The Tales Of Wooffer's Woods, with or without illustrations

I have been reading Hazel Mitchell's post on Face book and looking at her artwork. I have sent her a message about illustrations for my stories. I have not heard back. It seems to me that illustrations would enhance the stories. I do not know what a fair fee is for illustrating. Any one have experience? I have given up the doing of it myself.

Love,

Betty

I have seen that question asked before and the cost was high. It's paying for a very specific graphic art, like a book cover many times over. I would find an art student if that's not too difficult. Is there an art school or college anywhere near you? Maybe you can address one online.

http://www.beezink.com/2012/06/29/childrens-book-illustration/

Here is one professional illustrator's fees.

Go to deviantart.com. Lots of talented students hang out there, I'm sure you could hire one for a reasonable price.

http://www.cegur.com/Pricepages/BookIllustration.html

Here's another way of looking at it.

I agree with LC. Find a student artist. A look at the two sites I sent should be enough. I could not pay those prices to have a children's book illustrated - or any book for that matter.

I also know that children's books in particular are often sold by their art. My favorite book, The Little Prince, is half story and half illustration in terms of its impact. The Little Prince standing on the world with his baobob - priceless.

http://ask.metafilter.com/84976/Ive-written-2-childrens-books-now-Im-looking-for-an-illustrator

If you follow this forum, they suggest advertising on Craig's List and posting notices at an art school and calling the profs at an art school. Today, even high school students are artists with the computer software available - it's amazing. My vocational school student did beautiful artwork in a class that I think had to do with computer generated media or something like that.

You could also go to those sites like elance.com, odesk.com or freelancer.com where you list a project and people bid on it. I haven't used those sites myself, am just aware of them. I know a lot of people don't like them because it's a global competition fair that drives prices down accordingly.

Thank you all for the good information. I was a little disappointed that Ms Mitchell did not see fit to respond at all. I imagine that she saw my self published status and considered I was not worth her time.

DK, I loved your post about The Little Prince. I agree that the illustrations do not have to be in grand color and there need not be many of them for the book The Tales of Wooffer's Woods.

If anyone is familiar with the illustrations that Les Morrill did for Kenneth Grahame's Wind In The Willows...That was what I was hoping for to begin with. Illustrations for the whole book, not the individual tales.

I take all your information to my heart and will act upon it. You are good friends.

Love,

Betty

Betty,

I think that Wooffer's Woods tales stand on their own just fine. For small children, illustrations are wonderful because they help them visualize the story better and give them something to look at while an adult reads to them that enhances the experience. For older children, the illustrations are less important as they are quite capable of visualizing the world your words paint for them just fine. Unless you can find an illustrator who has the foresight to want to add the publication record to their portfolio and is willing to do the artwork for a very low cost or for a share of the royalties, the cost is likely to be prohibitive and not worth it as it will almost certainly cost you money that you will not recoup through increased sales.

If you want illustrations, I would suggest that you take your trusty camera and find some of the appropriate locales where Wooffer and his many friends might actually hang out and try to incorporate a photo of some sort in each story, perhaps with some public domain images. No, you won't find a mother mouse with thousands of children being rescued from drowning by Wooffer, but you never know. Lovely chameleons abound, though probably not changing into four colors at once. Nature herself is a masterful artist--and children wonderfully adept at populating any world, real or imagined, with the creative power of their vibrant imaginations.

Just a thought.

Sounds like a good thought to me, Betty, and there are programs like photoshop that would allow you to make the photos look like illustrations. Joe and Shelagh could both tell you more about that.