Your illustration files should all be vector based anyway unless someone requests them differently. Standard resolution for print work is 300dpi, but printers will know their process and can give you specs for anything you’re actually printing. (comics would probably be lower for instance)
For ebooks, there are guides for the different platforms as far as how they want your files set up. But in general you’re more worried about file size than resolution there, and vectors will give you best performance as noted above.
I’d grab a copy of Adobe InDesign if you don’t have one already. There’s a free trial and working through a couple of tutorials might give you all you need in terms of answers. It will save you a ton of time on any sort of book setup.
As far as collaborating, some people love email or chat, but I find having a record of what’s been done and what’s up next, that everyone can check, is really helpful. Basically just give everyone the ability to keep their part moving and easily inform the rest of the collaborators. There are a ton of online project management solutions out there, I like Asana but for what you’re describing, something more visual might be better. Basecamp is good, but they’ve “simplified” their pricing to make it hard on small teams.
There’s so many it’s tough to make a single recommendation.
Good luck with it.