Author-Illustrators?

I draw and I write but haven't had the time to put them both together yet... I'm interested to see if anyone pops up here

It's very difficult to get a publisher to accept art from an artist outside their established stable. Not impossible, but difficult. I know that some agents (Elena Roth for one, IIRC) work with writer/illustrators and sell their projects that way, but beyond that you have to have something spectacular.

I've had artwork up before editors at two major houses, and with the one of those two that thought it was "Adorable", they didn't think the story was right (the other house said the same thing, only with the words reversed for art and writing) so it's really a matter of hitting a perfect balance - which is infuriatingly hard if you're set on illustrating your own stuff.

I've put a couple of things on my blog, but not many. I'm more protective of even my rough drawings than I am my writing.

I'm not an illustrator, but I do paint. My publisher liked my painting well enough to put it on the cover of my book. (A professional did the cover design, though.)


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Nope, but I have a friend who does both successfully.

Hey Erika,

On my latest children's picture book I am working with my dad (he is an artist)

Recently I sent in a submission and now the publishers are looking to see the pictures along with what I sent. They don't have an "in-house" illustrator and asked if I can provide them on my own. I used to draw and was pretty decent, would do the decos for the kids parties and all. But my dad is way better.

He sold some paintings and drawings years ago, did advertisements for where my mom worked and took art classes. But never did anything like this before.

Yeah, but you're right though, some publishers want both story and illustrations. My other book deals, they are providing them.

So it depends on where you send to, if you even need an illustrator.

There are a few graphic memoirists out there who did their own illustrations, but maybe that's not what you have in mind. Art Spiegelman, Craig Thompson, Marjane Satrapi, others.

I've been thinking about illustrating some of my stories. I already do concept drawings for characters and scenes.

I write and illustrate a cartoon series. Does that count?

http://dragonslayers-by-t-a-markitan.blogspot.com/

I've just started using Abobe Illustrator to do some basic graphics. I highly recommend trying it. It's very powerful. As far as turning your experiences with the program into publishable material that will take some time. But for simply making advertisements or banners it's super simple. My signature picture was made in a few minutes. Now that's very simple, but I like the little guy as a logo.

I started drawing my characters when I was eleven. I often do them in an anime style though (as you can see in my avatar, haha), but I love sketching them and giving them clothes because it helps me describe them better when opportunity strikes in writing. If I drew a character with her hair pinned up, I can talk about how stray strands fall out of place, or maybe that another character likes to show off his biceps with sleeveless shirts.

I'm not published though so I can't really say that my art has been showcased alongside my writing, but I've done all my mini-animations for an audio drama that I'd produced on YouTube