A great book is always created in collaboration.
There are writers, editors, designers, illustrators, and printers who all work together as a team.
An essential component of the team is the relationship between the writer and the illustrator. If you’re not the illustrator yourself, you have to explain your vision for each page.
If you don’t have a vision for your book, you should hire an illustrator who has a style that you love. By hiring them, you are asking them to create your vision in their style.
How to build a strong collaborative author-illustrator relationship
Short answer: develop a relationship built on mutual respect and trust
Long answer: read below
Synchrodestiny
Synchrodestiny, coined by Deepak Chopra, is about taking advantage of unpredictable moments in your life.
“You need to notice things that happen in your life that are out of the ordinary,” Dr. Chopra. “Seize that moment of unpredictability and ask ‘what’s the opportunity?'”
What are your goals?
If you are writing a stand alone book and you aren’t going to have a long-term relationship with your illustrator, then “dating around” might not be as important to you. Finding the right personality fit isn’t as important as finding an artist with the style you love and budget to match your bank account.
If you’re going to create a series, you’ll want to have consistent illustrations in all of the books, so finding someone you can work with long-term is important.
Finding the right person who is open to building that relationship with you takes time, effort, and energy, but it is so worthwhile.
Work with people you trust
So many indie authors are looking for illustrators and they search portfolios, scan websites, and proceed with necessary caution and hesitation.
There is a real fear of intellectual property theft and copyright infringement on both sides of an author-illustrator relationship.
You also have to balance creative style, personality, method of working together, and of course, budget.
When people ask me about how I chose my illustrator, I tell them that we had a relationship established first.
That’s quite an unpopular answer because most people don’t want to invest the emotional labor in creating that relationship.
Finding an illustrator
You can search Facebook groups, Instagram, or artists’ websites and portfolios but in all cases, I recommend casting the net far and wide.
There is the right illustrator out there who matches your style and budget perfectly, you just need to find them.
I’m a firm believer in serendipity, or as Dr. Chopra says, synchrodestiny, because the best collaborations in my life have all sort of “fallen together.”
Over the past few months, I’ve been contacted by authors and illustrators asking for help and advice with their Kickstarter campaigns.
Pei Jen, a new illustrator on the scene, contacted me when her first book went live on Kickstarter. She had some questions on how to get more eyes on the campaign.
Building a relationship
A few weeks turned into months and we communicated back and forth via Facebook Messenger.
We chatted about the business aspect of self-publishing, as it’s not always straightforward, and over time, we developed a relationship built on mutual respect and trust.
Because I knew I’d be working closely with my illustrator over the next year to develop the three books in my series, I really wanted to be sure that I had a collaborative relationship with my illustrator.
I also wanted them to be somewhat interested in the books they were illustrating and not just a transactional “gig” like you find on Fiverr.
Building something together
Once you start working with your illustrator, be sure to understand each other’s work flow.
- Are you going to communicate via email, messenger, WhatsApp?
- Will they send you a sketch first?
- Will they place the text on each illustration or will you hire someone else to do that?
- Talk with them about empty space for text as they’ll need to accommodate that into their art
- Do you want single page or full page spreads? Maybe a combination of both.
- Where will they place the final image files?
Pei Jen and I discussed the concept of the book and the direction of the entire series as a whole. She immediately had ideas and brought her creativity to the table.
“I want to be sure there are diverse characters in the story, so please include kids of different races and ethnicities.”
“Of course. Every child should see themselves in the book,” she replied.
Perfect.
New sketches and illustrations came through Facebook Messenger and my heart raced every time I got a ping from Pei Jen.
The book was coming together in ways that I never could’ve imagined.
She took my vision and brought her own creativity to the book to elevate the entire story.
She was incredibly responsive to my suggested edits and together, we found a harmonious way of working together.
Nurture relationships—both professional and personal
You never know who will become central in your life and when you’ll need their help the most, so my advice is to nurture relationships and see where they lead.
Build trust through communication, consistency, and generosity and you may be surprised what happens.
Take a look at Pei Jen’s artwork in our first collaborative effort together:
When the Clock Strikes on Halloween
