLIANT because I had someone there to guide me and help me develop and I didn’t have to pay them a tonne of money (until I started earning, anyway). But this was also TERRIBLE because I had to be guided A LOT and do A LOT of developing all under the scrutiny of someone I was so desperate to impress. And, as anyone that’s done the work knows, you have to create a lot of bad art until you start making the kind of art you’re proud of, It’s just part of the journey. But how do you know the kind of bad art you’re creating is going to lead you to good art? And also, it can’t just be any old good art, but good art that is commercially appealing and makes people want to give you bucket loads of cash for the rest of your life. This, I feel, is the most important thing that I learned after I got my agent. Together we were able to figure out where my work would fit in the market, what sort of books I was suited to and where I could really flourish and also be happy and satisfied with the work I was producing.

When I think about this process, I see it as a good old Venn diagram:

This looks like painfully obvious stuff, but I think as creatives, we aren’t always allowed to admit that we want to earn money, and we need to sometimes change what we’re doing in order to do that. I LOVE drawing cats all day, but no one is going to pay me to do that (yet…) so I need to figure out other stuff I also like drawing, in case the world isn’t actually as cat-obsessed as I hope it is (I mean it definitely is, so the cat drawing market is quite saturated already…). Does this mean I’m selling out because I’m not blindly drawing cats all day? No it just means I want to draw all day and also be able to afford my mortgage interest payments. Lol of course I can’t afford that, but you get the idea.

It won’t be the case that every job hits right in the bulls eye: I love it ✅ I’m great at it ✅ it pays well ✅, but hopefully some will, hopefully most will. And then it’s ok if some are not so enjoyable, or I’m not so great at them, or they don’t pay as well. That’s for me to decide and reach a balance I am happy with. Working with my agent we discovered that my happy place was creating characters, especially older characters that might work well in a middlegrade book. I also have a design background, so didn’t need to shy away from working with text and image together. This is when I began creating Not a Book book covers - portfolio pieces that were fake books to show I could create a product that people would buy. Here are a few:

The exercise of thinking up a title, a narrative and creating the book cover around that was so much fun, and resulted in a few portfolio pieces that eventually lead to me getting work. And at the same time it really taught me what was required from a character that would make people want to pick a book up off a shelf and buy it. Suddenly the leap from seeing my art as a pretty picture in an instagram feed, to seeing it as a proper book people could hire me to create, was much smaller. Publishers no longer had to imagine how my books might look, they could see it. I was making it as easy as possible for them to know whether I was right for the job.

I feel so incredibly lucky that 3 years ago, my agent spotted my silly little lockdown portraits and saw the potential in me. But I have realised we can’t rely on that, hoping it will come to us. Even with an agent sending out my work directly to publishers, it took a long time before I was creating something that publishers wanted to buy. It’s important to take that leap and show them you can give them what they need. And keep showing them. Keep showing up, wherever you are active - I find Instagram and Twitter the best, and now maybe Threads?! Who knows, just keep going! And if you don’t have an agent, there are still so many ways you can get this kind of guidance. I have found a handful of professionals that offer reviews and mentoring services and I still use them regularly when I need advice or a fresh pair of eyes. Shout out the Sarah Horne who is super supportive, incredibly lovely and full of wisdom and knowledge. And of course, if you’re lucky enough to find a group of people that are willing to give you honest, constructive feedback, in return for you offering up your own advice, then that’s even better! I’m in a number of chat groups and critique groups that have helped me endlessly and I’m so grateful. And it is so inspiring to be able to join others on their journeys too.

Of course all our journeys and are stories are so totally, brilliantly unique, but I know we will all have similar themes that seem to define these journeys. Following a calling, having that feeling that maybe, just maybe you really could become and illustrator. And never giving up, even when it feels like no one is paying attention and you will never get noticed. I hope hearing little bits of my story is interesting to some of you, and I would really love to hear how your experiences have differed, or if you can relate to anything I have said. When faced with this question, it easy to think, ‘oh I am not known, I have nothing to say on this’, but if you allow yourself some time to reflect, you will see that the ‘you’ you are now has grown so much from the ‘you’ you were when you started this journey, so I would really encourage you to take the time to reflect on how far you have come.

I’m really excited to read how other Illoguilders have answered this question, I know Katie Stack has a brilliant online presence and makes everything look so effortless, read what she has to say here. And Carla has listed some brilliant strategies for making sure you stand out, no matter what stage you are at in your illustration career. Read Carla’s substack here.

Thanks for reading!