I Have An Addiction

Written By Rachelle Palmer

And it’s buying art illustrations. I currently have several in the works, and I feel like I’m thoroughly obsessed.

Watching a scene come to life with a drawing is just so amazing, I can never get enough of it.

Many indie authors struggle with so many parts of this process (the writing! the editing! the cover! the advertising and marketing!) that working with illustrators shouldn’t be part of that but it totally is. I’ve been publishing books only since 2023. So, I’m a “baby” author, I would say, but working with illustrators is definitely complicated, and not in the ways you’d probably expect:

  • illustrations can take a long time to actually do. plan for at least a week

  • illustrators have waitlists, and if you have your heart set on a certain person, you might wait months just to be scheduled

  • the cost is sometimes very high. some illustrators charge over a thousand dollars for one artwork

  • working with illustrators can be tricky. some of them are fully willing to do whatever it takes to make sure your characters come to life. others, not so much—they come up with their vision of your character and hand it over. their vision might be completely different from yours, and they might not be super interested in your vision. then you have to decide how to move forward.

  • some illustrators use AI and they do not disclose that in your conversation or on their website

  • they might be incredibly organized and professional businesspersons……… or not. some have forms, notion boards, require character briefs, give official invoices… and others work purely off of conversations on instagram DMs. it can be hard to know, if you’ve never done this before, which way works best for YOU, the author.

Ultimately it will be a lot of trial and error. Some of the illustrators I’ve worked with, in case you’re an indie author also looking for references:

  • My Lan — did my handdrawn book illustrations for Descendants of the Fates series, as well as Bloody Black Hardcover

  • Cho-Hyun Kim — did my chapter headers for Queens of Moirai and Bloody Black

  • Indigo Wildcard — did my soft NSFW artwork for Lily and Thorne and Queen of Mazes and Mirrors

Rachelle Palmer
Next

Worldbuilding