Tips to Choose a Good Illustration Agency for Your Book

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.