INTERVIEW #1: Ireen Chau’s Witchcraft
Read how author and illustrator Ireen Chau manages to write, illustrate and self- publish her own novels.
Happy Sunday!!! I’m glad you’re here. Subscribe for free to get inspirational stories and professional advice every other Sunday, directly in your inbox:
* Note to my Italian friends: Clicca (QUI) per leggere la newsletter in italiano!
Ireen is an indie author and illustrator based in California. When I first stepped into her Instagram feed I felt completely immersed in her magical world, starting with the illustrations, book extracts, and products. She has built a whole world around her book series Witches of Olderea, which includes The Herbwitch’s Apprentice (THA) and The Herbwitch Princess (THP). Her style is colorful and delicate, and the atmosphere she evokes is a combination of fairy tales and old Barbie movies. I bet many of you are curious about how she managed to write, illustrate and self-publish two books and the third to come (The Charmwitch Seamstress). This interview will give you some valuable and useful insights.
✿ Hi Ireen and thank you for joining ForArtists. Could you tell us what was your artistic path that led you to where you are today?
I always loved both, but I dreamed of being a writer before I wanted to be an artist. As children, my sister and I used to write and illustrate our own adventure stories. Writing took a back seat in my life as I started taking art more seriously. I was enrolled in weekend drawing lessons throughout middle to high school, but the subject matter was mainly academic drawing (like still life and boxes and stuff) and we didn’t really focus on characters or storytelling. I didn’t think art as a career was even an option, and was completely oblivious about the multitude of jobs in animation, games, and illustration. No one around me knew those existed either. Coming from an Asian immigrant family, the expectations were that I would major in something “serious” (my parents were obsessed with the idea of my sister and I going to Ivy League colleges) and I was encouraged to focus on academics.
Ultimately my parents let me go to art school (Otis College of Art and Design) after I graduated. I thought I was going to become an animator, but I eventually realized animation wasn’t for me. I liked storytelling through art, but film was not my preferred medium. I didn’t want to be an animator, I didn’t want to be a storyboard artist, or a concept artist. I liked the idea of character design for animation, but I didn’t feel like my draftsmanship was good enough.
During pandemic I took the opportunity to finally get back into writing. Art was starting to burn me out and I knew I needed something else. I took a writing masterclass online and wrote The Herbwitch’s Apprentice, which is book one of my Witches of Olderea series. It was a story I wanted to tell for a while, and I like to describe it as Jane Austen meets the early Barbie movies in a YA fantasy. At first I wanted to keep my art and writing separate, but they finally merged in 2021 when I came out with an illustrated edition of THA (The Herbwitch’s Apprentice), which consequently was my senior project during my last year of college. It truly felt like a passion project.
Believe it or not, I considered my novels to be “just for fun” up until a few months ago. After college, I was hired to be a full time concept artist at a tech startup that made an avatar/fashion app (think Bitmoji but in 3D). I wanted to tell a story with my art, preferably in book form, and drawing concepts of fashionable clothing for 3D modelers was just not my idea of illustration. 11 months in, I got laid off along with a handful of other people, and I’ve been unemployed ever since. I released my second illustrated novel right after I got laid off.
At first I was so lost and immediately applied for more concept artist positions. Working 24/7 felt normal by then, and I completely forgot the fact that I did not even want to be a concept artist. The paychecks were just so good and so steady. I couldn’t imagine doing anything else other than a 9 to 5 job, because that seemed to be the only legitimate way I could prove to my parents and everyone else (mostly to my dad, who paid for art school) that it was worth it.
It took a better half of a year of moping around and being miserable until I finally changed my mindset. I’m not unemployed. I’m self-employed! And since I’m in a situation that allows me to go all in with self-publishing and freelance illustration without worrying about rent (luckily my parents allowed me to live with them rent free), I’m gonna do it and see where it takes me.
Right now, I’m focusing on marketing my existing books and creating new ones. I’m also taking illustration commissions from other independent authors–I’ve done several cover illustrations and promotional illustrations so far, and it has been way more fun than my concept art job. All in all, I have three main streams of income: book royalties, commissions, and my Etsy shop. They’ve been keeping me pretty busy!
✿ How did you plan one of your books from scratch?
For context, my books are full novels (5.5” x 8.5” trim size) about 400 pages each with a smattering of black and white illustrations in them. A full draft of a book (about 90-100k words) takes me about 3 months to write, and then I’d need another handful of months to ignore it, and then self-edit. After self edits, I send it out to 15-20 beta readers for feedback, and then I self-edit again. I don’t hire an editor, which might scandalize some authors. I get enough outside critique from my beta readers, I’m good at punctuation and English, and I’m hard enough on myself to comb through my manuscript multiple times (up to 10-20 times) to make it as good as I can. But if you feel unconfident, I would recommend hiring one.
I typically like to finish writing a book before I begin to think about the illustrations. There’s no particular reason for that–it’s just the way I’ve done my past two books. Perhaps I’ll try something different for my third one! I aim for about 30 illustrations in my novels; these are a combination of spot illustrations, one page illustrations, full spread illustrations, half-page illustrations, and vignettes. I start with rough thumbnails where I figure out subject matter, composition, and values before I sketch them out, do the final lineart, then render them and take everything to finish. Some illustrations get scrapped or changed along the way. Usually I have to do less than I wanted, because of time constraints. The process probably takes 3 months too, if I were working on nothing but book illustrations. If I have other things going on, they could take twice as long.
During illustrating, I start designing the cover and I book a spot with my interior formatter a few months in advance. For the illustrated edition of THA, I wanted the cover to look like a vintage fairy tale book with lots of ornate gold embellishments. I looked at a lot of reference images for vintage books and came up with what it is now. I also look at the interiors of other books in my genre (YA Fantasy) and pick things I like about the formatting. Once I have the cover done and most or all of the illustrations, I send everything to my formatter and he takes a little over a month to put everything together. He then sends me the formatted file, and I can upload it to Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP), which is Amazon’s publishing service.
After I upload the formatted file to KDP, I order a proof copy to see the book in person. This is to make sure there are no formatting errors, that the margins and text look good, and the illustrations look how I expect them to. That has always been the biggest headache for me, because the illustrations never look the same on paper as they do on screen. I do a final read through to look for typos and other things I want to change, and then give all my edits to my formatter. He finishes that and sends me the final file.
For the marketing side of things, I post WIPs or quotes as I’m working on the book, and I also have a cover reveal event on my Instagram. I then send out ARCs (advanced reader copies) of my finished book a couple months before release to get early reviews on it on Goodreads. I also have a release day event where I send free goodies (signed bookplates, art prints, bookmarks, stickers) to a limited amount of people who order a physical copy of my book upon release.
All in all, I’d say it takes me a year plus a few months to make an illustrated novel. It’s a lot of work, but I like it enough to deal with all the hardships that come with it! And the joy of holding my book in my hands make it all worth it. Plus the return on investment is fantastic.
✿ Which characters in the Witches of Olderea book series do you most identify with?
Each character I’ve written has a little piece of me in it. Amarante (the main character of THA) is scared of growing up, and that was exactly was I was afraid of when I was 19 and first started drafting that book. Narcissa (main character of THP) is desperate to prove her worth, even if she doesn’t feel worthy. With every book, I like to pick an aspect of humanity I’ve experienced and explore that with a new character.
✿ Based on your experience, what are the pros and cons of self-publishing?
For me, self-publishing has more pros than cons. I’m a creative at heart, so making things from scratch is a fun and welcome challenge, which may not be the case for every author.
Self-publishing gives you all the creative control–that means you get final say on the story concept, cover, interior formatting, and marketing materials. You’re in charge of everything along the production pipeline. A lot of authors have to hire editors, formatters, illustrators, and cover designers to make their book happen. Coming from an art and design background, I was able to handle everything visual like cover design, marketing graphics, and illustrations–and I had fun doing it! I hired an interior formatter because I don’t enjoy book formatting. But I did provide art direction for how I wanted the interior to look. Being design savvy is a very good skill to have as an independent author, it could save you a lot of money. I’d say the average cost of putting out a self-published book is $1,000 USD give or take, but mine have always been around $500 or less. Technically it doesn’t cost anything to self-publish something. Uploading a file to KDP and clicking publish is free, but it does cost money to publish something of quality (unless you’re a jack of all trades and happen to be very good at everything).
Self-publishing also gives you the freedom of making any kind of book you want. The Herbwitch’s Apprentice is an illustrated, borderline middle grade/young adult fantasy, which is not a genre that exists in traditional publishing. Publishers want books they can easily categorize, and things that are too niche or in-between genres/age groups are unlikely to be picked up. They’d probably suggest edits to your story that pander to certain audiences/trends or make your book fit better in a category, which I don’t love.
Self-publishing cons are that you have to wear a lot of hats, and sometimes you’re just not that good at things but it’s so expensive to hire someone else to do it. For me, I tried to format the first edition of THA to save money, and it was a total headache and the result was lackluster. I’m also not a business-savvy person, or a marketing master. The administrative stuff is a challenge I’m not as excited to tackle, but it does come with the territory.
✿ Who do you rely on for printing your books and how many copies do you print initially?
I publish my books through Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP). KDP is print on demand, which means they print my books as orders come in on Amazon and other online retailers. They handle everything from printing to packing to shipping. It’s pretty hands-off, so I don’t have to do initial print runs.
I also sell signed books on my Etsy shop, though, and I usually order 10-20 of each book a month for that!
✿ What are the main tools you use to promote your books?
My main tool is posting on Instagram, and secondary to that is my newsletter. Connecting with existing and potential readers and collecting an email list of true fans is my number one for marketing and promotion.
✿ Besides illustrating and writing, do you do other creative activities? How do you combine them with your main tasks?
I have an Etsy shop where I sell signed books and other merch related to them such as bookmarks, stickers, jewelry, and enamel pins. Recently I had a lip-balm-making phase and I made book-inspired lip balm. These phases come and go, but I think it’s good to have different activities that are a little more tactile than illustrating and writing (which both involve sitting and staring at a screen).
I’m putting the jewelry and lip balms on pause right now because I want to focus on my writing again. I typically have phases where I’m working on writing projects, commissions, personal illustration projects, and making products for my Etsy shop, but not all at once. Because that would be pretty overwhelming! Currently, I’m picking one or two things to focus on and doing that for a month. Afterwards, I can focus on something else.
✿ What are your main inspirations, both in terms of art and writing?
There are so many people it’s hard to list them all! Shannon Hale and Jessica Day George are big inspirations. I love Hale’s Books of Bayern series, and Dragon Slippers was my all-time favorite from Jessica Day George. Another author I love is Roald Dahl. All his children’s books are so fun. And finally, a recent find for me is Megan Morrison and her Tyme series. Those books are the best fairytale retellings I’ve ever read.
As for artists, I find new ones to admire every day. Here are a few I’m currently obsessed with: @apolar.arch | @schmoedraws | @justingerardillustration | @willowwaves_art | @aubrie.a.moyer | @brionymaysmith | @ezzymoneyface
And the artists who did the Disney Fairy books–those illustrations live in my mind rent free!
✿ What are your future projects and goals?
My current goal is to self-publish one book a year and eventually make the same amount of money from book royalties and freelance illustration projects as I did during my 9 to 5 concept artist job. And hopefully have enough to move out of my parents’ house.
I’m currently writing book 3 of Witches of Olderea, and also beginning to illustrate a shorter companion novella to The Herbwitch Princess.
✿ One last tough question. If you could choose only one color to describe your art, what would it be?
I would probably say a brassy/gold shade!
You can support Ireen's art and work on Instagram and on her website. You can buy her books on Amazon (here) and signed books (with goodies) on Etsy (here) and on The Signed Book Shop (here).