So, there's a constant "WHY WON'T YOU TALK ABOUT MONEY?!" whine session when illustrators share their knowledge, and avoid the financial spots. Why is this? Because it's more subjective than "why do you draw?" questions. It can be a sensitive subject.

I'd like to go a lil ways into it though for those who truly have no idea how to price themselves. Remember, illustration is a commercial art. It's in some graphic design, it's all over the comic book industry, it's all of your book covers, album covers, it's in your gaming material, and so on.... it's important to the entertainment industry in a good many ways - as such - it's more about finances than your own personal gratification.

When beginning to price your work you have to ask yourself, and often your client, some questions. These questions are often along the lines of:
-How long will you be working on this project?
-What printing rights do they want?
-How much do I need to make to survive?
-Are you hoping to profit at all on this?


And other questions will come up depending on the situation, these are basic though and should get you thinking along those lines.

Remember that your time is important. I know this is tough, but it's important to be able to estimate how long it takes you to do your work. You don't have to be exact... but try and understand the difference between 2 hours and 5 and 7 from 12 in your refinement and detailing. How fast can you work and stay productive? I was told that a base for this would be roughly $25 an hour.

Printing rights are important. If a client has wide distribution, they're making a lot of money on their product. If they are a self publish based client, then not so much. You could make over $1k on a book cover based just on low end distribution, adding in your time involved... this adds up. Plus, are they purchasing the full image? Or just first printing rights? Which is to say, is this picture still yours? Or are you giving up everything for the money? If they want it all, they gotta pay for that. If you can do print runs, or resell after a certain point for secondary printing rights to somebody else, well you don't need to increase that cost as much.

What do you need to survive on? If your Standard of Living is roughly $25K annually, what is this split up? Roughly $2000 a month? Give or take? Well this is out of bounds for most beginning artists sure, but as you develop and grow - you need to be looking for new clients who will be boosting this income for you until you can survive on it. This is why we all tell you to have a backup plan or a full time job. If you expect $500 a week on your artwork right out of school, well you better be bloody awesome and have some great marketing skills.

With that in mind, your bare minimum is what it takes to just survive. Profit is the flavor, the extra bits. Wanna go buy some music? Eat out for once? You're gonna need some profits above and beyond basic paying the rent and power bill needs.

All of this comes together to form your cost. If somebody comes to you asking for 4 interior illustrations for a game, and offers you $150 for the set - can you do this and come ahead? If you're offered a book cover for $500 is this good enough for your survival? And I'm not talking about "making due". I'm talking about being a self sufficient illustrator.

That's the goal, right?

Are you working toward it? Or are you settling for anything you can get? Settling is nice.... but don't expect any growth in this industry if that's your business plan.

And yeah, obviously it doesn't all go to plan. Sometimes we don't come out ahead. But you gotta be working toward it. It can take years to get to that point, I'm barely making it happen yet.... but it's gotta be important in your mind - you've gotta make surviving a priority. If you don't, then you won't be creating very long.

Food for thought!