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The Illustrations Cost How Much?

 

Writing ABC Bunyip Saves the Big Black Boogie Swamp was the easy part.

My decision to self publish raised the ugly "B" word...budget. With no self publishing experience, my budget was critical but also difficult to create. Illustration, cover design, graphic design and printing are all skills I don't have and really have no desire to acquire. My only option was outsourcing to talented contractors around the globe, but first I had to find them.

ABC Bunyip Saves the Big Black Boogie Swamp is illustration rich. Fortunately I am not on the payroll because it took me weeks researching to find the right person for the job. Now I sound like a HR Manager! Initially hoping for an all Australian product, I scanned the local talent and discovered that gorgeous as they were, they were beyond my budget. At that stage I had no budget, but I instinctively recoiled from the quoted prices. Even student prices were above my wildest expectations.
 

So, how much was a fair price to pay? ABC Bunyip Saves the Big Black Boogie Swamp is a traditional 32 page picture book. So that meant 32 pages plus the front and back covers, a total of 34 illustrations. Modern layouts can reduce the number of illustrations required, but my friend and mentor, herself a talented artist, counseled that the book should be rich with detail. I opted for quantity as well as quality.

Frustrated I took to Google and chanced upon www.fiverr.com They offer a pool of contractors for hire. For US $5 (although when writing this post I note this is now $6.73) you can test a contractor without a huge financial outlay and the embarrassment of having to say face to face that you really don't like an artist's work.
 
My biggest cost, was the huge amount of time I spent browsing the contractor credentials. I needed English speaking illustrators with good reviews, but not too many jobs ahead of me in the queue and most importantly, the unique style that suited my characters.

My first illustrator made my bunyip look like he belonged in the Chinese Lion Dance. No amount of revisions bought the desired result. By mutual agreement, I was back browsing and investing more of my precious time.

Mesmerised by a picture of a hedgehog, the artist's deep love of nature was immediately obvious. I engaged her to do initial sketches and was so happy with the results. They were not perfect first up, but she listened (as well as you can listen on email) to my vision and did a great job interpreting my characters and setting.

A smart person would have ordered a "Custom Job" for a fixed price, rather than ordering gig by gig as I did. Being generous, I decided that US $15 was a fair price for a colour illustration. And so my budget was set. 
 
The budget repercussions of not ordering a custom job the illustrations for ABC Bunyip Saves the Big Black Boogie Swamp were four fold.

1. I was not the illustrators only client, so had to queue behind other clients. (time budget).
2. The illustrator raised her prices as she became more experienced. (financial budget).
3. "Life" got in the way for both of us. (time budget).
4. Beginning with an Australian dollar at parity with the US dollar, the collapse of the Aussie dollar had a huge impact. (financial budget).

Finally checking my fiverr.com orders against my Paypal statements and converting the charges back into Australian dollars, my financial budget for illustrating ABC Bunyip Saves the Big Black Boogie Swamp had blown out by nearly 50%. I cringed, but I really love my illustrations. Now I just have to sell heaps of books to justify this blowout to my accountant!