More From Scott Piehl Including Q&A

Scott recommends getting illustration work in magazine like Cricket. He's worked at publishers who use magazines for referencing artists.

Q: Do you look at email samples?

A: It's tricky because he gets so much of email and he needs time to look at and organize it.

(Note: Disney doesn't accept unsolicited manuscripts. It's their policy not to open them.)

Here's his process for reviewing a manuscript: He doesn't want to see any samples or noted when he first gets a manuscript. He just wants a clean copy. He reads it, paginates it, and then begins his illustrator search, considering the characters and the setting and consistencies. He looks for the illustrator he feels would best represent that text.

Q: How should writer-illustrators submit?

A: He'd prefer to see a clean manuscript with a few samples to go with it. Reading a dummy can be difficult and interferes with his process.

Q: How would you submit an alphabet or counting book, that doesn't have a narrative?

A: He'd recommend working up just a few samples for a project like that.

Q: Is there room for traditional art at Hyperion?

A: Certainly.

Q: What kind of control does a writer have over picture book art?

A: Some authors see everything and can chime in; some do not. At a minimum, he shows a few sample pieces to authors at different stages of the production process.

More From Scott Piehl

Disney editors work in New York City; most of the rest of the company is in White Plains, so once a week the editors take a train to the White Plains offices to meet and talk about projects. The have both acquisitions meetings and cover concept meetings.

He's talking about a meeting room called the creative suite with ever-rotating art from Disney projects (covers, etc.) and much comfy furniture.

Scott likes many different kinds of art. He's really interested in quality--work that can compete with the level of quality he's seeing face out in a bookstore.

How to submit? He prefers postcards. He recommends picking 3, 5, 7 samples of your best work and sending those pieces to art directors--but research first. Pick a publishers to target who would be a good fit for your work. Get catalogs, attend the BookExpo America if you can manage to get into it.

More From Scott Piehl

Scott is describing some of the amazing projects put out by Disney, some pulled from their extensive archives. (Wouldn't you love to explore those!)

Stephanie Lurie is editorial director at Disney, overseeing seven editors at Hyperion and Jump at the Sun. He's got a group of 14 designers working on about 40 titles per season, 3 seasons a year (so about 120 titles per year).

They're acquiring a little bit of everything--picture books, novels, graphic novels.

The Inside Scoop: Scott Piehl, Disney Group

Scott Piehl, current Director, Design, Disney Book Group, is going over his career path. He has extensive experience at a number of publishers including Harcourt and Sterling (owned by Barnes & Noble). The B&N connection helped him learn about what book stars are looking for in terms of covers.

He then moved to Disney (imprints include Hyperion, Jump at the Sun, Disney Press, Disney Editions)