@smceccarelli in regards to self publishing authors I wouldn’t take those jobs for a couple of reasons.
1.)The pay probably won’t be as much as with a traditinal publisher, and even the advance from a larger house doesn’t really cover the hours put into illustrating a book. The possibility of future royalty payments makes it worth it, but it’s still a risk even with wide distribution. With a self published author you lose any real hope of royalty pay since they usually have little to no distribution options outside of amazon.
2.) I try to look at the work I’m doing in the context of my overall career goals. As I mentioned in my interview, even working with smaller publishers isn’t always going to help. With that. One of the benefits to working with an established publisher is that you get to know editors, art directors which can lead to future work. There is also more exposure for other publishers seeing your work if it’s showing up in more places.
Hope this helps!
