So I'm writing a textbook & need help

[Goldknight]

Im in the process of writing a textbook for Veterinary Medical Terminology. The problem I'm running into is finding pics & diagrams. I've looked through the royalty free image sites & have put the word out to former students to take pics of certain things if they see them. However when it comes to diagrams of a GI tract or Endocrine system I'm hitting road blocks. Any ideas? Do authors hire people to draw these? I've found some useful ones & will try to get permission to use others, but wondered what other avenues are out there? Does anyone here do this? Is it drawing or more graphic design? On a side note I know some of you are in the veterinary field & would really love it if I could get volunteers for pictures of various things that come to your clinics.

[JWR]

I would just assign those drawing you need as part of the final your students must take

[Goldknight]

I love it!

[tex-chan]

I don't know if this will help or not, but ...

My hubby is a patent attorney, and I know they usually hire a draftsman to do the technical drawings in their patents. Perhaps someone like that could provide the illustrations you need ... ?? I'm not sure of the cost, though.

[MyBaby]

Very clever answer JWR, I second it!

[KuroiTsubasa4]

Medical Illustration was a major offered at my school, so I'm sure you could find students/recent grads looking for a chance to break into the field. I suggest seeing if any colleges near you offer the major and maybe help some of their students get a job to put on their resumes

[Goldknight]

That's a wonderful idea. I started looking into that after reading your post. I had no idea there were associations for medical illustrators. Wow....just amazing. We'll see if I can afford them. My budget is very low since this is my first venture into publishing. I also found some royalty free sites specifically for medical illustrations. The trick is the veterinary part. Most of them are human related.