Tag Archives: picture book illustrator

Freelance Children Book Illustrator

A children book illustrator is a professional who creates drawings or illustrations for Children books written by Children book Author. There are many children book illustrators and they can be found on the internet. Many illustrators work for agencies and many of them are freelancers who accept direct assignments from Authors. There are many aspects which need to be considered before deciding to choose a freelance illustrator.

  • Portfolio of the illustrator: – While choosing an illustrator, you must have a detailed look at the portfolio of the kids book illustrator. The portfolio can be present in the form of website or some other website where illustrators can make a portfolio. There should be a set style of the illustrator and a set of samples to look at.
  • Experience: – The freelance illustrator can be new to the children books but she/he must have good hands on the illustrations. There should be sufficient samples to his/her credit and if you can find reviews from other Authors/ clients, it really adds a lot of credibility. If you choose an experienced illustrator, it is always better.
  • Language: – The illustrator must be comfortable with the Language you speak, because there will be a lot of difficulties if there is a language problem. There are freelance illustrators available from each part of the world and you must make sure that he/she understands your script and your expectations completely.
  • Sample: – You can request for a sample from the illustrator so that you can see the suitability of the illustrator for your book. This so happens at times that the illustrator is really very talented but he/she is not the right match for the kind of story which you have written. It’s like “right person for right job”. You must be satisfied and completely confident about the abilities of the illustrator before commissioning your project to the illustrator.
  • Pricing: – The pricing should be proportionate to the work and this must be decided between the two of you and you can also get a general idea of the pricing by simply asking the rates from the other illustrators. You will find that new illustrators charge a little less and the experienced illustrators charge higher amounts.
  • Contract: – You should also sign a contract with the illustrator and the copyright discussion must be mentioned in the contract. You can also inform the illustrator if you want a :work for hire” contract under which the full rights belongs to the Author, or if there in anything else which you want or which the illustrator wants. But it is always advisable to have a contract signed, which clearly mentions the payment details as well as delivery details like the deadline for completion etc.

You can find illustrators by simply searching on the internet but you must not be In any hurry because illustrator is a very important part of your book and choosing a good illustrator will give you very high dividends. All the best for your search and I hope you find a good illustrator.

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How to Choose a Children Book Illustrator

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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