Artist Reps vs Literary Agents
Let's take a closer look at the two types of agents that rep children's book illustrators.
If you're reading this newsletter, you've probably heard of literary agents.
Literary agents represent book authors and illustrators. We broker deals with publishers to sell our clients' books and help to guide our clients' publishing careers. Like most types of agents, literary agents are paid on commission; we take a percentage of the income our clients' earn on books we represent.
If you're a illustrator looking for representation, you've probably noticed that there are a lot of literary agents out there, and not all of them represent illustrators. But you may not know that there are actually two types of agents that represent children's book illustrators: literary agents and artist's representatives.
While there's a lot of overlap, there are also some key differences between literary agents and artist reps. I think it's important for illustrators to understand what both literary agents and art reps do so you can decide which approach works best for you and your goals. But it's not always super clear which category folks you're querying fall into when you're researching. So let's take a look at both roles and outline some clues to help you determine whether someone is an art rep or a literary agent.
But first, I want to note that while I only represent illustrators, I am a literary agent, not an art rep1. So I obviously have a bias towards literary agents. But there are lots of great benefits to working with art reps too, and I've tried to be as impartial as possible with this overview.
Okay, let's dive in!
Two Key Differences (Plus, a Mildly Hot Take)
Commission
One of the biggest differences between literary agents and art reps is their rate of commission. Literary agents charge clients a 15% commission – a pretty standard rate that is seen across the industry, from small boutique agencies to really large ones.
Art reps have a higher commission. The rate can vary; I've personally heard of rates ranging from 20% to as high as 35%. This may or may not include expenses the agency incurs to promote the illustrator's work (like mailing out postcards for example); sometimes there is an additional charge or fee for that.
And some literary agents charge the illustrators they represent a slightly higher commission than their authors to cover the additional time and costs of promoting their illustrators' work2.
Types of covered Works
Another key difference is the types of projects that each agency would cover. Art reps often work across many different industries, such as advertising, surface design/licensing, editorial, and book publishing. They usually want to be involved with all of their clients' projects within those industries.
Whereas literary agents focus on the publishing industry. If you're an illustrator or an author-illustrator, this means that your work (written or illustrated) that would be considered a literary work is covered by a literary agent, but you're free to pursue other types of illustration work on your own3.
All legitimate literary agents and art reps will make it VERY CLEAR what commission they charge and what types of projects they represent in their agent-client agreements and when discussing representation with any potential new clients. If you're at all unsure about how it would work, absolutely ask. These are fundamental terms of an agent-client agreement, and it's not weird to get into the weeds about them before accepting an offer of representation.
But note that they're both usually impossible to determine when you're researching who to query. Nobody puts that info on their about page – it's something you'd discuss with agents or reps once they've expressed an interest in working with you.
Approach to negotiation
Here's my third key difference that might be a little controversial to publish online, but I think it's important to note so I'm going to do it anyway: in my experience, literary agents tend to have a more rigorous and in-depth approach to negotiating book deal terms and contracts than art reps.
This isn't to say that art reps do not advocate for their clients – they do! But overall, I found that art reps tended to focus on the illustrator's advance and schedule, while literary agents were more likely to get really into the weeds on other points of the negotiation too, in addition to the advance.
Let me say again that is my personal opinion based on the many illustrator deals I negotiated while working at publishers. There are certainly exceptions to this in both directions. And it's not like I negotiated deals with every single agent and rep out there, either. So make of this what you will!
Other Points of Comparison
The other ways art reps and literary agents tend to differ can get blurry. Each agent and rep has their own slightly unique approach and may be taking a little from column A and a little from column B. So bear in mind that mileage may vary and there are lots of exceptions to these "rules"!
List size
Art reps usually represent lots of illustrators, and literary agents often have smaller lists. The lines can get a little blurry though with large literary agencies who may collectively represent a similar number of illustrators as a small-to-mid-sized artist rep agency. If the agency's website sorts or filters illustrations by genre/market or with tags, that's a solid clue that they're an art rep.
Agency team
Literary agents tend to operate more independently than art reps. Literary agents build our own lists and work one-on-one with our clients – this means that at larger literary agencies where multiple agents rep illustrators, you'll often see specific agents mentioned when viewing illustrator portfolios.
Art reps sometimes also have a primary list (or "stable"4) of illustrators, but I think it's more common for artists to work with a broader range of the agency's staff – individual agents may focus on specific markets or territories for example, and promote the whole of the agency's client list within that market/territory.
Art styles
Because literary agents often represent a smaller list of clients, we have to carefully curate the types of art styles we sign up to reflect our own personal taste and the types of projects we tend to work on. Meaning that we are often a little more discerning and selective about signing up new clients than art reps, who tend to have larger lists with many types of art styles.
Illustrator promotion & editorial development
Art reps tend to focus more time and energy on promoting and developing their clients' portfolios to get illustration commissions than literary agents do. And literary agents tend to get more involved editorially in projects, helping their clients develop and polish their own stories to pitch with publishers. Though both types of agents should be doing both types of work in some capacity in my opinion – unless it's made clear upfront that they don't!
Volume
Because books are big projects, it's only really possible to illustrate 2 or maybe 3 per year. So literary agents are usually focused on securing their clients fewer projects with the highest earning potential on each (i.e. high advances and favorable royalty rates and other terms), and it can sometimes take a while for that to get momentum. Art reps may be able to secure their clients a higher volume of commissions more quickly, with a wider range of scale and type of project.
Which type of agent is right for YOU?
Only you can decide! I recommend querying both types of agents if you aren't sure which approach is right for you. Everything I mention above are all great points to discuss with agents on "the call" once you start to get interest and offers of representation. I think it's best to make a final decision based on specific agents and agencies you have the opportunity to work with rather than a theoretical overview. For instance, don't discount art reps just because they have a higher commission – it might be worth it to you if you feel the agent/agency you'd be working with is a good fit for you and your career goals, and you'd be getting a lot of value out of it.
If you have any questions (or would like to disagree with anything I've said here, ha!), let me know in the comments. And please share this post with anyone you think might find it helpful!
Now that we've covered the basics of what Airtable is and what literary agents representing illustrators do, we can start getting into the exciting overlap! Stay tuned for my next post, where I'll show you how I use Airtable to track the status of my clients' projects on submission.
I appreciate that the "art agent & airtable" title of this newsletter might be a bit of a misnomer. But "literary agent representing illustrators & airtable" is not nearly as snappy, so please forgive me.
Personally, I take a 15% commission from all my clients. I appreciate why some literary agents charge illustrators more, because promoting illustrators is a separate kind of work. But I figure that it's six one way and a half dozen another: instead of editing novels, I'm spending that time helping develop my clients' portfolios, creating lookbooks and email campaigns to share with publishers. Of course, I am also developing stories and preparing submissions for my clients who both write and illustrate. And it is a lot of work. But I think it's all related and ultimately works towards the same goal of selling my clients’ work to publishers, and I want illustrators to be working on equal terms with authors. So the 15% rate works best for me.
For example, my clients work on animation, character design, tabletop game art, editorial illustrations, and vis dev work on their own – these aren't considered literary works, so they aren't covered by our agent-client agreement.
I've always found it a little weird to refer to human illustrator clients as a stable, so I tend to avoid using this term and prefer to say list. But it's really common, and I’m probably overthinking it. xD
Very informative and insightful. Thank you so much for sharing 🫶🏼
This was super helpful! I had an in-depth conversation about this topic with my mentor the other day. Thanks for sharing your insights!