Once I had decided that I was going to publish Jobs of a Preschooler as a book, I struggled with what to do for the illustrations. I had a clear vision in my mind of how I wanted the illustrations to look, but I am definitely not an artist! Needless to say, I needed an illustrator. I considered having my sister illustrate my book since she had written and illustrated a book before; however, the timing wasn’t right. As a result, I searched online for an illustrator that would be able to put the ideas in my head on to paper.

I found five different illustrators that I decided to contact. The first two illustrators (one that I had met at a farmer’s market the previous year and one that I had found through an online search) didn’t respond to me. After not receiving any responses from the first two illustrators, I decided to search on http://www.fiverr.com, which I had heard about from various books and websites that I had read. There are a lot of illustrators (as well as other “gigs”) available on this particular site, which is where I found the rest of the illustrators that I contacted. The third and fourth illustrators each sent me samples of previous works, but they didn’t seem to fit the style that I had envisioned in my mind. The fifth illustrator had samples that I liked, and she responded quickly to my inquiry.  I was concerned; however, because she is from Indonesia and English is not her primary language. Since this is my first attempt at publishing a book, I had a lot of questions, and I was unsure of how we would be able to communicate effectively from half way around the world. Apparently, I had no need to worry.

I think she could sense my apprehension. To ease my mind, she offered to send me a sample illustration for my book. I was very excited when I received this illustration a couple of days later:

This is for a page in Jobs of a Preschooler that says, “I’m a scientist experimenting with some vegetable seeds.” This picture brought a smile to my face. It reminded me of when my daughters were little, and they would wear 3D glasses (from a movie theater) or sunglasses while they were pretending to be scientists.

Naturally, I hired her as the illustrator for Jobs of a Preschooler, and I am very happy that I did. I think she did an amazing job creating the illustrations using the details that I sent to her. I am eager to see how the final product will turn out, and I would love to work with her again in the future on another book.