Illustrations
Children's Book Illustrations
You need an exceptional illustrator—with experience.
With hundreds of thousands of children's books on the market, the success of your children’s book depends on its illustrations. It takes decades for illustrators to get to the level of skill you see. If the illustrations aren’t exceptional or engaging, it won’t interest the purchasers (usually women) or children.
Take a look at popular children’s books to get a sense of
what kind of art style you want.
Consider what kind of art you want for your book. Most artists have a style and don't deviate. Laila has an extraordinary skill whereby she can emulate a style chosen by the author. But this is also where we guide you on styles versus costs, as some take a lot more time than others for no real gain. As an example realistic water colour can be 4-5 times longer than digital artwork. Similarly, the artwork depends in part on the age of your target audience. In picture books, your illustrations do most of the heavy lifting in telling the story. If illustrations look cheap and unprofessional they will not engage your readers and the money spent in publishing your book is wasted. Sounds harsh but true.
Our qualified and award winning illustrator understands the industry requirements and can bring your words and your story to life in a way that will translate to a printed book. She works with you to bring your characters to life.
A children's book success depends a lot on the quality of its illustrations. Poor illustrations equates to poor sales.
Illustration agreements are a must. There are two options for contracts and one provides you with ownership and the other the illustrator retains ownership—not knowing the difference will cost you dearly. Just because you have commissioned an original piece of artwork does not mean you hold the copyright. Our agreements give you full rights and highlights exactly what each of you is responsible for(author / artist); what work will be completed in the process; how much it will cost including revisions, and what happens if one of you terminates the agreement.
We guide you through the whole process and there are some crucial decisions to make early to avoid additional expenses. Many decisions need to be carefully thought out in the initial stages of illustrating. For example:
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book format size will dictate the format for the illustrations
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landscape images if utilised will need to be illustrated carefully to avoid gutter issues
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paper for Print on Demand is different to Offset Books, this can change the texture of images
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will a unique cover be illustrated for consistency or will you utilise an internal illustration, this can depend on budgets and themes
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covers give branding opportunities for your book and should be carefully considered especially if part of a series
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does the cover work as a thumbnail as this is the way it will be primarily seen via online stores?
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And so forth.
How much do illustrations cost?
Children's book illustrators vary considerably in price and we would urge authors to be mindful of this.
Pickawoowoo's fees vary depending on the style chosen. Our company philosophy is to customise our quotes (and artwork fees) according to our authors budget, wherever possible. Just talk to us. Even better, talk with some of our authors who have utlised our illustration services.
We would encourage authors to budget for a minimum of $175 per illustration. The more complex or advanced $250+ per illustration. Professional and simple illustrations is a better model than cheap and unprofessional.
We would encourage you to review our PDF document for further information.