The Original Art 2023: Instructional Walkthrough for Illustrators

The entry submission process for The Original Art 2023 will be completely electronic and will be hosted through our competitions website.

Please note: This site will prompt you to enter your account information. So if you do not already have an account, created for last year’s Original Art entry process or for other competitions we host through this portal (Illustrators Annual, MoCCA Arts Festival, etc.), you will need to create one. Just follow the instructions below. Also note that your account is used strictly to collect the information and files required for the submission process and for notification of acceptance into the show. You will not be added to any email lists by creating an account on this site.

The cost for submitting work to The Original Art 2023 is $20 per title for SI members, $30 per title for nonmembers. The website will automatically generate an invoice as entries are completed, and you will find details of the process in the section below titled “Payment Options for Illustrators.”

Creating an Account for Illustrators

1. Go to soicompetitions.org.
2. Click the “Enter Work” button inside of the Original Art 2023 Competition information box.
3. You will be taken to a new page to enter your login credentials. To the right of this prompt box, you will see a button that says: “Register an account here.” When you scroll over this button, you will notice it says: “I need an account!” Click this.
4. You will be taken to a new page that reads: “Create a new account.” You will see that the first option is: “I am an illustrator. I plan to upload only work that I have created.” Click this.
5. The site will request your email address. Enter your address; then click: “Send email.”
6. The site will send you an email prompting you to follow the link to complete the creation of your account. The address should be from noreply@soicompetitions.org, and the subject line should read “A message from Society of Illustrators.” Please note that this email may automatically be pushed to your spam/ junk folder. Be sure to check these folders before reaching out to breann@societyillustrators.org for further assistance.
7. By clicking the link provided in the email, you will be taken to a page to complete your account registration. Once you have completed this step, you will be allowed to log into your new account. You may also receive another email confirming your account’s creation and stating the login credentials you provided.

Instructional Walkthrough for Illustrators

You will be asked to submit a JPEG image file of your book’s front cover. This image should be 144 DPI, JPEG, and can be up to 1,000 px on the longest side.

You will be asked to submit a PDF of the entire book. Your PDF must be in spread viewing format! There are no specific sizing limitations for the PDF, but we ask that you keep this file at 144 DPI as well, as the site will decline files it believes to be too large for it to handle. We understand that some of these files will be quite large, and you may have to play around with the specs for the site to accept the file.

1. Go to soicompetitions.org.
2. Click the “Enter Work” button inside of the Original Art 2023 Competition information box.
3. Log into your illustrator account.
4. You will be taken to a page that will enable you to start uploading your work. You will be required to fill in the book’s credit information and to upload a JPEG image file of the book’s cover and a PDF of the entire book. Once you have completed all the required fields, an “Add Entry” button will appear. Click this to complete the entry. Please note: PDFs will not be stored on the site, nor will they be downloadable through the portal. Our online competitions platform is a secure server, and jurors will only be able to view these files for the process of selecting in-show books and medal winners.
5. This page will remain open on the site, and in the right-side box you should now see a thumbnail image of the book cover you uploaded. This means that the site accepted the entry. Please note: Because this is a thumbnail, it may only show a section of the image. This is not a reflection on how the image will appear to the jurors; it will appear as you saw it in the preview window after uploading the image file to the site. If there is no thumbnail image present, please confirm that your book cover image file is at the correct specs. The site may not accept image files greater than the specs we have provided.
6.  If you wish to enter another submission, you may do so on this page now.

Please note: There is no formal “Submit entry” button to click once you have completed this process. The site will remain open for possible edits to entries until the deadline occurs. Once the deadline hits, the site will automatically take the files and information that you have provided and send them to the judging portal for consideration.

You will notice a checkbox under the credit information that says “Eligible for Dilys Evans Founders Award?” with a clickable “explain this” option.

The explanation reads as follows:

The Dilys Evans Founders Award is an annual prize for the most promising new talent in the field of children’s book illustration. To be eligible, an artist may have no more than three books published in the U.S. and may not have won the award before.

It is the responsibility of illustrators to be honest about their eligibility for this award. Please note that you may have a larger body of published work and still be eligible, as this award is specifically for children’s books. If you have work published outside this field, but have no more than three published children’s books, you are eligible to be considered for the award.

1. If you are still logged into your account or once you have logged back into your account, you will see within the right-side boxes, the thumbnail cover images of any books you’ve entered.
2. If you hover over the thumbnail of the submission you wish to edit, a pencil icon will appear. Click this icon.
3. The site will now display the image file, PDF, and credit information provided for this entry. You will be able to edit any of these items, then click: “Save entry” to update the information and / or files.

As noted, the cost for submitting work to The Original Art 2023 is $20 per title for SI members, $30 per title for nonmembers. The website will generate an invoice when your first entry is completed, and that invoice will be automatically updated after each additional submission is accepted into the system. The invoice will be located on the main page. To return to that page, look for your name, which will be in blue text at the top right side of your screen, next to the “log out” button. Click on your name, and your invoice will appear in a small box on the left side of your screen. It will read: “Balance due” and include the total invoice amount. Also within this box, you will see a red button that reads: “Settle up.” Clicking on this button will take you to a page with payment options. It will also give you a preview of the work entered in the competition, as well as the entry details.

Please note: If you do not see the “Balance due” box on the left side of your screen, you may need to logout and log back into your account. The site will be managing multiple submissions at a time and may require this “refresh” to update and process your information. This will not affect the already entered submission(s). If you log back in and still do not see this box, please reach out to breann@societyillustrators.org for assistance.

There are two payment options:

• Generate print invoice now: This will allow you to generate a printable invoice to mail in with a check.
• Pay online now: This will allow you to settle up, using our secure online payment form.

If you select “Generate print invoice now,” a small box will appear with this warning message: “If you generate a printable invoice, you will no longer be able to pay for these entries online. Are you sure you want to continue?” Then you’ll have the option to continue or to cancel. If you select “Cancel,” the box will disappear, displaying the Payment Options page again. If you select “Continue,” the page will display your invoice.

Please note: Prior to generating the invoice, you may need to change your settings to allow for pop-ups, otherwise this window may not appear. Once the invoice page appears, you can turn your pop-up blocker back on again.

There should now be an option at the top left of your screen that says “File,” which will give you the option to “Print.” If you go back to your main page, you will now see a blue “Your generated invoices” button, which will allow you to access your generated invoice again by clicking the date provided.

The website’s generated invoice will be an itemized list of each entry’s information. If you need a simplified invoice, please email your request to: breann@societyillustrators.org.

If you select “Pay online now,” you will be taken to a new page where the site will gather the billing address and credit card information for payment completion. Once the payment has been processed, a receipt will be sent to the email address on file for the account. If you choose to pay online, there will be no invoice attached for your records. If you need an invoice, please email your request to: breann@societyillustrators.org, but be aware that the invoice created manually will be a simplified version of the itemized list of entries the website will generate for you.

If you want to submit more items after an invoice has been generated or an online payment has been made, you are welcome to do so. The website will simply generate a new invoice for these additional submissions.

IMPORTANT: In order for the submissions to be sent to the judging portal for consideration, one of the two following payment options must be completed before the deadline!

• If you choose to pay with a mailed check, you must generate your print invoice before the deadline in order for the site to register that a payment will be made.
• If you choose to pay with a credit card through the online payment portal, you must submit your payment before the deadline in order for the site to register that your work is eligible.

Unpaid submissions will not be sent to the judging portal for the jurors’ review.