On Illustrations in Books

On Illustrations in Books and eBooks

For younger children, publishers often don't think twice about adding illustrations to books. As we grow older, these illustrations gradually become fewer and fewer, and most books targeted at young adults and over usually don't include any illustrations at all. 

Off the top of my head, I suspect this has something to do with mental development. As children, when we're still learning vocabulary and sentence structure and making sense out of the squiggles on the page, it helps to have illustrations to show us what is being described in our books. It gives us visual reinforcement that allows us to have a better understanding of what we're reading and/or learning. As we grow older, most of us no longer require these visual aids. 

But sometimes, even as adults, it's just nice to have illustrations to look at as we read. (Side note: just took a moment to Google it, and this article from Book Riot sums up this point well.)

In my recent research dissertation, I explored the idea of enhanced ebooks, and whether or not readers would be interested in such books. The results will be posted soon, but I do want to share one important result that links, in some way, to this question of illustrations in books for adult readers - only specifically in the context of ebooks. Based on my results, 71.8% of readers who responded to my survey on enhanced fiction ebooks were interested in illustrations and images in their ebooks.

 

An original illustration from my fantasy serial fiction, The Beast of Ildenwood.

While it's definitely interesting to check out what authors and publishers think of such an idea, I think that ultimately this is a matter of reader demand, especially as it also pertains to ebooks, which already cost much less than the print book to create, and with which publishers wouldn't need to concern themselves over the cost of color printing or ink or those handfuls of additional pages that would be dedicated to illustrations instead of text.

And it's not just the results of my research results that we should be going on. This is just one Tweet, liked by over 2,000 people on Twitter, that demonstrates a desire for illustrations in books for adult readers. A quick online search for this topic reveals dozens (if not hundreds) of other articles, blog posts, questions, and more asking the very same question: why don't we have illustrated novels and books for adult readers?

Personally, as a reader, I am very interested in illustrated books. Between a normal text book and an illustrated edition, all pricing aside, I would be more interested in purchasing the illustrated edition. Not a lone art book that only showcases the art - this is a nice coffee table piece, but not the book itself. 

As an author, I would also be very interested in illustrating my books or engaging an illustrator whose artwork would compliment the writing and bring the experience to another level. It's no secret that I originally wanted my psychological thriller Apartment to have more illustrations, but constraints on resources (time, skill, budget, etc.) made that too much of a headache at the time. There are, however, many other factors to keep in mind with regards to print books and illustrations:

• color illustrations would require specific paper - not the usual paper that most books use (if you own one of those books with a few illustrations smooshed together in the middle of the book, you know that those pages are different from the rest of the pages in the book - that's what we're talking about here)
• since it will probably cost more as a product (as would an ebook that is illustrated), publishers will probably want to make sure that there is significantly large enough demand from readers for that particular book with illustrations, and that's a difficult thing to gauge sometimes, because while the majority of leagues of fans who love LOTR may very well want to splurge on illustrated editions of the novels, lesser-known authors may have some trouble finding a good measurement of demand in order to persuade publishers to take a chance on their books
• following up to this point, it'll also cost more as a product because you're commissioning an artist, whose labour should be compensated fairly
  
• some readers just don't want illustrations in their books, citing reasons like wanting to create their own images of the characters in their minds, and not wanting their imagination to be hindered by preconceived ideas of what the characters or settings look like (personally, I can relate to character-imagining concerns in particular!)

So, there are some obstacles standing in the way of illustrated fiction for adult readers. But maybe there are some solutions that could be applied, and a middle ground that could make everyone at the very least marginally more satisfied? Some examples include:

• creating black-ink illustrations (perhaps even a complex example like this illustration from The Count of Monte Cristo over on Project Gutenberg) 
• minimizing it to one illustration per chapter, or illustrations of the most important plot events in the story
• alternatively, creating many smaller illustrations to be scattered featured throughout the book
  
• keeping illustrations vague - for example, if readers would rather imagine what characters themselves look like, illustrations could be of places, settings, important objects, animals, etc.
• at the very least, adding more illustrations to ebooks to remove the cost of ink, paper, and all of those other considerations 

 

Screenshot from an early version of the Apartment ebook featuring an original doodle illustration.

 

💭What do you think about illustrations in fiction novels or other books? Are there any other solutions you can think of to make illustrated fiction for adult readers less of an obstacle course for both readers and publishers?