That ART REP Thing
To Be Repped Or Not To Be Repped?
AMERICAN SHOWCASE: The old school bible of illustration representation.
Prefer a downloadable PDF? Get it here.
Here's an example of where my career was starting to bridge over from TRADITIONAL to DIGITAL. It was also the first job I had through my newly partnered art rep who I'll call, Sherry...because that was her name. It just so happens I was also nursing the hangover of my life!
Due to poor planning...or should I say pour planning (yes, I can hear you groaning) I celebrated with a friend the night before. I'm not sure what we were celebrating about but I didn't get home until 2am. My first meeting was 9am with my new Art Rep who'd contacted me out of the blue. I think a friend was working on a job that she had repped but there was too much work for him to complete it, so he recommended me. Unfortunately, I ended up being a lot faster than my friend and so at some point, she stopped repping him. Our friendship was bruised by that somewhat and we haven't really spoken since.
The way the situation worked was I'd get $50 an hour and she could keep me busy as much or as little as I wanted. She'd charge the client $70 overall so, her motivation to keep us working was pretty high, too. At the time I really needed the money as I was freelancing for only one other studio, Surreal software, the place that fired me from my Art Lead position, and then hired me as a freelancer the next day. It was a very weird situation and I continued to work with them for a few years making more than I did when I was there.
Anyway, the deal with Sherry worked out well because I was getting a lot of different jobs with a wide range of clients.
Nowadays it's not uncommon for Art Reps to take 25% of your earnings. They may or may not be able to keep you busy all the time. Unlike having worked with Sherry who had a fairly shallow bench of artists many Art Reps and Collectives have A LOT OF ARTISTS either because there are fewer of them out there or they want to offer more variety in their portfolio.
In the 90s many artists who wanted to get their work seen sought representation. They would spend easily $5k a year for a single page in books like AMERICAN SHOWCASE that many (if they were lucky would split with their art reps).
You have to understand, the internet was in its infancy, and this was one of two main ways people from just in the U.S. were able to get their work seen. It was either through a showcase, your last few jobs, or lugging around your portfolio of original art and tear sheets. That's why a distinctive art style was like your signature. People could recall it or ask for you specifically.
As the shift in Illustration continued to shrink and things were moving to digital one of the larger art brokers was Cullen & Rapp, now called RAPP ART. I've mentioned SHANNON ASSOCIATES, too, in the past and you see by their roster that's a lot of 25%s to collect...but are these artists making a living? Hard to know. But if you're interested there are still smaller literary agencies out there looking to work with talent directly and are open to submissions:
ACM kids and illustration
Advocate Art
Andrea Brown Literary
Astound
Azantian
Britt Seiss Literary Agency
Irened Goodman Literary Agency
Birch Path Literary
Bookends Literary Agency
Context Literary Agency
Darley Anderson Illustration
Dystel, Goderich & Bourret LLC
Erin Murphy Literary Agency
Folio Jr.
Full Circle Literary
Fuse Literary
Gallt & Zacker Literary Agency
Golden Wheat Literary
Great Dog Literary
HG Literary
Illo Agency
Keyes Agency LLC
KT Literary
Lemonade Illustration Agency
LK Literary Agency
Sean McCarthy Literary Agency
New Leaf Literary
Pippin Properties
The Plum Agency
PS Literary Agency
Red Fox Literary
Rees Literary Agency
Rodeen Literary Management
Root Literary
Sanford J. Greenberger & Assoc.
Stimola Literary Studio
Speilburg Literary
Spinning Yarn Rep
The Artworks Inc.
The Seymour Agency
the Tobias Agency
The Bent Agency
The Cat Agency
Tugeau 2
Upstart Crow Literary
Writers House
Granted much of these are for a younger audience, but when it comes to freelance no stone should be left unturned. Who knows, if freelance gets any dryer, I might be revamping my website to accommodate such future prospects. In the meantime, happy hunting!
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