Promotional and Sales Technique for Illustrators 00 "Prologue"
- MORI Ryuichiro
- May 23
- 7 min read
(This lecture is written based on the circumstances of the illustration industry in Japan and on Japanese law.)
There are three essential pillars for making a living through illustration.
Specifically, they are the following:
Artistic ability
Personal qualities: manners, character, initiative, negotiation skills, and so on
Promotional and sales technique: promotion, sales, marketing, branding, and so on
When these three strengths come together, an illustrator becomes able to make a living.
1. Artistic Ability
Since you are an illustrator, you must first have artistic ability. This is the fundamental prerequisite for making a living.
However, simply being good at drawing is not enough to make a living.
Nor is it enough simply to create good artwork.
Unless you can create illustrations that are skillful, appealing, and lead to actual work, you cannot make a living as an illustrator.
More specifically, the following eight abilities are necessary:
Technical skill
A distinctive worldview
Good taste
Expressive ability
Broad appeal
A sense of the times
Flexibility: the ability to respond flexibly to any request from a client
Originality
I will explain these eight abilities in detail at another time.
2. Personal Qualities
The second pillar is personal qualities.
If a client who once commissioned you never comes back with a second job, the issue may lie in your character or professional conduct.
For example:
Meeting deadlines
Being courteous and having proper manners as a working professional
Without these basic human and professional qualities, clients will not feel that they want to commission you again.
I also plan to give a lecture on these personal qualities in the future.
3. Promotional and Sales Technique for Illustrators
The lectures beginning from this point will focus on promotional and sales technique for illustrator.
I will be writing them at a pace of twice a month.
They will contain strategies and advanced know-how related to promotion, sales, marketing, branding, and more—knowledge specialized for professional illustrators that you will not be taught anywhere else.
I will share these lessons with the hope that you will succeed as a professional illustrator.
“As Long as You Create Good Artwork, Work Will Come” Is an Illusion
Many people believe that “as long as you create good artwork, work will come.”
This phrase has a certain shining appeal that anyone aiming to become an illustrator wants to cling to.
Even when work is scarce, repeating those words like a spell can somehow make you feel reassured.
I, too, once believed in those words.
I repeated them to myself again and again, like a spell, to ease my anxiety.
But—
When you look at reality, it is obvious that this is not true.
There are many people who create truly wonderful illustrations, yet cannot make a living as illustrators.
When I was working as a graphic designer, I had already been selected for and won awards in several illustration competitions.
I assumed that this meant I would be able to succeed as an illustrator.
However, when I actually began working as an illustrator, I could not make a living at all.
At the time, I often had opportunities to meet emerging illustrators at award ceremonies and similar events.
The illustrators I met there all created wonderful work.
And yet, almost none of them were making a living solely through illustration.
Even if they created good artwork, were selected for or won well-known competitions, or were featured prominently in illustration magazines, most of them struggled because they could not make a living through illustration.
Here, I must clearly state a fact that many aspiring illustrators probably do not want to acknowledge.
The idea that “as long as you create good artwork, work will come” is an illusion.
No matter how excellent your artwork may be, that alone will not enable you to make a living.
Then Is Making a Living Simply a Matter of Luck?
Back when I was still active as an illustrator, I thought, “In the end, whether you can make a living or not comes down to luck.”
But now, I believe that this was wrong.
Certainly, if your artwork is good, there may be days when work happens to come your way by luck.
But if you ask whether that kind of luck can continue steadily for years or decades, such cases are extremely rare.
People who buy lottery tickets believe in the illusion that “I might win next time.”
They believe it and keep buying tickets again and again.
Most people lose.
A very small number of people win a large prize.
But there is no one who continues to win large prizes steadily and indefinitely.
Luck does not last forever.
Working as an illustrator while relying on luck is not so different from continuing to buy lottery tickets.
There certainly are illustrators who happen to obtain work through good fortune, but most people cannot do so.
And there is also no one who can continue to obtain work steadily and consistently through luck alone.
In other words—
“People who rely on luck do not succeed.”
That is the truth.
Until Around 1990, Good Artwork Alone Could Bring Work
In Japan, there was once an era when good artwork alone could bring work.
That period was roughly from 1960 to around 1990.
At that time, as long as you created good artwork, work would come.
Why was that?
The answer is simple.
There were still very few illustrators.
At the time, both the publishing world and the advertising industry were hungry for new talent.
According to veteran illustrators I have spoken with, simply having their work introduced in the magazine Illustration published by Genkosha would bring in several phone calls requesting work.
Today’s veteran illustrators received plenty of work even without relying on marketing knowledge.
For that reason, many of them consider marketing knowledge to be somehow improper or unorthodox.
However, times have changed.
There are now too many illustrators.
The field is oversupplied.
Even if your work is featured in Illustration magazine, it will rarely lead to work.
We are now in an era where the experience and knowledge of veteran illustrators who were active from 1960 to 1990 no longer apply.
“Red Ocean” and “Blue Ocean”
Blue Ocean Strategy by W. Chan Kim and Renée Mauborgne is a historic masterpiece among books on marketing.
In that book, the concepts of “red ocean” and “blue ocean” are presented.
A “red ocean” refers to a market crowded with many competitors, where competition is so fierce that it is as if rivals are fighting until the water is stained with blood.
In order to beat many competitors, businesses often end up lowering their prices.
Despite the hardship involved, profits remain very low.
A “blue ocean,” on the other hand, refers to a peaceful market with few or no competitors.
There is no need to fight rivals.
Despite requiring less struggle, it is possible to generate high profits.
Now let us apply this concept to the illustration industry.
Until around 1990, Japan’s illustration industry was a blue ocean.
Because there were not enough illustrators, work came steadily as long as one created good artwork.
However, around 1980, the number of young people aspiring to become illustrators suddenly increased.
The emergence of one new-talent competition after another also played a major role.
At the venues where submissions were accepted, long lines of young people hoping to become illustrators would form.
It was from these competitions that star illustrators such as Katsuhiko Hibino emerged.
More than forty years have passed since then.
There are now even more competitions for discovering illustrators.
Schools and classes teaching illustration have also increased.
The number of young people aspiring to become illustrators continues to grow.
When you look online, you will find an astonishing number of self-proclaimed illustrators.
Many of them display phrases such as “Available for work.”
No one knows exactly how many illustrators there are.
It is said that around 10,000 people in Japan file their tax returns under the occupation of illustrator.
Some survey appears to have produced a figure of 800,000.
Reference page:
There are not many industries with this many competitors.
Today’s illustration industry is the ultimate red ocean.
Rely Not on Luck, but on Knowledge of Branding and Marketing
Being chosen from among such a vast number of competitors is almost like winning the lottery.
But do we really have no choice but to rely on luck?
Is there no way to make a living in this ultimate red ocean?
There is a way.
And I will teach you that method.
There are companies that succeed even in red oceans.
For example, in the beer industry—an ultimate red ocean—a beer server became an exceptional hit.
“Breaking Away from ‘Buy It and That’s It’: What Is the ‘New Beer Experience’ Kirin Beer Is Aiming for Through Subscription?”
Another example is Koikeya, which has produced a series of exceptional hits in the snack industry, another ultimate red ocean.
“Becoming Part of People’s Lives: The Essence of Marketing According to Koikeya’s Marketing Director, Who Has Produced One Hit Product After Another”
In the chocolate industry, also an ultimate red ocean, Meiji’s “The Chocolate” became an exceptional hit.
“Why Did Meiji’s ‘The Chocolate’ Succeed? A Former Nikkei MJ Editor-in-Chief Discusses the Conditions for a Hit Product”
After retiring as an illustrator, I read voraciously through books on marketing, branding, business strategy, sales, promotion, and related fields.
The number of books I read reached several hundred.
What I found there was a world I had never known.
Many brilliant minds have studied the secrets of business success and left behind numerous great books.
Blue Ocean Strategy is one such book.
Reading those books changed the way I saw the world.
For someone like me, who had studied only art, it was a succession of fresh surprises.
Whether a business succeeds or not is not a matter of luck.
Being an illustrator is also a form of business.
Just like a company, an illustrator cannot succeed through luck alone.
There may be times when you are blessed with good fortune.
But luck can never continue forever.
If you truly want to make a living through illustration—
Do not rely on luck.
Rely on knowledge such as branding and marketing.
Through books, we can gain knowledge that brilliant minds struggled intensely to develop.
By putting into practice what those brilliant people thought through, we can go beyond the limits of what we can accomplish on our own.
For us, the knowledge written down by those brilliant minds is a pair of wings that can carry us over the walls of our limitations.
Let us actively borrow the minds of those geniuses.
The curtain has now risen on this series of lectures filled with strategies and advanced know-how related to promotion, sales, marketing, branding, and more—specialized specifically for professional illustrators.
From the next installment, the lectures will begin in earnest.
That is all for this time.
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