Art by Magdalena Takac
What comes first, characters, or story? What do I do with a finished Children’s Book, who do I give it to? Is it worth being an author/illustrator instead of just an illustrator? And how do you market a book, now that COVID is winding down? This week, Jake Parker, Lee White, and Will Terry discuss these questions and also outline an important petition against McGraw Hill.
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SHOW LINKS
Lee’s storytelling course
The podcast begins with Lee, Jake, and Will discussing the fact that McGraw hill publishers are charging illustrators a fee to get paid. This issue was brought up on the SVS forum by one of the teachers.
McGraw hill has set up an account so that the illustrators they’ve commissioned have to pay a 2% entry fee in order to gain access to their royalties. This is not an optional fee for an expedited service. It’s MANDATORY if you want to get paid by them at all.
LINK TO PETITION
QUESTIONS
Jonathan asks- I’ve created a character without a story. Now what?
Jake rephrases the question as “When does the more short-term approach (creating a project that works for your OC-- original character) work? And when does the more long-term approach (letting the ideas percolate and form on their own) work?
Is it enough to create the character on its own or is it more beneficial to create the world around an OC first before you stick a person in it?
Lee doesn’t think there’s anything wrong with creating the character first and then thinking about what kind of world/story you would find this character inhabiting. He says that he would rather do it this way because he finds a character without a world puts less pressure on him than a world without a character.
Will says that you as the creator can work both ways because this is your character and your world. He uses Stephen Tyler (lead singer of Aerosmith) to illustrate his point, saying Stephen once wrote an entire song around a single phrase.
Jake thinks there are three ways into a story: (1) through a character, (2) through the plot or the message, and (3) through the world.
If you’re going to start with the character- give them a problem that they need to solve.
Lee talks about the Tarot deck he’s doing and how he drew up a character that fit the bill for the traveler but he had to bend it a bit to fit the narrative of the story he was trying to tell.
Jake listens to the above podcast (it’s about screenwriting and storytelling) and they did an episode where they broke down the storytelling in Finding Nemo and how Marlin had to face his fear of the ocean in order to rescue his son.
Lee has a course on SVS where he has done this exact thing-- breaking down the story of Finding Nemo-- and is a tad disgruntled because he did it first.
Lee recommends breaking down a story by asking what the story is at its core, sans details. That way you can see if a story is interesting on its own or if it just has interesting characters.
Miranda asks- “If I have a completed manuscript and some sketches of the kind of imagery I’m going to do for it, who exactly do I submit that to when I’ve completed it?”
Jake tells us that the industry term for this is a ‘book dummy’ and that the purpose of this is to let your Art Director/editor/agent get a vibe on your story. He recommends that you have a finished illustration (spread, book cover, etc.) to go with it.
Once you have a ‘book dummy’, Will would submit it to an agent because they know where to send your stuff so that editors and publishers will actually read it.
PS. You don’t have to be signed to an agent to submit to them.
Lee suggests a multi-pronged approach. He definitely would want to find and talk to agents. He would also go to conferences because they provide an easy way to introduce yourself to that world.
He also says that as soon as you finish one ‘book dummy’ and a few really good spreads to go with it- you should start on the next one. It’s a numbers game and the more manuscripts/ideas that you’ve got going the more chances you have of being published.
Will adds to this saying it's a good idea to memorize elevator pitches (all the selling points of your idea in an elevator ride’s space of time-- about a minute) for all your current work in case someone asks. Have lots of ideas because not all of them are going to bear fruit.
Jake subscribes to a rule of 3 in these cases- 1 idea with 3 iterations. He says this helps cover your bases while letting you explore new ideas.
Part two (this is still Miranda)- “Do you think it’s worth the time and money to be an author/illustrator?”
Lee definitely thinks so. You get more profit out of it. You have more control over your work. He thinks it’s an easy sell when you can give an art director nice words to go with your nice pictures.
Will tells those in the audience who might not know that in the publishing world the author and the illustrator get paid about the same separately, abt. 5% plus any advances, so if you do both you double that.
We also live in a world where publishers love only having to market one person. There’s less hassle for them and less paperwork.
He also mentions that it’s more efficient on your end to do both. It’s easier to write and draw the pictures for something yourself than to rely on someone else to enact your vision. It’s hard to find a good author/illustrator team.
Lee says that when you’ve got a really good author/illustrator team that the workload is more 50/50 but when you don’t he finds that the illustrator does more work because they have to find the vision of the author.
Jake makes a comment on how we live in an author's world. The words in a story get more praise than the pictures do a lot of the time.
Will said that he had a writer friend who argued that the authors did more work because “[the] illustrations can’t exist if I don’t start it,” and he has found his way around to that line of thinking.
He uses the example of the music industry and says that when a musician is really successful it’s because of the lyrics in their songs. You can replace the people playing the instruments because the sheet music will ensure that the notes sound the same no matter what, but if you change the words you change the song.
Lee agrees but adds the counterpoint that a book might still sell if the illustrations are on point, even if the writing isn’t that great.
Argument aside, they all agree that being an author/illustrator is worth it. Jake makes an interesting point about a horse and rider needing each other to win the race.
Would the audience like a breakdown of picture books such as Little Bot and Sparrow on the podcast or jump session?
Dan and Jason ask- “How does one launch a book in COVID times? We have a new book out (Blue, Barry and Pancakes) with First Second Books. The promotional team is great but we recently listened to your podcast on book launches and it had lots of creative, DIY ideas about promoting and book launches. We were wondering if you guys have any ideas or have heard any interesting techniques for book launches in this socially distanced world.
Both Jake and Lee had books come out during covid (Awesome Man 2 for Jake and This Pretty Planet for Lee) but neither did anything more to launch them than posting on social media.
Will did the promotion for Bonaparte Falls Apart on spot on Kibblet TV. He says that you could try that but it is probably not easy to get on. Other than that, because you aren’t really able to meet with people, you’re just going to have to find online opportunities like collaborating with BookTubers.
Jake recommends going on a Youtube/Instagram book tour. Reach out to 10-15 people in the KidLit (children's literature) space who have platforms and say let’s livestream together or maybe collaborate on each other’s accounts.
School visits are not the only way to sell books. Every promotion idea has not been thought of- try something new.
LINKS
Jake Parker: mrjakeparker.com. Instagram: @jakeparker, Youtube: JakeParker44
Will Terry: willterry.com. Instagram: @willterryart, Youtube: WillTerryArt
Lee White: leewhiteillustration.com. Instagram: @leewhiteillo
Daniel Tu: danieltu.co.
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