I emailed my portfolio to 180 art directors, this is what happened

Part 2 of my Bitching Pitching List™ saga.

Hi Late-Bloomers! My Substack has a bit blown-up since last I’ve posted so no pressure here, lol! I’m Valerie, I’m a graphic designer turned children’s book illustrator at 45! With the Late-Bloomer Club, I want to document my journey to being a published author/illustrator and show that you can reinvent your life at any age. Please take everything with a grain of salt: I don’t consider myself an expert, I’m just sharing what I did, and what I know from past experience.

Last week I finally pushed send to my introduction email to my art directors list¹! In this post, I will explain my process to getting to that point and what happened afterwards. But first, let’s recap!

Starting up - A year ago

I am a graphic/web designer by trade and, at 45, I punched a metaphorical “The hell with it!” into my head career and started my heart career: children’s book illustrator. I’ve been denying myself for too long and the time was finally right for me, so to speak. Read all about it here:

It’s Never Too Late: My Path to Illustration

Anyway, that was a year ago, and I’ve made so much progress since then. You need to understand: I was a total newbie in the publishing world. Sure, I designed books a while back (one was a cookbook, the other a home design one), but nothing in my portfolio showed any skillz in narrative illustrations.

When I first got serious about kidlit illustration, I took online classes and read a lot of blogs, watched Youtubes videos - I was a sponge!

Val! Why are you telling us this - you will ask - I thought you would tell us about your list!

Patience - grasshopper²! There are things you need to know and do before emailing art directors. I know this because when I first emailed them last year, I got crickets!

Things you need to have and do before emailing art directors

Is your Portfolio ready?

To put it straight: you need to create the best portfolio ever and present it in the simplest way.

When I first emailed art directors, I thought my work was decent enough. Boy was I wrong! I kept getting vague responses that my work was not quite there yet. I had no clue what was wrong with it; that changed when I finally got a mentor. It was an investment that paid off : all the online courses I took were too generic for me, I needed a clear direction and someone to guide me!

How do you know if your portfolio is ready?

You need around 20 strong pieces that represent what you are capable of doing. If you are going into children’s illustration, you need to demonstrate you can draw kids and animals. You also need to show you can illustrate in a narrative way (so a story), and that you can illustrate diverse settings and environments. Show off your personality and be intentional when designing a piece. That is my take and opinion on the subject, if you want an opinion on your portfolio, I strongly recommend heading out to The Illustration Dept. - Giuseppe has portfolio reviews and menthorships available. Worth every penny!

Is your website ready?

I wrote an entire post on how to have a professional website here:

Guidelines for Creating a Professional Portfolio Website

What I will add and insist upon is to make sure your homepage has your best work on it. Most art directors will click on the link you provide in your email and go no further. So make it count!

Do you have stats?

As in: do you have google analytic or any other way to analyse data for your website and newsletter. You will be happy to see that data - trust me!

Do you have a newsletter?

It could be Mailchimp or any other provider, but for Peete’s sake, don’t send a cc list email to 100 art directors, it’s unprofessional and cringy! If your website is on Squarespace, there is a newsletter function you can test out ( you get 3 free test before you need to pay premium ).

---

So back to my journey: while I was working on my portfolio, I was also gathering emails and names to build my Bitching Pitching List ( I’m ™ this!). You can read about how to collect those precious emails here:

How I started digging up names and emails for my art director's newsletter

I was adding about 10 emails a week and got up to 180 emails. I had agents, art directors, editors, publishers, designers, assistants on that list, and, since I’m a french speaking Canadian, I had a french and an english list to pitch to. BTW, I’m planning on getting to at least 300 emails for my next newsletter. There are so many peeps in this industrie, it’s bananas!

I decided to pitch 4 times a year: mid April, mid July, mid October and mid January. Publishers have seasons and you don’t want to send your email say the first of January because everybody is on a Holiday break, so a mid-month campaign seemed logical. I was ready, it was time to test out my new and improved portfolio.

Designing the introduction email

I sent an introduction email since it was the first time I was reaching out, but my future emails will have a somewhat similar feel. So random FAQ:

• It’s important to be straightforward and professional. Remember: Art directors are time sensitive.

• DO NOT USE AI TO WRITE THAT EMAIL. It will show, and people in publishing are usually opposed to it! Also: your voice is so much better than a one size fit all AI voice.

• Do not attach files, images, or PDF to your email. No need to put an image in your email either.

• Put url in the text, ie: this is my website. Nice and clean.

• Most newsletter software lets you customize an email with the recipient’s name, be sure to use that function when you mass email your list.

I’m showing you my email so you can see what I’ve sent. Please do not judge my english grammar - as I said before, english is my second language!

So the basic layout of my email is: first paragraph about myself, second about what I do, third is that I want to work with them. Simple, straightforward, take only a minute to read.

Before hitting send, make sure you test the email by sending it to yourself: check the links, double check for errors.

Email sent - then what?

So you need to manage your expectations: you probably won’t get a publishing deal the next day³. What you will see, is this:

And you will probably get new Instagram followers and other social media followers (my Substack has skyrocketed since the 14th!): notice who from your list started following you and perhaps add a note in your list.

I did get a couple of art directors writing back saying they liked my work and were putting me in their list of Illustrators. Not a deal yet, but still a win considering, again, that art directors have lots of emails and no time to respond to them all.

Next steps

What you want is to create and then nurture a business relationship with the art directors who took a step forward. I put a note beside the ones who did and responded with thanks to the ones who did emailed me back ( one said hi to my dog, so I responded back with thanks and a nap update on Java ). This is a long term strategy, in my next email I will probably send personalized ones to my VIP list, adding researched tidbit in the emails.

Next time I will email the list⁴ (which will have even more emails because I won’t stop my research), I will probably have a similar structure and add news if I have any. I’ll be sure to have new art in my portfolio too. Don’t forget that even though you’ve already emailed these people, they probably won’t remember you so having an introduction paragraph is a good idea. No need to mention you have already emailed them.

Did you just mass emailed your list!?

Yeah, I’m sure some of you will be scandalized: I wasn’t sure either at first. But honestly, I too don’t have the time to handcraft 200 emails. Did I offend some people? Who cares?! Nobody unsubscribe to my list! I did get some pass from agents, which I have removed from the list. And the art directors that replied back will have a nicer, personalized email next time.

I don’t want to bother them.

My mentor said to me multiple times:

It’s their JOB to find illustrators, you are helping them by reaching out (I’m paraphrasing, but you get the jist).

So stop that thought. Do you want this? Then put time and effort into your art, your career and your relationship. Simple.

Wow, you made it ‘til the end!

I hope my experience so far will help you get moving on your Bitching Pitching List™ and send your introduction email.

If you have any questions please ask in the comments!

Bises, Val xox

Website | Instagram

PSSST: Please share this post!

Updates:

May 14th - Just got my first illustration request after my introduction email (a month ago). THIS ACTUALLY WORK!!! Onwards!

June 16th - I was approached to illustrate a full children’s book today.

1. This was my face while doing that: 🥳

2. Star Wars nerd alert

3. Elmo sad

4. In mid-july