Biddulph outlines #DrawWithRob success at Bookseller Children’s Conference

Rob Biddulph has said he was “overwhelmed” by the response to the online #DrawWithRob drawing lessons he ran during lockdown. 

Speaking to The Bookseller’s children’s previewer Fiona Noble at The Bookseller’s Children’s Conference, Biddulph said a large number of people online instantly wanted to take part in the sessions, which he launched to help bored children who were stuck at home. 

“I pictured all these children at home, and their parents, wondering what to do and it struck me that I might be able to help,” he said. “I did a teaser to see if it was something [people would be interested in] an I had an amazing response, with hundreds of retweets. That was on a Sunday. I uploaded the first video on Tuesday and on Wednesday I was on BBC Breakfast!”

Although the goal wasn’t to sell books, Biddulph realised he could raise awareness of his brand by showing pictures from his books at the start of the videos. He also drew characters from his books and put drawings, sent in by children who had participated in the lessons, in the videos.

After a time Biddulph and his agent, Jodie Hodges, pitched the idea of doing an activity book based on the videos to his publisher HarperCollins. 

Once HC confirmed it was keen on the idea, he only had about three weeks to complete the project, a time he describes as “intense”. 

“If you’d have told me at the start of the year I would have a bestselling activity book I would have thought you were kidding,” he told Noble. “The term influencers is off-putting in lots of ways but I found myself being an influencer for a time. Talking to micro communities like mum bloggers is a really interesting way of getting your product to the target audience.”

Biddulph also broke the Guinness World record for largest online art class. More than 45,000 unique users tuned into the online session on 21st May, when only 10,000 were needed to break the existing record.