There *is* lots of work out there for illustrators, I promise

Y'might just need to tweak a couple of things.

Here’s a quick video I made for you all about it. I’m not completely delusional, I’ve just noticed a couple of things that keep cropping up and it hurts me to see illustrators crying that there’s no work out there when that’s JUST NOT TRUUUUE.

In case you’re not in a video-watching mood, here it is in written words instead.

There’s PLENTY of work - I promise

It’s one of my pet peeves - the stuff illustrators say about how there’s no work out there. I was going to plan this out and, like, write a script as I usually do for YouTube, but today, I’ve got 20 minutes before I need to move my car. I don’t want another parking ticket, so let’s dive straight in.

I've been illustrating since 2012, and in that time there have been plenty of times where it felt like there was absolutely noooo work. I worried I'd end up needing to get a "normal" job forever. Now, it’s 2024, and I’m a full-time illustrator; this is how I make my income.

Here's the thing I’ve realised over the years: there is loads of illustration work. If you’re not getting the work you want, it might mean tweaking a few things to help clients find you and understand how you can help them.

Where do *you* fit in the illustration industry?

The illustration/creative industry is huge. From picture books to editorial work, live event illustrations to maps, there are so many paths you can take. Clients just need to feel reassured that you’re the illustrator for the job. Yes, yes, creating good work is part of it, but it’s not the whole equation.

I used to think that if I just worked hard enough, clients would magically find me. (Ma pal

Jennifer M Potter

said it so well in her Substack post about the JUST DRAW HARDER mentality 😅) But that’s not how it works.

I noticed that illustrators who were best at marketing - the ones who consistently shared their work and talked about what they were up to - were the ones having the best time out there career-wise. Because clients knew they existed!

Clients are scared of hiring you

It’s your job to try to calm them down. Those dreamy clients ARE out there, but they want to be nice an’ confident that they’re hiring someone who’s going to do the creative work that they need. They’re going to want to see consistent examples of your work, so there are no surprises on deadline day.

If you’re just starting out, I know it can feel like a really bloody frustrating chicken-and-egg situation.

You want clients, but you haven’t been hired by anyone yet. Here’s my advice: hire yourself. Commission yourself for the kind of work you want to be doing, and show it to the world! You can label it as self-initiated work; clients just need to see what you can do. Get it oot there. In the wise words of Seth Godin, ship it. No brownie-hoarding here, please.

Make work, share work

It’s annoyingly simple - make work and share it. Learn as much as you can about SEO, positioning, and all the boring marketing stuff. (Spoiler alert: it’s really not that boring. Once you get into it, and it starts working, it is soooo exciting.)

There are so many clients out there begging for illustrators like you. I wish I could tell you how many times I get requests in my inbox for types of illustration I don’t even do. It’s hard to recommend someone unless I’ve recently seen their work pop up online somewhere. Keep popping up and reminding the world you exist.

The 3 things to tweak

Ultimately, there are three key things to think about if you’re not getting work:

1. Quality – Is your work at the level it needs to be?
   One of my favourite things about being an illustrator is that you aaalways get to improve. Always. It’s never over.

2. Visibility – Are you sharing your work consistently?
   Remember the brownies thing.

3. Communication – Is it nice and clear how your work solves a client’s problem?
   Your work itself might just obviously say HELLOO, I SOLVE THE PROBLEM YOU HAVE, DREAM CLIENT. Don’t worry too much about this one unless you know you’ve got #1 and #2 nailed and you’re still not getting as much illustration work as you'd like.

We’ve just started our latest live round of the Business Course at The Good Ship Illustration, which covers all this stuff in depth. If you’re interested, here’s a link to join the waiting list for next time :) Be lovely to see you in there.

OK.

That’s all. Byeee.

x Katie

WAIT, BEFORE I FORGET -

Helen Stephens

(excellent pal & another 1/3 of The Good Ship Illustration) is going to be keynote talking at the SCBWI British Isles Conference in that there London. Joseph Coelho is talking too. It’ll be so good!

If you’ve done ANY of our Good Ship Illustration courses, keep your ears pricked up for an email, ‘cos Helen’s bagged you a nice shiny discount code (oooh). We’ll send it out later on this week.

If you’re not a Good Ship student you can just go on ahead and book your ticket for the SCBWI Conference here.