I am a huge fan of Shark Tank and Kickstarter success stories, as it’s amazing how one idea/passion/lifelong dream motivates people to do incredible things. I too have a lifelong dream. Ever since I was a child, I have wanted to write a children’s book.
The perfect story came to me while I was pregnant with my second daughter. Even though I didn’t expect to be rich or famous overnight, I wasn’t quite prepared for the weeks of rejection either. What happened was that I pitched my story to several agents, but either I didn’t hear anything back or I would hear that they were only looking for writer/illustrator combos. Was it me?
Feeling defeated, I put my story away and thought my passion would just have to stay as a work in progress forever. Two things happened shortly after though. I started learning more about others who successfully published their children’s books through Kindle (which I didn’t know there was a market for), and I read a children’s book by a famous TV personality. That book showed me that publishers are only interested in profiting off of big names, no matter how stupid the content is.
Dreams Take Risk and Action
I took action after I realized I didn’t need to wait on an agent or publisher to make my book look exactly how I wanted it. I interviewed and hired an illustrator in the end but the search was an eye-opener. One illustrator quoted me $15,000 – $20,000 for the project! On the other spectrum, the cheap illustrators looked cheap and screamed “Indie Publisher!”. I ended up paying just under $3,000 for illustrations.