CARTOONIST REPRESENTATIVES MARKET CARTOONS AND ILLUSTRATION SERVICES
Cartoonist representatives are agents who market cartoons
Cartoonist representatives are marketing agents. I have written on this topic before, only from the perspective of a salesman trying to sell a gag cartoonist’s gag panels to magazine and newspaper publishers.
Cartoonist reps were very useful back in the days when print was king and there was no internet around.
These guys would take cartoonist’s creations into the publishing meccas like New York City and were able to market their client’s work while the cartoonists themselves sat gleefully at their drawing boards doing all kinds of new panel cartoons.
I wanted to touch upon this topic again after recently being contacted by a marketer who is contracted with some well know cartoonists whose work she has been successfully selling and marketing all over the place.
There aren’t many cartoonist representatives around like her anymore.
She asked me recently what the usual fee was for an agent to take when a caricature was created.
Well, I recall years ago when I ran advertising in specialized illustration source books featuring cartoons I created, there were also several pages bought by artist’s and cartoonist’s reps.
Cartoonists representing their own cartoons and services
After speaking with my regional sales agent for one of these illustration directories a purchased page space in, I asked her what the “going rate” was, that artist reps usually kept when finding illustration jobs or assignments for their clients.
I was surprised to find out it was 50% on the high side, down to 33% on the low.
Why am I say fifty percent may be high? Well, here we are, now living in the technological age where we now have the ability to actually represent ourselves!
Marketing cartoons
I personally market my own cartoons and illustration services via my own DansCartoons cartoon website and I negotiate directly one on one with any professional business, company or publisher that requires my cartooning services.
If a cartoonist feels uncomfortable being their own sales person, there are definitely marketers available who can contract with you and do all of the marketing while you site back and draw!
