Publishing a Children's Book-How to Work With an Illustrator

1. Class Introduction: Hi, I'm Ronnie Walter and welcome to publishing a children's book, how to work with an Illustrator. This class is designed to help riders understand a little more clearly how to work with illustrators and help artists work with writers who may not be experienced with working with them. Writing a children's book is one thing, and congratulations by the way. But making sure you're working with the right artists to make your characters and setting come to life is a whole other skill set. Through these short lessons, I will walk you through the process. And even though there's a lot of information, I hope you come away feeling empowered and excited to move your book forward into the hands of an enthusiastic reader. Let's go through the highlights of the class that you are about to take. First, we're going to learn the simple skills you need to get started and to feel comfortable throughout the project. Not every writer has worked with an Illustrator. And this will give you the basis of understanding of how this relationship may work for you. You'll also learn how to build a design brief, and that is going to save you lots of time and many headaches and communicating with your Illustrator. You'll also learn about reviewing schedules, budgets, expectations, and the realities of the process. Frankly, I have gone through this many times, either with books that I've published myself or with other writers that I have worked with. You will learn the key points to developing an agreement between you and the artist. And this is really important and one that scares a lot of us. But I explain it in plain English. I'm not a lawyer. It will cover the basics of what you need in an agreement with you and the artists that you choose. And also you're going to get three really wonderful downloadable worksheets. The first one is a picture book planner to help you plan your book. It's really simple, but it'll get your head around how your pages work, what the pagination is gonna be about, how you can put those little wonderful extras into your book. The cliffhanger is the dramatic moments. Your picture book planner will help you do that. The second thing you will get is a project checklist, and that is going to keep you on track. You're going to know what's supposed to be done at any given time in the correct order. And also, I have given you the list of contract basics, understanding the terms that should be in an agreement. Again, in plain English, those are going to be valuable for you as you move forward with your amazing project. Okay, So you probably want to know a little bit about me, write. Most of my career has been spent somewhere in the arts, particularly around art, art direction, publishing, illustration, and licensing. Plus, I also work with artists really closely. So basically here's my resume. I was an art director for a stationery and invitation company. I've been a professional illustrator, freelance for over 30 years. I've written and illustrated two children's books with a traditional publisher and three more that I illustrated for others. I've also independently published over 40 books, including coloring books, nonfiction titles, plus a mystery novel. Because, why not? Also, I have licensed my artwork on over a thousand products, including all of the fun stuff, gift where fabric, stationery, greeting cards, decorative flags, and lots more. I was also a licensing agent for 13 years along with my husband Jim market. And I'm now a coach for artists working one-on-one to help them move their work further into the world. And in my spare time, I also paint abstracts. Okay, so enough about me. Let's get down to what you actually came here for. And that is to figure out what's the best way to work with an artist to make your story be an incredible children's book. The thing that you've dreamed up for a really long time. 2. The Marriage of Writing and Art: The marriage of words and pictures is the best thing about children's books. The words tell the story while the pictures illuminate and enhance it. I mean, who can separate Dr. Seuss versus from Dr. Seuss art or Jan Brett's lush detailed watercolors in the mitten, what is Goodnight Moon? Without climate, herds, bold and colorful illustrations or Charlotte's Web without Garth Williams, amazing pencil drawings. I wanted to help artists and writers understand a little more clearly how to work with illustrators and help artists work with writers who may not be experienced working with them. So in our next lessons, we will discuss, how do you do this? What are the ins and outs of publishing a children's book when you don't know how to draw, Let's get going. 3. Traditional vs Independant Publishing: I want to go over the difference between traditional publishing and independent publishing, or also known as self-publishing. In traditional publishing, first thing is to write a really good story and then submit it to a publisher either through an agent or on your own. And unless you are an author and illustrator, or there are some other compelling reason to submit with both the words and pictures. Like a family relationship or a team of a writer and an illustrator, or some sort of charitable tie-in, then you do not have to find your own Illustrator. Once you sign a publishing deal, your editor will hire an illustrator to illustrate your book. After you have signed a contract with a traditional publisher, you will be assigned an art director or an editor, depending on the publishing house. Their job is to match the right to artist with the right author. They are familiar with the terminology and industry jargon to move things forward like full bleed, spot illustrations, four-color process, line art, etc. They will oversee the overall design and style of the book. They will walk this book all the way from the very beginning to the publishing process till it gets, That's their job is to watch over this project. They also understand because this is their expertise. They understand pagination and the pacing of the story. And pagination means where, where does the story break? What's on each page? How does the story advance forward based on the amount of pages you have in the book. So they understand that pagination and the pacing of the story. They also understand production issues like the sizes of a book, the margins bleeds, etc. So they have a complete working understanding of how a book is produced and what they have to do to make sure that that is produced properly. They also meet production schedule. So everything that happens needs to be on a production schedule. When our sketches do, when does the art have to be completed? All of the steps along the way, who is putting the type in when all of these pieces need to be put together. They are managing that whole production schedule. And they are also very aware of trends in art and design and publishing, which children's books are. As you know, as you look at them out in the marketplace, you know that they have trends. There are styles of books that were popular 25 years ago, 30 years ago, and it's a different style now, they are always keeping abreast of trends in the world. And so they understand that. And they also really understand children, children's literature. And what readers respond to. They are very connected to children's literature and that whole world they are keyed in to what is happening in children's publishing and literature and how books appeal to children. Now let's talk about independent publishing. Now, I'm going to make a giant assumption here that you are here because you want to publish your own book. If that is true, There's a lot coming for you here. So we're gonna go through what your responsibilities will be as an independent publisher, how this will work for you. So your main job is you are going to need to find an artist with the skills and a look that you want for your book. That's a big job. But we're gonna go through that. You're going to have to learn and understand some of this terminology so that you and you're an artist that you work with will be speaking the same language you're going to learn along the way. You don't have to know everything to start. But there's going to be some things that you don't necessarily understand that you need to familiarize yourself with or ask questions. You end the artists together. But mostly you will direct this pagination and the pacing of the stories. How is the story being advanced within the pages of the book? You are going to have to understand some production issues. We will go through that. But there's lots of information out there in the world of how actually a book, if you're using an independent publishing company, whether that's K d p with Amazon or others that you're going to have to understand how these final files are actually going to need to be delivered to your publisher. Okay, I'm just going to stop right here and say, this sounds like a lot. And it sounds like you're it's like, Oh, Ronnie, what are you trying to tell me? But it is a lot. You're undertaking a big deal here. But if you're patient and you pace yourself, this is all doable. Authors do it all the time, but it's not for the faint of heart. Okay. Let's resume. You're also going to have to keep track of the schedules. You will probably have an idea in mind of when you want your book published, whether it's for a specific event. But you're going to need to keep track of those schedules and make sure things move forward in a timely fashion. You will also need to be aware of trends in art and publishing. And we're going to talk about that later. How do you, how do you do that? How do you, how do you understand what's going on in publishing today? And you want to understand children and what they respond to visually. Sometimes authors have an idea. They, they have an idea for a children's book, but they haven't really tested on, on children. They just think it's a cool idea. So you're gonna have to go a little deeper in understanding what children respond to and why they respond to it. And that will help you as you get further into the visuals of the book. 4. Develop Your Skills: In this section, we're going to talk about the skills that you need to develop to work with an artist. Some of you have experience working with graphic design or illustration, but not everyone does. So this is going to be an overview of the things that you should just keep in mind that you're going to need to have some proficiency in as you move forward with everything. Nobody knows everything from when they start, but these are the things to watch out for that you need to be aware of and that you might need a little assistance along the way. So let's get started. First of all, let's talk about the difference between design, illustration and production. You're going to hear these words. And I just want to clarify what each of them means. The design when it comes to a book, means the overall look of the book. What is the what's the type selection? Will you be using borders around pictures, or is there a color scheme you want to stay close to? What is the art style? How is the color working through the whole book? What is the design? The design is the overall look of the book. Then you have illustration. The illustration are the actual pictures in the book. Those are the drawings, whether they are painted on paper or if they are digitally, if they are digitally illustrated. The illustration or the actual pictures that will be placed in side the book. And the third word of this trifecta of things we need to know about a book is production. Production means. How is the book laid out for printing? If you have the correct margins, if you have the right space and the gutter of the book, which is the center of the book. It's all of the little things that you have to make sure are in place so that you can produce a really good-looking book production is really critical to how your book comes out. Things aren't going to be wonky, the margins are gonna be consistent, all of those things. So production is another piece of this puzzle. You don't just get art. Somehow the art has to fall into the design and then get produced into a really cool book. Now, keep in mind that these three tasks may be done by different people. Maybe you are the person that designs the book, that you have the vision and you have this overall understanding of what the book, how you want the book to look. And you may end up doing the and production in order to submit it to a publisher. And we're talking indie publishing here. But the artists that you hire, the artists that you are talking to may not be doing the production. And those are the things you need to watch out for. And we will talk about that in subsequent lessons about when you introduce this idea of who's doing the production, okay, Cool. First, you need to understand that you need to prepare a budget for your project. Most artists are professional and should be compensated in some manner, preferably with money. That's what we prefer because that's what our landlords take and that's what they that's what they use it, the supermarket as well. Whether they are early in their professional career, later in their professional career, or at the peak, artists should be compensated in some way. Artists have actual costs in time. The time that they are working on your project means they cannot work on someone else's project or go to a job to make actual cash money. They have actual costs in their time. Artists also have software programs they need to pay for. We have art supplies that need to be replenished. We have to pay taxes just like everyone else. And so there are actual costs to working on your project. Hard costs. And let me just talk here a little bit about something known as a royalty share. And that is where this has happened to me. Where an author comes to me or to any artist and says, Hey, I would love for you to illustrate my children's book. And you're like, How interesting telling me about it. And they tell you about the story and you're like, that's pretty cool and they're like I'm here's how it's going to work. I figure I wrote the book, you'll do the art and then we'll share the royalties. 5050 on the other side of things. Okay. Okay. I just would not consider that for a couple of reasons. One, I have to make money, I have to pay my rent, I have to pay for things. Particularly with first-time authors, particularly first-time self-published authors. It's a very big risk for that artists to take that there will actually be any royalties to share. And if they are, is it enough to compensate the amount of time that they have taken to prepare this project for you. I had an author come to me with she actually had a budget, but it was so low. And I understand it. I'm not everybody got piles of money to start with, but it was so low that once I did the math on how long it would take me to do her sketches, to do the final illustrations and all of that. It was worth what her budget was. It was I wouldn't have made minimum wage. And I just can't do that. And you might find someone that thinks that's great, that hey, I get to draw pictures and this is a great opportunity for me. But remember that there are hard costs of royalty share is a big ask because a couple of reasons. One is if they're not getting any cash along the way, that they are not being compensated along the way. If a job comes into them or an opportunity comes into them, that they can make actual money. Then guess what happens your project, it goes to the bottom of the line, it goes to the back. So they can work on things that actually make money. That's one thing. The other thing is there might not be any money, and so they have done up to a 100 hours of work or more for nothing. There's nothing there. So we joke, of course, that people die from exposure. You have to think about this in the beginning. Do you have a budget? And are you willing to work with an artist and pay them to do this? Okay, We're moving on. Let's talk about, we talked about this a little bit before, but who does what? Not all illustrators are proficient in the production side. So you need to know that going in and there's future lessons. We're going to talk about how you go about finding an illustrator and how you have this conversation. But just know that if the illustrator is now proficient in doing the production side, meaning knowing how the margins work and gutters and all of the things and how to put a cover together with the spine and all of the things. You need to be able to do that or you need to find another person that can take that raw illustration and make it into the book, make it into the files that need to be prepared for this to become an actual book. So when you're thinking about a budget, remember that too. And so when you're talking to an illustrator, those are the questions you're going to need to ask, which we will talk about later. You are also going to ask who's going to paginate the book that is in the beginning as well. So you have your raw manuscript. How did the pages break? Now sometimes the illustrator does this, they'll do like quick thumbnails of how the pagination, how does the drama work in the book? What's the best way? When you turn the page? Is there a cliffhanger, that planning stage and then beginning. So you need to know that do you have a clear understanding of how you want this book to read? Or are you going to leave that up to the Illustrator? Again, be clear on that. Just have these things in your, in your mind. Who is going to pick a typeface? Who is going to determine the design and the printing specification. All of that stuff needs to go early into the process. So you're not at the end going, oh my gosh, I have all these illustrations. I don't know what to do with them. I don't know how to type gets on there. Think about this from the beginning. And the other part is, who is going to design the cover off in the Illustrator will do an illustration for the cover. It may be an illustration that comes out of the body of the work. But someone has to design the cover. Someone has to be able to either determine what picture is going to be on the cover along with what is the type look like. Is there a blurb on the back, the UPC, all of this stuff. So the cover is its own entity. You have the guts of the book, interior pages. And then you have the cover. You got to know who's doing that in the beginning, okay? So those are things to think about and we'll get into more detail. It's not as scary as it sounds, but I just want to put all this stuff upfront so you understand that. Okay. See you in the next one. 5. Things to Do befor Contacting an Artist: Okay, Now we're going to talk about what to do before you contact an Illustrator. Right now. You haven't contacted anyone or you have. And you realize, oh, I don't know what I'm supposed to ask them. Now we're going to talk about stuff like that. Okay. You ready? Let's go. In. Trust me, we're getting closer. You're thinking, hey, am I ever going to contact an illustrator while yes, you are hanging out. It's going to make your life so much easier if you do these kinds of things before you contact an illustrator. You want to go in your first conversation with an illustrator, really understanding what you're asking of them, how you can work together. So the first thing you're gonna do is organize your project. When I say organize your project, I mean, a couple of things. One is you'll want to make a book dummy. You're just starting to figure out how you think the book is going to come together. What basically is on each page? How, how, how is your type broken up into the book in the resources of this class, I have a handout for you that gives you just a little thumbnail of how you can start to sketch out what your book looks like. Don't spend a lot of time on this because the illustrator is going to contribute to some of these ideas as well once you get further, but just have a general idea of how this book is going to lay out. Plus you want to make sure if it's not like, oh, all of a sudden it's 150 page children's book. That will work. But you'll need to note that you'll want to have an idea of when you want to publish this book. If it's a book about Christmas, you'll probably want to be out being sold by October at the latest, October 15th. So you have to work backwards on that. If it has anything to do with a tie into any event or holiday, back it up four to six months at least, so that you know that you're publishing on time. Or if you just are like, I just want this book out, give it some months ahead of time because you're going to, you and the artists are going to need that to get it done right? So have an idea of when you want to publish. It's a good idea to start thinking about a marketing plan if you haven't already, when is my launch going to happen? When am I going to start talking to people? When am I going to give them sneak previews, all of those things. You'll want to have a marketing plan front of mind, and there's a lot of information on marketing your book. I'm not going to cover it here because it's a giant subject. So we won't worry about that. Okay, I suggest that you make a mood board. As I said, often writers are not visual. People. Nuts. They don't have taste and understanding of what's cool and all of that. But they may not have the language to explain to an artists their vision for the book, what, what they see this book looking like at the other side, by using a mood board, you could do it on Pinterest or you could actually cut things out and put them on an actual piece of paper. You'll start to make a mood board of art styles that you like, colors that you like, the kind of figures that you think are cool and look like the kind of figures that might populate your book. So making a mood board is a really great way for one thing. It's fun. And it's also a really great way to cure rate the imagery that you can see with your book as opposed to you don't want to be sitting down with an Illustrator going on now, it should be kinda loose and maybe it's this, maybe it's that. And the artist is like, I don't know what you're talking about or I don't know if I'm the right artist for that. By making a mood board, you start accumulating imagery. Then you start to see a pattern. And you can start to, well, you can get excited about your project because you're like, Oh my gosh, I can already envisioned this. So make a mood board. Spend a little time doing that. It's super helpful for you and the artist. When you're starting to pull imagery, years, you're going to start to look at art styles. Are they realistic? Do you see this as being super realism type art? Do you see it as a bright graphic? Those are the kinds of things that you're going to start accumulating. Again, color palettes. Is this going to be like a soft, really soft pastel look is going to be bright. Is it gonna be in neutral? Their children's books that are black and white. So you haven't, this is how you start to, this is how you start to cure rate things for yourself and for the artist. The other thing, as you're making a mood board is the figure styles. Do you want your characters if you're using humans, do you want them to look super realistic? Do you want them to be stylized? Do you want them to be silhouette? What's your gig on that? What do you feel? And sometimes you don't know that until you start seeing something. Maybe you want something to look very Disney ask or maybe you want it to look like cut paper, but by accumulating things like, kinda like this or that's a really good thing to do. It will be so helpful for you in the long run. The feel of the art style, is it warm? It's an edgy, is it sweet? Those are the things that, That's why this mood board is so important as you're just, it's just gonna be a pile of stuff that you can start to look through and go. This really speaks to me. It speaks to my heart. It feels like my book. It feels like my book. That's what you want to do. You're not looking for stuff to mimic. You're starting to get a feel for things were not in the business of mimicking other art, but we are influenced by what we see. And so you want to get that feel for your book. The next thing you have to do, and I do this, I think doing this on a piece of paper is just fine because you're going to eventually share this with your artist to start to identify your characters and the setting of your book. With your characters, you want to identify them, their name, their age, their gender, their race, their attitude, et cetera. So it might be grandma Jones, she's 86, she's female. She's Hispanic, and she is sassy and fun, but she can be edgy. Write these things down. If that's what you say about grandma Jones. But you didn't tell that to the Illustrator. They might make her eat and baking pies and meet. I mean, you just don't know. So identify your characters new setting and do this forever character in your book, whether they are minor or major. Do this for every character that shows up and make sure you do the pets too. If the cat's snarky and mean, that's a whole different than a sweet little kitty. But make sure you write all this down so that you have some shorthand to share with the illustrator. And you're setting, your artist's is going to want to know, is this an urban setting? Is it rural? Is it takes place in a fantasy land? Those are the kind of thing. So make sure that you are identifying all of these things. So this is a really good, you're basically going to do a notebook, a brand book, if you will, to sell that the artists can look at it and go, I understand, I get this. The next thing you're going to do is spend some time in research. And I know writers love to research. I know I do. You want to look at competitive titles? If your book is about a dog, you want to look at other dog books that are fresh and new. You don't want to look at 30-year-old books. You want to look at books that were published in the last couple of years. That's where you see the trends. That's where you see particularly finding out what is selling and what is trending. Again, not to mimic, but to understand that there is a reason that some of these things are bubbling up. It could be the astounding writing. It could be the in your face illustrations. You don't know, but educating yourself on what's going on right now, what is happening with the book similar to yours is really important. You can do this at the library and the library and can be your friend. And you could say, what's a really popular book that keeps, that they keep taking out in this age range or this kind of a book that I'm writing, What's really popular in this genre? She will tell you, you can look online, of course, Amazon, look at the bestsellers in your categories and see if you can see, kinda crack the code, what visuals they use, the color palettes. You want to be distinctive, but you don't want to be so far out of who you compete with that you don't look like the category. Does that make sense? It's a little counterintuitive because we don't want my book to be different now you want your book to be different enough. Would you want your customer to understand what it's about? You don't want to take them on a trip where they go. I don't know what this book is about because it doesn't look like anything that my kids read already. You can also do this at bookstores. They always have a children's section at Barnes and Noble or your local independent retailer. Look at the books that they are featuring. They always have a table with these are our staff favorites. Look at those. What is cracking the code on that too. If you see an employee ask them, particularly someone that specializes in that department, asked them what is trending? Ask what's trending and this is going to be researched. You also want to look when you are starting to massage this, okay, this is the kind of book that I do. This is for the age group. Look at the typical dimensions in the page count of that book. If it's for a toddler, it's going to be probably smaller. And the page count is going to be no more than 32 pages. No more. They don't have the attention span. If it's a little older, if you're doing a chapter book, then look at those typical dimensions, what sizes that book, if it's there normally, 5.5 by 8.5. Don't make an eight by ten. Their page count is 100. Pages. Don't make your 300. So you want to stay within your genre. You want to stay similar to, so that you're not taking your customer on this big leap to something real it out, get that you want them to get it right away. So be aware of those things as you're developing your book. Okay. See you in the next one. 6. Develop Your Design Brief: Now we're going to go through how you actually build your design brief, step-by-step, easy peasy. You're going to develop a design brief. And this is basically a document that you are going to share with your illustrator or potential illustrators as you go forward with your books. So they get the whole picture, picture, picture book. First thing you're gonna do is write a brief synopsis of your book. It's just three or four paragraphs about what your book is about. So they get the general idea. Don't overthink it. You know your stories so well, just write a quick synopsis of your book. You will want to include your desired publication date. We've talked about that in the last lesson. You've done this little sketchy book dummy. You'll want to share approximately how many illustrations there are. Whether you see them as full-page illustrations or spot illustrations which are just little small like might be a little tiny icon if you will, on one page like one. Unlike the left-hand page is the one full-color illustration and on the right might be typed with a little vignette, if you will. So that's called a spot when it's not a full page illustration. So as you've done this, just a general idea as you work further with your illustrator, that may change, but just so they get the general scope of the project, you'll want to share your character information that we went through before. You will also want to share sample visuals from your mood board. These are the kinds of things that I like. These are color schemes that I like. I feel like this is the design feel that I'm going for. You can also at this point, share the expectations of the Illustrator if you know you have no business doing any design or production, if they are interested in doing that, those are things that you will need. And so you can put that in your document and then you will have a conversation whether that's part of their gig or not. Okay, In the, I mentioned this before, but in the resource section of this course, I have made this tool for you. You can just print it out. And this is how you're going to start figuring out what your, what your book is going to look like. The pacing of it, where you're going to throw in your cliffhanger is how you can see like if you open the page and it's like this is a, you can write it down, you can sketch it if you feel comfortable with that. But you can just write down what action is taking place on the page, how the openings spread. You would write down, say, this is a city scene with a lonesome dog sitting next to a garbage can. And you can do that all in written form. Or you can do little sketches of how you see this happening and indicating the type where it might go. Okay, so that is in your resource and I encourage you to print that out. So basically you're putting together a little document that you can share with Illustrator. So it will be so easy for them to decide whether this is the right project for them or not. It will also help them. If you're asking them to give you a budget, they can get the scope of the job and see what they might charge for that. And it's a basic place where you both can start a conversation without making stuff up as you go along because nobody wants that. Okay, Cool. 7. Pick the Perfect Illustrator: Well, guess what? We're going to finally talk about finding the right Illustrator. I know you're excited now, aren't you? Okay, let's get going. Lots of writers say, I need an artist's to illustrate my book. Let's kinda like saying, I need a doctor for my body. Do you have a rash or brain tumor? Are you pregnant? Just like doctors, artists are more suited for specific looks and techniques and are not right for any job that you might have. If you choose an artist who paints realistic portraits of say, dead presidents, they probably will not be the best person to illustrate your book about aliens who love cupcakes. And on the other side, if you choose a podiatrist to give you a facelift, they might know how to handle a scalpel, but you might not look as cute as you anticipated. So finding the right artists for your project is what's really going to make your books sing. So how are you going to find this person knowing that not every artist is going to be right for your project. Just because your sister is an illustrator doesn't mean she's the right person for this project, or maybe she is, and that would be awesome. But you're still getting new contract, which we will talk about later. Anyway. Word of mouth is a great way to find people that might be the perfect person for your project. Just know people. We hang around in circles that you go into an artist and their error or you hear of an artist and they're like, oh my gosh, she's amazing, you should call her. And so word of mouth is tried and true. That's one way to find it in Illustrator. Not always the perfect one, but you never know. You need to keep your mind open for these things. If you belong to a writing group, particularly in a children's book writing group. People may know people though are they say, Oh, well Sally did mine and she's amazing. And depending on what you're looking for, that would be a great thing. If you are a member of S C BWI, which is the Society of children's book writers and illustrators, which you should be. They also have illustrators on that website that you can hook up with or be in forums with that kind of a thing. So writing groups or just within your circle, it may produce an Illustrator that's perfect for your book. Social networks. Obviously, we're always looking at images all day long and you might come across an artist on Instagram or Facebook or TikTok and you think, Oh my gosh, Especially since you've done your mood board and have a vocabulary of the kind of visual vocabulary that you're thinking about. And you see someone that aligns with that. There you go. There's someone to contact. There are also more formal online portfolio sites. There's one called Behance. If you look at online artists portfolio sites, if you Google that, you will find other portfolio sites. They tend to be depending on what you're looking for. They're a little higher on the professional scale. And so depending on what you're looking for, there may be perfect for you. The other thing that people have used, and I'm not opposed to this in any way. But sites like fiber where people are going to post their illustrations or I will, again, it's buyer beware on some of those that may be an incredible deal or it'll be a nightmare. You don't know. It might be the perfect artist. People get connected in that way with sites like Fiverr. I've never done that nor am I on Fiverr. I'm not saying it's bad. It just is there's a lot. So doing your front end work of understanding what you're looking for, you will have a better chance of working with the right Illustrator when all this starts to pull together. And from this information you're going to be gathering these people. And you're going to make a shortlist. If you get a bad vibe from somebody and you're like, Yeah, I think so. Or if it's a word of mouth and they go, Oh my God, She's amazing, but you shouldn't ever meet the deadline. Those are the things to pay attention to it. It's a numbers game. You're going to start to look at illustrators, but you're going to make a shortlist. And I would make my shortlist no more than five illustrators to have this conversation with. Otherwise, you're going to drive yourself crazy. You just, we'll just say, make a shortlist, get very clear on the first couple of people that you want to reach out to and have this conversation with. Then we're gonna go in the next lesson on how to move this forward. But now you're back in your research mode of looking for artists and sort of dovetail with the things that you have been thinking about. 8. Meet with Your Illustrator: Well, guess what? It's time to meet your Illustrator. Finally. Here's how you do this. You're going to start reaching out and you have your shortlist. First thing you want to do is contact them to see if they're interested in your project. Hi, I'm Jane Smith and I have a children's book, and I love your artwork and I'm wondering if you are interested in talking to me about illustrating my book. That's all I have to do. You tell the whole story, anything like that? Just see if they are interested in your project. Some people are just too busy. So we're just gonna go do children's books. I don't work with self publishers, who knows, doesn't matter. This is why you have multiple artists that you are going to reach out to just contact them and ask if they are interested in your project. If they say yes, then you want to share the brief, the little document that you put together. You want to share that, send it to him and just tell them. Okay, cool, That's awesome. I'm going to send you the brief of the project and then you can then we can have a conversation a further conversation about that. Send it to him. Male. Okay. Then its decision. You either if you have a budget and it's a hard budget, new go, okay, I got this amount of money. Then you can either ask them for a quote. Most people are able to concoct a quote for you. You can do either way you're going to ask you the code or you can let them know your budget. It's really a personal preference to how you do that. If you know your budget, you want to make sure you have some flexibility in that budget. Whether you want to hold some back in reserve, just in case of problems that you might have to hire somebody else like a production person or something. Sometimes it's just simpler to ask for a quote. Okay? Then set a date for when you want to hear back from them. You can say after you've shared the brief, you can say, okay, once you've taken a look at this, I'd love to hear what you think this is going to cost. And also because I'm trying to move this project forward, Could you please let me know by next Thursday, put put some sort of date on there so you are not chasing them. And the other thing by giving someone a date to do something, it shows whether they can follow-up schedule. You'll know soon enough if you'd never hear from them or if you're constantly chasing them for numbers, you're probably going to chase them for a job as well. So say I'd love to hear from you from next Thursday, give them at least a week, if not a week-and-a-half, to kinda pull this together because you don't know what's going on in their life, but set a date that is very helpful in life. So this is going along and sometimes these things are happening simultaneously. I'm sorry. That's just the way life is. You want to find out like once you're like, okay, well maybe we're getting close to this. You want to iron out those details, which is, who's doing, what are you going to design it? Are you going to pick a typeface? All of the things we've talked about earlier. There you go. Well the illustrator also be the designer picking type pagination, all of that. Who's going to prepare the final files? All of this stuff. I know it sounds repetitive right now, but you do not want to be surprised at the end of a project. You do not want to be surprised. So you want to get this stuff ironed out in the beginning. Also you want to talk to them about are designing the cover or if they can design the cover. And if they're not, but it needs a separate illustration, makes sure they are quoting that as well to make sure that all of the details are ironed out early. 9. Yes, You Need a Contract!: Here's everyone's favorite topic all about contracts. And yes, indeed, you do need one, even if it's with your mother. It's not so scary. It's just a document that's going to spell out who's doing what dates, compensation, all of those things. And we have tried to make it as simple as possible, but hang on. We're gonna go through some contract stuff. Keep in mind. I went to art school, not law school. These are things that I've accumulated over the years, but this is not a legally binding contract. I am not an attorney. I am legally bound to tell you that I went to art school, but this is based on my experience from looking at contract signing contracts and being around contracts for children's books. Okay. Got it. What we're going to talk about today are the basic terms that need to be included in a contract. There needs to be what is called the preamble. The preamble basically is the part of the contract that says this contract is between Jane Smith and Eleanor Jones, who lives at 123 Main Street, Anytown, USA. So it's just it's just the preamble that says this is this is what's happening here. Now, I'm just going to stop here and tell you that also in the resources, I have a document that explains all of this. It gives you the gist of it. And I want to thank my adorable husband Jim, for helping me write this in a way that is very understandable. Even though, again, you should probably be talking to an attorney at some point in this process. The next thing is it will have a description of the project, and that will be a 32-page picture book with 64 illustrations. Describe what the project is about. Simple. The next thing is going to spell out the duties of the Illustrator. The illustrator will, from the book, they will do sketches, they will do illustrations, and they will do the final production files for this project. Also, what is being delivered? The deliverables would be if they're not doing any production and they do original art. And you could say, I will be provided with 64 original pieces of art work to be used in the book. Or I will receive a high res jpegs of the artwork. What are the deliverables? What are you getting from this person? Also want to spell out the ownership of the images. Now, this again, big topic, copyright, but in general, the illustrator is going to hold the copyright on the images themselves. Each individual piece of artwork. In general, the illustrator holds the copyright on that. Then the book, when the book is all put together, the book as a separate copyright as an entity. And generally, in the case of you are hiring an illustrator, you would own the copyright of the book. The, all of everything compiled together is a separate copyright and you would own that. Now, this gets a little in the weeds here, but you want to be clearly spelling out. And sometimes illustrators are like, I'm never going to use this artwork again. I'm just going to sign them over to the author. Again. Something to be discussed, something to be decided. It's really a personal preference. Some authors dislike, want it, and that's usually fine. Everybody has to agree to that. Then the other thing that would be in the contract would be your production schedule. What are these due dates and we'll go through how that often happens. But you'll want to lay that out. What's the production schedule and also what the payment schedule is. We will discuss how those things often work when we get into the guts of how this book is going to be produced. But these are the things that should be in the contract. What does that payment schedule look like? And again, I have a handout about this and you'll, you can just download that and it'll, it'll help you get your head around this stuff. Now, this is a good time to talk about working with family and friends, don't Josh? But it's very tricky to work with family and friends. So if you do, Let's talk about that. I believe in contracts, we could call an agreement if you don't want to call it a contract when it's your cousin or your sister. But it really is helpful for everyone to understand what's going on and you guys can work this out yourself. It doesn't have to be a legally binding contract, but you want to get things down so that everybody understands what's happening when they need to happen. And all of that. Again, it's tricky. Particularly. It's tricky when you are an author and your sister cousin, mom is an illustrator. But they don't do the kind of artwork that you want in this book. It's hard sometimes just say, Oh my gosh, I so appreciate you wanting to do this, but I'm I'm kinda looking for something different and you just have to find a delicate way to let them down easily. It also changes the dynamic of a relationship. If you all of a sudden, our someone's boss. So I would say, unless from the get-go, if you creatively birth this thing together, you both came up with the ideas. You've worked it out of how that's going to look. And it was both of your ideas to begin with. That's one thing. But to hire somebody that you are good friends with or are related to you in some fashion. Tread lightly on that. You can get yourself in the weeds pretty quick on this. So just be careful but also have an agreement about it, especially if money is going to change hands. Weary, important if money is going to change hands. Next lesson is going to be a little more fun than this one does see you there. Bye. 10. Schedules and Expectations: Okay, guess what? You're going to get started on your book with an Illustrator. Finally, let's go through this. How the schedule is going to work and how the payment is going to work. We talked about production schedules and you already know when you want this thing to become a book. Like I said, if it's a Christmas book, you wanted to be out by October 15th and working backwards, how much time do you need? And this is going to be, again, a conversation with the Illustrator. What does their schedule look like? How long do they think things are going to happen? But anyway, here's basically the run through how things tend to happen in these scenarios. In your production schedule, you want to have a date of when the character sketches or do I believe that before you start designing the entire book or they started going deep into this, that you need to get some character sketches down. Now, earlier we talked about you are writing in your brief, you've got your character characteristics, their age, their gender, their attitude, their name, all of that stuff. So your Illustrator it behooves them to do a character sketch. This is grandma, this is the neighbor, this is the dog. And do a quick sketch of what those people and animals and critters are going to look like. If there's something that's a significant icon through the whole thing, like a vehicle or a monster or something. You'll want to start with character sketches. Before you start doing anything, you want to know what those characters look like because Illustrator, the last thing I want to do is sketch an entire book out and they go, I don't that's not what grandma looks like. And so you want to get that early because you've done this work ahead of time or what people, what your people, all of their characteristics are. Won't be that surprised. You won't say, Oh, well, he's supposed to be tall and skinny. Oh, he's supposed to be African American or whatever. You've already told them all that information. So still getting these character sketches done. Super important early on. Then after everybody's agreed like this is what everybody looks like, then the illustrator will go through and do the entire pencil sketch of the book. So you know how people move, how the scale of the houses, all of that stuff they're going to do and they'll they'll indicate where the type is going to land in the page. It'll be the final pagination, but they're going to, if it's like a super large character on one page, or a city scene or an overhead scene. You want to know that they're going to do an entire sketch of the book. Now, here's the other thing. If indeed you are working with someone who's never done a picture book before, this will help them so much because you're basically giving them the lay of the land. Like don't repaint in this entire book until we get this stuff figured out. Help them in this way to get those character sketches done. And until those are done, you, it doesn't make sense to do the book, the whole book sketch. At that point. You want to put these dates on the calendar. Asked them how long will it take you to do the character sketches. Some people are fast, some people, and also depends on their schedule. I'm going on vacation or I've got another project and I'm trying to slot this into so it may take longer, but again, you need to, you'll be wanting to move this forward. And you also want to have some dates where you can say, hey, you know those characters were due last week. You want to keep facilitating the movement of this schedule. Then I suggest pick one of those pages. You guys can decide which page and do one in full color. Do it to the finish. Only one. Once the sketches are done, go okay. Go ahead and paint the whole book. No. Do one page or one spread. So you can all decide, okay, yes, that's the color scheme we're going forward. That's the technique. Everybody's happy. Let's tweak that. I want more texture here, whatever, but only do one page or spread until everybody's on the same page. Nobody wants to reduce stuff. It only, it takes more time and it does take more money. You want to have a date for your win. The first color is due. And then once we're all on the same page on that, then the artists will go ahead and do all of the illustrations. And that's where you have to sit back and find something else to do because they have a lot of work ahead of them, then we're going to have to decide when is that final color, do, when is that done? And if indeed they are doing the type, then you just keep putting these dates on the calendar of when things are gonna happen. So now let's talk about the payment schedule. Typically, this is how it works, depending on what that number is of what you are, what you and the illustrator have decided on. It typically works like this. 1 third of that amount is paid to the artist at the signing of the contract. That is a good faith moment where you're like, okay, you sign this contract, here's some money and they get going. Typically, the second third is paid. When you have accepted the sketches, you said, yes, this is exactly how I want the book to work. So yes. So once they've done the full book sketches, that is when the second payment is made, the final and third payment is at the acceptance of the final files, including any agreed upon alteration charges. So let's back that up a little bit. Once the final art work is done or whatever you have decided what done is whether that's type in place or production and when their work is done, that's when you pay the final installment. Now, there's a little thing in the illustration world called a kill fee. And that is when everyone is working in good faith and say, you've accepted the sketches and you have paid that money to your Illustrator, but for some unexpected reason, you decide not to go forward with the project. They keep that money. That is, they're kill fee. They like we've talked about, they have hard costs in there. They have a lot of time that's gone into this. At this point. These are generally non-refundable numbers and this will be spelled out in the contract. This is the expectation they have gone into this. You have approved things. There is no going back and saying, I want my money back because you have approved things. Okay. Sometimes it's a it's a hard lesson in this, but that is why we are professionals here. And that is why they did all this work for you. And so there is no axes on this. Just so you understand that those are considered kill fees, the job is done. I get this amount of money because I did all this work in traditional illustration circles. Like if you're doing an illustration for the New York Times or something, there's an actual kill fee. If they hire you to do an illustration, you've signed a contract with them and then they move on. Even if you haven't done any work, there is a certain amount of money that is considered a kill fee and people expect to pay that. Now, this happens and back when I talked about reserving a little bit of your budget for unknown reasons that you might have. Sometimes you'll be going along, everything's going swimmingly. The artist has provided what you all expect it and everything's on time. But you get the artwork back and you're like, I hate that dog or the cat face looks funny and I didn't see it before. If the artist has to go back and change things after approvals, they would expect and you would expect to be paid for something like that. So in the contract you're going to say it's going to be charged at X amount of dollars per hour or there is a number attached to what that looks like. Generally it's at an hourly rate. And the artists can say, you say, Oh, I hate the cat's face. You can say, okay, well, that was approved. And this doesn't have to be adversarial and try, try, try not to be adversarial. You are part of a team. But if you just can't live with that cat's face, then you would revert back to the artists saying, well, we agreed that my rate is $65 an hour. I just put that in there. I don't know what the rate is. It's $65 an hour and I think it's going to take me an hour-and-a-half to do that and then you can go, how much do I hate the cat's face? Or you say, cool, do that and then you write them a separate check for any alterations after approval. Okay. Just the way it works, kids. 11. Realites of Your Project: Hi. Let's talk about the realities of this project that you are, that you are going to do and is going to be fantastic. But let's talk about some realities of this process. Okay? This is hard. You didn't. Nobody was born knowing how to do this and no one, there are always problems along the way. There are things that are going to happen that just are going to happen and you're going to feel vulnerable. And you're going to feel like you're never going to understand this and you'll be frustrated. Be reminded that this is hard. It'll be easier the second time. The first time it's gonna be hard and each subsequent time is going to become easier. Just like everything. Just like riding a unicycle, which I don't know how to do this. I hear it's hard. Okay? Now, patients in this process is really important, both with yourself and the illustrator. Like I said, you do not want to have an adversarial relationship with this Illustrator. You guys need to be on the same team. And sometimes you have to swallow a little bit and not express every font that comes into your head. Or feel like you are wrapping their knuckles with a ruler to do what you want them to do. You are a team madness that Illustrator is bringing something to the table that you don t know how to do. Otherwise you'd do it. You have to be patient with them and patient with you. Being patient with yourself is really important because it can be super frustrating and you're thinking, you start going down the road of all, never know how to do this and it's going to be crap and blah, blah. No, Be patient. Take a deep breath, take a walk. It'll be okay. I have an open mind. Now, you did this mood board. You have these images in your brain. But how the artist interprets that may not be something that you had in your mind. It might be way better because they don't have to draw. So you might be pleasantly surprised, but if it doesn't exactly what you had in your mind's eye, that doesn't make it bad. It's just different and it might be just amazing, but have an open mind if it doesn't actually jive with what you thought you wanted, because it might be way better, but just keep, keep that in mind open as you go. There. Suggestions, particularly with an Illustrator that has done books before. They may have some suggestions where you're like, I don't know, but keep an open mind on that. They may know better than you do of how, how a cliffhanger might work for the story or how little slight edit might really make it sing. Okay, keep your mind open and keep the communication open. Do not fret. Make sure if you have an issue, reach out, go. I'm having I'm struggling with this. We need to talk about this, whatever, keep the communication open. You don't want to wait until the very end and be really angry or upset or things or bottled up, keep that conversation going in a very as pleasant as it can be. And here's the other thing, let them do their job. You went through a lot of research to find this person. You have vetted them as much as a person could. You love their work. That's why you're working with them and let them do their job. Again, you don't know how to draw. You don't know how to do this style of artwork. And so try not to micromanage that process because their process is their process. So just let them do the best that they can do. And if you don't like something, be kind about it, they're not a jerk. They didn't do it on purpose. They're just interpreting something differently than you had interpreted. So just be kind if there is a critique going on. Okay. I'm just going to tell you it just between us. One of the things that as an illustrator, when I'm being art directed by someone. This is just a funny thing with me and it may be true with other illustrators. I just don't know that, but just keep this in mind. Particularly if you've ever worked with me. If someone comes to me and says, I'm not loving this thing, you don't have to give me the 27 reasons why you don't like it. You can just tell me this isn't really working for me. I think it could be maybe if we try this or try that, but you don't have to give me the laundry list of reasons why you why you hate something. You can just tell me this isn't working for me and I can ask you questions, but just make sure that you're being kind when happening. It goes a long way. And when you are kind, they're going to be kind of back to you. And it makes life so much easier. Like I said, when they're in the throes of doing all of the illustrations for these pages. It can be a solitary time for them. You feel a little disconnected from the rest of the world because now you're really deep in the illustration side of things. You should probably check in now and then just to see if everything's going okay. Are they frustrated by anything? Is there anything you can do to help them? Can you send them over some donuts? Use humor or if you want to make sure that you are checking in in a kind thoughtful way. Not like Are you done yet? Are you done yet? Are you done yet? Check in now and then and make sure that you are available for any questions and issues that might pop up. They might think, I don't know about this dog. Maybe it should be Harrier or something, but they're not sure. Left the Illustrator know that you are open to those kinds of conversations. And that just to reach out to you and you will get back to them, make sure you are available. Do not check out of this process. They will need you. And if you make it clear that this is important, that you're available to them, let them know that. Okay, cool. 12. Final Thoughts: I know we went over a lot of information today, some of which you may know, some is brand new to you and some may freak you out a little bit. But just remember with everything, you don't start at the end, you start at the beginning, and you take it step-by-step. That is my goal for this class for you that you will have an arsenal of information that you can draw from and refer back to as you go forward with your book, you're amazing book. And I know that there will be clunky bits along the way. Your first book might not be your perfect book, but each one after that will become easier and easier just like everything that we do. But you're going forward, you know how to do this. I know you can do this. And remember the resource section, there are three handouts for you. The first one is the book dummy that you can download and fill in for your own books so you can start to plan out your book. That is super handy. You can print out as many as you want as you start to figure out your book. The second one is the contract page where you can explain a little more in detail about what elements should be in a contract or agreement with an Illustrator. So that's the second thing in your resources. The third thing is a checklist. And I've compiled what we've talked about in the class. And to give you a checklist of the things that you need to get done. So the checklist is super handy to know where you are and what you need to get done. I use checklists all the time. This is a really good one. But mostly I wanted to tell you right now is, I wish you all the best in this endeavor. It's a lot of people's dreams to do a children's book, you've gotten this far. You are taking the steps to find out how to do this better, to make your book just be so amazing because I know it's a new to do that. And make sure if you have questions, put them in the section below, and I will be happy to answer them. I can't guarantee I do it immediately, but I always answer any questions that come into my classes. So again, I thank you for being here. From the bottom of my heart. I'm so glad that you've stayed here and I hope this was helpful for you and all my best on your future project. Thank you. Bye.