Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Todd Edward Dillard on July 30, 2012 at 2:55pm

Publishers want to control the production of the book in its entirety, and have lists of illustrators that work with their book templates/designs. So don't spend money on an illustrator and focus on selling the script. It's different if you're the illustrator and the writer of the piece, but I know diddly about that.

That being said, I'm paying an illustrator to illustrate my book, but only because I want control of the content and to sell it myself for dirt cheap, and online only. If I was planning on selling the book to a pub house, I wouldn't have raised the money for an illustrator. 

Permalink Reply by Lynn Garthwaite on July 30, 2012 at 3:06pm

Sharon - tell them a big, resounding "NO" to the question of whether the writer should hire an illustrator before pitching the book.  As in the example you gave, publishers want to have control over the look of the books they publish, so they want to find their own illustrators.  

Of course if they decide to self-publish, then they need to hire an illustrator at their own expense, but for traditional publishing they should simply submit the manuscript.

{Edit:  I see that Todd replied just before I started typing, and gave the same info}

Permalink Reply by Todd Edward Dillard on July 30, 2012 at 3:24pm

Exactly! Maybe to provide some further detail:

Most picture books have a set number of pages (I think it's like 16, 32, 64, something like that) priced out in terms of production costs based on a contract the pub house has with their printing vendors. Adding pages forces the print house to have to individually redesign their print template, which adds production time and therefor money to the cost of the book. Illustrators familiar with their respective pub house can figure out how to block text-to-illustrations based on the vendor's/pub house's guidelines, and thus know what to draw, and thus prep the book with an appropriate ("cheapest") number of pages. (This is why most picture books, in terms of actual styling of the book, look about the same. This is also why the number of giant picture books, like Shel Silverstein's works, are dwindling.)

At my old pub house, we had book "types" literally based solely on the number of manuscript pages, and software to convert the cost to produce a single book based on page count and illustrations, which we could then flex into a budget analysis for potential profit based on expected book sales. A book that deviated from one type to a higher (more pages) type could go up in price by twenty percent, and that didn't always necessarily mean our profits went up as well!

This is why word counts are super important to consider when submitting your first MSS too. I know people say you should write the best book you can with the right amount of words, but in the business-speak of publishing, "less is profit." Hulking manuscripts aren't going to see the light of day unless they're in genres where 80k+ word counts are the norm... aka romance, high fantasy, historical biographies, etc.

/tangent

Permalink Reply by Sharon Lindenburger on July 30, 2012 at 3:46pm

Thanks so much, Todd and Lynn, your comments are so helpful. I had an intuition that it might not be a good idea to hire an illustrator if you're pitching a publishing house, but I wanted to make sure my intuition is correct. If, as you say, the author is self-publishing his/her manuscript, then I can see that he/she would have to hire an illustrator for that purpose, but if the book is being pitched to a publisher, it totally makes sense that the publisher wants control of the look of the book.

Regarding the number of pages, books for young children tend to be quite short and to have big vibrant illustrations. What would be the usual page count in terms of text and in terms of text plus illustration for a story for children between the ages of, say, 5-7? I have a client right now who has a story idea for a book she wants to aim at first and second graders. She wants to know if she should write 20 pages. Again, it's hard for me to advise her. I can certainly edit her text, and if need be, hone it down. I've seen children's books for that age group as short as 12 pages and as long as 40 pages (where the pics are really dominant), so for a first-time pitch of a children's book, what would be your recommendation as to what her initial length should be? 

Permalink Reply by Todd Edward Dillard on July 30, 2012 at 3:51pm

I'd say 24 pages. My favorite board book is "The Monster at the End of This Book," which is 24 pages, and from my time working in the kid's section of B&N I'd say that was pretty typical.

Permalink Reply by Sharon Lindenburger on July 30, 2012 at 3:56pm

Todd, does that include allowance for the illustrations or just the text? Do you mean that the finished book is altogether 24 pages? Since it's the text that she will pitch, I want to be sure I advise her correctly on how many pages of text she should submit (knowing that there is considerably less text on a page of a children's book than for an adult). 

Permalink Reply by Todd Edward Dillard on July 30, 2012 at 4:00pm

I block out each MSS page like this:

[PAGE ONE]

TEXT

ILLUSTRATION

--- page break --- 

[PAGE TWO]

TEXT

etc.

And I make sure each MSS page only represents one "book page," so the agent has an idea of what flipping through the book will feel like. It'll look like a lot of white space, but it communicates exactly what you want.

Permalink Reply by Sharon Lindenburger on July 30, 2012 at 4:42pm

Thanks so much for this. This will be so helpful in advising my client. The mapping out of pages is not usually done for adult books and so authors don't even usually think of it, but a children's book is a whole different ballgame. I'll work with the client on mapping out the structure as you've suggested, and then she can start work on her text.

I am very grateful for your invaluable advice!

Permalink Reply by Robyn Opie Parnell on July 31, 2012 at 1:52am

A traditional picture book is 32 pages with 2 to 4 pages left for the business, such as title, publisher info/copyright/ISBN, etc. The text will usually cover 28 pages of a 32 page book. However, in recent times publishers have started to produce 24 page picture books to reduce costs and sale price. In terms of illustration, I have approximately 65 illustrated children's books and I've only ever sent in the text to the publisher. I've never met most of the illustrators and I only usually see the roughs of the illustrations for my approval prior to publication. As already discussed, the publisher controls design which includes illustration. They have a stable of illustrators they usually work with. Royalties are usually split 50/50 between the writer and the illustrator, though it's possible for the illustrator to be paid a flat fee. I hope this information helps you, Sharon. Please sing out if you'd like further information.