 Why
is this step number 1?
On average, a children's book will take approximately two to three
months (or more) to illustrate, and during that time you'll have plenty
of time to learn about the publishing options available for your children's
book (more on this in the next step). If getting your book available
for sale as soon as possible is important to you then hiring an illustrator
should be your very first step.
Your illustrator's experience during this time (and throughout the entire book creation process) should be an invaluable resource to you, not only by supplying your book with wonderful illustrations, but also by answering any questions about your book's production. How should you choose an illustrator? Look at the illustrations that they've created for other authors (it's called a "portfolio"). Find out the illustrator's artwork creation procedures and see if you're comfortable with them. For example, is the illustrator experienced enough to know that they should show you a pencil sketch for approval before adding color to the sketch? My illustration creation procedures that I use on every project are designed to make the illustration stages of children's book creation as simple and rewarding as possible for my clients. The example that I've created (shown in full in Step 3) will not only help answer your questions of what you should expect while working with your illustrator, but also create questions for you to ask illustrators that you are interviewing. The prices that one illustrator will charge compared to another can be quite different. I've seen prices that range from $50.00US per illustration to well into the hundreds. As a rule, illustrators charge what the market will bear for their artwork. For example, if an illustrator is in great demand then the price that they charge for their artwork will reflect that. I believe most people choose an illustrator because they love the illustrator's artwork that they've seen, they like the illustrator's artwork creation procedure, and they can afford the price the illustrator is asking to create the artwork. This illustrator selection approach by the author is very sensible and, I'm sure, the most common. Note: The timeframe referred to earlier for creating the illustrations for a book can be shorter or longer depending on the illustrator's current workload, but from my experience of illustrating children's books as well as talking to other children's book illustrators, this is the approximate average. Beware of the illustrator that tells you it will take a week to create the illustrations for your book, you'll most likely be disappointed by poor quality illustrations or a deadline that will be overshot by months. An important thing to remember is that every illustrator is a contractor, and like every contractor in whatever business, must take on more than just your project to insure a steady workflow and income. Back to: First Page | Next: Step 2
|
