An Illustrator in POD-Land

by Ilene Winn-Lederer
(Pittsburgh, PA, USA)

As a well-seasoned illustrator whose work is published throughout the US and internationally, my biggest obstacle to self-publishing was cynicism. Why bother when assignment work keeps my plate relatively full? Because though it's occasionally been fun to illustrate someone else's books, I realized one day that I needed a new challenge.

Though the common wisdom is that a well-written manuscript should precede a book's illustrations, that idea has never worked for me; I tend to think in pictures first. Jean Cocteau, an artist and man of myriad skills put it very well: "Art is merely handwriting that has been untied and retied in another fashion.' So the challenge became a quest to see this idea could be worked in reverse. Could my images yield equally potent words?

My writing experience actually began as self-defense and sanity insurance at my gallery shows where art collectors regularly demanded that I explain the meaning of my images and include those explanations with the purchase of the art. Why? Who knows? So they could sound clever at cocktail parties? Anyway, these requests were a good excuse to start documenting my thoughts as I created my visual art. This practice eventually became useful in a bid for assignment work from a regional newspaper. As the editor was about to say 'thanks, but no thanks', she vaguely muttered something about how the paper could use some interesting features.

"Too bad you don't write," she said. Oh yeah? Says who? So I jumped in and asked, "Gee, I've always wanted to illustrate some unusual folktales. How about I write a story and illustrate it?" "Ooh, that would be so cool!" she said. "Could you have a history of Halloween, say 1000 words, with an illustration by Tuesday? (This was the previous Thursday) Uh-oh. What did I get myself into? Long story shorter, I nearly turned myself inside out and magically, it happened. The rest is my history.

Over a four-year period, that gig turned into twenty-five little illustrated stories that ran once or twice a month in their Sunday magazine. Anyway, it paid pathetically for all the work, but like the credit card boasts, the experience was priceless. And it eventually led to 'The Alchymical Zoodiac', my first published ottoman book (too small for a coffee table).

Regarding the title of this entry, I did heavily research print on demand sources. The prices weren't too bad, but in most cases, the templates were not terribly flexible and they owned the ISBN which complicated matters if by some miracle you were to be picked up by a secondary publisher. So, though it was more expensive to do so, I decided to go with a local printer with whom I had worked over the years. It feels better to support a small local business AND have quality control over my work than to get sucked into the maw of the corporate POD entity. That said, I have no reservations about becoming one of their sales affiliates soon as you can't beat GooglePower. Of course, it's a different arrangement, but stay tuned; I'll let you know how it goes.

Visit Ilene Winn-Lederer Illustration. (Webmaster's note: It's absolutely gorgeous!)