What do you think about adding more pictures to a book for adults?
For example, if the text is not very descriptive or the author himself is not very skilled at it or emphasizes more on the action. I noticed in one such book that the most ordinary black and white illustrations were integrated very well with the text.
It was as if the pictures added more easy information and another kind of enjoyment along with the text.
I think our books for adults would benefit greatly from more and appropriate illustrations.
I think that’s a very interesting question!
For most books, I suspect it would be cost prohibitive, unless the author could do the illustrations himself/herself.
Many people don’t realize how expensive it is to hire a good illustrator. It simply takes a lot of time, so compensating a talented illustrator really adds up.
(Think about the cost of one great painting at an art show. Then multiply by the number of pages in a children’s book.)
From a publisher perspective, it’s a buyer’s market for manuscripts. I can’t imagine very many scenarios in which a publisher would choose to front the cost of illustrations, rather than just choose a different manuscript with an author who is better at descriptions.
However, with modern printing, it wouldn’t cost any more to print a book with black-and-white pictures, so aside from producing the illustrations, there’s no reason not to include them and it could be very cool.
So for an author who is self-publishing and can do the illustrations themselves, it could be a cool idea. But outside of that specific situation, I think it would be hard to make it make sense for a publisher.
Thanks!
I remembered that a large part of readers simply skip weak descriptions, while a drawing would help to focus on the story. Otherwise, I agree that the leading thing should be the text.
And about the illustrations – we recently asked a Christian author where her beautiful drawings come from and she said that they are made with the help of artificial intelligence.
I am against this, but I think that the synthetic mind will become more brazen and better and will compete with our books – in this case with beautiful and free illustrations. How do we deal with this?
And maybe when they are obliged to indicate that they used artificial intelligence, this will distinguish these books from the natural ones on the shelf.