Breaking Into Freelance Illustration: A Guide for Artists, Designers and Illustrators [Paperback]

This is a good book for those start-ups who need some motivation to get up and start their own design practice. The author gives some good advice from someone who's "been there, done that." Starting a new home-based, illustration business, or any business for that matter, can be very intimidating for those who have never done it before. I've always appreciated those who step forward to offer guidance to those who are new to the business. This book tells the reader that they "can do it" and offers some good tips for a successful business, as well as, offering some good advice on things to avoid.

At first, the book seemed to be geared towards stay-at-home moms looking to start a design business while working around the daily routine of running a home with kids. But, as the book progressed it offered good advice for all new home-based business owners. It definitely has given me some motivation to do what I thought may be a difficult field to break into. Also...it's a good book based purely on illustration and not co-mingled with graphic design. Well worth the read.

>Its a creative business book that's also a fun read

There is no slogging through the content in this book. It's packaged well in fun-sized, easily digestible morsels. This helps make it an addictive read. It's a flexible one, too--for the reader, it would be as comfortable to consume the entire book in a few longer sittings, as it would be to pop off a few pages at a time over the course of a couple weeks, say, on your daily commute.

>It features real-deal conversations, observations and advice from a variety of active, working illustrators and designers

I love that there's snippets from working professionals from all walks of illustration: children's, editorial, art licensing, logo designers, and more. This not only helps to illustrate personal experiences in so many different areas of the industry, but it also illuminates how similar all of our experiences as creative professionals are, how we all often struggle with the same fundamental challenges, and how some general solutions to these problems can be retro-fitted to our own particular situation with just a fresh eye and an open mind. Though each of us may concentrate on different areas of the industry and, as such, have very individualized, specific goals for our respective work, there is more that is fundamentally similar in all of our experiences than is different.

>A great introductory book for young illustrators... and a good reminder manual for the established

Many business books for creatives tout the same, classic, tried-and-true fundamentals. Good advice is good advice, right? This book shares some of the same, but also shares so much more--Holly's voice shines right through the words on the page. She's personable and honest, like a good friend who doesn't sugarcoat things. Holly acts as an invisible mentor, dispensing some real tough-love advice, but in a completely comfy, "positive-vibes" type of package. She definitely has a way with words, proving a strong ability to cover a lot of material in a way that's neither overwhelming nor disorganized, while maintaining her loose, conversational tone. All in all, it's an easily digestible book on the business of art that's great for artists who have an aversion to business books.

This book should be retitled to something like "Self Help and Motivation for Freelancers." Not a lot of nuts and bolts. I don't know how all this fluff and filler was ever organized into chapters. I could take random paragraphs from different sections of this book, and you would not be able to tell where they were supposed to go.
However, maybe one fifth is worth reading, therefore one out of five stars.