

Discover more from Adam Ming
Or, How I became a picture-book illustrator in 35 steps.
Over the past 2 years, I’ve written 650 newsletters that talk about or elude to the different aspects of my particular journey of becoming a picturebook illustrator. But when you break it down there were only 35 steps, here they are:
I wanted to be a cartoonist
I drew comics daily and posted them on Instagram
I realized that was a bad strategy
I looked at what the cartoonists I admired did daily and throughout their career
I realized I needed an agent
I realized I needed a portfolio to get an agent
The algorithm served me an AD of a course I could buy that will help me do both
My mom bought me the course, it was for drawing picture books for kids
I realized picturebooks were basically comics (or at least that I could see them as that)
I thought I would ace the course, but realized I don’t even know what ‘good’ looks like!
We got pregnant! ( I have 9-months to make this thing work)
I don’t know what good looks like, but I know what hard work looks like
I finish the class with 5 portfolio pieces, I know they’re not good enough, but I send them out to get feedback
Meanwhile, I decided that since I don’t know what good looks like, I would accept that the teacher’s examples of what good looks like was law.
I work every day building out my portfolio
I take specific classes for the areas I’m stuck at
I work on a plan B simultaneously and get to work with a creative director to improve some skills.
I take a year’s worth of online art classes
I get a day job (part-time)
Baby is born, COVID ends
I started to get responses from agents, mostly rejections
I take the class that started it all again, get very precise feedback from the teachers, and apply all of it.
I build a portfolio website
I get offered a book and paid in advance (and the book gets delayed 2 years)
I was offered agency representation by a prestigious
The offer is withdrawn because I’m ‘too ambitious’.
I started a critique group with peers from class
I reach out to industry pros for advice, I don’t know what the next steps are
One says You’re almost there, keep going.
I get offered agency representation by a ‘new’ agency
I get offered a picture-book, and then a 2 book series, before you know it I’m booked for a year!
The contract on my day job expires.
So I guess this is my full-time job!
My journey was a series of realizations, I got some of those realizations by taking the wrong actions, and others by getting good advice. There is a lot to be said about learning from experience but good advice works so much quicker.
Incidentally, if you’re looking for advice, I offer a limited number of 1-1 meetings each month, where we can talk about any of the things in the list above, or if you click the button, there are a few more ideas we could discuss.

A MAP of my JOURNEY to become A PICTUREBOOK ILLUSTRATOR
I think it’s perfect you’re offering 1-to-1 sessions, especially since they’ve helped you so much! It’s such an important investment for anyone who wants to take their work to publishers. I know you’re going to help so many people (myself included because you know I’m signing up at some point. Maybe to remind you to water Roger!)
Wow this is quite the journey!! What really strikes me is the intensity of your commitment, the sheer graft of it all, and also the listening to feedback and adjusting as you go. Seems like you had real focus to succeed, and you got the book deals! So great to read Adam. AND a newborn through it all, which is no small thing! (Although a new born is small... you know what I mean!) Well done for all you have created, including your family!