What 'book illustration services' actually has to include
Drawing is roughly half of it. The other half is production: colour managed for the press your printer is running, artwork built at bleed and to trim, spreads that survive the gutter, layered files a designer can adjust, digital-edition exports in RGB, and a naming convention that matches your asset system. Suppliers who quote only for the drawing leave that work with your in-house team, uncosted.
Everything here is quoted inclusive of it. If your production department sends a spec sheet, that is the spec we deliver to — not a close approximation we expect them to correct.
Scoped per title, not per hour
Quotes break down per illustration and per stage: style exploration, character and palette lock, roughs, finals, cover, handoff. You can see what each part costs, remove what you do not need, and take a fixed number into a budget meeting. There is no day rate to run over.
Revisions are two rounds per illustration at each stage, and because each stage is signed off before the next begins, changes tend to land while they are still cheap. Work beyond that is quoted before it starts — never discovered on an invoice.
One person who has done all of it
Fourteen years spanning animation production at Prana Studios, educational publishing at the National Book Trust of India, and creative lead work in EdTech. That range matters because a book programme rarely needs one skill: a series needs character design, a cover needs commercial judgement, an educational title needs diagram literacy, and a book-to-screen pitch needs storyboards.
You brief one person who can do all of those. Nothing is subcontracted out and re-briefed, and nothing gets lost in a handoff.
