Author: admin

Characters are the life of a book which are actually assisting the author in narrating the story. Kids get influenced by the characters so it becomes really important for the author to develop the story and lesson around those characters so that it has a positive impact on the kids. Characters’ life in a story is the author’s imagination going inside the reader’s brain when reading. Characters can be animals, humans, ghosts, superhumans or aliens etc. But they become memorable. They are the ones whom you love, hate, feel sorry for, respect, like, dislike but you surely have some emotion for them when reading the story. The most loved characters are often used in various book sequels and they pull their readers and sales only because those characters were loved in the earlier book.

When creating a character for your book, an author must first shortlist on its specie type, age and appearance and then note down the other attributes which the character should possess. As an author you should know the character completely, inside-out. Think unique and come out with unique characters. It should be distinctive. Once the author has laid out the character in words completely, it is equally important for the illustrator to portray him with the same details in his illustrations. His facial features, health, hair, clothing etc all will remain in the minds of the readers.

Kids also love getting reflections of themselves in the stories and the illustrations. They tend to identify themselves with the characters in the book who are their age or if same ethnicity. So, making books with multicultural kids, different ethnicities, backgrounds and faith is a very good idea to cater to the world audience. For example, story of 3 friends who are Caucasian, African and Japanese and then adding various cultural attributes of all the 3 in the book can be really interesting for readers. It will not just let kids know about various cultures but will also help them relate to the characters based on their own ethnicity. It will also assist towards global peace and minimizing the gaps and differences between various cultures. We live in a community which is mixed so all authors must keep this in mind when developing their story characters. Kids do dream of larger than life characters. So, it is also a good idea to have superheroes from various cultures.

If you’re currently working on your children’s book and seeking an illustrator, you might be wondering if you should select a freelance illustrator or work with an illustration agency or an illustrator provided by your self-publishing company.

There are so many freelance job portals, that as an author you might want to try posting your job for the search of an illustrator for your book. Don’t be surprised if you get overwhelming responses from illustrators across the globe and that too at very competitive prices. But you need to exercise extreme caution as there are so many aspects about book illustration which you must consider before finalizing one.

First and foremost is the copyright of your manuscript. You cannot handover your manuscript to anyone without knowing and risk yourself of leaking it to others as until your book is not published and/or not copyrighted, your story, characters and ideas can be used by anybody. Any legitimate and experienced illustration agency will always sign a contract before asking about your book details. This is where its easy to trust an illustration agency rather than working with a freelance illustrator.

You may get talented freelance illustrators at quite an economical price unlike Illustration agencies. Although some good illustration agencies have a range of prices to choose from too.

Experience in illustrating children’s book do matter. Illustration agencies have experienced Art Directors, who understand the children’s book industry standard norms and are their to guide the author and in house illustrators through out the process ensuring the delivered product looks professional. One cannot get this expertise of direction when working with a freelance illustrator.

There are various steps in publishing a children’s book. After the manuscript is ready, the first thing to get done are the illustrations. Once the illustrations are done, there is a whole set of processes which needs to be followed before you can actually have your book in hand and ready for sale. This is another advantage of working with an illustration agency. These agencies usually provide all the services involved in self-publishing a book. If the author is very experienced and thoroughly understands and is able to self-publish the book, it doesn’t matter if one works with a freelance illustrator or an illustrator agency. But if you do need assistance at every step of self-publishing, there are chances of more technical errors and misinformation when working with freelancers. So, it’s the best thing to get all the services from one place only rather than getting involved with various companies and freelancers.

Make sure you check the reviews and testimonials of your freelance illustrator or illustration agency before you make a choice. It’s easy to checkout various published works by the illustration agency on Amazon to have a real time check.

You have finished your story and now you need illustrations before you finally layout your book. It’s always better to go to a professional illustration agency rather than choosing a freelance illustrator to work on your book. We will be explaining the pros and cons of this in our upcoming blog. But right now, we would like to explain a few important things which an author must take care of before choosing an illustration agency.

 

• Agencies’ Experience: It’s always better to go with an agency who have a number of published works under them. If they have an experience, it surely means they know what they are doing and they can advise you what is in best interest of your book. Their experience will definitely help you benefit and give know abouts of the publishing world, especially if you are a novice writer.

 

• Get their Testimonials: Your story is your dream, don’t choose an illustrator or agency just because they are ready to do your book illustrations at a very low price. Do your homework before finalising. Read their testimonials, if possible ask for reference clients of those agencies. Gather the most relevant information directly from those experienced authors who have worked with those agencies. Let their experience be of help to you. You surely won’t regret doing this bit before finalising an agency. An agency with a good reputation means they have got experts, talent and professionalism which your story definitely deserves.

 

• Check the variety of Styles they are offering: Agencies have many illustrator’s on their panel. This gives a wide variety of illustration styles from which you can choose from. Based on your story, genre and preferences, you can already start to visualize how your book will turn out looking at the various styles.

 

• Pool of immense Talent: Agencies will not keep any amateur illustrator’s in their pool. Agencies have their selection criterion before they hire any illustrator. You can be sure you will get to choose from already a shortlisted set of experienced illustrators.

 

• Don’t geographically limit yourself: Some of you might find it easy and comfortable to work with a local illustrator. But it makes absolutely no difference if you work with illustration agencies who are not located in your area. This gives you various options for illustration quality and cost, and you are able to choose the best one based on your preferences.

 

• The agency needs to be in your price range: Since you will be self-publishing your book, it is best to do your planning and calculations for pricing before choosing your illustrator. You may would like to get your book illustrated by a celebrity illustrator but unfortunately you don’t have the budget for the same. Don’t get disheartened, there are some good illustration agencies which not even provide their panelled illustrator’s style but can follow the style you give to them closely. You certainly would get your illustrations done almost just like you imagined at a very minimal percentage of price which otherwise you would have paid.

 

• Keeping note of all your requirements in written: A good illustration agency will never go with the details given on phone or messages. This way does not ensure each detail is saved and will be implemented. A professional illustration agency would always need all the requirement from the author filled out in written so that everything is organized for the illustrator and none of your preference is missed to get you your dream illustrations.

A good story book is a perfect amalgamation of words with pictures rather than a book full of words. For young readers, it is very important that the story book they are reading is not just interesting but it also stimulates their imagination and they are able to well visualize the story. Kids begin to learn about the world they live in through images. Words are not enough for the little minds to comprehend it all, this is where the colorful beautiful illustrations come in. They are not just highly engaging but also quite self-explanatory.  Don’t get confused with Illustrations and painting. The two are quite different form of art in terms of technique, skill and creativity.

The kids cannot fully understand the story just by words like most adults do but the illustrations help with the purpose here. They simplify the text and kids are able to relate that text with the pictures, objects, expressions and other shapes drawn there. And when they relate illustrations to the story text, they also help in developing vocabulary in the young readers. The purpose of the picture is not just to explain the text perfectly. But also make reading more enjoyable for the kids.

Reading as storybook with pictures develops an imaginative power in the young readers. This means the child will be the one in charge of interpreting the message that is conveyed by the picture. This encourages their mind to explore new ideas as they take on details from the first page before they move on to the next.

In story with only text, the characters are only names and nothing beyond that. Kids relate to the characters better when they see it illustrated in color and expressions. Those characters now come to life for them and it stays in their memory forever.

Kids also learn to appreciate art at a younger age, which would in turn open up their creativity and sensitivity towards the world.

Picture books help the young readers to develop a sense of awareness about a lot of subjects like friendship, social values, family bonding, moral values and so many others.

Reading a nicely illustrated picture book can be really addictive. A great story may not necessarily engage a child but good, colorful, lively illustrations surely will grab his attention. And inculcating this habit of reading books at a young age will definitely go a long way. It will also improve his comprehension skills and would give him an advantage to excel in academics.

For toddlers who are about to learn new things, illustrations are a good way to introduce them to new colors, vegetables, fruits and other objects.

There are many picture books which are interactive and have ways in which kids can participate in them. Like kids can have fun in coloring books, they can exercise their brains in maze and puzzle solving books. The key here is to have expressive characters, colorful objects and engaging backgrounds.

The illustrated story books offer a great opportunity for bonding. It motivates the kids to read, improves their visual thinking ability, improves their vocabulary, inculcates social values in them, makes them more self-confident as they become less dependent on their parents to understand the text and they learn to appreciate art and literature early.

When we talk about self publishing , it means a collection of services like cover design, layout (interior of book), Editing, print publishing (Hardcover / Paperback), E book and promotion of the book. If it a Children’ book , then illustrations also play a very important part.

When we talk about various services, the next thing is the length of the book in terms of number of words. This directly impacts the number of pages which impacts the editing and layout and of course the print cost.

So, for most of the books the time frame for Self publishing is in the range of 5 weeks to 8 weeks. In case of Children’s book , the time frame will increase specially because of the illustrations. The range may be between 10 weeks to 14 weeks for a standard Children’s book (with 12 illustrations and 30 pages).

Having a professionally designed cover is very important because the cover is the first impression for the readers and if its not good, there are minor chances of your book doing well. Even if your story is excellent but if the cover is not designed well, the book has low chances of doing well.

I always recommend that the authors must be ready to give extra time when the cover is being designed. Don’t mind a few extra round of revisions and ask your designer also to keep more patience. The cover must be shown to a few other professional designer and author friends to get the correct feedback . o hurry should be practices when it comes to cover.

As far as the layout and editing is concerned, if you choose a professional agency, they should do a good job. But be careful to do one round pf proofreading yourself or choose random pages and just do some proofreading.

When it comes to book promotion, this is an activity which is not included in publishing time frame, it start after the book is published and I suggest that it is an ongoing process and author must develop an online presence for himself.

Many authors who are still old school feel intimidated by the very thought of having a personal website. Their apprehension is valid as it’s not easy to maintain a website where a hell lot of coding takes place and changing anything requires the help of a professional website developer.

The very thought of managing all this can scare even the Batman from the 1950’s. But the scared lot is not only the old school authors, but even the current lot of authors does not feel very comfortable with the idea of managing own website. One may ask, why does an author need to do anything else, other than writing? Well, its true, especially if you have a publisher who is taking care of the book distribution and book promotion. But if you are considering self publishing, you should know that you are the crew as well as the captain of your ship.

Things like a reliable self publishing agency and book promotion agency can act as added features in the Captain’s cabin to operate the ship and be able to take the ship to the destination safely and successfully. Apart from the services like the cover, layout and self publishing, the one thing that sets your book apart is an effective strategy for book promotion.

An authors website is the most important area of any book promotion. Not only does an authors website provide an online presence to the author, but it also works as a very effective medium in selling books directly. The author can connect with a huge audience on his/her own website and answer the queries of his/her admirers through various articles and blogs. Not only that, you can easily use your social media accounts and inform everyone the single link on your website from where they can purchase the book.

One may point out, the book can still be purchased through Amazon or other online book store, so why through own website? My answer to this question is simple, when you invite your guests to dinner, you may take them out to a near by restaurant, then why call him to your house and serve home cooked food? Simply, because people want to know their favourite authors personally.

With the improvement in technology, it has become very simple to operate own website without knowing anything about the complex coding and other technicalities. We have some very easy and simple agencies like the www.websiteforauthors.com who are helping hundreds of authors every year to have a personalized website and they even teach the authors to maintain own websites in an effortless manner.

In the end, i would like to say, having or not having a website is a personal choice, but connecting with your followers is not your choice, you have to do it as your followers have the right to know you better and personalizing that experience is like “icing on the cake”