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Category:Alumni Success
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See what’s possible: Real-life student success stories!

Our huge annual sale ends in just a few days, on Friday, December 1st – if you haven’t already shopped our amazing reductions on our career-boosting courses, then be sure to check them out here. Today we wanted to share even more recent real life student success stories, including some from some of our self-paced courses. Our self-paced courses are fantastic because you get instant access as soon as you sign up, and you can complete them whenever suits you – you’ll get full access until January 31st, 2027, and you can download the materials to keep forever! Dive into incredible courses like … The MATS MBA (Money BadAss): business learning created especially for creative people like you Lilla’s Art Recipes: Drawing Faces to help you learn how to draw faces in an accessible innovative way so you can get more jobs Creating Collections for Home Décor for a deep

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How to get an art agent: Part 2

Learn how to get an art agent in a FREE live Zoom TODAY – plus you could win a FREE place in class! Would you love to land representation? In today’s FREE Zoom event, we’ll be talking to TWO top art agents and one represented artist to get the lowdown on everything you need to know about getting an art agent, including why get an agent and if it’s right for you, what they look for, what to put in your letter or email, and what to send them (Lilla will be showing actual examples of things artists sent to her which led to her offering them representation!). Lilla (left) plus just some of the many thousands of products agented by Lilla Rogers Studio (right). Join TWO art agents and an illustrator for a FREE live Zoom TODAY to find out how you can get representation to get jobs like

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How to get an art agent: Part 1

Look at these gorgeous handmade portfolios that were submitted to me by by Lydia Graves, Ruth Burrows and Fay Ford, to whom I then offered representation. Lilla here. As many of you will know, I was an art agent for 30 years, representing 48 brilliant artists from around the world through my agency, Lilla Rogers Studio. Today I want to show you some of the beautiful portfolios which artists sent to me which ended up landing them representation. I was blown away by these stunning handmade portfolios, especially as it’s so unusual to receive a printed out book like this, so they really caught my attention. If I was already interested in their art and representing them, then getting something like these portfolios and the time they took to make these books was a great sign of how committed they are and that they were interested in having me as

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See the books that My Kid Book Pitch built

Do you want to earn real money from illustrating and maybe even writing your own books? Then let Lilla Rogers, with more than four decades of experience in the business, show you how! Today we’re going to meet just some of the Make Art That Sells students who did just that. Books are a fantastic market for illustrators and creatives because they can provide months of work and they’re always in demand – according to market research agency Grand View Research, the global book market was worth around $151 billion in 2024 and is projected to increase to around $192 billion by 2030. Want to learn how you can land a picture book illustration deal of your very own, or maybe even write and illustrate your own book (meaning you get paid TWICE)? Lilla’s comprehensive picture book courses – Illustrating Children’s Books and My Kid Book Pitch – will give

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One weird tip to get a picture book illustration deal

In yesterday’s newsletter, we shared some amazing recent student success stories from our career-changing Illustrating Children’s Books course – if you missed it then catch up here. Here’s another way you can land a book deal when you take Illustrating Children’s Books: get your art seen by course leader and brilliant children’s book art director Zoë Tucker! Just some of the many books directed by Zoë in her 25 years in the children’s publishing industry. Her client list includes top publishers such as Alison Green Books, Dorling Kindersley, Quarto, Wide Eye Editions, Scholastic and Magic Cat. Both Zoë and co-leader Lilla, who was an art agent for 30 years, look at every single piece of art that’s submitted to the weekly galleries ahead of the deadline and pick some to review in the LIVE weekly reviews – that means that you could get your art reviewed by a former art

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SALE! Our picture book illustration course gets you jobs!

Our picture book illustration course, Illustrating Children’s Books, is one of our most long-running and best-loved courses, and with good reason: thousands of alumni have gone on to land book deals and representation because of the work they did and the things they learned in class. This five week long LIVE course is taught by illustrator and former top art agent Lilla Rogers, with 30 years’ experience of assessing artists’ portfolios and assigning picture book illustration jobs, and brilliant children’s book art director and picture book author Zoë Tucker. Zoë has worked on hundreds of children’s books, including the author-illustrator dream team Julia Donaldson and Axel Schaeffer, and she’s always looking out for new artists to commission – check out some of the Make Art That Sells students she’s worked with after spotting them in class in tomorrow’s newsletter! Just some of the many dozens of books Zoë Tucker has

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Write a picture book illustration success story like this

Check out this picture book illustration success story! Hurry hurry HURRY – registration for our career-changing Illustrating Children’s Books course closes TODAY, but there’s still time to sign up! Join now to get instant access to all the class materials released so far, including Daily Sketchbook prompts, lessons on things like pitching, the first Art Director’s Cheat Sheet from Zoë, and bonus lessons from former art agent and illustrator Lilla. Plus the rest of the class only got the first assignment yesterday, so you still have time to catch up and maybe get your art reviewed in the first weekly LIVE review on Monday! Sign up here. picture book illustration success story: Martina Stuhlberger Today we wanted to share an amazing success story from Make Art That Sells student Martina Stuhlberger, who is currently working on her sixth and seventh books since taking Illustrating Children’s Books! Martina (left) and with the

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HOW many picture book deals?!

Building a lucrative career in the dreamy world of children’s book illustration is totally possible – and we’ve got the receipts to prove it (see below!). It isn’t just about skill or style – for example, you also need to show an art director or publisher that you have what it takes to create a character that will appeal to children, and that you can recreate in different poses and with different expressions while still being identifiably the same character. That’s where our student favorite Illustrating Children’s Books course comes in! Now in its tenth year (and twelfth iteration), you’ll spend five intense weeks creating an eye-catching ready-to-send pitch presentation that contains everything you need to show an art director or publisher so they give you that gig! Meet your teachers! Former top art agent, Lilla (left), and children’s book art director and picture book author, Zoë (right), have tons

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See incredible student art on toys and games!

We’re so excited that Bootcamp Special: Character Play starts THIS MONDAY, April 7th! Over the past couple of blogs and newsletters, we hope you’ve seen how simple and enjoyable it can be to create cute and quirky characters that you can license for children’s books and toys and games – two of the biggest and most lucrative art markets for illustrators – as well as tons of other markets, like partyware, home décor, apparel for both adults and children, bags, journals, packaging, and more. In Bootcamp Special: Character Play, you’ll create two gorgeous pieces of art for your portfolio every month for three months, like these by Make Art That Sells student Lisa Blakeborough. Sign up now! Now it’s time to build on what you’ve learned and start creating a powerful portfolio that will help you land work in these amazing art markets! Sign up for the class now! In

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What getting mentored by Lilla really looks like

What does getting mentored by Lilla really look like? And what can it do for you and your creative career? In a recent live Zoom event, illustrator and Make Art That Sells teacher Tamisha Anthony opened up about the transformative effect that getting mentored by Lilla had on her own career. Tamisha talked about how she’d always been around books but hadn’t really taken any steps towards making illustration into a career. Lilla looked at Tamisha’s art and made small tweaks, like suggesting that Tamisha include more of her own self, her love for fashion and design and home décor, in her art. Even such a tiny change had a huge effect, and since then Tamisha’s career has exploded! Since being mentored by Lilla, she’s got [seven] picture book deals, with another [four] on the way, and landed her first author-illustrator publishing deal. She’s taught two incredible Make Art That