At last, here is real practical help for budding freelance illustrators. This book explains how to avoid the pitfalls that can ruin a career, with advice on crucial first impressions, how to create a portfolio and approach clients, how to negotiate contracts, and how to handle, deliver and bill the first job. It discusses setting up a studio, maintaining a steady flow of work and managing time and money, and provides information on successful self-promotion, self-publishing and the pros and cons of agents. Packed with useful tips gleaned from the author's own career and his work as an agent handling major artists in the US and UK, the book includes interviews with nine big-name illustrators. The reader benefits from their experience of starting out; what they learnt or noticed during the metamorphosis from student to professional; and what their expectations and experiences have been. In addition, art directors and commissioners describe the ways they like to be approached and the ways they really dislike.

Darrel Rees has worked as an illustrator since 1986, joining influential London studio The Big Orange' in 1992. In 1994 he co-founded illustration agency Heart (London and New York). He contributed to The Education of an Illustrator, edited by Steven Heller. He is a member of the Society of Publication Designers in New York and the D&AD in the UK, acting as a jury foreman on its awards scheme.