Q: “How do you find an artist for images in a text or trade book? Who pays? At what point is the art done? If the images are an integral part of the book, how does all of this work?”

A: Elsa Peterson, Freelance Editor, Norwalk, CT:

“Most of my experience is in college-level textbooks. In that industry, it is typically the publisher who hires the artist to render the images. The cost may come out of the author’s royalties or it may be part of the publisher’s investment, or some of both, depending on the terms of the author’s contract. Naturally the author is asked to submit ‘scrap’ (rough sketches, diagrams, and/or copies of similar images to what is desired) for the artist to work from. The author also typically gets to approve/suggest modifications to the renderings before they are final.