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How do you mar­ket your­self as an illus­tra­tor? Whether you’re a sea­soned pro­fes­sion­al or just start­ing out, the answer is prob­a­bly the same—you do it online. But there’s an art to dig­i­tal mar­ket­ing, and it starts with your web­site. While many peo­ple (includ­ing myself) like to post their lat­est work on social media, hav­ing a web­site is vital to main­tain­ing your inter­net pres­ence. It’s a one-stop-shop where your poten­tial clients can learn about you.

In my years of look­ing for the lat­est and great­est in illus­tra­tion and embroi­dery, I find it the most help­ful when some­one has a site where I can see both their work and have a way to con­tact them if necessary.

You can be a com­plete cod­ing novice and still have a great-look­ing web­site. It does­n’t have to have a ton of bells and whis­tles on it; in fact, I pre­fer it did­n’t. I don’t want to have to click through a bunch of ani­ma­tions and com­plex menus because it’s not the rea­son I’m vis­it­ing your site in the first place. (I’m there to see your work!) The online port­fo­lio site For­mat knows this, and they’ve made it eas­i­er than ever to have a beau­ti­ful and pro­fes­sion­al web­site with­out all the has­sle (like coding).

Right now, Format is offering a two-week free trial—no credit card required!

For­mat fea­tures 16 themes that range in their styles of lay­out. Some tile the images like you’d find on Pin­ter­est, while oth­er themes favor large, full-page images. But regard­less of the lay­out and fea­tures that you choose, the images are what shine. Every­thing is clean with a lot of white space, mak­ing them effort­less and not fussy. Best of all, their respon­sive design ensures that your work looks great on any device. You’ll just need to focus on upload­ing your illus­tra­tions and craft­ing the per­fect bio.

And if you need assis­tance, the 24/7 For­mat Suc­cess Team will help you launch your online pres­ence.  So go ahead—build your web­site on For­mat. Start and today and get a two-week tri­al. There’s no cred­it card required!

Once you’ve got your web­site pol­ished, tell every­one. Put it on busi­ness cards! Your email sig­na­ture. Your Insta­gram pro­file. Keep track of who looks at it (and where) with Google Analytics.

Once you’re done building your website, research who pays illustrators (and how much).

It’s also impor­tant to know how much you should be mak­ing once you get that cov­et­ed gig. By know­ing how much oth­ers charge for a job, you—and others—are help­ing to ensure that fel­low illus­tra­tors aren’t under­charg­ing for their hard work.

For­mat has recent­ly pub­lished a help­ful resource that gives you an idea of how much illus­tra­tors are mak­ing. Who Pays Illus­tra­tors (And How Much) removes the “cloak of secre­cy” around free­lance illus­tra­tion jobs. They asked illus­tra­tors in their com­mu­ni­ty for real-world exam­ples of rates they received for pub­li­ca­tions such as The New Repub­lic, Buz­zFeed, Harp­er Collins, and The New York­er. The short descrip­tions also give you an idea of the read­er­ship and tips for how to sub­mit your work.

This post is sponsored by Format but words and opinions are my own. Thanks for supporting the brands that support Brown Paper Bag!