Is this normal in publishing… or am I being taken for a mug?

Summary

Podcast Summary: The Good Ship Illustration
Episode: "Is this normal in publishing… or am I being taken for a mug?"
Release Date: June 20, 2025

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Introduction to the Issue

In this episode of The Good Ship Illustration, hosts Helen Stephens, Katie Chappell, and Tania Willis delve into a pressing concern faced by many early-career illustrators: navigating problematic relationships with publishers and agents. The discussion revolves around whether certain negative experiences in publishing are commonplace or indicative of malicious intent.

Case Study: A Troubled Publishing Relationship

The episode centers on a real-life scenario where an illustrator encountered severe challenges with her publisher and agent. Sam recounts a Zoom call with the illustrator, highlighting the degradation of the professional relationship:

Sam [00:33]: "She was asking me, is this normal? Is this acceptable behavior? Is this what I should expect in the world of publishing?"

The illustrator faced unreasonable demands, such as tight deadlines and inconsistent feedback, which exacerbated the situation. For instance, her publisher would delay feedback for weeks, only to request significant revisions on short notice:

Sam [01:58]: "They would take ages to get back to her, weeks or months, and then ask for complete redos by the following Monday."

Common Publishing Issues Discussed

Several recurring problems were identified:

1. Unrealistic Deadlines: Publishers imposing tight turnaround times, expecting illustrators to work weekends without prior notice.

   Helen [02:02]: "The assumption that you would work over the weekend as well."

2. Inadequate Communication: Delayed feedback leading to rushed revisions and heightened stress.

3. Lack of Support from Agents: The illustrator's agent dismissed her concerns, suggesting that failure to comply would tarnish her reputation.

   Sam [02:29]: "The agent was saying, you just have to do it. If you can't go along with it, you'll be seen as a problem."

4. Demanding Final Artwork Adjustments: Publishers requesting changes to completed spreads, disrupting the illustrator's workflow and creative consistency.

   Helen [06:26]: "That's not normal."

Setting Boundaries and Upholding Professionalism

The hosts emphasize the importance of establishing clear boundaries to maintain a healthy work-life balance and professional integrity:

• Charging Rush Fees: When publishers require expedited work, illustrators should institute additional fees to compensate for the inconvenience.

  Helen [04:22]: "Advertisers will often do it. They will apply a double rush fee. And it's up to you whether you want to take it or not."

• Maintaining Personal Boundaries: Declining unreasonable requests, such as weekend work or last-minute deadlines, is crucial.

  Katie [03:43]: "I'd be like, he answered it one hour before the end of the working week... I'll reply on Monday."

The Role of Agents

A pivotal discussion point is the role of agents in protecting illustrators' interests. The episode highlights a scenario where the agent failed to support the illustrator, prioritizing the publisher's demands over her well-being:

Sam [15:13]: "My agent, when I said the relationship was finished... she wrote me, oh, I don't know, maybe three pages of A4..."

The hosts acknowledge that while some agents may act unethically, many are supportive and essential allies in an illustrator's career:

Katie [16:21]: "She's so wise."

Personal Experiences and Advice from the Hosts

Drawing from their extensive experience, the hosts share their encounters with similar challenges and offer practical advice:

• Moving On from Toxic Relationships: If a publishing relationship becomes untenable, it's advisable to terminate it swiftly and seek more supportive partners.

  Sam [16:43]: "It was awful. Yes, it was absolutely. It was just awful."

• Setting Clear Expectations: From the outset, illustrators should communicate their availability and boundaries to prevent misunderstandings.

  Katie [17:07]: "If you email me on a Friday afternoon, I'm not going to read it till Monday."

• Learning and Growing: Each negative experience is an opportunity to refine one's criteria for selecting reliable publishers and agents.

  Katie [17:28]: "Just say at the beginning, you know, I don't normally work weekends and I'll let you know when my holidays are."

Conclusion and Moving Forward

The episode concludes with a reaffirmation that while negative experiences in publishing do occur, they are not the norm. Illustrators are encouraged to learn from these situations, establish firm boundaries, and seek out supportive agents and publishers who respect their creative process and professional needs.

Sam [21:22]: "Yes, not really. No. No."

The hosts reassure listeners that the publishing world is vast, and with perseverance, illustrators can find allies who value their work and well-being.

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This episode serves as a valuable resource for illustrators facing challenges in their publishing journeys, offering both empathy and actionable strategies to foster healthier professional relationships.

Transcript

[Helen]

Got a really good question today, which is common to lot. Probably a lot of picture book illustrators in early days. Fire away, Helen.

[Sam]

Yeah, well, I had a. I had a zoom call with an illustrator who's done one of our courses and sent a question to us and we answered it in the zoom call, but it just left me really intrigued afterwards because I didn't know the full situation. And she actually emailed me to tell me what the situation was, and we ended up having a zoom call because it was so interesting. So she had a publisher and she had an agent and things had gone very, very wrong. And what I realized by the end of this call was basically she was asking me, is this normal? Is this acceptable behavior? Is this what I should expect in the world of publishing? Because if it is, it was a nightmare and I don't think I can do it. And it was a really good chat. Okay. So she was saying, so the relationship went really wrong. So then absolutely everything that she was asked to do became really, really difficult. It was one of those horrible situations where everything she did, they didn't like it. And the harder she tried, the worse it got. And anyway, one of the things she was asking me was this happened numerous times to her during the project, but they would take. She would hand in some work roughs or whatever for her picture book. They would take ages to get back to her, weeks or months to get back to her. And they'd get back to her on Friday and they said they wanted the whole thing redoing by the Monday or the.

[Helen]

That's crazy.

[Katie]

Yeah, it's horrible.

[Sam]

Horrible.

[Helen]

The assumption that you would work over the weekend as well.

[Sam]

Yeah.

[Helen]

After a massive delay in feedback with no updates.

[Sam]

One of those things happened eight days before Christmas and they wanted it after Christmas.

[Helen]

Yeah, I've definitely been there, but not necessarily in children's.

[Sam]

I've been in there, I've been there.

[Helen]

And you're so keen to please. In the earlier part of your career, you just out and say, yeah, I'll do it.

[Katie]

Okay, yeah, cats all your life.

[Sam]

Yeah. Well, at first she decided she would try to. And then she thought it's impossible and she said no. But then the agent in this situation wasn't helping at all because she was saying, you just have to do it. If you can't go along with it, you'll be seen as a problem. It could damage your career in the future.

[Katie]

How dare you have problems.

[Sam]

She felt scared and manipulated and the whole thing just. It just sounds horrible. Would you answer an email on a Friday afternoon. Well, I might answer, I might look at it. But if they were asking me for something for Monday, it would be a definite no. And I probably wouldn't reply. I would just go away and have my weekend. Although I have relationships with some with, you know, the publishers who I really love and work with all the time, they would ask me something like that so incredibly rarely that if that was something that was desperately needed, it would be so rare, and they would be so apologetic and I would understand the urgency that I would probably consider it in that circumstance. But this sounds like it was throughout the whole relationship. This is the way it went.

[Katie]

Yeah, that's the thing. Like, if they had a reason why it was so urgent, then maybe you'd be like, oh, okay. Yeah. I think, like the best, most boundaried version of myself wouldn't answer an email on a Friday afternoon.

[Sam]

Yeah.

[Katie]

Because I'd be like, he answered it one hour before the end of the working week.

[Sam]

Yeah.

[Katie]

So I'll reply on Monday.

[Sam]

Yeah.

[Helen]

In most businesses it would be. Sorry to bring this to you so late, but anyway, let's speak about it on Monday. No one would say, in a salaried business, hopefully. Here's the big problem that needs changing and probably needs an entire weekend's worth of work. Can you get it back to me Monday morning? Because you put rush fees on that for a start. Advertisers will often do it. Well, you will get that request for illustration for advertising because of newspaper deadlines, but they will always apply a double rush fee. And it's up to you whether you want to take it or not.

[Sam]

Have I been asked before? Once I was asked to do a book for it was with a big publisher and it was for unicef, and it was around the time they were launching the book, around the time of the Commonwealth Games. It was like lots of charities running together and I was asked to do the book, but they needed it really urgently. Like roughs and final artwork within two weeks, something like that. But they paid me a lot to do it because I had to put other projects aside for a while because it was so urgent and they needed it. Now I had to put other projects aside. So they paid me a lot more than I would be paid usually. So you have to set your boundaries and.

[Helen]

And that's professionalism, isn't it? You're working with people in an industry where they acknowledge that this is not a reasonable request. So they'll apply, you know, they'll double the fee because of it. But to be told it's Normal. And could, you know, could you do this over the weekend and not to be supported by your agent? I. The agent's role is really worrying in that. That she didn't support her and say, that isn't normal.

[Sam]

And the other thing they asked us to do was completely finish one spread at a time. So completely finish the whole spread, have it finished to artwork, to final artwork, give it to them, see if there are any changes, do the changes one at a time. Whereas. So if I'm doing a picture book, I do all of the roughs together, give them to the publisher, get some feedback, do all the changes together in one go, give them back. When you go to your final artwork, I might do some little sample drawings to check that we're all happy with the palette. I might do a spread or two spreads and say, are you still happy with the palette? Are we? And they'll say, yes. And then I do it all in one go, which then gives me the opportunity of when I've done all of the artwork and it's all on my wall in front of me, I look at it and think, are they all hanging together properly? Have I learned a lot from the first spread? I do. And now I want to go back and redo that first spread because the work's loosened up. I want to look at it as a whole. But they were asking one spread at a time, completed.

[Katie]

That's not normal.

[Sam]

That is not. I've never heard of that in publishing.

[Helen]

It's just. That's just bending my brain completely out of shape. I think in my contract, it says no changes at final artwork unless if it's out of the scope or you want change the final artwork. That should never happen because all the things are ironed out on your first black and white rough. Maybe there's a color rough. So that's two stages and then there's final artwork. Everything should have been solved by the second stage. And you would. Wouldn't be redoing work. But like you said, the rhythm and the consistency that you've created might change throughout it. And then they might change you as well. Because not only are you thinking, have I got a consistent rhythm or approach by them changing final artwork, which to me is a horrific idea. They will change your overall consistency in the sequence of images.

[Sam]

That's completely. I know. I can't imagine in the world of picture books, it is quite normal to go back and change final artwork.

[Helen]

Is it?

[Sam]

Yeah, quite. I'm trying to think of the last few books I remember in how to Hide A lion gone to final artwork and came back and said, do you think that you've drawn the hand a bit weird on that one? And I looked at it again. I was like, yeah, maybe I did. Yeah, I don't want it to go out looking like that. Now my eyes have spotted it. I see what you mean. So that kind of thing does happen in picture books. Often you'll hand in final artwork. Ideally, I like to have all the roughs signed off that we all agree. We've gone over them so carefully that we all have read through it numerous times. So that when I'm going to final artwork, there's no kind of gray area or things left to be decided. So I do very, very few change on final artworks. One time I handed in final artwork and then after it was gone, I suddenly had an idea that in. In how to hide a lion, the. The lion and iris should have a little packet of plasters on the ground beside the lion while he was having his paw tended to. So I just drew a little packet of pastas and sent it in the post in a tiny envelope saying, can you drop this in? Oh, amazing. So like, yeah, changes happen, but not in the way that they happened with this book.

[Katie]

And it sounds like your motivation there is you want the book to look its absolute best and you've had a.

[Sam]

Brainwave and thought, yes, and sometimes the publisher have a brainwave and they get me excited about it and I go, you are right, I am going to change that blanket to a check a tartan. You're right, they would have a tartan blanket. I'm going to fix that.

[Katie]

It's immediately beneficial rather than, you've done this wrong.

[Helen]

Luckily you have that system where even though your work's analog and painted, you can add a kind of cut out painted piece if you want to adjust things afterwards. Usually for a lot of people, final artwork is like, okay, you've briefed and checked and checked, right, I'm going for it now. And this can't be changed because it's such a complex and time consuming system to create this. But I think the advent of digital has meant a lot of art directors or art editors are used to saying, could we change that or could we move that? And in digital work you could. Even then sometimes it's quite difficult, I think, for people who are still working in analog to be asked to go to final artwork and then be critted afterwards.

[Sam]

I have had that happen though.

[Helen]

Oh lordy.

[Sam]

I have had that happen with a publisher and. And they'd Commissioned me to do one more and another book and I gave them the money back and just found another publisher because I handed in the artwork and they came back with so many changes, as if they hadn't even really looked at the roughs properly. It was awful. Yes, it was absolutely. It was just awful.

[Katie]

What's the point of a rough stage?

[Sam]

Yeah, it was awful. So I just gave them back the advance.

[Helen]

So this is.

[Sam]

They didn't ask for it back though I have to say. They didn't ask for it and I don't. And I have had situations where I've done. I've been sat. This is early days, years ago, signed a four book deal. The first book. The relationship didn't work out and I've ended up redoing loads of stuff and it's been a nightmare and I've walked away. All the staff at the publisher change. Nobody remembers they gave me in the advance and that's it. I just.

[Helen]

Well, they'd be cool.

[Sam]

I'm never gonna say they'll get a Dutch with it.

[Katie]

I'll look up.

[Sam]

These publishers don't exist anymore. I'll be fine.

[Helen]

So excited to hear.

[Sam]

Yeah. Oh, so I don't know that they even always ask for the advance back if the relationship goes wrong. I think the best thing to do is just get this project out of your hair and never work with that publisher again.

[Katie]

Move on.

[Helen]

Going back to that last question is it is not normal to be asked to do finished artwork one by one.

[Sam]

No changes to be applied at each point.

[Katie]

It's not normal for somebody to email you on a Friday expectancy on Monday or Tuesday.

[Sam]

The other thing that happened was just before Bologna she handed in a full set of color offs. I never ever do a full set of colour offs, but maybe some people do. It's such a publisher specific and illustrator specific world of picture books. Everybody works a bit differently. I've never done a full set of colour offs ever. I'll do a sample colour piece. They're not full color roughs anyway. In this situation she had. And I think maybe some people do. I don't know. I don't know why you would need to do that. If they know your palette, they've seen your folio and they've seen your rough drawings. I don't know why they'd need a full set of colour roughs. Anyway. She did gave them to the publisher and the publisher hacked them all up on Photoshop, cut bits out, patched them completely changed the book and asked her to have to repaint it as they'd Photoshopped things together, but then decided it would go to Bologna like that, like a hatchet Photoshop job. So she was asking me, is that normal? So, yes, sometimes when Bologna is looming and you've only done a little bit of artwork and you might not be, might not be final artwork, it might be. This is, I think, how it's going to look, but I haven't worked my palette out yet. They might take that and sometimes stuff goes to Bologna that's not final artwork and you're not that happy with, but you're happy for them to take it. But chopping all of your work up on Photoshop, sticking it together, knowing you're unhappy and taking it, I mean, it's a gray area, but I would say that's out of order.

[Katie]

I wonder if she told them she was unhappy.

[Sam]

She did.

[Katie]

Oh, she did. Okay. Yeah. In that case, that doesn't seem very.

[Sam]

But I have had publisher ring me and say we would love the stuff you've done for Bologna. But you know, we've looked at it in the content because they'll make like a. Oh, what you call it, I've forgotten the name of it. It's like a leaflet that they show co edition publishers to see a few books together on this leaflet of what we've got coming out and they can have a browse through it and I might have done a drawing and when they've put it in context on the leaflet, they realize then they now need it to be a different shape. And so they might say to me, do you mind if we just drop this color in in the background and change the edge to a square or whatever. And I usually just say whatever makes it look good on the leaflet, just go for it. So there is some amount of people working together to patch something together to look its best to sell it.

[Helen]

But it's about relationship management, isn't it? I would think you could do a bit of, as a designer, you could have that level of intervention with discussion. And sometimes people can do things to, to your work creatively. Think, how dare you. But then it turns out they have actually really improved it and a designer's eye recompose something and make it look a lot better. Yeah, I've experienced that before. But I think if you, if you're talking with the illustrator and you've got a good communication, it's not endless emails which just is like, yeah, it always ends up badly if all you do is email back and forth and the tone Gets worse and the vibe gets.

[Sam]

That's what happened in this relationship.

[Katie]

And if you say you don't like something and they just go, oh, we're gonna do it anyway, that's not good for any relationship, is it?

[Sam]

It's not.

[Katie]

Is.

[Sam]

Gets worse.

[Katie]

Oh, no. Really?

[Sam]

Yeah. So now the relationship is totally broken down. She's really unhappy with the work she's making because it's been changed numerous times. Poor illustrator was having a bit of a breakdown about it. Didn't trust her own instincts, whether this was normal or not. And the agent kept telling her just to get on with it and this is normal practice. And so she didn't trust herself anymore. And at one point the agent said that if she didn't just comply with it, word would get round that she was difficult and she might not work again.

[Katie]

Nice.

[Helen]

But you've had something like this.

[Sam]

I've had exactly this happen in my early career.

[Helen]

It's clear common to a lot of early career illustrators.

[Sam]

My agent, when I said the relationship was finished, because she stirred things up a lot between me and the publisher and didn't want me to work for one publisher, who are a huge publisher and I work with now because she'd fallen out with them. So I left her and she wrote me, oh, I don't know, maybe three pages of A4, both sides, telling me why I would never work again. Because she had that power. Really? Yeah, it was scary. I mean, I didn't believe her, but it was horrible for somebody so much older than me, was so much more experienced than me at the time, to say something so threatening. It was horrible.

[Helen]

Imagine if you're an agent who really looks after their illustrators. Listening to this now. They must be horrified that there's that level of malpractice around giving agents a bad name. There is. There are great agents.

[Sam]

Oh, I've got. I've had fantastic agents since then. Two. Well, one agency. And my first agent was fantastic Hillary. She retired and now I have Jessica and she represents Katie as well. We have a lovely time. She's gorgeous.

[Katie]

She's so wise.

[Sam]

There are so many good agents. I'm worried. I'm telling the this as if all of publishing is terrible. It is not. And it's a case of finding the right publisher. And my advice to this illustrator is finish this book, get out of this as soon as possible. You probably won't like this book. Don't stick it on your website. Find a new. She's already got an offer from another publisher. Ditch the agent, sign with a new publisher and move on.

[Helen]

Yeah.

[Sam]

It probably wasn't good for them. It's not good for you.

[Katie]

If anything, I feel like when anything goes wrong like this in your career, it's just a list of things like, make sure this doesn't happen again. Make sure this doesn't happen again. It's like, maybe I've talked about this before, but you know when you're in a hotel and there's a sign on the back of the door and it says, like, do not boil soup in the kettle. And you're like, somebody's boiled soup in this kettle.

[Sam]

Yeah.

[Katie]

That you can go to every other publisher relationship. Really sure of what she does.

[Sam]

Just say at the beginning, you know, I don't normally work weekends and I'll let you know when my holidays are. They give you a deadline. You can look at the deadline and say, actually, I've got a holiday before then, so can we add a bit of extra time on? Just set out your boundaries or even.

[Katie]

I don't work Friday, so if you email me on a Friday afternoon, I'm not going to read it till Monday.

[Helen]

I think when you see other people living those boundaries, it. You know, it really helps other illustrators to see someone with that auto response on it saying, I don't work Fridays seeing other illustrators who say, I'm booking a holiday. In fact, I'm booking three holidays this year. And they won't change, regardless of the work that comes through, because for so many years you just make yourself available 365 days a year. And after 10 years in the job, you think, God, is this how it is all the time? It's really good to reconsider those. But, you know, your own personal boundaries. And for someone like this illustrator who's been through this tough time, there's a sense you carry a bit of shame as well. But it's not because I think most people will have one of these big, awful jobs in there.

[Sam]

Yeah, I. Those books, I just pretend they don't exist. They're not on my website. Just pretend they don't exist and move on. That's it.

[Katie]

What books?

[Sam]

Not telling you. And I should say as well that that publisher might work with other people who have an absolutely brilliant time and it might be just a clash of work in practice, a clash of personalities. Other people might say to them, actually, I don't work weekends. And now they've been told that they don't contact them.

[Katie]

Yeah.

[Sam]

It doesn't mean that this publisher is always like this and a terrible Publisher.

[Helen]

It also. When the relationship soured as well with the first couple of things, quite often you see everything else as a problem. And some things might not be. Some things might be normal in publishing. Not great. They don't work for you, maybe, but that's how it goes. But once you've got a sad relationship, you think they're doing it to you on purpose.

[Sam]

Yeah. Like the thing about Bologna, they do sometimes take work to Bologna you're not happy with, but you want your work to be represented there. And it says at the bottom of every single piece, this is not final artwork. Like the dummy we had Walker took of Salty to hide at the front cover.

[Katie]

Because I don't like the COVID Yeah.

[Sam]

I wasn't happy with the COVID but we needed something. All of that inside artwork I did have completely changed now because I decided that the jumper that Bernard knits should have the Eiffel Tower on it, sort of a star. So all of that has completely changed. But at the bottom of every page, it says, this is not final artwork. And everybody understands that.

[Helen]

And who's seeing it anyway? Only the buyers.

[Sam]

Yeah.

[Helen]

It's not kind of being plastered everywhere.

[Sam]

No.

[Helen]

The public stocks is just a narrow group of people who might be looking to purchase the.

[Sam]

And they're all people who are used to seeing work when it's in progress, so they completely accept. All right. Okay. This is roughly how it might look. But this isn't the final.

[Katie]

To have something represented at Bologna. Not anything.

[Sam]

Yeah.

[Helen]

And you're not being. You're not being misrepresented because it's a temporary. It's just a staging post again before the work gets completed.

[Katie]

But the publisher relationship's so close, isn't it? That's what really surprised me, because for me, if something goes wrong, I'm like, oh, I'll have a different client next week. Be fine. But I think for a Working with a publisher, it must really get to you personally.

[Sam]

I think it does, because you work with them for so long, you become friends with them, and then if that goes wrong, and then it feels like falling out with your friends. Horrible.

[Helen]

And with agents as well that are meant to be supporting you, that's really ticky. Because that agent is looking for their percentage. And the fact that you then can't trust your agent because they seem to be supporting the publisher more than they're supporting you, you wonder, is it a conflict of interest with that particular agent?

[Sam]

I wonder if it sounded like it was the publisher. Maybe. Have a lot of people, a lot of books go through this agent. So.

[Helen]

And she wants to maintain a good, solid relationship with that publishing house, but she's not really allowing her illustrators. She's not standing up for the illustrators.

[Sam]

There you go. As long as everybody understands it's not usually like this in picture books. That question at the beginning. Is this normal? Is this acceptable? No, not really. No. No.

[Katie]

But there's more publishers, there's more agents.

[Sam]

Plenty more fish in the sea.

[Katie]

You can learn stuff and move on.

[Sam]

Yeah.

[Katie]

Yeah.

[Helen]

Okay. See you next week.

[Sam]

Goodbye.

[Helen]

Bye, Sam.