How To Make Money Drawing Maps (An Updated Comprehensive Guide) | Part 1
Fantasy cartography isn’t a gold mine. Chances are you are doing this because you love fantastic worlds and TTRPGs of some sort. If you’re in this for the dough, I might have some bad news for you. In any case, go create, do what you love and build your portfolio. If you want to make money drawing maps, draw maps.
I myself haven’t been in the game for too long but in a relatively short time I managed to find projects to squeeze in to my schedule and start building my modest portfolio of maps as well as other digital assets. Below I will list out those ways I used as well as some pointers on what you can do to utilize them as well.
Here is the comprehensive list of ways to get map-making projects. And because I want to have you coming back for more, I will admit that I'll save the better tips for part 2.
Talk to people
Scout novel writer’s Facebook groups
Create digital assets
Join Cartographer’s Guild
Find local TTRPG / fantasy genre publishers
Talk to people
As (un)surprising as this may seem, it works like a charm. Fantasy cartography is a very specific niche and every time I bring this up people always ask why I do it and what does it entail. I’ve always thought fantasy cartography to be a geeky hobby for someone living in their parents’ basement. To my surprise I found out that people are genuinely interested in what I do, mainly because they are likely to have some quirky hobby of their own. Better yet, they tend to have other hobbies - like my friend Martin who commissioned my first ever set of maps for his Heroes of Bronze project. Do let the world know you have a weird hobby, there’s a chance someone else does, too.
Scout novel writer’s Facebook groups
While I’ve not personally landed a commission using this channel (yet), writers tend to do a quite a bit of worldbuilding for their story settings. For that they often need a map (thanks Tolkien 💛). From time to time, I see writers inquire for cartographers’ work and that’s where you can jump in.
💡 Pre-history tip
Go to your local book store and leave a flyer with couple of your best maps and an e-mail.
Create digital assets
This one is fairly straight forward and obvious. Trouble is that usually this one starts paying after you’ve reached a solid following of fellow map-makers who are in-need of said asset. However, there are marketplaces where you can sell your assets that already have the traffic, so you can focus on creating.
In my opinion, I find the best place to start around mapmaking software. Increasingly more people use tools like Inkarnate and Wonderdraft in their worldbuilding efforts. But, using these comes at a cost of being exactly the same as the rest of them. For that reason many users seek out custom assets for their maps which include illustrations of buildings, trees, clothes, relics, symbols, etc. and your place to shine.
With assets created you can sell them on your Gumroad, Ko-Fi or Patreon. In case you don’t have a massive following ready to buy from your online store, you can utilize public marketplaces which will drive the traffic for you. Here’s a list of online platforms where you can sell your assets:
Cartographer’s Guild | While Cartographer’s Guild isn’t a marketplace, lot of mapmakers hang out there and you can direct them to your online store.
Deviant Art | Same as Cartographer’s Guild, Deviant Art is a place where people find creative work and you can make your assets visible there thanks to their massive traffic.
Join Cartographer’s Guild
I’ve not spend much of my time here — main reason I am solution designer by day and the interface of this website gives me a solid headache. BUT! Nate from WASD20 claims that besides the fact that he’s sending a lot of traffic there from his commission requests, this platform is something of a go-to bulletin for a lot of people looking to get a map for their project.
Bonus tip: Nate also has a video on How to get paid drawing maps.
Find local TTRPG / fantasy genre publishers
We are fantasy cartographers who create fantasy maps for fantasy folks with their heads in fantasy worlds. Likely, those who publish our favourite worlds in a form of stories and TTRPGs will be in need of map. Get your portfolio on the interwebz, make sure it contains some of your best work and warm up the cold e-mails. Publishers often have a public list of works they will be publishing. You can find what may be of interest to you and reach out even directly to authors. And, while books may only require one or two maps, TTRPGs and game system extensions may often need multiple pieces to support all adventures they entail. Struthless made a great video where he walks through the process of reaching out to companies as an artist, I highly recommend you watch it if you haven’t yet.
Here are five tips you can and hopefully will use to get your creative projects. I myself am fairly new to this map game so I will appreciate any and all feedback as well as tips you might have.
In the near future I will be putting out Part 2 of this guide. If you don’t want to miss out either come back or you can even gift me with your e-mail address via the form below. In return, I will not only let you know once the second part is published but also will occasionally send you some cool materials like tips & tricks, map-making tutorials, free assets, and more.
