What to do when someone contacts you and wishes to hire you as an illustrator?
One of the most frequently asked questions I receive as an illustrator is about my illustration method. For the curious, I would like to say that there is no magic formula to illustrating and I am sure that what works for me may not work for other artists. However, I am always happy to share what I know, so please feel free to ask me questions on Social Media. I will try to answer them when I can.
This series of articles is not about illustrating a book. In the previous blog posts I created a few articles that are the beginnings of what would be my illustration method for creating my Just Dance picture book — from conception to final print and distribution. Those articles will continue as I work on the project (which is currently on hold due to other obligations). This article is a more detailed version about my method of illustrating a single illustration that you can find in the About Section > Mili Fay’s Process.
Rather than illustrating one of my own stories for this series of articles, I will pretend that Levine Querido publishing house has just reached out to me to hire me to create a promotional illustration for Darcie Little Badger’s Elatsoe.
OMG! What? OMG! OMG! OMG!…
Elatsoe by Darcie Little Badger and illustrated by Rovina Cai is actually a novel published by Levine Querido.
Mid January 2021, my Instagram Followers decided that they wanted to see me illustrate a scene from this book for the series of these informational articles. I just wish to say that I am in no way associated with Levine Querido, but I would love to work with them in the future, because their core mission matches mine: promoting inclusion and education.
I reviewed this book on Goodreads. I read a lot, so I don’t remember much except that it was fun and it reminded me of Scooby Doo.
Part 1
My dream company contacted me for an illustration job!
What do I do?
As I am going nuts inside, because this is the company I would love to work with, I’m trying to stay calm and professional on the outside, as if such an opportunity comes at me every single day. In these situations (the first time I experienced this was with National Geographic in 2012) it is as if there are three Milis: one is losing her mind, the other is watching the first telling her to calm down, and the third one is trying to ignore the first two, while attempting to be professional and carry on the conversation.
This is your dream job and you may be tempted to just say “Yes! Yes! YES!” to everything, but I caution you to stay calm and to never commit to anything during that first phone call/e-mail. Professionals will allow you time to look over their proposals. As a freelance illustrator, you are your own agent and you MUST put on your business hat and be prepared to walk away.
If they do not offer you their budget right away, feel free to ask them if they have a budget for the project, then see if you can work within that budget for a fair wage. You will need to perform this simple calculation at least: (Budget – Cost of supplies, etc.)/Time it takes to create the project = Hourly Wage.
Another thing to consider when thinking about a fair wage is who will have the copyright and licensing rights. If I’m assigning all of my rights as the creator to my client, meaning that I cannot use that illustration ever again, I tend to charge US $50/h. I know of artists who charge $75/h+. If you are not sure what you should be charging, do some research. If after Googling you feel you need more information, The Graphic Artists Guild regularly publishes an updated guidebook to price your work with other essential information. SCBWI is another organization that has answers. If you are brave, you may ask other illustrators through Social Media.
Please, please don’t be afraid to ask for fair wages and respect your work and other professional artists. I am seeing a lot of Volunteering positions on LinkedIn and that makes me sad. You may be young and living with your parents, having no expenses to worry about, but consider — if you work for free now, when you need to feed your own children and pay your own rent, these companies will just hire another young, naive artist and you will be without a job. I know, I’ve experienced this first hand. For my first illustration job I worked well below minimum wage, because I thought I was building my portfolio. Then, when I went to look for more work, no one respected the 350 illustrations I created, because they were not created for a trade publishing company, but a private business. 😳
If you are humble and are uncomfortable with asking for money for the hard work you’re doing, always ask for more than you think is fair. In my experience and from talking to my fellow artists, most of us underprice our work. Consider: if you had an illustration agent, that agent would receive 25% of your wages (if not more), so at least add that 25% to your fee. You can always negotiate down to something that is comfortable for both parties.
On a side note, when signing with an agent, do not commit for five years in advance without having some experience with that agent. Negotiate one or two jobs and if that goes well you may think about signing with that agent.
Never work without being paid in advance. I divide my projects into stages and I do not work on a stage until it is fully paid. Also, make sure you negotiate the number of revisions you are willing to have for each stage. We all want to make our clients happy, so if you do not have this number clearly stated you may end up working well below the minimum wage if the client keeps on requesting revision after revision.
I avoid all clients that request “test illustrations” so that they can decide if my work is good enough for them. 🙄 Ladies and gentlemen that is the purpose of the portfolio. These requests are a red flag.
Please stay away from clients who will pay you a percentage “once the project makes money”. Unless that client is J. K. Rowling or Neil Gaiman, please, please stay away. The future you will thank you.
You may need to write your own agreement. To help you out, I’m including my Illustration Agreement Template. Modify it as you see fit. Note: I am not a lawyer and this is not a notarized contract, but having this document will help you if there is a dispute.
Also, save all the communication e-mails.
For the purpose of these articles, lets say Levine Querido and I have reached an agreement, the contract is signed, I can take off my Agent/Business Hat and can begin working as an illustrator.