How to Find and Hire an Artist Representative

You can’t. Just kidding – but not really.

What is an Art Rep?

This is the illusion of the Art Rep: They are someone who has a load of clients looking for artists and are themselves looking for artists to match with their clients. They make money by taking a percentage of the deal they negotiate. This is all very askew of the truth.

Art Reps are a sales & marketing business, often with a staff. Professional Illustrators use Art Reps as their marketing department (or a part of their marketing department). Art Reps manage promotions, advertising, publicity (to a point), web sites and even face-to-face sales meetings and the artist pays them and all expenses out of their earnings. Art Reps also handle the billing directly to ensure their bills get paid. Art Reps charge anywhere from 20-30% plus expenses. So, when her Art Rep wants Echo to buy an ad in Workbook, which costs (for argument sake) $2,000. Echo’s next check from that Art Rep will show deductions for both the Art Rep’s fee and for the advertising cost (or a portion for several checks until the total has been paid). Some Art Reps get discounts from advertising channels (such as Workbook) that lowers the rate per page because they buy a lot of pages for their artists. Other Art Rep may also even eat some of the page cost out of their fee. Art Reps work very hard to gain relationships with clients who hire illustrators frequently. Some are even able to gain exclusive relationships – which doesn’t mean the client will use that Art Rep exclusively, but does mean that the client will work with Art Reps in general exclusively instead of hiring illustrators directly.

Having said all that, it might seem like the artist “HIRES” the Art Rep instead of the other way around – but that’s simplistic.

Why does an Illustrator want a rep? To gain access to more work, better paying work and even some exclusive work. It’s all about making money.

Why does an Art Rep want an Illustrator? To produce quality work over a long period of time for clients. It’s all about making money. Corporations and Ad Agencies don’t have time to sift through the tens of thousands of artists out there to find the good ones – so they rely on an Art Rep to weed through and only offer them the good ones. Art Reps live exclusively on reputation – and clients will only work with Illustrators and their Reps who will produce the highest quality art on demand and on time.

How do I convince an Art Rep to work with me?

So earning an Art Rep is not an easy process. It’s a dual interview to form a partnership of trust. The Art Rep has to prove that they can bring the Artist well-paying jobs. The Artist has a much harder job – they have to convince the Art Rep that they are worthy of their clients’ projects. That means several things at once.

1. Is the Art high enough quality that a client can be convinced it’s worth the money?
Art Reps deal in the corporate world with real budgets (usually) that include licensing, etc. The finished artwork is expected to make money for the client. If the artist can’t prove the art will make client’s money – then the Art Rep doesn’t need them. This is actually the easiest thing to convince an Art Rep of. Since they deal with so many artists on a daily basis, they can judge quality very quickly – so if you’ve got the chops, this will be an easy task for you.

2. Is the Art a style that they can sell?
This is a little harder. Some Art Reps specialize and some cater to particular tastes. An Advertising Art Rep might have a more broad range of talent than a publishing Art Rep. A Chicago Art Rep might need more Lowest-Common-Denominator-Friendly art than an LA Art Rep or vice versa. Some Art Reps like art and an illustrator, but just doesn’t know how to sell them. If their bread and butter are  romance novels, then an Abstract Digital Illustrator just doesn’t belong “in their stable”. On the other hand, I used to suggest looking for Art Reps that don’t have an artist like you already in their stable – but I’ve since learned that Reps can often get more art than a single artist can handle and so will gladly rep an illustrator with a similar style. Echo get calls all the time from her Reps saying that so-and-so other artist can’t take a job for some reason and they don’t want to lose it to another rep, so will she attempt the style. Sometimes it’s an easy task and other times it isn’t. While you should definitely have a preferred style to make you easy to sell, make you also seem flexible if the Rep needs you for something on the fly. (“Well, we originally wanted to do a Paul Clee sort of label on this like I said on the phone, but the client changed their mind just before this meeting and chose the Neo-Classic design we did instead. Can any of your illustrators in the portfolios you brought us to review do that? or would you have to come back? We really need to pick someone this morning and I have two other Reps to meet with after this one.” It happens all the time.)

3. Can you behave professionally?
Young illustrators screw this one up all the time. They believed some hack that all they needed to do was be good at their art and success would come. Then they ignored – or even scoffed at – the artist who wore suits, spoke properly, and combed their hair. Art Reps deal with corporate America and those clients WEAR SUITS, SPEAK PROPERLY, AND COMB THEIR HAIR. The Art Rep wants to know that if they send you into a meeting for a multi-million dollar campaign and have to meet with the VP of Marketing for a Fortune 500 company that you’re going to stand tall, do your job, and make everybody look good. In those cases the illustrator is a hired consultant with an expertise the client doesn’t have. If you just show up and need to be told what to do, you’ll get paid. If you can help them make their goals, you’ll be applauded. If you can help them exceed their goals, then you’ll get hired again. If you fail to show up – or fail to take the job seriously – you’ll not only fail yourself, but injure the Art Rep’s reputation and directly affect the salaries of every one they have on staff. So when the Art Rep looks at your portfolio and see you did work for a retail giant through a top-20 ad agency, they’ll know that you understand what it takes to get the job done. If you did it for someone else, then you’ll probably be able to do it again. The more work you have done for reputable clients, the more likely the Art Rep will take you seriously. Yes, this does mean that it may be very very hard to get an Art Rep until you don’t really need one any more.* But the truth is that, even though word-of-mouth reputations work – they are slow to manage and easy to damage. Working with an Art Rep enhances your reputation – but only if yours enhances theirs. While you wait for your next big name client to pay the bills, an Art Rep could have introduced you to three or ten more.

4. Can you meet a deadline?
Dammit. This is the hard one. “Why of COURSE I never miss deadlines” isn’t going to cut it. An Art Rep is going to look at your portfolio and look for clients who’ve hired you repeatedly. That means more than lots of single clients. A repetitive client is a happy client who thinks you are easy to work with and delivers the results they desire, on schedule, and within budget. They will interview you about the importance of deadlines. Echo has worked through Thanksgiving Dinner. She had worked out of our RV and in hotel rooms. Once, a client hired her on Thursday night before a 3-day art show where she was going to spend 12 hours a day selling art. The deadline was Monday. She attended the show during the day, she painted at night until 10pm, handed it off for me to paint from 10 to 4am, then got up and painted from 4-9am and repeated the cycle every day for three days. Oh, and we were out of the country with an injured child who went into the hospital for surgery the following week. We delivered on Monday morning and got all three levels of client approvals (agency CD, regional CD, and corporate CD) within an hour of each other with no changes. THAT’S the reputation Art Reps want on their side. They want to confidently say to the client that come hell or high water, the job will be done on time. This is rarely arbitrary. For example, a holiday is coming up and they need a campaign. It takes weeks to print and deliver. It takes longer to creatively design and get approved. The illustrator has to finish so the material can go to print. If its late, then the campaign doesn’t launch, the sale is forfeit, the retailer doesn’t meet it’s earnings goals, and every employee for the retailer is at risk of losing their job. Every vendor that the retailer owes is now at risk of not getting paid – and so every employee of those vendors is equally at risk. Don’t forget about utilities or rent. The illustrator a the single-point-of-failure for many campaigns which is why so many eyes and hands get in on the process. You have to be able to work with that (see #3 above about being professional) and you have to get it done when it needs to be done. Sometimes clients can sabotage themselves by cutting the timeline to ridiculous levels. Only after you’ve earned the Rep’s trust will you be able to push back and convince them that a missed deadline is the client’s fault. Until then – you signed the contract to do it by X so it has to be done by X without exception. Better yet – if the client screws up and you STILL deliver on time, then the client will ask for you again when they need it and the Art Rep will push you harder (and possibly for more $) to the next client.

The better you make everyone in the process look – from the Art Rep to the AD to the CD to the client’s Board of Directors – the more people will climb over themselves to work with you. They are hiring you to solve their problem – if you create any instead, you’ll never work again.

Art Reps are your allies – which means that you are working together. They are not looking for any artist with a cool style to sell. Look around – there are a million of us to choose from. They are looking for the ones that will work hard to earn them money. If you can’t make a living without one – then you’ll be hard pressed to convince them that you can earn enough to live AND PAY THEM to earn a living.

It’s not impossible – it is legitimately difficult. The more you can convince them that you understand and accept the process, the better off you’ll be. Complaining about a 25% commission is the first indication that someone doesn’t understand it – so turn a deaf ear to those artists and fight for your career. It will take time – but time = practice, maturity and experience. Art Reps sell all three.

How do I find an Art Rep

Type in “Artist Representative” and the name of a city into any search engine. READ THE WEBSITES. They will tell you everything you need to know about them and how to submit to them for portfolio review and interview.

Understand that if they haven’t heard of you in some way, through your own advertising, awards, word-of-mouth, or referral, they will be very skeptical. They live on reputation – and if yours doesn’t help them and the rest of the illustrators they represent, they will pass.

After you gain a reputation, you will find that Art Rep will approach you. That’s not always a good thing. There are good Reps and bad ones. I’ve worked with both.

How do I negotiate with an Art Rep?

Art Reps make a living through the work that you produce.

They should ONLY earn through the work that they get you. Don’t sign anything ‘Exclusive’. Art Reps CANNOT KEEP YOU BUSY ENOUGH to be exclusive with them. Signing an exclusive agreement with them means that you still owe them a percentage of any work you earn on your own without them. Technically speaking, that means they could never ever market you at all and you would owe them 30% of everything you earn. There are ass-hole Reps out there would want to screw you over like this. Our rule is that once an Art Rep can bring Echo enough work to make a living exclusively through them for 3 years running, then she’ll consider it.

On the other hand, the request for exclusivity is understandable because there are plenty of asshole artists out there too. Art Reps legitimately fear that illustrators will use the Reps mailing list, marketing savvy, and promotional material and then sneak the clients out from under them and not pay them what they are due. When Echo is listed by an Art Rep, only that Art Rep’s contact info is available in that ad. This is tricky, though, because Echo is also out there being marketed by other Reps and by herself (meaning me) with her own contact info. Echo was heavily promoting herself long before the Art Reps signed her – so she didn’t sign exclusivity because her name and reputation is still generating word-of-mouth clients from before the Reps involvement.  It may be possible for a client to see an ad through her Art Rep who would then try to contact her directly to negotiate a lower rate, thinking that Echo will charge less for not going through her Rep either through greed or ineptitude. Echo doesn’t do this for lots of reasons. Firstly, Echo doesn’t charge less without a Rep. She’s experienced enough to know what she’s worth. Secondly, Echo knows (and even asks) which clients find her from where. A New York client probably found her through her New York Rep. She’s never ever going to hurt her relationship with that Rep and even if she’s not sure – she’ll usually hand over that client to her NY Rep to handle the negotiations. That saves her the effort of negotiating while she’s busy with art AND it pleases her Rep to know that she values him and is protecting him.

Different Reps have different contracts. NEVER SIGN A CONTRACT YOU HAVEN’T READ! Read them and change whatever you don’t like. They are not sacred. If they won’t agree to item that are important to you (such as bullshit like “All art created by artist are work for hire and owned in full by Art Rep”) then pass on them. As I said, there are scammers out there.

Different Reps like different rates. Echo has 2 Reps that charge 25% and another that charges 30% Why? Because the latter approached her with a job so large if she passed on it, she was afraid she wouldn’t get it at all. We know better now – but it was a mistake. Any more than 30% is a rape. Do yourself a favor and try to pay no more than 25% plus expenses.

Oh – why does Echo have multiple Reps? It’s unusual, but it’s because they came to her for projects that they could only win with Echo as the artist, so they agreed to non-exclusivity at the time. Echo doesn’t abuse it, though.

How do I work with my Art Rep?

In a perfect world, the Art Rep would work on your behalf and be your advocate before the client. The reality is that Art Reps are their own advocates. They market themselves to the client – and market you as part of them. They are able to sell their reputation and yours and will fight for the best rate they can possibly get, with the constant pitch of “You get what you pay for.” They won’t even bother pitching to clients that argue that – it’s not worth anyone’s time (so no more cheap-ass clients threatening to drop you for Guru.com). When the job is landed, they fight for the client. The work has to be done to specifications, on time and on budget and anything less will hurt their reputation and their ability to get any more work from that client.

Contract negotiations with clients are Art Rep’s best value. With one exception, every possible scope change of a project has launched Echo’s reps into a renegotiation of the contract with the client. Never has a client refused to pay for a scope change – although they have argued that some things were still within the original scope of the project. Echo has had one Rep, however, repeatedly tell Echo to do extra work for free because he was afraid to ask for more money.

Always let your Art Rep know what your schedule is. They will never say “She’s too busy” – but they will say “She’s in demand right now” and get you more money to fit it into your schedule.

Lazarus

*Echo actually landed her first Art Rep after she landed the third project in a row out from under them. On three separate occasions, both she and this Art Rep pitched for jobs and she won. The Rep finally picked up the phone and introduced himself saying that he was tired of losing jobs to her and would instead like to be pitching her. Sure, she paused while she was proud that she was winning jobs without him – but then he told her that she was underselling herself and could have negotiated for more than enough to cover his rate. It’s been a great relationship ever since.

~ by Lazarus Black on February 22, 2012.