Recently, on Twitter, I stumbled across a thread about
illustrations for books, children’s books in particular, and how much one could
expect to pay an artist to provide drawings for your manuscript.
As a self published author—a recent one—this is a question I
had when I started looking at self publishing as an option. One of the nice
things about traditional publishing is that the writer doesn’t have to worry
about the nuts and bolts of getting the book published. Formatting, cover art,
marketing—in a traditional publishing world, the publisher handles all that.
But for a self published author, all of these things fall in your domain. And a
lot of them you have to pay for.
Some you can do yourself—formatting, for example.
Personally, I chose to find someone who could do that for me, and paid them
their asking rate. I did it that way for two reasons: 1) I knew I would
probably screw it up if I tried to do it on my own, and it would likely take me
five times as long as it would someone who actually did that for a living; and
2) I found their asking rate to be reasonable. I had no idea if it was or not,
but a quick Google search told me that it was in line with what a lot of other
people were asking, and the person I chose came recommended, so I figured it was
a good deal. And he formatted my manuscripts well and on time, and I would
absolutely go to him again the next time I need such work done.
I also needed new cover art. The books I was putting up for
sale had been previously published, but the rights had recently reverted to me,
and I wanted a new look for them. So again, I turned to Google. And with art,
there’s a LOT more variation in price. I found pre-made covers for as little as
$40.00, and custom made covers for as much as $200.00 and up. Again, I looked
around until I found a few sites I liked, read the reviews, and bought the
covers I both liked and could afford. Would I have liked to have custom covers
for each title? Of course. But I knew I couldn’t afford that, so I looked for
ones I could.
Which brings me to the twitter conversation I mentioned in
the first paragraph. The debate was about what constituted a ‘fair’ price for
such work. If you’re a children’s book author, and your book has twenty-five
pages, you’re probably looking for at least twelve drawings, plus front and
back cover art. That’s one drawing for every two pages, so there’s a visual
each time you turn the page. And remember that stock art isn’t going to work
here – you have to have an artist who will read your story and craft the art
work that goes with that story.
I get that as a self-published author, you have to keep your
overhead low. You can’t spend $3,000 on art when you’re trying to make a name
for yourself, and a profit, because you might make the first but you likely
won’t make the second. But the artist has to make a living as well, so where’s
the sweet spot? Where’s the middle ground, where the artist is still making a
decent living, being fairly compensated for his or her work, and the author isn’t
breaking the bank?
I suppose that sweet spot is different for every author, and
every artist. One compromise that occurred to me would be for an author to
offer the artist a percentage of profits as compensation. The drawings will run
$3k, and you can’t afford it, so maybe you offer 20% of your net earnings in
exchange for the art. Maybe you cap it at a certain point, maybe you don’t. But
it strikes me as a fair deal, and also gives the artist even more incentive to
create art that helps sell your book. But as I said, this isn’t my dilemma, and
I don’t know how other authors or artists might view such a compromise.
But I do know that as an author, I gain nothing by trying to
get a great deal if it means low-balling my artist. I sincerely hope for the
day when I’m making enough as an author to be able to contract with first class
artists, and pay them first class money for their work. I’m not there yet, so I’ll
be looking at stock art and pre-made covers until I am.
