Title Page

January isn’t the most depressing month, but this year it is in the running.  The weather station on the top of city hall tells me that we’ve already had 200mm of rain this month and today is one of those days where the darkness presses close, the thick grey clouds hang low and everything oozes with moisture and wetness.  There is a damp smell that seems to smother everything, the smell of rot and earth.  The moss is saturated and the sucking mud below seems to be swallowing up the town.  A film of dark green algae stains what isn’t covered in spongy moss, my house, my car, my windows....

Art projects tend to languish in this kind of depressing weather, and yet folks seem to be getting anxious to see when my book will finally hit print.  It’s a funny thing – maybe I shouldn’t have mentioned it so soon – it’s been a long time in the making.  I’ve really enjoyed it.  But with 16 spreads, title page, cover etc – it’s a big project.  That being said – I’m getting there.  I think I’m down to the last painting or so.  The most recent being the title page –

Title Page
Original Watercolour
 ©RiverWalker Arts 

Now the big question will be how to publish this thing.  It’s not like you can just knock on a publishers door and say – hey I’ve got this thing finished – wanna publish it for me?

 Apparently the children's book market is extremely competitive, and profit margins tend to be small even for successful books.   Further-  many publishing houses won't look twice at your book without the solicitation of a literary agent- and there are plenty of bad agents and scammers in the game.  Then the other bit of news I received is that publishers don’t like finished artworks – but rather I’m told a package sent to a publisher should include a covering letter the text and a copy of the storyboard of rough drawings, in colour or black and white, and copies of one or two pieces (maximum) of finished artwork for the book... If you send them something too finished, it’s then more difficult for them to intervene editorially, so they might be inclined to reject the submission out of hand rather than look any further at it.

*sigh*

So where does this leave me??  Well. Possibly self publishing on blurb.com?