Book Cover Illustrations

Over the last 24 hours I’ve been contacted several times by illustrators just starting in the illustration business asking me for tips for beginners.

So here’s another blog with a few tips for intrepid book cover illustrators, with the caveat that my guidance is akin to the blind leading the blind:

1) Keep on keeping on; hone your illustration skills and keep contacting potential clients. In the publishing industry success often goes to the most persistent. Talent may take you a long way, but persistence pays the bills.

2) Create a web presence all your own. There are free sites that allow artists to display their work; the catch is that fellow artists basically are your competitors if an art director visits such a site looking for an artist. Use such sites to learn tricks and perhaps pick up leads from discussion boards, but don’t limit your online presence to these because if you do, you’re basically up against a whole lot of stiff competition. Start your own web page and have the site in your name so it will be easy to find once someone knows your name.

3) Find online discussion groups where you can learn about new jobs and meet potential clients. Again, groups with only artists are good for picking up tips, but poor for meeting potential clients — look for groups with art directors, authors, and so forth as well as fellow artists. (I find LinkedIn ideal for this.)

4) Get good at a few styles rather than being mediocre at everything. Often clients come looking for a specific style of illustrating that you do well. The more you concentrate on producing the very best within your skill set, the more apt a potential client is to ask you to do that type of work. (And if you’re good at a style of artwork you don’t really enjoy doing, don’t put it in your portfolio or online pages.)

5) You probably don’t need an agent – which is good because they’re hard to get. Art reps are great at getting work so you can concentrate on your artwork. But in today’s market there’s only so much a rep can do, and they generally connect only with the big buyers. Today the publishing industry is shifting toward self-publishers and small presses. If you have a web presence these clients will contact you (but often they won’t contact an art rep). For this reason time spent developing your online presence and bypassing an agent is something to at least consider. (And don’t get me wrong, art reps are great and if you feel like you’d doing better with one, and can convince one to promote you, by all means do so. There’s something to be said for being able to just create without the bother of paperwork, contacts, and bookkeeping.)

6) “In God we trust,” all others should pay at least one half up front on a project before you start working on it. You can find suitable model contracts online; be sure your contract spells out what rights are being sold. You should charge for additional rights when a customer asks for more than the ones they originally expressed interest in buying. Have a “kill fee” included in your contract. Contracts protect the client more than they do the artist, but the plus is that a contract can prevent confusion over who bought what down the road.

There. Everything I know about succeeding in the book cover illustration business, all in just a few paragraphs.

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Duncan Long is a freelance illustrator who has been in the publishing industry for so long his joints creak when he draws. His illustrations have appeared in publications from HarperCollins, PS Publishing, Pocket Books, Solomon Press, Fort Ross, Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine, and many other publishers and self-publishing authors. See his book cover illustrations at DuncanLong.com.
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