Lighten Up Your Content with Cartoons

When I have been writing a book, the information becomes dense and the storytelling could become a little thin. How do you lighten up the content for your reader? While you will have to make sure it is the right situation, in many cases you can use cartoons inside the book to meet this need.

Where do you find cartoons? When I attended Mega Book Marketing University several years ago, Mark Victor Hansen used a number of cartoons in his presentation and recommended that writers use the New Yorker Cartoon Bank. This resource has remarkable cartoons but I would encourage you to look into the cost of these cartoons in a book. The last time I checked it was around $300 each--which was beyond my budget for Jumpstart Your Publishing Dreams.

If you are in this situation, where do you turn? I used a well-worn resource: Google and a bit of patience and persistence. I discovered this May 1, 2002 newsletter from Dan Poynter. It listed four additional sources:

"C. CARTOON SOURCES. Freelance bureaus such as APCA (http://www.apcatoon.com) Cartoon Resource (http://www.cartoonresource.com) Creative Moonlighter (http://www.creativemoonlighter.com) Elance (http://www.elance.com)."

As I evaluated these various resources, one of them stood out for my situation and budget: Cartoon Resource. This place has thousands of cartoons from different artists and the cost was $10 each cartoon or affordable. My Jumpstart Your Publishing Dreams book has 20 chapters so I used a cartoon related to the contents in every other chapter or 10 different cartoons. If you would like to see one of my cartoons, then follow this link to the book page number 22 (page 20 in the PDF) or click the book image below:

As you check this sample, make sure you notice two new additions to page 5 and page 22. I've added clickable buttons to take you right to the page to get your own copy of Jumpstart Your Publishing Dreams. This book will give your own writing life the boost it needs for this coming year.