The Real Steps, Costs, and Timelines of Picture Book Creation

The KidLit Creator’s Chronicle – Issue #33

For newer authors, I know they often wonder about the steps of book creation. What are the steps, costs, timelines…?

So, in this edition lets go over that!

The following are the steps in picture book creation, and they should be done in sequence.

Writing and revising
Getting feedback/critiques
More revising (and possibly more feedback)
Professional editing
Illustrations
Book and cover design (cover design could be done earlier for promotional purposes)

Make sure you complete each step fully before moving on to the next, as that will save time and money. For instance, if you start on illustrations before final editing and you make changes to your book, then you may have to pay for illustration changes or new illustrations.

In this KidLit Creator’s Chronicle, we’ll focus on illustrations and interior and cover design, and how to get a better outcome on these steps.

Average Costs and Timelines

Disclaimer

Giving you pricing and timelines is based on my experience and research, but I can’t guarantee anything. Prices and timelines are variable. I have done my best to give you the true information, based on averages in the industry. But it depends on who you work with, what you need, how you plan etc.

Average Costs

No matter how good your manuscript is, the more work and money you can invest in your book, the more chance it has of being a success.
Don’t skimp on the costs.

Average Picture Book Creation Time Frame

(for a 32-page picture book)

What affects illustration costs?

Illustrator – who you hire
Style – based on preference, but can play big role in cost
Layout – how many illustrations and what size
Page count – this affects how many illustrations you’ll need.

Illustrator: Each illustrator has different pricing based on their experience level, their style, and other factors. More detailed styles tend to be more expensive than simple styles. First off, you would look for illustrators that are in your budget.

Layout/Page count: Layout and page count will determine how many illustrations you have, their sizes, and can influence the amount of details and elements that are in each illustration

Spread illustrations are more expensive than e.g. half page illustrations. If you need to cut down on costs, you can get clever with a mix of spot illustrations, half page, full page, and spread illustrations.

Examples of different illustration types (by GetYourBookIllustrations).

This can create a beautiful book and save on costs.

If you’re not able to ﬁnd a high-quality illustrator within your budget, see if maybe you can combine some of your pages, so that you need less illustrations. Don’t overdo this, but if you only need 11 illustrations instead of 14, that can make a real difference to the costs.

How to find an illustrator

Where to hire an illustrator

There are many places to ﬁnd an illustrator online.

The one place I don’t recommend, based on plenty of research, is Fiverr. Of course there are a few gems on Fiverr, but you really have to search through a lot of rough to ﬁnd them. Don’t hire a cheap illustrator on Fiverr. Chances are you will get burned. Or you need to hire a Pro on Fiverr, which is fine. But then expect to pay professional rates, as you should.)

You can use a company like mine, GetYourBookIllustrations, or you can look on Upwork or other freelance sites, Facebook or Instagram, SCBWI (Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators).

Remember, your illustrator is your co-creator. In other words, choosing the right illustrator is really important.

What to pay attention to in portfolios:

Quality and consistency of at least several illustrations
Consistency of characters’ appearance
That the art tells a story and evokes emotion
Have they illustrated books

If all of that looks good… Find out their pricing.

Sometimes you can see someone’s pricing on their proﬁle or website. Just check that it’s at least somewhere in your ballpark range. If you don’t see their pricing anywhere, you’ll need to discuss it with them once you’ve contacted them.

Hunting Orange and Winnie Acts Up (illustrated and designed by GetYourBookIllustrations)

What to pay attention to once you’ve contacted the illustrator

Most important:

How do they communicate?
Do they understand you?
Do they answer your questions?
Are they friendly or personable (they don’t seem difficult to work with)?
Do they reply (quite) promptly?

Ask for a contract or agreement (and read it carefully!). If they don’t have one, make one or ﬁnd one online.

Check for:

Rights (who owns what rights–super important!)
If they charge royalties
Revisions (how many do they offer? Extra charges?)
Timeline (by when can they complete the work)

Do NOT hire them based only on their portfolio. Make sure they communicate well and that you’ll be able to work with them for a few months without having the frustration of misunderstandings, slow (or no) responses, or drama.

The illustration process to follow to achieve the best results

The process I recommend to get the best results with your illustrations is to start with character design. Your illustrator should sketch your main character or characters. Once you are happy with the look of the character, they can add colour.

Only once the character design is complete should you move on to the storyboard (rough thumbnail sketches of the entire book) to show the rough ideas for the illustrations and the layout of the book. That will give you an idea of how the book will look and flow. Once you are happy with that, you can move on to detailed sketches. Only once the detailed sketches are done and you are also happy with those should you move on to colour.

Doing it this way helps to avoid extra work. For instance, if the illustrator draws all the sketches without having done character design, and you don’t like the main character, or they misunderstood what was needed for the main character, they have to redo a lot of work. So, doing it step-by-step like this can save time and effort.

If you’d like to see a video of this process (with visuals), go to this “Our Process” page (scroll down a bit to see the video).

Cover design

“High-quality” means a great-looking cover, but it also means “matches reader expectations.”

Trope = a common convention in a particular genre that gets used often enough to be recognized.

You want to create a unique book, but hit the tropes in your genre so your book is instantly recognizable for what it is. This is very important.

Cover design tips:

Look at books in your genre
Illustrators aren’t designers (though they can be)
Don’t DIY (unless you are a pro!)
Keep it simple
Large title in upper third (there are exceptions, but this is a safe way to go)

Here are some professional, well-known covers (top row) and some covers illustrated and designed by GetYourBookIllustrations (bottom row).

Do you see how the recipe makes them consistent?

That’s what you want.

Professional interior design

Look at books in your genre, and again pay attention to what people would expect.

Look at:

Fonts and text size
Text: Line spacing. How much text per page?
Illustrations: How many? How often? What size(s)?

Some book interior design tips:

Text should always be easy to read.
Clarity always trumps fancy fonts that are hard to read.
The layout and text should be pleasing on the eye.
Check the print book and ebook and make sure they have printed/display correctly

And there you have it. Let me know in the comments what else you’d like to know about picture book creation!

The KidLit Creator’s Chronicle – Issue #33