There is a wide variety of work out there, and you will need to take advantage of as many different types as you can, particularly when you’re starting off. Unless you’re extremely successful early on, there is no one type of work available in Ireland that will provide you with a full-time living. This site focuses on children’s publishing, and this is commonly an illustrator’s favourite type of work, but Irish publishers do not commission enough each year to keep Ireland’s illustrators in work. Even in the UK, commissions that pay enough to give you time to do detailed or intensive work, such as painting, can be hard to get – in Ireland, they’re very rare.

Mainstream children’s publishing is often the most enjoyable, but can be hard to break into and does not always pay well. There is more work to be had from educational publishing and more regularly, but this tends to pay even worse and the deadlines can be very tight. The best paid work is editorial illustration – pictures for magazine articles and the like – or advertising work, such as cartoons and visualizing for ad campaigns. Many children’s illustrators top up their publishing work with more commercial jobs.

The Illustrators' Guild of Ireland offers support and guidance to illustrators.

 

 

If you want to get into children’s publishing, check out the children’s section in a bookshop or library. Talk to booksellers, librarians and teachers. Find out what the most popular books are, study a range of them and ask yourself what it is about these styles of illustration that has made them successful.

 

CBI’s magazine, Inis, features regular interviews with and articles about the most successful illustrators in Ireland and the UK. Many of these articles are available online.

 

 

It’s much easier to have an agent looking for the work and making sure you get paid. They will have plenty of contacts and invaluable experience in the industry. It can be very hard to find an effective agent who’ll take you on, as they will already have plenty of seasoned professionals on their lists, but you should definitely try. If you do sign up with an agent, they will most likely try to sell you based on a certain style of work, one they hope you’ll become famous for. It’s in your interest, however, to be able to work in more than one style, so you don’t get pigeon-holed or go out of fashion. There is also a difference between an illustration agent who specializes in finding commissions for illustrators, and an agent who represents the authors or creators of books. You need to know what kind of agent you want.

 

When you’re starting off, and you don’t have an agent (and sometimes, even if you do) there is simply no alternative but to cold call; send out samples to publishers and follow up with a phone call. It’s becoming increasingly common to just email in samples or send a disc or even printouts (so the designer doesn’t even have to put in that extra effort of slipping them into their computer to look at them). But these are easy for the intended recipient to ignore or forget about, so always look for an opportunity to meet the designer and present your portfolio in person if you can. If you don’t hear from them for a few months, get in touch again, but do it nicely.

 

There is no short-cut to trawling the publishers for work, but remember, persistence pays, harassment doesn’t. For more information on children’s publishers, all the Irish ones are featured on cb info. You can find details about the UK publishers from The Children’s Writers’ and Artists’ Yearbook.

 

Unlike areas like graphic design or animation, there are no real employment opportunities for illustrators. You will need to set yourself up as self-employed and register yourself as such with the Revenue Commissioners. You should also apply for the Artists' Exemption for any work you do in publishing or other areas covered by the exemption, which will save you from paying tax on that income. Doing a basic business course can be a big help, as you will have to do your own accounts – publishers and agents will only provide you with a statement of your sales; the rest is up to you. It can be intimidating at the start, but most of it is actually very straightforward once you’ve made a start.

In order to get paid for jobs or, later, any talks or promotional events, you will need to invoice the client. You can see a sample invoice form here.If you’ve never been self-employed before, try to talk to someone who is. You can also apply for various grants and bursaries from organizations like the Arts Council. There is more information on these and much more that you’ll find of use on cb info.

Visual Artists Ireland offer  details and information on tax and self-employment for artists in Ireland and Northern Ireland, and a guide to VAT in Ireland and Northern Ireland.

 

The Arts Council provides bursaries for writers and illustrators and in some instances local arts offices may also offer bursaries and awards. Visit Visual Artists Ireland for more information from local and governmental funders to applications and international opportunities as well as details on artists' residencies.

This is always a tricky question, as there are no set rates in any area of illustration. Perhaps it is the artistic nature of the work, but clients can often act like they’re doing you a favour by giving you the work and can therefore haggle at will. In order to be taken seriously on standard commissions – where you’re given a brief and you draw what you’re told to draw – you should think of yourself as a tradesperson. Be able to quote an hourly and daily rate – a decent carpenter or mechanic’s rate is a good start. Stick to this rate as much as you can when you’re quoting for jobs. Work out how long a given job is going to take and quote the job based on the time needed to complete it.

Obviously, the faster and better you get, the more money you can make. If it’s a lucrative job, you might be willing to give a little on the fee, particularly when you’re starting out, but don’t make a habit of it. Don’t be afraid to ask what the client’s budget is and tell them what they can get for it. They can sometimes be shy about telling you in the hope that you’ll quote lower. If the budget they give you is too low, they may well have room to increase it if you can give them a good reason.

If somebody is asking you to contribute ideas to something, ideas that may become worth a lot of money in the future, you should think about charging differently. Now you are being asked to be a creator, rather than just a supplier of illustration. In this case, try and get a sense of what the ideas are worth to the client, or how many of your work-hours should be devoted to the job, even if you come up with the idea in five minutes flat. This is a much harder balance to strike and it takes a lot of experience to learn how to judge it well, but there’s no harm in starting early.

Above all else, when you’re quoting a job, remember the client is hiring you to do something that they can’t do themselves. You are being paid for your expertise. Act and charge accordingly.

 

See Visual Artists Ireland for a guide to costing and pricing your work.

 

 

Do carpenters, mechanics or builders provide free samples? No. But clients can sometimes ask illustrators to provide a sample of the job for free, particularly if you don’t have much of a track record. You may want to in order to get the job, but try and avoid doing this if at all possible. Always, always charge for your time. You are a professional; act like it.

 

Apart from specifying a certain style of image, publishers want a good result on time. How you go about producing it is your business. Even if you prefer working with ink and paint and paper, get to know the technology that your profession uses. This is particularly important as deadlines get ever tighter and publishers often prefer to receive the artwork as digital files, rather than having to scan it themselves. The picture book market is still one of the exceptions to this rule, as the quality of the scans is so important.

 

 

It can be hard to find repro houses that offer high quality scanning in Ireland. Even some publishers in the UK get the scanning for their picture books in other countries. This has been getting progressively harder as more and more commercial work is done digitally and the demand for scanning has dropped.

A high-end desktop scanner is sufficient for most black-and-white line artwork, as long as it’s scanned at 600dpi or higher. For colour scanning, cb info does not endorse any particular company, but there are a few repro houses and design firms listed on our links page, and the links page on the Illustrators’ Guild of Ireland website. It’s best to shop around and find the one that suits you. The rate for scanning a piece of artwork should be taken into account when you’re quoting for it.

 

 

The normal process is to provide roughs to which at least one round of client changes can be made without charge. Once you have made those changes to the client’s satisfaction, additional changes should be charged for. Changes to finished artwork should be discouraged if at all possible and should definitely be charged for – unless you haven’t followed the brief.

 

Try and avoid threatening with solicitor’s letters if at all possible. It’s a sure way to lose a client – even one that doesn’t pay on time. Some clients can routinely take as long as three months to pay up. Allow thirty days for a client to pay (put it on your invoice), then start chasing them. Emails are good, but phone calls are better. Be pleasant but persistent. The vast majority of clients will pay without too much hassle. Don’t let it go beyond three months. If they haven’t paid by then, you may have to take legal advice.

 

Visit Visual Artists Ireland for further information and advice on handling disputes.

 

Shocking as it seems, this is still not common practise unless you are under contract as aa ‘creator’ of a book. Irish publishers in particular do not pay royalties to illustrators, and even UK publishers only do it for some books. That shouldn’t stop you asking. The more people who ask, the more it’s likely to start happening.

 

We’ve covered how to charge as a supplier earlier in this section. As a creator, payment for a book is broken into two main forms: advance and royalties. The advance is a kind of payment up-front based on how much the publisher thinks the book will sell. The royalties are a percentage of either the recommended price of the book or the net receipts (the price it has sold for, even if it was discounted). You don’t have to pay the advance back if the book doesn’t sell, but you won’t get any money from the royalties from it or subsequent books until the advance has been paid off. Royalties are often paid at the end of the financial year in which the book has been released, so they can seem to take a long time to come through.

 

 

Get on and write it. Do some sample artwork, but don’t do more than two or three spreads of final illustrations. Any text for a book, and the illustration ideas that go with it, get edited. You don’t want to change any more finished artwork than you have to.

Get to know your market. Go out and visit the children’s sections in shops and libraries to see what’s out there already. Don’t just rely on what you know about books you read when you were a child. Have a look at what kids are reading now and study how those books have been designed and illustrated. Before you try submitting your book, get some other people to read it – particularly kids or people who work with kids – and see what they think. It might work perfectly in your head, but you need to know what it’s like for other people to read.

 

If you want to approach an Irish publisher, there’s no need to have an agent, but you should join the Irish Writers’ Union and get advice on publishing contracts before signing anything. Because of the costs of production, very few picture books are published in Ireland. Of those, most are written in Irish, because of the extra institutional funding that Irish language publishers receive.

A UK publisher is more likely to take on a picture book project. Because of the sheer number of submissions UK publishers get every year, many of them – particularly the biggest ones – will only deal with agents. But some are still willing to take unsolicited manuscripts. If you do decide to go with an agent, try to find one who has a good track record in getting your type of book published.

 

You need to decide if you need an agent to represent you, and then what publishers produce the kind of book you’ve written. Then you need to pick the ones you think would do the best job. cb info has some information on publishers and agents in Ireland and the UK, along with their submission guidelines, but this is only meant as a kind of foundation course. For more detailed information about children’s publishers and a full directory of their contact details, you should check out The Children’s Writers’ and Artists’ Yearbook.

 

 

Submissions should be accompanied with a brief letter – no more than a page – introducing yourself and outlining any experience or expertise in the market you’re writing for. You should also explain why you think this particular agent or publisher would be interested in this book. Don’t send a standard letter to everyone. Try and find out who in the publisher is the right person to receive your submission. Make them understand that you’ve been deliberate in choosing their company. That said, you don’t have to send out your submissions one at a time. Keep a record of where you’ve sent each one, who has rejected it (and you will probably get rejected more than once) and what they said about it, if anything. Don’t be offended if you get a standard, impersonal rejection letter. Most people do.

 

 

Your artwork must, of course, be of professional quality and it would help if you had commercial experience. If you want to pitch a picture book to a publisher or agent, one way is to do a very rough mock-up of the whole book, with the complete text and two or three finished spreads. Any prospective publisher will most likely prefer to design the book themselves, both as a means of ensuring a certain level of quality, but also as a means of keeping control of the production.

Publishers receive thousands or even hundreds of thousands of submissions each year. If you want yours returned, send it out with a stamped addressed envelope. If you’re submitting to the UK from Ireland, your SAP will obviously need UK stamps. Don’t send out anything you can’t afford to lose, such as original artwork, as there is every chance it’ll get lost in a pile somewhere and you’ll never get it back.

 

No reputable publisher is going to rip off your work – respect for copyright is a founding principle of the publishing industry. If they want to use it, they’ll sit you down with a contract. Under law, your text and artwork – though not the concepts or ideas they describe – are protected by copyright from the moment you create them.

If you’re very concerned about having to prove you are the author of your work, you can post a copy of it to yourself by registered post and leave the envelope unopened as proof that it was created before a certain date. Or you can register it with the Copyright Protection Agency for a fee, but as long as you’re dealing with mainstream publishers, this shouldn’t be necessary. For more information on protecting copyright in Ireland, you should contact the Irish Copyright and Licensing Agency.

For further details on copyright go to Visual Artists Ireland.

 

The vast majority of illustrators and writers – even the most successful ones – have been rejected; some of them have been rejected scores of times. If you’ve worked in illustration for a while, you’ll know this already. Don’t take it personally. Don’t be discouraged. Don’t call up the agent or publisher to demand why. Keep sending out your submissions to other people. Remember, persistence pays, but harassment doesn’t. Get started on your next book. If someone takes the time to explain why they have turned your book down, perhaps think about taking their advice. It may help improve it or make it more attractive to publishers . . . or it may not. It’s up to you to decide.

 

 

A good writers’ group or even an online writers’ forum can provide much needed encouragement, advice and support for unpublished writers. There are also editing services that will, for a fee, edit your book and offer comments and tips. As with anything else, you need to find the right one for you.

 

 

There are several organisations in Ireland who support writers and illustrators in a variety of ways. These include the Arts Council , Irish Writers' Centre , Illustrators' Guild of Ireland , Irish Writers' Union and Poetry Ireland.  Details of relevant organisations are contained in cb info's directory.  Here you will also find links to relevant websites and blogs that can keep you informed.

 

 

CBI does not currently keep a list of writers and illustrators, although you will find details of organisations for writers and illustrators here. If you wish to attend any CBI event, you will likely make valuable connections there with many other writers and illustrators who attend such events regularly.

 

 

There are various means of publishing your own work, but it’s not for everyone. Vanity publishers will charge you for producing your book, but will not sell it for you, or even get it into the shops. If you’re willing and able to do most of the design and production work yourself, and find a good printer who’ll do the job for a reasonable price, it’s possible to turn out a picture book for figures that won’t break the bank.

But bear in mind that picture books are more costly to produce than other types of books, and the market is notoriously tough. Even mainstream publishers will hesitate to publish a new picture book unless they can produce co-editions – where the book is published in more than one country simultaneously.

Publishing and selling a book yourself takes a range of skills, and the most problematic for most writers and illustrators are distribution and marketing. That said, if you have the nerve, the money and the entrepreneurial skills, self-publishing offers much more independence, control and, of course, a bigger cut of the profits.

If you’re going to publish your book yourself, get other people’s input into the story and the concept work first. An editorial service, or even a real picture book enthusiast could be a big help. You need to know how your story reads to other people.

Digital publishing and print-on-demand are creating exciting new possibilities for self-publishing and there are new methods of marketing being created on the web almost every day. In some cases, small press publishers have been quicker to take advantage of these new technologies than bigger, more mainstream publishers.

 

Unless you’re self-publishing, this is more a question for your publisher, editor and their marketing people than for you. The whole issue of ‘age-banding’ is a controversial one, but you do need to inform yourself about it. In terms of gauging the level of language of your audience, the length of story they can handle, the style of the illustration and what subject matter the industry considers suitable for them, have a look at what’s out there already. The main thing is to create the story and, after that, worry about who might buy it.

 

 

If you don’t have an agent, join the Irish Writers Union. They can check over contracts for you. They have a sample contract and some helpful tips on their website. The Illustrator’s Guild of Ireland can provide some help and support too. Always read a contract carefully before signing. If you’re not happy with it, or if there’s anything you don’t understand, don’t be afraid to ask questions. Publishers don’t stay in business by cheating their authors, but they are running a business in a tough market. It’s not in their interest to be too generous. Some key things to look out for are: the dates for final delivery, payment and publication; the advance; royalties; foreign rights; film rights; and the rights for every other form of publication or distribution; and how many copies of the book you get when it’s printed and reprinted.

Visual Artists Ireland offer further practical advice and information on contracts.

 

The publisher will then need to plan how to produce the book and how to sell it. They will have a conversation with you about it; this is where the age and type of reader will start to become an issue. Try to find out as much as you can about the children’s book industry so that they are not dictating all the terms. cb info is a good place to start. Once the completed manuscript has been accepted, it will need to be edited, even before the design process begins.

 

 

This normally happens in three stages: a general editing of the plot and storyline; then a line-by-line edit, checking things like language and consistency; and finally the copy edit, to find minor errors like punctuation and typos. Remember that changes in the illustration of a picture book can lead to changes in the text too. With picture books, the reworking of text, design and illustration can be more fluid and interconnected than in other types of children’s books.

Listen to what your editor has to say and remember that they may well have more experience than you in publishing and that they know their market (or should). If you don’t agree with them, say so, but don’t take criticism personally, it’s only intended to make your book better. Remember, you don’t know what it’s like for a complete stranger to read your book. What’s in your head might not be what somebody else is getting from your story.

Choose your fights. If you object to every change, you’ll just end up at loggerheads, which is no way to start a career. Sometimes it’s best to give in on some minor points in order to be able to dig your heels in on something you really care about.

Even after you’ve published your first book and are about to submit the next one, get some family and friends to have a read of it before you submit it. No matter how experienced you become, it never hurts to get somebody else’s perspective.

 

It’s your book. You should get a say in every part of the production and marketing processes, particularly as you’re supplying the illustrations. Make sure the publisher involves you in the design, especially the cover, at the concept stage, before they start asking for finished artwork. Are you happy with the design? If you’re not, say so. Are they writing the blurb or are you? Are there any types of books already out there that you’d like your book to emulate? The publisher will probably insist on having the last word on the design, but it’s still your book – they should consult you at each stage. Find out when it’s going to print, when you’ll get your copies and when it will hit the shops.

 

 

Generally, the publisher does, but they will obviously want you to be happy with the process and the final result, so they’ll do everything they can to keep you on-side. You will work closely with the designer or editor or both to create a product you’re all satisfied with. Bear in mind that you want to keep them on your side too. Even when you think they don’t understand what you’re trying to achieve, remember that they do this for a living. Never forget to be nice.

 

 

Once you’ve finished the design and illustration process, you will be asked to check the whole thing from start to finish in the form of proofs. These used to be supplied as printouts of the final page layouts, but are more often sent as a digital file such a pdf. Make sure you are sent these proofs before the book goes to print and make sure you check them carefully. This is the point of no return for the publication of your book. It is a kind of informal contract where you and the publisher agree that this is what the finished product is going to look like. The book should not go to print unless you have signed off on the proofs.

 

 

This is one of the most important questions that you need to ask your publisher, because how they go about marketing the book will be a major decider in its success and, of course, how much money you make from it. Books can be marketed like anything else, using advertising, promotional events, branding campaigns, etc. But all of this costs money and the publishing industry runs on narrow margins.

It’s hard enough to get a good space in bookshops and, with a constant turnover of new releases, even harder to keep your books there. Even the window space in some shops and mentions in certain catalogues have to be paid for. Most of a publisher’s marketing budget goes on selling their A-list authors. The rest have to make do with a percentage of what’s left.

The harsh truth is that most books, and especially children’s books, get little or no marketing. To make things worse, children’s books are sold at lower prices than other types, so there is less money made on them for everyone concerned. Go into any large bookshop, take a good look at the children’s section and ask yourself how many of these books you have actually heard of. Ask yourself what will make your book stand out among them. Why would someone choose your book over any other book on these shelves? It can be a depressing exercise, so you need to be able to do something about it.

 

Going out and promoting your books yourself will be the difference between making a living and not. Getting onto Poetry Ireland’s Writers-In-Schools Scheme is a good way to get sessions in schools, but tell your publisher you are willing to speak at local schools and libraries too. They are often approached by people who are looking for writers and illustrators who will do visits. The best way to go about making a living from your writing is to find ways to make money that also promote your books.

Apart from visits to schools and libraries, things you can do include: festivals; talks in colleges and at conferences; articles and reviews, and teaching writing courses. If you don’t do public speaking, learn. Try it out on your friends. Time your readings and your speeches so you get to say everything you want to say in the time allowed. Try and find out how other authors and storytellers do their sessions and pick up some of their techniques. Think of ways that you can make yourself different from the rest, so that people will remember you. Learn how to deal with kids, how set up and control your sessions and most importantly of all, learn how to read your stories aloud.

Most writers nowadays have a website or blog or both. Your publisher is unlikely to set these up for you, but there are plenty of ways of doing it for free, if you’re willing to go and look online and put in some work. Check the sites of authors and illustrators you want to emulate. The Illustrator’s Guild of Ireland’s website features the portfolios of its members, cb info has an extensive links section for authors and illustrators. Get yourself out there.

 

Selling foreign rights is a complicated process that requires a wide network of contacts in other countries. It’s best left to your agent or publisher. Bear in mind that a publisher will often take a much bigger cut from foreign rights than an agent. And both will often need other agents who act on their behalf in other publishing territories and who will take an additional percentage of the deal. The same goes for selling film or television rights. If you have your own contacts, by all means, use them, but your contract will most likely include a clause that empowers your agent or publisher to sell foreign, film and other rights on your behalf.