Tommy Arnold

The illustrator explains how indie publishing works in practice

What does your project involve?

I came to Jon Schindehette of ArtOrder Publishing with a fully fledged idea that originally I was going to publish on my own. There are a number of short stories by Philip K Dick that have fallen into the public domain. So I’m taking those stories and collecting them in an illustrated hardbound volume. It’s about 240 pages and I’ve got a designer who does covers for Tor. com Publishing, Jamie Stafford-Hill.

How does working with ArtOrder differ from selfpublishing?

It’s similar in some ways. For example, there’s no cash upfront so I’m still doing my regular schedule of freelance work. Any time I have a gap I try to fit in another illustration for this project. The main difference is that you’re working with someone in your corner, so to speak. But there are still some of the typical hurdles of self-publishing.

Like what?

Well for one, we’re not planning to print more than 10,000 copies so we won’t be able to go through a traditional distributor, which means a lot of the responsibility for advertising and distribution will fall on Jon’s and my shoulders. But in terms of those elements, Jon has pretty broad shoulders.

So what’s the publisher bringing to the table?

Jon’s got a wide online audience and a lot of pull and reach in a lot of places. So I’m bringing in an ally that, in exchange for a percentage of the project, is going to boost the project’s success and efficiency. This means I feel a lot more confident about the project and seeing it through to completion.