Understand the need of the story:-
It is important to understand what will suit your story in terms of illustrations and what is the age group which you are targeting. Not all illustrations styles will suit every story. You must see which other books of your category (Genre) has done well in the market and what were the kind of illustrations. Will realistic characters suit your story or a cartoonist characters will help your story better. Should you get a water color style or should you consider a digital illustration. These are various issues which you will need to work upon.
Search various illustrators: –
You can look at the portfolio of various children book illustrators available online and you can filter a few of them whose style closely matches your requirements. Once you hear back from the illustrators, you can ask him/her to create a sample so that you can see if the illustrator is really a good match or not. If the illustrator is not able to make the sample of your liking in the first attempt, then give one more chance and also share your expectations once more. It happens that illustrator is not in sync with your expectations during the first attempt but during revisions the illustrator is able to read your mind better.
Select the illustrator: –
After your research when you are confident about the children book illustration capability of the illustrator, ask if he/she would like to work on your project and get a contract signed which must include all the necessary details like the number of illustrations,. Payment terms, illustration process, ownership of copyrights etc. You must also include the approximate deadline in the contract so that the project remains on track. Once the contract is signed, you may pay an advance if it forms a part of the contract. After this, the illustrator can start working on the illustrations and as an Author you must be quick in giving the feedback to the illustrator so that the project keeps moving.
Start working on next steps:-
Once you have selected the right illustrator, your planning for next steps like publishing/self publishing must start and you should start your research about what route you will be following. Also, you must work out on your budget, if you plan to self publish and you must start speaking with the self publishers in order to get the right set of services from them to make your book available for selling.
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Children Book Illustration 