Do I need loads of followers to get illustration work?

The Good Ship Illustration

In this live Q&A session, Katie and Helen from The Good Ship Illustration discuss the practicalities of running a freelance illustration bus

Key takeaways

• Avoid running separate Instagram accounts for different niches; it increases workload without significant benefit to viewers.
• Utilize long-scale SEO keywords, such as specific geographic locations, to help potential clients find your website via Google.

Main topics

• Instagram management
• SEO for illustrators

Notable quotes

An idiot with momentum is better than an idiot crying about eating a frog.

Conclusion

The episode provides actionable, mindset-driven advice for illustrator

Transcript preview

Speaker 1 (0:00) We are doing, it's a live podcast we've called it, but it's a business, illustration business Q &A session and I hope we have questions because we're ready to answer them. The reason we're doing this live podcast is because the doors to the business course, our illustration business club, Speaker 2 (0:39) the Speaker 1 (0:40) doors open. Oh, we might get some people Speaker 2 (0:42) running through the door now. I'm going to read the comments. So Blaise Butler-Arts says, I don't just want to do children's illustration. I want to do both. But then my Instagram is too mixed age. Should I keep it separate? I wouldn't keep it separate. I think it's far too much work to run into Instagram accounts. Also, you might think the work looks really different, but from the outside, it probably all looks very much like you. Speaker 2 (1:11) I think it's really interesting to see somebody's work across the board and if you think about people like our friend Louise Lockhart, Printed Peanut and Johnny Hanna, they do children's books and they do loads of other stuff and they have one Instagram account with all their stuff on it and it looks great. Speaker 1 (1:28) Yeah and if you think of it as a viewer when you see some illustrators work and you see different things you don't say that's not for the same age group like you just think oh there's some different bits of their work that's cool. So yeah, I think because we're so close to our own stuff, it's so easy to overthink it, isn't it? Speaker 2 (1:43) I think it is. And it's just so much work trying to run two accounts. You're just giving yourself extra work. And I think people would just be interested in seeing all of the different aspects Speaker 1 (1:52) of your work. Oh, there's Speaker 2 (1:55) loads of questions coming in. Speaker 1 (1:56) Shall I fire some at you? Let's go back a bit. So that was... Lots of people in their bedrooms. Yay! shout out yeah if we miss your question it's nothing personal it's just moving very quickly so this one is from bookworm illustration i did have one question if that's okay yes it's okay it's about the business club are there limited spaces i don't get paid until wednesday is all thanks so it's not limited spaces but we do shut the doors at the end so we just got the open doors for a short period and if you want to be an early bird you have to join before midday on Wednesday and that means you get to come to our pricing workshop so we're doing a pricing workshop just for early birds yeah Speaker 2 (2:38) and I was going to say that we now have we've always had an option where you can pay the whole thing in one go and then we've had a two or three pay option I think we've got the one pay option the two pay and this time for the first time you can spread it over 10 payments which is brilliant because there is so much in the business club it's really like just joining a club and you've got us for life even if you don't want us anymore we're still here and we keep adding new stuff to the course and it gets bigger and bigger and bigger so i think 10 payments makes it seem it feels far easier to do and there is definitely enough work to keep going beyond those first 10 Speaker 1 (3:17) months Yeah, there's people that were in Business Club like last year and the year before and they've been, I've had a couple of messages this week being like I'm so excited to get into the live round. So actually if you are a previous business course person say hello in the chat because you can reassure people that it's real. Amy Pimpleton says what's the best way to organise my website when my income streams are selling cards and prints, children's book illustrations and live fashion illustration? Thank you. Speaker 2 (3:44) You could do that kind of gate method on the front of your website, couldn't you? So that your very first page, you click where you want to go on that opening page. Speaker 1 (3:55) Yeah, I think your navigation sort of organises it, doesn't it? Speaker 2 (3:58) Yeah, you could either have it on the front opening page or you could have it in your navigation at the top. I don't think it's a problem. It Speaker 1 (4:08) also depends how people are finding you. So if you've got your search engine optimisation, working then it doesn't matter too much because people will just jump straight onto the page that you've optimized for so they're getting if they've typed in children's book illustration and your stuff comes up Speaker 2 (4:21) straight Speaker 1 (4:21) in there or if they've typed in fashion illustration they'll be straight in there um we do cover seo in the course because i love it so much it's my favorite thing Speaker 2 (4:30) katie is like the brains of SEO she's so good at it so good at it really targeted and you love it as well don't you I do I think I love it because it works that's Speaker 1 (4:42) why yeah like I just do a little bit of boring fiddling and then it brings in exciting jobs and I get money what maybe explain what SEO does like the power of it what what does it do yeah so the power of it is basically using the words people might type into google to find you using them very intentionally on your website so when they google those words you pop up so and before i'd even heard of it i was like i wonder how this like how does google know what i want to search for and it's because people are so on purpose like naming things putting the words on and now with ai that's like disrupted seo a lot but it's the basics like the bones of seo are the same which is Google's goal is to get people really useful results. So if you can just make your website really useful and answer people's questions, then that's how it works. Speaker 2 (5:30) When you set up as a live illustrator, you immediately fixed your SEO, didn't you? And put all of the search words live illustrator, live illustrator in the northeast. You put any variation you could think of and that immediately got you a Speaker 1 (5:45) lot Speaker 2 (5:45) of work. Speaker 1 (5:46) Yeah, I think I was already accidentally working and then when I did an SEO course for the first time, three days later I started getting enquiries, which was wild. I think that might have been partly because I'd been blogging for a long time so my website had some domain Speaker 2 (6:00) authority. Speaker 1 (6:01) But still, I feel like if you do it a tiny bit on purpose and if you've had a website for a little while, that's a bonus. But if you haven't, you can still make it work. Speaker 2 (6:12) So say you were an illustrator who did like house portraits or something like that, you could really go to town on your SEO about house portraits. Yeah, and Speaker 1 (6:23) it's like the more specific you get, like if it's a long tail thing, like if you're in a geographical location, you want to do house portraits in Bristol, for instance, it's probably going to be way easier to rank for house portraits Bristol versus house portraits. Like the word illustration, it's pretty much impossible to rank for. I mean, you probably could if you really, really tried, but it'd be so hard and pointless and like, what's somebody searching for if they search illustration? But if they search for like illustrator in Cornwall who likes drawing a seaweed, like, yeah. Yeah. It's magic, isn't it? Speaker 2 (6:53) So good. So good. Casting spells. Like a secret power, isn't it? So good. Speaker 1 (6:58) And Speaker 2 (6:59) it's Speaker 1 (6:59) private as well, which is good. Speaker 2 (7:01) Yeah. Yeah. You often talk about there are illustrators who go out looking for work, send out samples. approach people, approach art directors and stuff but you say you lie down in the middle of the road so your SEO is like you lying down in the middle of the road and people stumble over you. Speaker 1 (7:18) Yeah I'm lying there and then they follow me like were you looking for a live illustrator? That's what I do. Oh I did, yes I was looking for that. Speaker 2 (7:28) That's so brilliant, I love it, it's so good. There's a question, sorry, from the Whispering Wild. What are publishers looking for in a portfolio? Is there things we should definitely be showing? I do lots of character studies, but I'm assuming I need background type layouts, etc. I would never make a list of things you need in your folio because publishers are really wanting you to be you. So they want to know what you're interested in. They want to know your passions because those books make the best books when the illustrator and the author are completely... fascinated by that thing. So if you're crazy about drawing, let's think, children at the beach or collecting mushrooms or, I don't know, maybe you love drawing haunted houses, I would say really, really dive into that. heavy and have a folio that's full of spooky haunted images. I mean it doesn't have to be 100 % that but if those are your passions and if you say you love decorative pattern or something really lean into it. Of course you do need characters in your folio although there are people who don't like drawing children but they're brilliant at drawing animals and then their folio is full of animals and that's good. There's lots of illustrators who who specialize mostly in books about animals. So I wouldn't like to tell you what to have in New Folio. I think that's too prescriptive. And we wouldn't see your best work then because we need to know what you're passionate about. Speaker 1 (9:02) If you think of Ailey O'Mara getting obsessed with whales and then she got a book commissioned off the back of her whale portraits because people can sense when you're having a really good time, can't they? And if you're doing stuff that you're really into, they'll be like, oh, there's something magic here. Speaker 2 (9:17) Yeah. And when you think about Catherine Rayner, her fantastic fascination with animals and her animals are brilliant. And it wasn't until very recently that she did a book with children in it. She didn't have children in her folio for years and years and years. Really established illustrator, loved drawing animals and she leaned into it. And publishers just want to see what you're passionate about, which is good news. You can just be yourself. Yeah. We can do Speaker 1 (9:42) that. Foggy Bombers has just signed up. hey you probably the first in you're an early bird as well so we'll see you on wednesday for the pricing course thingy the pricing workshop um and yeah somebody was asking does lifetime access mean i can ask questions for future live calls Speaker 2 (10:01) Yeah. Speaker 1 (10:03) So Speaker 2 (10:03) on the live round, there are three. The first on this round, there will be three live calls for this round. But everybody who has joined the course in the past and you have lifetime access, all of those people are given access to these live calls and you will in future as well. If you join now, every live call, you will get an invite. You're stuck with us. Speaker 1 (10:23) Yeah. Can't get rid of Speaker 2 (10:24) us. Speaker 1 (10:26) Angie and Olive says, I did the course last year and it is very informative. I can't wait for it to start again. Speaker 2 (10:31) Hey, and Sherry says I'm a previous one still not finished but not panicking. Yeah, no panicking allowed. The course isn't going anywhere. You can do it at your own Speaker 1 (10:40) pace. We have a very strict no panicking policy. Yeah. Speaker 1 (10:46) Lots of Speaker 2 (10:47)