How much time do you need for a 32 page picture book illustration?

cristamay

I'm not sure where I heard that but I heard that children's books in Europe and in USA are different:
In Europe the cycle of a book is much shorter than in USA so they publish more books in less time. Let's say that in the time in USA they publish a book in Europe they make 4.
So that translates into lower budgets, tight deadlines and probably less quality.
In USA they make a more curated plan for each book: marketing plans to make the book last longer in the market, art director, multiple rounds of reviews, etc. In Europe they burn the life of the book earlier because they don't even invest that amount of money and time.

Specially in educational market... I once was asked to illustrate a 20 pages book for that market in 7 days (however the agent I had told me they were flexible with the deadline). I declined the job for multiple reasons.

It's a crappy reality...
And from what I've heard, yes, the average is 3 months.

Nyrryl Cadiz

@jdubz wow really?!! your either joking or you're the fastest artist I've ever met!

Nyrryl Cadiz

@xin-li Hi! I'm still currently in the trenches. The last 2 books I did only had around 1.5-2 months to complete. So I'm in no means qualified to give advice. I do wish you the best. 4.5 months seems a bit more doable than 3. Good luck! Do update us when your book comes out.

mag

I mostly work for “big” publishing houses in our Europe country and the timeframe for a book usually is about a 6 month, sometimes even more, the problem is the pay - which hardly covers like one month worth of time. So to make my money worth, I would actually need to be able to finish a book in a month (which is ridiculous and it horribly affects the results, I cannot spend enough time sketching, etc).
But I understand.
The market for books in Europe is significantly smaller. For each language there’s just a tiny-tiny group of buyers, so I completely understand why they don’t have enough money. Because the book just possible can’t earn that money!
And that’s also why I really really would like to get into the English (well USA) market with my illustrations. It is possible to make a living with illustration in my country if you are good but it’s a stretch and I feel I just cannot make better art because there’s never time for it.
Sorry for long post I had to get it out of my system.
.

hakepe

I have illustrated two books and it took me about 4-6 months to finish each, although I did not work on them full time. More and more children's books are being made and the shelf life of the books is shorter than it used to be. Also I live in Finland, so the market for children's book is a lot smaller due to language. Most illustrators (unless you are a "big name") who illustrate children's books cannot really rely on it as a viable income. They either have a regular dayjob or they apply for grants for their illustration projects which are difficult to get.

The compensation for doing a 24 or 32 page book can be as little as 1000-1500 € which compared to the time it takes to illustrate a book is not financially reasonable. Which is a shame because it means that you cannot spend the time polishing the illustrations that you would really like to and you cannot solely focus on that type of illustration. That is why I am also trying to look for more international publishers and other types of work and creating my own stories. Also looking for a part time job right now that would pay the bills and take some financial pressure off "making it" as an artist. It takes time.

xin li

@cristamay I think your impression fits with what I heard from my agent regarding to timeline. This was something I wish I had learned before I signed with an agency, hehe. It is really not my personality to do things quick and fast. But I believe there is always a way to make things work somehow. I am working with my agent to figure out that at this moment. On the bright side, the book I am working on now is probably going to come out next fall. So it does not take 3 years for a book to be out in UK (which is sometimes the case in the US, I heard.)

@Nyrryl-Cadiz wow. 2 months, that is really tough. I did last book in 3 months, I would say, that is like "60% good". You are definitely qualifed giving advice - you have a number of books under your belt now :-).

@mag thank you so much for sharing. Which country do you located? I feel your pain. I used to work as a designer in the IT industry. The last book I did for the local publisher took me 3 months, and the pay is like a week's work for a design consultant. So It is crazy low pay for an illustrator here in Norway. I can say that I am in it for art, not mone, for sure. But it would be nice to firgure out a way to make enough money so I can make art :-).

@hakepe, it is really interesting to comparing notes with fellow European artists. The pay in Norway is for a 32pg would be around 2000 - 2500 euro, which is not glamours either. I think part-time job is probably really smart from the sustainability point of view. Good luck with that

cristamay

@xin-li oh, you're right! That means your book will be published sooner. Good point

mag

@xin-li I'm from Czech republic, so usually when I work on a book, it goes to Czechia as well as Slovakia, (the publishers usually have their imprint there and make a translation of the book for them), which helps a little bit with the prices, but still...
The pay for a 32 page book in here would be about 1200 euro, which is really bad in comparison with other countries, but the cost of living is also a lot lower. I work in this industry full time (well, now on maternity leave) and make a living because I now how to work quickly and I also do some work for educational pub - both here and abroad - and that helps to patch my income. But I'm not happy about it.
On the other hand, see my book on the shelf of local bookstore, that's kinda cool!

Nyrryl Cadiz

@xin-li it was an educational book with only 8 illustrations so it was a bit lighter but It was still very tiring

NessIllustration

One thing to remember, for all of us who are making lower wages with these books, is to see the finished illustrations as assets and try to re-sell the licencing rights again. In the long run, that could mean making enough money from these illustration to be really worth your time That means of course, that we should never sign over our exclusive rights especially for such a small rate. 1000-2000 euros is definitely not enough to forfeit your potential future income!

StudioHannah

There are multiple factors to how long a book might take, and if you can’t control one, try adjusting with another.

For instance, if you know it takes you 10 hours to complete a single page, a 32 page book would take you 320 hours. If you work only an hour a day, that’s going to take almost a year to complete! If you work 40 hours a week like a full-time job, it will only take you 2 months.

So if you are very busy with other things, it’s just going to take longer. If you have short deadlines, you’ll have to give up some of your time on other tasks to work on the illustrations instead. Alternatively, you could change your art process or simplify your style to take less time to complete. If it took you 8 hours to complete an illustration instead of 10, and you worked 256 hours for those 32 pages, that means you’ve saved 64 hours of work total!

That’s simplified, since emails, phone calls, revisions, etc. also take your time, as the general idea. Something has to give. If you’re stuck with a short deadline then something else has to give. If you insist on detailed work that takes 20 hours per page, you are going to have to have longer deadlines for sure.

xin li

@mag I have a lot of respect to artists who manage to make a living. It is a pain to see your works out there you are not 100% satisfied. But on the other hand, we always grow, we will be unsastifed with works we have done in the past. And that is a good thing :-).

@NessIllustration Thank you for reminding everyone on this. An important point we often do not think about it.

@StudioHannah It is really hard for me to plan my schedule this way. Maybe it is just I do not have enough experience, or maybe it is personality. I can not do concept work 7 hour a day, and I can not plan when I would land a satisfactory concept for an illustration, a spread I am working on. My limited experience is that good ideas tend to come when I am not under pressure, or not even trying very hard, and sometimes the best work I do is the "side project", not the main porject at hand. It is frustrating from planning point of view. But currently, I can not help it. The only way I am trying is to get as much time for concept development as possible. I once explained to an editor "the more time I have, the less time I need." It sounded ridiculours, but that is the reality for me.

StudioHannah

@xin-li I would time whatever illustration you’re currently working on. I know it sounds a little nuts, but it’s very useful to have this information. That way, if you do 2 hours on Monday, 1 on Thursday, and 2 on Saturday, finishing the drawing, you still know it took you 5 hours to finish. With this baseline, you can negotiate for more time if you need it. “If you want work that looks like this, you have to give me at least X hours to complete it.” I certainly don’t work the same number of hours each week on my art stuff, but I do know how long it takes to do my different kinds of art. Knowledge is power

Nyrryl Cadiz

@NessIllustration i need to learn to assert this more during negotiations. When it comes to contract time, I just let the client have all the rights. I should really be approaching this differently from now on. Thanks!

NessIllustration

@Nyrryl-Cadiz Usually companies already have a contract that they send us, and this can give us the impression that it's a "sign it and get the project or don't sign it and lose the project" kind of situation. But that's not the case! The contract is written by them so will have all the clauses to protect themselves and try to get as much rights as possible. But a contract is meant to protect both parties equally and we absolutely can mention clauses that we want added or changed for our own benefit. Recently I've been discussing with an author for a self-published book, and since she didn't have a contract I got to write my own. I of course, filled it up with clauses that protected and benefited me XDD And the author did get back to me with some amendments she wanted (good for her!) But this really gave me the perspective of the other side: Of course the contract writer will write it in a way that benefits them. Hopefully the other party pipes in to add the stuff that's important to them too!

Neha Rawat

@NessIllustration said in How much time do you need for a 32 page picture book illustration?:

Usually companies already have a contract that they send us, and this can give us the impression that it's a "sign it and get the project or don't sign it and lose the project" kind of situation.

I get this feeling all the time. I've just taken up 2 book projects (one US and one UK publisher - both with really tight deadlines and starting pay) but they've both asked for all the rights as if it's standard practice. I'm still justifying it to myself by thinking I just need to get some things published under my name before I can start negotiating.
This is also in the case of self-published authors. I lost 2 decent project opportunities because they wanted to buy out all the rights and I negotiated but they didn't budge. I didn't feel like I lost a lot because they were self-publishing, but yeah its making me wary of asking established publishers if they would consider otherwise.

jdubz

@Nyrryl-Cadiz hah, I don't think so I mean, think about having no oversight at all and you can literally just draw whatever you wanted. Although I will say that today it would probably take longer. I've learned a lot since then, and more likely I'd be putting more thought into it. I think in the last year the time I've spent on pieces has at least doubled.

xin li

@Neha-Rawat said in How much time do you need for a 32 page picture book illustration?:

but they've both asked for all the rights as if it's standard practice

Do you mean that you do not retain the copyright of the illustrations?
I have been offered a couple of educational books that is the case, and also one picturebook (with some special context - sorry I can not be mroe specific, I am not entire sure what is ok for me to talk about publically). I turned down all 3 projects, mostly because of time issues.

May I ask what types of books you are doing with no copyrights? and what kind of schedules do you have?

I am very grateful the fellow artists share these types of info here. I listened to 500+ episodes of kidlit podcasts, and researched as much as I can about the industry before I jumped in to get an agent, and start working professionally. Now that I started working, I realized that I knew nothing of the industry in terms of the business operation :-).

I love almost everything about art making side of the kidlit world, I love fellow artists/art directors/editors I met in this community, but I could not help thinking why publishing world is such hierarchical place, where it is really hard for entry level artists to fight for the term to do good art.

eriberart

I think it is more common for educational books to have very short timelines, smaller budgets, and (I think - not sure!) they like to retain copyright. However they are probably not as concerned about the quality compared to picture books etc. Of course us artists don't like putting work into the world that we aren't proud of! So we still want to put time and effort equally into all our work

Coley

@NessIllustration very helpful input, as usual, thanks! But I’m just wanting to make sure I understand, if I was working on a book project, and I had rights to the images later, I could do prints etc? I’m just wondering how useful that is with a lot of book illustrations that are more specific To the situation in a book. I don’t know if I am explaining myself very well.