Lost Weekend 2012: A Kidlit Hobnob! - by Jen Betton

Hi everyone!

I've just returned from the Lost Weekend – a non-official event that SCBWI Mentor David Diaz hosts out of amazing generosity! This event is for the Kidlit artists – those chosen each year for the SCBWI Mentorship Program (you can read my earlier post about it here). David opens up his home for all of us to come and stay in Carlsbad, CA and talk art, meet agents and ask questions, show our process, ask David questions and basically enjoy the community of other illustrators, all while eating an incredible amount of incredible food!

Day 1: Friday

We all arrive, eat a sumptuous dinner, and David answers questions while we sit in front of the fire eating clementines and chocolate. This was the norm all weekend – everyone basks in the warmth of the fire while discussing illustration and eating all the wonderful food David prepared.

Day 2: Saturday

We have bacon-pancakes for breakfast (2 in 1 amazingness), popovers, and more Q & A from David, answering questions like "How do you keep your sketch fresh when you're redrawing it so many times" and "do you ever get bored and what do you do about it?" and "what was the most difficult assignment you've ever had?"

Debbie Ohi shares her thoughts on using social media, and we all scribble down her wisdom furiously! (Seriously, did you know she has 6 blogs? And I'm not sure how many Twitter accounts? She organizes it all beautifully, and I am in awe!)

In the afternoon Rubin Pfeffer from East West Literary Agency and Jen Rofé from Andrea Brown Literary Agency kindly answer all our questions about agents! It was sooo wonderful to have both of their perspectives and experience to draw from! Rubin also shares with us the backstory on working on Smoky Night with David, and winning the Caldecott Medal.

We also demo our process for the others, showing how we create our finished pieces. I was a little nervous, trying to keep it short, explain thoroughly, and not get any paint on David's table! The demos continue through Sunday, and we were all fascinated by each other's techniques; there was lots of note taking and questions!

Maple Lam 

Maple's lightbox technique 

Eliza Wheeler

Move away from the fire for demos? No way!

That evening there is more food, and a get-together of local friends and SCBWI peeps David knows.  A bunch of us camp out in the living room sleepover style, with the fireplace and Lily the wonderdog to keep us warm!

Portfolios

Lily warms her spot.

Day 3: Sunday

More amazing food, I start losing track of all the amazing stuff we've had but breakfast includes fresh popovers, which we consume piping hot with jam and honey. More demos, talking, and a trip to the beach! It is gloriously sunny and perfect, a great California getaway after it snowed this past week in Boston!

The sand shimmers gold with mica!

David brings out a sample of his promo piece for Me, Frida, and we talk about promotion. We get an assignment: create a promo that you can produce 100 pieces of for $500, averaging $5 per piece. The results of that assignment will be posted here. David also demos a couple of his own techniques for creating pieces, which was amazing. I always love the magic of understanding what went into a piece. The day goes so quickly, and people begin to leave.

David Diaz demo

Day 4: Monday

A few of us are left Monday morning (we got more popovers than anyone!), and we hike around the lagoon and talk about the SCBWI conferences, and when we all want to get together again – the consensus is very soon! Lisa, Maple and I hang out for the rest of the afternoon, walking around Balboa Park before saying goodbye. We're all excited to see one another in February for the conference, and I have lots of art to do!! I came away with so many ideas and plans! Everyone is so wonderful and talented, and I can't wait to hang out with them all again!

Me, Lisa and Maple

Lost Weekend Attendees: 

Mentees of 2009: 

Erin O'Shea

Mentees of 2010:

Andrea Offermann, Debbie Ohi, Eliza Wheeler

Mentees of 2011:

Christina Forshay, Jessica Lanan, Juana Martinez-Neal, Andrea Zuill

Mentees of 2012:

Lisa Anchin, Maple Lam, Karyn Raz, Brian Won and me.

Others invited by David:

Bonnie Adamson, Arree Chung, Alice Ratterree, Heidi Woodward Sheffield

Originally posted at www.jenbetton.blogspot.com

Jen Betton is a children's book illustrator and 2012 Kidlit artist! You can see her work at www.jenbetton.com 

Publishing People 101 -by Eliza Wheeler

I can clearly recall going to my first children’s book conference a few years ago and being unclear about the basic roles of publishing folks; editors, agents, art directors . . . what exactly do they all do, and what does that mean to me? Hopefully I’m not the only one who’s been out of the loop (else I apologize for wasting our time), and this might be helpful for a few people looking to learn more about the business side of being a children’s book illustrator/writer.

© 2012 Eliza Wheeler

EDITOR
The editor is the head honcho, the one who acquires stories, picks your manuscript out of the pile and hopefully sees something worthwhile. They are also the one to help you revise the story where they see problems and to help you push it in a better direction. As an example, my editor, Nancy Paulsen at Penguin Books, offered me the contract for my book “Miss Maple’s Seeds” (coming May 2013), she worked with me closely on revising the text and getting the overall story to flow from page to page. If you’re a writer, this is the person you want to send your manuscript to. If you’re an illustrator (but not writer), you can also send your promotional mailers to the editor, as they have the final say in who is chosen to illustrate a manuscript. An important note: a publishing house that doesn’t accept “unsolicited manuscripts” doesn’t apply to illustrators looking to promote their portfolio. You can send your promo cards anywhere you like and they’ll either throw your card out, or more ideally, pin it up and wait for the perfect story to come along for you to illustrate.

© 2012 Eliza Wheeler

ART DIRECTOR
The art director is the one on the look-out for the right illustrator for projects, and presents options to the editor. You discuss visual story flow, thumbnails, sketches, finals, and the over-all visual approach with the art director. My art director for “Miss Maple’s Seeds”, Cecilia Yung, gave me feedback and criticism to help me take my artwork to the next level. If you’re the illustrator (and not writer) for a story, this is the person you will be the most in contact with. For my projects illustrating middle grade novels, the art director is often my only contact. Needless to say, it's essential to have a good relationship and to communicate well with your art director.

© 2012 Eliza Wheeler

LITERARY AGENT
A literary agent submits your stories to publishers, and helps you negotiate book deals and contracts. Having an agent is optional, but there are many publishing houses (most of the big ones) that only accept manuscripts through agents. If you send your “unsolicited” manuscript to a publisher without an agent, your package goes in the “slush pile”, a large stack of manuscripts that can take months to get through (but it can happen!). A literary agent is an open door to those publishing houses. Also, some are editorial agents, and will help you get your stories up to snuff before submitting to editors. I’m currently working back and forth with my agent, Jen Rofe, to get a new picture book story ready for submission. Literary agents typically take a 15-20% cut of what you make, and often can negotiate higher advances which cover that amount.

© 2012 Eliza Wheeler

ARTIST REPRESENTATIVE
Art reps work for illustrators who are not writers (often literary agents focus primarily on the writing aspect of your career). Art reps market your work to literary and educational publishers, magazines, etc. Keep in mind that, as an illustrator, you can promote your work directly to publishers, magazines, and other companies – but an art rep can negotiate higher fees and take care of contracts if you’d rather not bother with that part of the job. They take a higher cut, around 30%, give or take. I’ve heard a lot of illustrators who were unhappy with their art reps, feeling that they only got them low or mid-level projects and repped too many other artists to give them the necessary attention. As with both literary agents and art reps, do NOT take the first offer that comes along. Do a lot of research and make an informed decision about who you want working for you.

Of course, this is just a list of a few basic roles in publishing we should understand. There are countless other publishing folk not covered here (presidents, editorial directors, assistant editors, copyeditors, designers, marketing personnel, sales reps, etc.), and they all play equally important roles in the process. 

I hope you all have the chance to work with many of these wonderful people in the months and years to come!
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by Eliza Wheeler
www.wheelerstudio.com
twitter: wheelerstudio