“Who should I get to illustrate my manuscript?”

That’s just one of the questions posed in the chapter “Illustration” in my e-book Writing Picture Books: What Works and What Doesn’t. The answer?

No one. Not your brother or friend who likes to draw or your talented aunt who painted the picture over the sofa at your cottage and would love to illustrate your book. Only a professional illustrator with the artistic ability and technical training needed for book illustration should approach your manuscript with a paintbrush or a piece of chalk.

“But what if my brother/friend/aunt is a professional illustrator with the technical training and artistic ability needed for book illustration? What then?”

An already-illustrated manuscript is in a tricky position when it arrives on an editor’s desk. If the illustrations are great but the manuscript wobbly, the publisher may opt to work with the illustrator but reject the manuscript. If the illustrations are amateurish or mediocre, the publisher mightaccept your story and not your friend’s artwork, but many publishers would rather return the whole package than get involved in the potentially tricky situation of accepting only part of it.

Other questions covered in that chapter include:

• “But what if I’m a writer and an illustrator and want to illustrate my story myself?”
• “What if I’m not an illustrator and don’t know any illustrators?”
• “What if the illustrator hired doesn’t see the story the way I do?”
• “Will I get to meet the illustrator, or see the work s/he is doing on my book?”

Would you like to know more about writing picture books before you undertake writing your own? Or before submitting what you’ve written to a publisher?

Why not order your own copy of this guide by the author of such classics as Red is Best and The Man with the Violin?