ILLUSTRATING Making it in Picture Books



SCBWI member Heather Kilgour interviews six people whose work we are a fan of to find out how they feel about their breakthrough and making a living.


I have been a member of SCBWI for years now, navigating the turbulent world of picture books. This time, I asked six successful picture book author/illustrators three questions that would have been useful at the start of my journey:

  1. What was your breakthrough event?
  2. What advice would you give to aspiring illustrators?
  3. On a scale from 1 to 10 — where 1 is impossible and 10 is fabulous — how easy is it to make a good living as an illustrator of books for children?

Loretta Schauer

Loretta is a self-taught artist. She won Waterstone’s Picture This competition in 2011 and has since illustrated 18 picture books and fiction titles.

Breakthrough Event

Two events started Loretta’s journey. Winning the Picture This competition led to her illustrating Beauty and the Beast as rewritten by Michael Morpurgo. Organising illustration events for SCBWI led to Little Tiger Press being so impressed by her work they took her on as an illustrator. Although this started her career, she attributes her breakthrough to having a really good agent. She contacted Claire Cartey of the Holroyde Cartey agency because she wanted someone who specialised in illustration. Claire gives her great advice on her folio and is active in finding her work. Nowadays she has to turn away projects. 

Advice

Loretta says she is still learning, changing, and developing. Her advice is to engage with the industry. 'Keep doing lots of work, keep looking at what’s happening, keep trying new things, keep learning, and experiment, and keep getting it out there', she says.

Making a Living

Earnings are changeable. At the moment she gives the career 8 out of 10, though in the past it has been closer to 3. She thinks that you need to have a few books on the go at the same time, which means long hours and juggling deadlines. Loretta started with a part time job and has moved to full time writing and illustration. It took her about ten years to get established enough to have reliable work and get good projects and rates - and having a good agent is essential. Although she could be earning more money with another career, she loves her work. 


Julia Woolf

Julia was in animation for 20 years, working for DreamWorks in the US for much of that time. She has over 10 books published.

Breakthrough Event

Completing the MA in Children’s Book Illustration at Anglia Ruskin in Cambridge was Julia’s breakthrough event. The course gave her the room to experiment, learn, and find ways to work that she loved.

Advice

Julia says to be yourself and don’t follow trends as they will be over too soon. If you are passionate about your work other people will be too.

Making a living

For Julia it is 2 out of 10. It is hard unless you are in the top five percent of picture books, and you may need other income streams. Do covers, black and whites, school visits, sell your illustrations, etc. You cannot survive on picture books alone, you need more strings to your bow even though it is a full-time job.


Sarah McIntyre

Sarah has completed over 30 books and comics. Go to her website to read about her many awards and her passion for pictures exemplified by her Pictures Mean Business campaign. 

Breakthrough Event

David Fickling gave her a weekly comic for The DFC magazine which later became The Phoenix. At the same time, he also commissioned her to illustrate Morris the Mankiest Monster with Giles Andreae. As a result, Giles’s agent Rosemary Cantor took her on.

Advice

Make lots of little books as well as pictures. It is a great exercise in how books work: the format, flow, and story. It makes you finish projects; the difference between a wannabe picture book maker and a true picture book maker is that a wannabe starts projects but a true picture book maker finishes them.  

Making a living

For Sarah is a 2 out of 10. It is really hard, you have to be working harder than everyone else. It can take up to ten years to make a living, so you need a secondary income as it is nearly impossible to get straight into earning enough to get by.



Photo ©Sarah Darby

Layn Marlow

Layn has completed 18 picture books. She has won multiple awards and sold over a million copies worldwide. Three of her books are regularly read on CBeebies. 

Breakthrough Event

After her illustration degree, Layn sent a little dummy book out to several publishers she liked. A couple invited her to meet them and she took her folio and texts. One had a text they wanted her to illustrate and another had a story concept that they wanted her to write. She had her writing and illustration debut the same year with How Many Sleeps, written by Amber Stewart, and A Witch With a Twitch, illustrated by Joelle Dreidemy. 

Advice

Find out what you are good at. Layn’s critique group was essential. It gave her a trusted group of people to share work with, and helped her discover what she liked and what worked. Getting and giving critical advice gives you insight into your own work and process. 

Making a living

Layn gives it a 2 out of 10. You need to have a thick skin, be prepared to put yourself out there, and be prepared to deal with rejection. While publishing margins are tight these days and publishers have to be tough, it is still an incredibly positive and friendly industry to be part of. 


Freya Blackwood 

Freya has delivered over 20 picture books. She won the Kate Greenaway Medal in 2010, has won the Children’s Book Council of Australia annual award multiple times, along with numerous others. Her most recent work is a wordless picture book called The Boy and the Elephant.

Breakthrough Event

Freya’s parents had family friends who were artists and also illustrated books and her mother arranged for her to meet with them. After they talked, they sent her work into a publisher they knew and things took off from there. 

Advice

The industry moves in slow motion so you need a lot of patience. It helps if you produce something unique that will appeal to the industry. It takes time, practise, and patience. 

Making a living

For Freya, 1 out of 10. It depends on what you term a good living. There is no security in it, and no guarantee you will make the same amount of money the next year that you did in the previous one. It is hard work but having an agent helps. Despite the difficulty, she would not change what she has done.


David Barrow

David has eight books published. On completion of the MA in children’s book illustration at Anglia Ruskin College in Cambridge, Dave won the Sebastian Walker award for new talent in children’s book illustration. He has been shortlisted for the Waterstones Children’s Book Prize. He now lectures illustration at Anglia Ruskin alongside making books. 

Breakthrough event

David submitted a portfolio when attending the Bologna Children's Book Fair in the second year of his MA. He included one picture of an elephant hiding behind a lamp from his dummy book Have You Seen Elephant?. Julia Marshall from Gecko Press in New Zealand saw it. Sometime later, she was giving a lecture at Dave's MA course and remembered it, then asked to see his portfolio. Julia loved the full dummy, so David’s first book came out with Gecko Press in NZ, the UK, USA, and Australia. Being a small publisher with a small output, Gecko Press really promotes and cares about the books they make. 

Advice

On a practical level, do not get influenced by the zeitgeist and what is in fashion. If you work in one particular/popular way you will go out of fashion when things move on. Be true to yourself, and have integrity in your own work. It is good to have influences, but have loads of different ones not just one or two.

Making a living

For David, 4 out of 10. A career in picture books is a really difficult thing to sustain. You can do it, but you need to do other stuff to supplement your income. You cannot rely on picture books being the only thing you do. The best advice he ever got was not to rely on royalties, as it is very rare for books to earn out. 



Heather Kilgour is based in London and has two Master degrees of Fine Art. She has been a film sculptor (Lord of the Rings, Chronicles of Narnia and King Kong) as well as an illustrator. She is passionate about conservation and the natural world her recent work reflects this interest.  







                                            Images: Loretta Schauer, Julia Woolf, Sarah McIntyre, Sarah Darby (Layn Marlow's picture), Freya Blackwood, David Barrow, and Heather Kilgour



Tita Berredo is the Illustration Features Editor at Words & Pictures. Find her at www.titaberredo.com


6 comments:

  1. I just want to say thank you to Heather for asking me to contribute to this article. But I also want to add that I am definitely NOT a 'big name' in picture books, and in many ways I still feel like I'm trying to get to where I want to be. But just because I'm not a big name and definitely not in the top 5% who can make a decent living from this, it doesn't make my comments less valid. Best Julia

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    1. Hi Julia, the header has been changed. Thank you so much for your feedback!

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  2. Thank you for changing the heading to something far inclusive.

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  3. Really enjoyed reading this. I am an illustrator, and hope to be an author/ illustrator one day. I am working hard on my illustration portfolio and writing skills to acheive this goal, but it made me feel a bit disappointed to read so many of the illustrators rated 'making a living' so low, disappointed for them, as I know how hard it is to create beautiful artwork, and it seems it's so undervalued ?

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    1. Thanks Sarah, I'm glad you found it useful. Yes I wish I had known earlier in my journey. It is a really difficult thing to make a good living with especially as illustration takes so long.

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