Illustrating Your Book

Words, words, words. And illustrations. Many books include photos, drawings or charts to make the text easier to read and to add interesting information to the content of the book. Your book may consist of words with no photos or other artwork, especially if it is a novel. Even then, it is "illustrated" by the typographical elements (letters, numbers, words) and, of course, the cover.

Illustrations may increase the cost of producing your book, but they're almost always worth it. Some types of books (a children's book, for example) are hard to imagine without illustrations.

Types of illustrations—

Your book may include one or more of the following types of illustrations:

Line art. These are drawings with no "grayscale" tones, just black lines on a white background. Your publishing consultant can scan them from the original art you provide, or use your computer files. Even for line art it's best to send it as "TIFF" files with 300 dpi resolution and saved at about the same size that will be used in the printed book.

Photos. Your computer files of photos can be used if the quality is adequate, or your publishing service can scan photos and create files for you. Today it seems just about everybody has a digital camera, and the resulting photos are often ready to print. Read the directions carefully and don't try to include photos for printing that were taken at less than 300 dpi resolution. If you're going to use photos that have already been developed, a photo print is the best source for scanning--not a printed photo from a newspaper or book. Color photos can be rendered in black and white, but not the other way around. If you are producing a quality (coffee table) book, plan on spending a premium amount for scanning from your transparencies unless you have digital files that are high quality.

Realistic artwork. Most publishing consultants can scan any type of grayscale or color artwork and prepare it for printing. If the art pieces will be printed in color, the person handling the scanning will prefer working from the original art. Expect to may more if the artwork your submit requires retouching or modification.

Charts and diagrams. Often your graph or chart from Word or Excel will import into the book with no problems. Sometimes illustrations must be re-constructed so they will be consistent with the rest of the book.

What they cost

You may pay as little as $2 to $5 per photo if you can transfer the photos digitally and their resolution is at least 300 dots per inch. Expect to pay $10 or more per photo or other illustration if scanning is required but no retouching, $40 or more to re-create a graph or diagram, and $50 to $75 per hour for retouching. Full-color, realistic artwork that will be printed in full color will probably cost $40 or more per illustration for high-quality scanning. At Griffith Publishing we do not charge a fee for art provided as a usable TIFF or JPEG file.

When you have questions or are ready to prepare your book for printing, request a proposal or call us at 800 359-9503. Or send email to hodi@mindspring.com.