Promotion is the key to success as a freelancer. The 2009 Artist’s & Graphic Designer’s Market is a good place to start. It has lists and information about art directors for magazines, books and more.

You can also check out the 2009 Children’s Writer’s & Illustrator’s Market. It focuses on the children’s book market.

This post was written on IllustrationInfo.com. Content copyright 2008 Cory Thoman.

IllustrationFriday has a weekly topic to illustrate for fun. This week’s topic was Repair. I drew this little guy a few weeks ago, but I thought he fit the them well. I’d like to say I was too busy to work on a new illustration, but it was mostly just laziness. For anyone that was curious, I did this in Adobe Illustrator. I have a few Illustrator tutorials on this site, so feel free to check those out.

This post was written on IllustrationInfo.com. Content copyright 2008 Cory Thoman.

The miocrostock world just got a little smaller. Getty the parent company of iStockphoto has announced they will purchase Jupitermedia the owners of StockXpert for the change they had lying under their sofa (96 million dollars). I’m not sure what this means to us lowly microstockers or if the two companies can coexist. Changes probably won’t be seen for a few months, so it is business as usual. You can read more details here.

IllustrationFriday has a weekly topic to illustrate for fun. This week’s topic was Sugary. I went for a sugary sweet and cute cartoon bee kid. Hopefully, this one doesn’t give you a cavity. Anyway, I’m working on a new promo card mailer, so this one has some text. For anyone that was curious, I did this in Adobe Illustrator. I have a few Illustrator tutorials on this site, so feel free to check those out.

This post was written on IllustrationInfo.com. Content copyright 2008 Cory Thoman.

September is done. It was a pretty good month. I was uploading like a madman at the microstock sites, so that might have been part of it. Shutterstock takes the top spot this month because of all the uploading. Here’s the breakdown:

Shutterstock – 31%

iStockphoto – 30%

Dreamstime – 19%

StockXpert – 9%

Fotolia – 5%

Big Stock Photo – 2%

123RF – 1.5%

Adsense – 1%

Zazzle – 1%

Crestock – 0.5%

Combined Affiliate Earnings – 0%

That’s it. Check back next month for October’s breakdown.

This post was written on IllustrationInfo.com. Content copyright 2008 Cory Thoman.