One of the things that's happened here, quite a bit over the last few years, is that an author will come to us, with a script, and a full set of images, that s/he had drawn up, someplace. The author told the illustrator to draw this and that, this scene and that scene, and the illustrator did.  One book, ready for layout. Great, right?  (Yes, this topic is a bit similar to the preceding topic, "For Children's Book Authors—About Bleed!"

Nope, not so great.

Unfortunately, many of these illustrators have never made a children's book.  Or, they're not contracted that way—they're simply being told, "I need this illustration and that one and this one over here." They do what they're told.  You can hardly blame them for that.  But then you end up with full-page illustrations, plus one script—and no place to put the narrative text. Where does it go?

There's a reason that experienced illustrators for kids' books earn a good amount of money, a lot more than your typical Fiverr or other outsourcing website participant.  I'm not saying this to be "down" on Fiverrs; to the contrary, I don't want them getting stuck with work that they shouldn't be doing, because they don't know how to, and I don't want you paying for work that you can't subsequently use, because neither of you knows enough to know what not to do.  Illustrating a kids' book, or creating illustrations for a kids' book, paying no attention whatsoever to the placement for the narrative and dialogue, typically means that you'll end up with illustrations that you can't use, or with illustrations made in such a way that the only layout that will then work is to put an image on one page, and narrative on the next.  That's all well and good for print-if a bit tired, layout-wise—but that's not very good for eBooks.  

In traditional publishing, typically, the author only writes the script.  Then, the publisher hires the illustrator. The illustrator will then work in one of two ways—either create the illustrations, while simultaneously inking the story (writing in the narrative, or creating it with something like InDesign), or will create the illos (illustrations) with plenty of room for the narrative to be added to the page—maybe in a huge block of sky, or grass, or...you get the idea.  

The illustrator quite literally storyboards the entire book, and knows where each word of the dialogue is going  to reside, in the final book. 

What doesn't work is what happens here—when an author shows up proudly with his script, a fistful of full-page images, and we see, upon inspection, that none of those images have any place where we can typeset the story. NO PLACE. The illos are very "busy," with lots of characters, objects, etc., so there's literally no way, no place that we can squeeze the story on the page.  (I remember one where the only possible choice would have blotted out "Mom's" face. Oish!)

If you can't figure out where the story will go on your illustrated page, trust me, neither can we.  And not all books can be salvaged by putting the story on the left, images on the right or vice-versa. Moreover, that doesn't work at all for eBooks, because most eReading devices don't display spreads (two pages at once).  

Don't forget—at the KDP, there are only 3 (three) trim sizes that can be printed in "landscape" and bound on the left. Those three trim sizes are:

❖        8.25" x 8.25"

❖        8.5" x 8.5"

❖        8.25" x 6"

If you've had your illustrator draw illustrations for, say, an 8.5" x 11" piece of paper, in landscape (so, 11" x 8.5"), those illustrations are not going to fit those available trim sizes.  Just "shrinking" the illustrations won't save them; the aspect ratio, for example, of an 11" x 8.5" piece of paper is 1.29 (the length is 1.29 the size of the width); for the 8.25" x 6", it's 1.37.  They're not interchangeable, and we might have to shrink an image so much that Mom's face isn't visible, or the road sign that Ralphie follows can't be read.  

You need to be able to tell your illustrator, before he starts, what size your book is going to be; how you envision the images and the narrative working together, and whether your pages will or won't be full-bleed, so that your illustrator can take that into account, when drawing.

Make sure that when you get ready to hire an illustrator that you have seen her or his illustrations at "work."  In place, in a real-live, published kids' book.  Don't spend a lot of money and then find out that you've spent yourself into a corner, where you have no choice but to go with a book in spreads—because you didn't plan ahead.  That scenario, should you find yourself in it, is nobody's fault but your own.