CHRISTYAN FOX is a freelance illustrator, author and lecturer living in Thames Ditton, UK. He's been creating children's books, cartoons, packaging design, graphics, branding, magazines and advertising for 35 years and has more than 50 books in print. Christyan also teaches writing, illustration and character design at UAL Chelsea, the London V&A Museum and Kingston University as well as one-to-one workshop and mentoring sessions - from complete beginners all the way up to M.A. level and beyond.
"I want to pass on the value and satisfaction of creating your very own picture book - for your children, grandchildren, nephews and nieces - or so that you can leave something lasting that will entertain all children for decades to come."
There's free RU-vid content for everyone to enjoy, and a series of video-based courses for those who want to go deeper into the subject of writing or illustration.
I am curious how to work with a stuffed animal manufacturer to have the book and a stuffed animal to boost the book sales. If you have contacts and agencies that can represent a writer for the US and UK
Hi, I have 17 ready manuscripts. Should I submit them to the traditional publishers all 17 at once or should I submit one by one manuscript? Another question is should I send the manuscript to some publishers at once and wait for one of them to pick that or should I send the manuscript to just one publisher at a time and if they reject go to the next one? Sorry but last question: to wich level I should edit my manuscript for a traditional publisher as they might have their own editor? Thank you so much for replying. It helps me a lot.
I could live a $3000 a month us happily enough with my books in my peace and quiet. I’m on the autism spectrum and I don’t like the idea of a lifetime of going into the office. There are people there.
Hi Mike, there's no standard format for a written manuscript but I go through the most commonly accepted forms in the Writer's Course. If you're talking about standard sizes for the finished book itself, again there are no standard shapes or sizes if you're published through a mainstream publisher: books have been all sorts of sizes from huge Babar to tiny Beatrix Potter, and shapes from standard rectangles/squares all the way up to books that look like novelty pizza or burger boxes. However, if you're self publishing you'll have to choose from the off-the-shelf options.
Hi Matty, that would be The Cat, the Dog, Little Red (etc.)... it made back it's advance on pre-sales and I think it outsold all our other books by around 15:1
Liked and subscribed. Since my toddler was born, my creativity outlets have dwindled. We read to him every night, and I love to draw. I am thinking about taking a stab at trying a story or two. If nothing else, I can read it to my two-year-old. Thanks for all of the advice.
I just watched a couple of videos on your channel. Kudos on being so clear and direct. However, you make it all sound so easy and nice... I've heard stories about independent artists who get their ideas stolen by others with more experience and money to invest... I'm afraid of self-publishing, just to see someone copy my idea and put more money into it to sell it. How do you protect yourself from that?
Thanks for sharing this valuable information. I'm a children's book illustrator from India and I've been working as freelance illustrator since one year now and absolutely loving what I do 🎉😄
Most publishers pay royalties based on the retail price of the book (that might be more or less than 5%, it's whatever you negotiate in your contract). Occasionally publishers pay royalties on net sales, because publishers sell the book at different prices to different retail outlets (e.g. they offer big discounts to Amazon), so royalties on net sales are calculated after factoring in all those price discounts. Generally it's better for authors to receive retail royalties because that's the highest price the book sells for.
Hello Christyan, thank you very much for your relaxed and very helpful videos! May I ask: where can I find the other titles of your 30 essential children's books? I can only find one example of the classic period, one for the middle period and one for the contemporary market. Are they only included in the courses? Thanks again Francesco from Italy
Could self-publishing and/or Amazon sales jeopardize a potential traditional publishing deal? I would imagine that a traditional publisher might look at Amazon sales as a subtraction from the total potential book sales.
No, often the opposite is true. As I mention in the videos publishers like to keep their eye on any self-published projects to see if there's something they can monetise themselves. At the end of the day it's a business, if they can make money out of your book by offering a higher-quality product, they'll offer you a deal.
Lovely vid! I work in kindergarten and have written several picture books for my kids (wrote it with a pen on stapled copy paper and did my own illustrations) just for fun. Never thought of publishing them cause they might not be that good. My first one was a story about a lonely, old shoe living in the attic who gets tired of this kind of lonely existence and decides one day to go on a journey to find his other half, his missing partner shoe...
I'm so frustrated that Barnes&Nobel and other stores won't let you physically put your book in their stores, even if you publish through them and Ingram Spark.
I've known a few people do it and the results they showed me were pretty good, but there are certainly other options out there these days. It pays to shop around and see who's offering the best quality and has the best results.
You have inspired me to take up my keyboard which my family have been trying to do for a while now, please continue making positive videos to Instil ideas and raise confidence in your viewers oh, and thank you Pat Sharp.
Your video series are thoughtfully scripted, full of wonderful insights into the creative intentions of the authors/illustrators and beautifully presented. Thank you!
So interesting. Too bad there’s not more videos. Not that I like the style of this character design (I don’t like it at all!) but find very interesting to see the history behind the change of style.
I find it odd to just produce 5 books in a year. Don't consider myself a writer yet but I have tons of ideas. I'ma graphic designer, illustrator and web developer. If this was my full time job I could put out a book every two weeks, make designs for appeal and sell it through my own website with print on demand. Unless the writing takes so long, i can illustrate a whole children's book in two weeks from manga, to comic book style to full colored picture books. I don't get how if you work 40 hrs a week it takes months to do one book. I can even do the whole layout in InDesign since I worked in press shops and know printing. I'm guessing that what takes long is the writing... What else could it be? Not the illustrating unless you are really slow or illustrating very stylistic realisti.
Hi @pochonieves, the illustration itself is often the quickest part, and if you only have yourself to satisfy there's no impediment to turning out quickly. The writing - or at least coming up with a fresh idea that will appeal to a publisher - is not an easy task. Then there's preparing your pitch for the book, touting it around the publishing houses, waiting for an acceptance. Once you score a publishing deal the editor will want changes. They might change the characters or the scenes or something else that's fundamental to every single illustration in the book, so some or all will need re-doing. Once you have a book dummy the publisher will parade it around various book shows in order to make advance sales on translation issues. Once you get the final go-ahead you produce the final version (which might be very similar to the dummy, or they might want more changes). As you can see, it's the bureaucracy that's generally holding up the process - I try to have two or three projects overlapping.
Christian thank you so much for such an insightful video. I’m thinking of changing my career and I have some ideas that I want to put to paper and you have inspired me to just start writing and see what happens!
