When you're a freelance illustrator, your workload isn't always consistent throughout the year. Sometimes, there are periods where you have fewer contracts, and it's during those times that you should take the opportunity to improve your skills, train, reach out to new clients, or work on more personal projects.
With this in mind, I signed up for the website childrensillustrators.com in September 2024, after reading a few positive—or at least not entirely negative—reviews online.
Childrensillustrators.com is a paid platform dedicated to promoting illustrators specializing in children's literature. Founded in 2004, it provides artists with a professional showcase to present their portfolios to an international audience, thus facilitating connections with publishers, authors, and other professionals in the industry.
The annual membership fee is $350, which is a significant cost.
The platform is active on social media (Instagram, X, Facebook, etc.), where it regularly shares artists’ works, interviews, and relevant news, promising to enhance illustrators' visibility.
In five months, my work has been featured on Children's Illustrators only once. Considering that 360 illustrators are registered on the platform, you shouldn’t expect your work to be highlighted very often. However, I find this rather underwhelming given the subscription cost.
To increase visibility, there is a "News" section on your profile, which you can update regularly, much like a blog. Unfortunately, I haven’t had the time to take advantage of this feature.
There are also paid options available:
A $50 "boost" that increases your visibility for 7 days.
A $29.99 annual add-on that allows you to list your published books and gain a little more exposure.
It’s worth mentioning that there is no direct interaction between you and the platform. Essentially, you are paying to host a portfolio on a site that claims to have high traffic.
The platform does appear to be followed by some illustration agencies, but I’m not sure how useful that is. If you’re looking for an agent, the simplest and free option is to submit your application directly to an agency.
As of now, I have not received any professional leads from the platform, and it has brought me very little apart from slightly more visibility in search engine results. Since I launched my own website shortly before joining the platform, good SEO (search engine optimization) is important for me, but it’s certainly not worth $350.
For example, one of my illustrations was featured on the platform’s Instagram page, which has 105,000 followers, but it garnered fewer than 150 likes, no comments, no professional leads, and barely any traffic to my website.
To put things into perspective, when I launched my website, I spent €150 on a Google ad campaign over a few days. This brought significant traffic to my site and even resulted in a commissioned illustration.
I’ll write a follow-up review once my year-long subscription is complete. For now, I am not very impressed with Children's Illustrators. I believe the platform should offer more services and diversify its marketing tools, given the number of illustrators and the high subscription fee.
If you still decide to give it a try, make sure to keep your portfolio and news section updated regularly, treating the platform as if it were a second website.
Recently, I came across recommendations for the Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators (SCBWI). Their membership costs only $80-$100 per year and offers more valuable services. I will definitely consider trying this option in the future. You can find more details on their website: https://www.scbwi.org/.
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