Thursday, May 14, 2009

Illustrating Self Published Books

Happy May! Hope the spring months are treating you artists well!

I have a friend of a friend inquiring about my illustrations. She has no desire to be a writer, but has written a children's book and wants to self publish to give the book to friends and family as gifts. She is interested in having me do the illustrations but I have a few reservations.

Is the amount of work put into this project worth it? As someone very much still starting out, is this considered good experience and something to put into a portfolio, or is this a bad business decision? Nikki I know you have been published before, is the little-to-no-pay self published route one to try to get my feet wet?

Advice and opinions please.

1 comment:

Nikki said...

I depends on what you put into it and then how you expect to utilize the end product.

I am working with a small publishing company now that only pays royalities. What is good about this for me, is that I am getting some published pieces under my belt, adding lots of portfolio pieces and learning the process by working with people who are still professional.

I don't like the work totally for FREE part... But you could ask her to print extra copies (and her pay for it) and you use those copies to promote yourself by sending to your possible client list.

I would advise you to try to be involved as much as possible over the production of the finished piece only because if she has it printed from a crappy place then it looks bad on you and your art.
And that is not worth it being free... Hope this helps...

Sorry gang, for not posting anything in awhile.. I have a book on it's way that I am trying to gear up for and also illustrating for Stories for Children's Magazine and three other books...

Not to mention my graphic design day job...
And yes, I do sleep!