Frequently asked questions (FAQ)

If you have any questions about dPICTUS, you’ll hopefully find the answers you need below. Otherwise, please email us and we’ll get back to you.

The dPICTUS platform

What is the dPICTUS platform?

An active community of international picturebook publishers and agents use the dPICTUS online platform to promote their titles, secure foreign rights deals, discover emerging talent, and make new publishing connections to meet at book fairs.

There’s hundreds of picturebooks to view in full on the dPICTUS online platform, from all around the world. We draw special attention to titles which have won prestigious awards such as the BolognaRagazzis – and for the dPICTUS Curated selection, we work with international specialists in picturebooks and illustration to highlight outstanding titles showcased by our members.

The dPICTUS platform is an excellent place for exposure and discovery. It gives all showcased titles the year-round opportunity to be seen by publishing professionals around the world.

Who owns and runs the platform?

dPICTUS was founded in England by brothers Sam McCullen (illustrator, writer, editor and designer) and Jon McCullen (designer and web developer), and the platform was developed with generous feedback and guidance from a small group of international publishers and agents. In 2016, author-illustrator Kitty Crowther from Belgium joined the team, and Swedish publisher Erik Titusson has been the main advisor since 2017.

Platform membership

Who can be a member of the platform?

The dPICTUS platform is used mainly by international picturebook publishers and agents to promote their titles, secure foreign rights deals, discover emerging talent, and make new publishing connections.

How do you become a member?

Membership to the dPICTUS platform is by invitation-only. This is to help us keep the platform relevant, focussed and of a high quality. The best way to join the dPICTUS platform is to be invited by one of our members. Alternatively, request a membership invitation from us. Please note that we only send a small number of invitations and we cannot guarantee that your request will be accepted.

I'm a member; how do I invite someone to join?

If you’d like to invite someone from your company to join the dPICTUS platform, you can do so in the ‘company users’ section of your Account page. If you’d like to invite another publisher, agency, etc, to join the dPICTUS platform, go to the Invitations page.

Are there any fees? Do you charge a commission?

Membership is free of charge to view hundreds of outstanding international picturebooks in full, and connect with publishing industry professionals around the world. We have no involvement in rights negotiations between our members, and we don’t charge a commission on deals made with the help of the dPICTUS platform.

If you wish to showcase picturebooks on the platform, there’s a fee which you can choose to pay monthly or yearly. More about the showcase fees below.

What are Connections?

Connections are members who have mutually agreed to be Connected on the dPICTUS platform. Being Connected allows members to share certain information and content (e.g. full picturebooks) with each other, but not necessarily with other members. When one of your Connections adds a new title to dPICTUS, you’ll receive an (optional) email notification – and when you add titles, your Connections will be notified. The Connections section is also a convenient place to access your favourite companies’ contact details, web links and bios.

What are Bookmarks?

Adding titles to your Bookmarks is a great way to revisit and follow up on picturebooks you discover on the dPICTUS platform and at book fairs. On your Bookmarks page, you’ll see all the picturebooks you’ve added with useful info like publication dates and available rights.

What are Company Users?

Company Users are people from your company who have access to your dPICTUS platform account. You can grant different levels of access to as many people from your company as you wish. Manage Company Users on the Account page.

Showcasing picturebooks on the dPICTUS platform

Is the platform for children’s picturebooks only?

The dPICTUS platform is for high-quality print picturebooks for any age, plus graphic novels, crossover picturebooks and illustrated books which may have unconventional formats or deal with challenging themes. If a book contains mostly text and few illustrations though, it’s unlikely to be a good fit for the dPICTUS platform – and please note that mass-produced activity books/bumper books (colouring books, sticker books, etc) are not eligible.

Who can showcase picturebooks?

Members need to be ‘verified’ to showcase titles on the dPICTUS platform. A member is verified if we believe their catalogue would be a good fit for the platform, taking into account extensive feedback from other members on what they’re looking for. Once a member is verified, they’re free to showcase as many titles as they’d like to, providing the titles are picturebooks/heavily-illustrated books.

What is a Showcase Plan and how does it work?

A Showcase Plan is a subscription where you pay a monthly or yearly fee to maintain a chosen number of titles in your dPICTUS account. You can switch/rotate titles as often as you like, but the number of titles in your Showcase Plan remains the same until you increase or decrease it.

After your account is verified, you can set up a Showcase Plan. You first enter your payment card details, choose the number of titles you’d like to showcase (you can change this number later if you wish), and decide whether you’d like to pay monthly or yearly.

With a monthly Showcase Plan, you’ll be charged in advance on a monthly basis for your chosen number of showcased titles. With a yearly Showcase Plan, you’ll be charged in advance for your chosen number of showcased titles for that year.

You’re welcome to rotate/switch the titles you showcase on dPICTUS throughout the year. i.e. You can delete titles in your Showcase Plan to make space for new ones at any time, without being charged extra.

Read more about showcasing titles on dPICTUS in our Terms of Service.

What are the fees to showcase picturebooks? Do you provide discounts?

To showcase picturebooks on the dPICTUS platform, there’s a fee of $9 per title per month or a discounted rate of $85 per title per year. If you bring new members to dPICTUS via our invitations system, you can showcase some of your titles free of charge.

Who can look inside my picturebooks?

Flexible privacy settings give you complete control over who can look inside each of your picturebooks on dPICTUS. Members who don’t have access to look inside your picturebooks will only see the front cover and information about the title.

Are my business contacts notified when I add picturebooks?

Your Connections (pre-approved members) can opt to receive email notifications when you add picturebooks to the platform, so they can stay up to date with your list and not miss out on potential rights deals.

Can members download my picturebooks?

Picturebooks cannot be downloaded from dPICTUS and we’ve disabled the ‘right-click>save image’ option, which makes it difficult for members with access to your picturebooks to save individual images. Even so, when PDFs are uploaded to dPICTUS, the images are resized so the resolution isn’t high enough for quality printing.

Should I showcase complete picturebooks?

For your best chance of success with dPICTUS, we recommend that you showcase complete picturebooks (rights buyers and commissioning editors tell us they like to assess titles in full). However, you’re welcome to show just the front cover and some sample spreads. We have flexible privacy settings which give you complete control over who can look inside each of your picturebooks on dPICTUS.