Notes from a conversation with a Publishing Director

A conversation about what publishers look for.

In August 2025, I unpublished over 1000 posts from Ten Minute Artist.

I was thinking about the direction of the newsletter and it was difficult to move forward with such a huge backlog. In the end I decided to unpublished everything, and slowly bring them back in the new context.

That context is now called Back Issue.

Here I republish a previously published piece. With new context and some light editing. Back Issues are available to all paid subscribers, and I recommend especially for readers who are interested in working in publishing, as an illustrator.

In 2021, before my first book deal, I got a chance to speak to a Publishing Director, and got a portfolio review.

It was a brilliant conversation and I took copious notes during the conversation, I then crystallised them into the following points. They are curt, but I found each so valuable in trying to break into publishing.

Since this conversation I’ve gone to on to have more than a dozen books published in 3 years. I can genuinely say I don’t think I could have done that without this advice.