How to make money

>>3007491
Upwork, reddit.com/r/hungryartists, LinkedIn, personal social network.

>>3007493

thank. i check out upwork and reddit. I have a LinkedIn profile but never cared about it. Is it actually useful?

>>3007528
It's just a different strategy, I use it for long-term position job applications & for cold calling. Got long-term clients out of it, but you don't sound like the proactive type, so it might not be your thing.

>>3007491
What markets do you want to work in? Getting started is always going to be a challenge, so you should get a McJob to pay the bills, until your career takes off.

Best case scenario is to get an agent. I had one for a while, and she brought me work on a pretty consistent basis - she had contacts with the kind of clients I wanted to work with, and she was great for negotiating and billing. The bets way to find an agent is look in your area, and calling/contacting them, for a portfolio review, to see if they can sell you.

You can also send portfolios out - in the old days, this was a pain, as you had to send a physical one, and it could takes weeks for them to return, and it was expensive to get stuff scanned and printed, if you didn't get tearsheets/samples from clients. Now, you can send PDFs. You should absolutely have a portfolio site, and have 10-20 samples, covering a wide range of styles/concepts. Then, you cold call the kind of clients you want to work for, and see if the art director's bite.
There are temp agencies for illustration, too, like Aquent.
Most of my work, once I got started, were from my agent, or from networking, and word of mouth. You want to be on art director and manager's minds, when 'Hey, do you know any artists?" comes up.
You can also join communities like the Society of Illustrators, for tips and networking.
Word of warning - legit jobs for illustrators are rare these days, they're rarely advertised. You have to be motivated to reach out, contact people, and ask. It all depends on the market you want to work in, and how big it is. If you're doing manga type work, there's little chance you'll get work outside of fan forums. If you're looking for real illustration, like editorial, food, technical, packaging, etc, you have to make yourself know to art directors and creative heads, so they know you exist, and having a portfolio they can look at - a website should be your first priority, then a PDF version.