Publishing Lecture.

Thought I would post my lecture notes from my professional practice lecture a while back as hopefully someone may find it helpful =)

Children’s Books

The money these books made is generally dependant on publishing co-editions abroad. The cut off age for this group in England and Europe is 6-7 for full-page picture books. Age 8-11 tends to be more of a novel style, in which the illustrations are normally black and white line drawings. There tend to be fewer illustrators wanting these jobs. Young adult books have illustrations on their front covers depending on the trends at that time. In the 1980s, the teenage market emerged, inspired by the success of teen magazines such as J17, this led to a new visual language mostly created by fashion illustrators.

To be a children’s book illustration, illustrators need to be able to draw children consistently and to develop and sustain a character. Even if their work is highly stylised, children need to be able to relate to the characters as themselves. Due to publishers wanting to publish children’s books abroad, it isn’t a good idea to make them rhyme, as it is often too difficult to translate into other languages. The publishers like author-illustrator combinations, either an author and illustrator that are close, or an author that is also an illustrator. This arrangement makes the publisher’s job a lot easier as they will have thoroughly thought about the design and layout of the book. The other way is for the publisher to find an illustrator for hire to illustrate an existing manuscript.

There has been a noticeable lack of children’s books being published in the last 5 or 6 years, partly for financial reasons but mostly because there has been considerable interference from retailers affected book covers and retail space. The retailers are more concerned with jumping on the bandwagon of whatever is popular and selling well, for example, the trend at the moment is for supernatural novels such as twilight and harry potter. The effect of this is that illustrators aren’t being hired; publishers aren’t publishing as many children’s books and children’s literacy is bound to suffer as a result. Publishers seem to want something different from illustrators, but also the same as what already sells.

Americans have a very different taste in book illustrations than Europe do. For example, it is the only place where Roald Dahl books aren’t illustrated by Quentin Blake, as they dislike the minimal line drawings. The cut off age for children’s books is also a lot higher than in Europe, the illustrations are therefore more experimental in style and content.

Educational Books

Illustrators that want to illustrate children’s books often use educational books as a springboard into the market. These books can be aimed at any age from children to adults, as educational books could range from teaching businessmen foreign languages, to specialist publishers catering to adults with learning difficulties. Another specialised area is books for children with a lower reading age than their actual age, as these require more sophisticated illustrations to accompany relatively simple text language.

Educational Books rarely publish foreign editions are they are usually culturally specific. This results in less money being made from the publication, which means less money for illustrations and illustrators, these illustrators are also normally anonymous and rarely credited. A good area for illustration is normally something like poetry anthologies. This area is constantly looking for new illustrators as once the illustrators become more established, they chose jobs worth more money and rarely return to the educational book sector. Unlike Children’s books, this sector doesn’t mind about having generic characters that do not require strong characteristics. This area has a much faster turn over than Children’s picture books.

Adult Fiction

The Folio Society is the main producer of adult picture books as they specialise in republishing classic fiction novels. They use illustrators whose work looks like it’s from another era; this work is normally very traditional in style. They used to only use Royal College graduates but now use other illustrators; it is very difficult to obtain work from them, as they require a very specialised style.

Front Covers

Mass-market books are published in high print runs, whereas non mass media market books are published in much lower runs as they are generally bought by a devoted fan base. For example, books with themes such as; feminism, homosexuality or intellect normally cater to a specific audience.

The various visual languages propagated by the mass media market are based on what’s popular and what sells, and therefore rarely changes. Sci-fi and fantasy books use a lot of illustration for their front covers, as photography tends to look tacky in these instances. Some family sagas and historic novels also use illustration, although not as much as in previous years. Chick literature also uses lots of illustrations, which tend to be fashion orientated.

Mass Media books are produced in A format.

Literary Fiction books are published in B format

C format is for large papered books that are produced instead of hardback.

Nonfiction adult

Could be garden, interior design, car maintenance, love spells for teenagers, Pilates, yoga, cook books generally feature sequential illustrations. Illustration has become less popular in this field as publishers find photography more economical with the added bonus that it can be used multiple times. However, this could change if there is a new book with illustrations that do brilliantly, others will then jump on the bandwagon. We tend to take our lead from American book expo, and something popular there takes 6 or 7 years to filter into our own book design.

Just incase there are any issues about plagurism, this lecture was given by Fig Taylor, part time lecturer and full time worker for the AOI. Hope she doesn't mind me sharing =)