The complete, jam-packed business course containing everything you need to be an illustration business extraordinaire!
(Shoulder pads optional)
Doors are closed for now
We'll be running The Business Course again at the end of 2024 - it'd be lovely to have you sailing with us then! You can join the waiting list and enjoy our freebies in the meantime.
Join the waiting listIt's your time to thrive as an illustrator
The Good Ship Business Course is here! Giving you the knowledge and skills to succeed in the illustration industry.
Click play to find out a bit more about what to expect from The Business Course...
Business, but make it fun & easy
Traditional business advice is all well and good, but it's not usually designed for creative brains like ours.
Running a creative business can feel overwhelming, scary, and confusing.
That's why The Good Ship Illustration Business Course is FINALLY here!
We're here to demystify the mysterious bits, translate the what-does-that-even-MEAN business words and turn mountains of thick, so-boring-you-can't-read-them books into practical, fun stuff you can get excited about and actually use!
Wherever you are in your creative business journey, we're here to give you a boost and cheer you along.
Let's go! 🚢
Right, Good Ship.
What's the Plan?
Joining a course is a BIG DEAL. It's an investment in yourself and your future creative career so you want to make a good choice. We get it.
You want to know what you're getting yourself into - so here it is!
This course will cover:
- Figuring out where you are right now, and where you want to go.
- How to get more clients, (especially more of the work you love doing) and aaall things marketing, minus the gross salesy stuff - no-cheesey-self-promotion here, nope nope nope.
Just illustration work that feels authentic to you, *and* encourages your dream-clients to hop into your inbox shouting 'TAKE MY MONEY, HOW CAN I WORK WITH YOU!?'.
- Money 💸💸💸
Knowing what to charge, quoting confidently, dealing with the potential 'ick-factor of sales, money mindset and putting the starving artist stuff where it belongs (in the bin, of course). - Organisation and admin
Everything you need to know to make sure you're doing an amazin' job of the admin bits so that all of your clients are over-the-moon clients. Disorganised chaos? We don't know her. **pushes glasses up nose** - Looking after yourself
Your body, your mind, the most important thing!
YOU are the golden goose, my friend. No you = no illustration business. - Additional revenue streams. Let's layer in some more money-making bits and pieces to smooth out the curves, and protect future-you from whatever life throws at you.
How The Business Course can help you:
Practical Tools
Printables, video, audio (all with closed captions for accessibility), templates, swipe-files to supercharge your illustration business skills eg. ways of getting new clients, & how to earn more money from your work.
Community
You don't need to go it alone!
Mastermind with other ambitious illustrators and get support with your big goals. It's a Good Ship boost of energy and confidence.
Weekly live Q&A Calls
For this first live round, you'll also get 8 WEEKLY* live Q&A calls 🤩
All of our live calls are recorded and replays are available.
*The 8 x weekly live calls are only available for students joining the January 2024 live round.
(We normally only do monthly calls, so this is a mega bonus!)
WARNING:
The Business Course has serious side effects...
⚡️ Confidence
In your abilities, in your pricing, in your creative business PROWESS.
Business knowledge + confidence = unstoppable creative career goodness.
With a clear roadmap and an online community of creative business pals you'll feel more confident than you have in years.
🧠 Illustration business know-how
The business of illustration can seem mysterious and secretive. Not anymore! With handy templates, printables, examples and videos we are here to demystify and jazz up the boring bits.
Knowing your worth 💰
It's about time you made more money doing what you love.
Knowing your value is one thing, learning to communicate your value to your clients is gold dust!
And we'll help you do just that.
Make more money from your illustration work, feel organised, and enjoy a nice steady stream of dream clients and projects.
Pay in Full
£495
Business course goodness, Good Ship stylee
5-pay
£99 x 5
Spread the cost over 5 monthly payments
Ellie G
Despite being in my mid Forties, I'm so excited for what’s to come. And it really is all thanks to your fabulous courses, words of encouragement and myth busting advice that I made it to this point. Thank you!
May god bless the Good Ship, and all who sail in her!
Lauriane N
The quality of your courses has blown my socks off!
The three of you hold the space so well and your individual strengths and support comes through so clearly.
Louise B
I've never felt like I belong in a course until now. With other courses, I've always given up part way through.
But I can see that won't happen this time because you are so real.
Thank you!
You’re a smart creative brain so you already KNOW that there are two sides to this thriving-as-an-illustrator thing
We’ve been thinking of it as two cars.
Bear with us and buckle in for our creative-business cars analogy… it’s good, we promise 😂
🚘 Car 1: This is your CREATIVE car - when you’re driving this one, you’re making your best creative work. Flying your freak flag! Basking in your weirdness! Drawing drawing drawing, then drawing some more. Flexing your art muscles.
And then there’s…
🚖Car 2: Your BUSINESS car. (Ooooh). Driving this car = getting your work out into the world, attracting dream illustration clients/publishers, having your head screwed on for the contracts, invoices etc. working on your mindset stuff, setting goals and being an organised illustrator making good money from your work.
Let’s imagine you have been driving car #1, that creative car of yours for a while now, maybe you’ve been filling sketchbooks and you feel like your artwork is looking A-MAZ-ING.
“Umm, hello? MY WORK LOOKS GREAT, WHY IS NOBODY HIRING ME?”
You’ve just been spending a lot of time in car #1. It’s ok.
Come with us **un-plugging your seatbelt**
It’s time to get out of the creative car, and rev up your business car.
Anyways, back to the cars.
Jump out of your creative car, drive your business car forward, hop back in the other car and move that forward, then back to the other car again. Art, business, art, business. You get the idea.
OK, the car analogy is rubbish. We need a better analogy 🤪
As creatives who sell their work, we need to keep each skill set shiny and new.
There’s more to it than just being great at what you do.
You can be the BEST illustrator in the world, but if your business car is in the garage, chances are you’re not making as much money from your creative work as you’d like.
- What if that dream client comes along, but you don’t know what to charge?
- How do you even get your dream clients?
- Who would your dream clients be?
We're SO excited that the business course doors are open right now. This course has been a long time coming. And because this is the first ever time we’ve run it, there will be WEEKLY live Q&A calls for 8 weeks. That’s the most live calls we’ve ever done!
And now you can join from £99 because we’ve just introduced our most affordable spread-the-cost-option ever.
(These kind words are from a few of our Find Your Creative Voice, Fly Your Freak Flag students. As soon as we have Business Course testimonials, we'll be adding them here! Your success story, coming soooon.)
The Business Course Manifesto
At The Good Ship Illustration, nothing makes us happier than seeing illustrators growing in confidence, feeling proud of their work, and earning a decent living from what they do (while still enjoying their life and having freedom, time off and fun).
We're all about
- Earning a decent income
- Understanding contracts and licensing stuff
- Confidently negotiating and quoting prices that reflect the value of your work
- Seeing yourself as a business owner, not just a freelancer
- Taking your creative work, and your illustration career seriously and investing in yourself
and most importantly... - Looking after yourself along the way. YOU are your illustration career's most important asset
Who are The Good Ship Illustration?
The Good Ship Illustration offers no-nonsense advice for illustrators and image makers navigating a creative career.
At The Good Ship Illustration we believe your creative work should...
- Feel good
- Make you a decent living
- And leave you feeling confident to fly your (well-paid) freak flag 💸
And you don't need to do it alone. Our online community is one of the friendliest, most supportive bits of the internet. It's FULL of illustrators at all stages of their creative careers.
Between us we've clocked up over 60 year of illustration industry experience and we're here to share is as generously as we can.
Over 3000 students have trusted us to help them find their creative voice and create their best ever picture books. Not to mention the tens of thousands of people who’ve come along to our free Art Club sessions, and downloaded our helpful freebies.
Students from our courses go on to:
- Get publishing deals
- Make their best work
- Win fancy awards
- Take part in exhibitions
- Feel confident in their creative work
- Enjoy being an illustrator again
Let's put the starving artist myth where it belongs
(in the bin)
Kind words & happy sailors 🥳
If you're reading this in January 2024 - you're about to embark on the FIRST EVER live round of The Business Course! A very exciting time to climb aboard.
These testimonials are from students who've taken our other courses, just so you know we're real.
Excellent questions we've been asked so far:
When are the live sessions?
Will you cover legal stuff like contracts?
Can you tell me what to charge for this specific illustration comission I've got?
What does the course cover?
I've been illustrating for YEARS, is this course for me?
I'm a newbie, is this course for me?
How much time will I need to dedicate to the course?
I'm not based in the UK 🌎 - how relevant is The Business Course for me?
My question isn't here!
Doors are closed for now
We'll be running The Business Course again at the end of 2024 - it'd be lovely to have you sailing with us then! You can join the waiting list and enjoy our freebies in the meantime.
Join the waiting list