The Dream of Illustrating and Writing a Children's Book

Many many many years ago, a boy named Dee embarked on a great and magical voyage sailing the Soapy Seas. His adventure took him out into the vast waters of Trouble Bubbles where he counted stars, made new friends with the silver monkeys, he crossed paths with Ming the Terrible, and dodged being eaten by Sabagoo the dolphin nosed dragon.

It was a decade and a half ago I embarked on writing and illustrating a children's book. It took many more years to complete it. Night after night after working a day job, plugging away on early 2000's version of photoshop, Wacom tablet, skills learned from graphic design class, InDesign, Illustrator, blammo, anyone can illustrate a children's book. I was going to carve a future for myself, disciplined, fresh out of college, a drop out after 4.5 years, fuck it, I was selling art, had commissioned pieces coming out of Chicago. I was living independently, naive to the world, had that college anything is possible perspective, do the homework, read the books, get the grades... er' what the hell did I need art school for anyways? I was going to publish a book. Hell, I created my own font to go with it.

Fifteen years later I've sold my last two copies. Not a retirement plan. I could print some more, but hustling isn't the name of my game. Probably like many artists, writers, musician, creative types, I suspect the sales and marketing side to their business is a neglected struggle. Wait, what? Did I just say business? My art is a business? I exchange my goods and services in return for money? ("but I wanted a peanut!") Isn't that being a sell out? My art is priceless... So many art school kid washouts. They never taught or mentioned making a business plan in my art school college experience. Hell, business and art were polar extremes never to be put together in the same sentence. Make art for the sake of making art, right? "Waste your life, be an artists." I recall reading on a sticker stuck to an easel one fine day.

To the point of my rant, and story about a story, about writing a story, making the art was the easy part, the enjoyable part. Selling the art was like slogging through a foreign substance. How much easier it must be to convince an individual to purchase a five to ten dollar adult beverage that will disappear before their very eyes rather than buying a tangible object that will remain for their enjoyment and/or child's. And in the end, it was the publishers who made most the money. But the dream came true, and I completed the book. Bucket list check. No fame or glory, no conquering the world, just faded memories, hours blinking past midnight at a computer screen, coffee in hand. A moment when I thought everything was lost, when 250gb was the biggest external hard drive available (big also meaning the size of a brick), right after the zip drive era, and I had no other back up, panic, my face ghost white, faint, oh, it wasn't plugged in, my bad, crisis averted.

Here's a few snippets of the pages:

One of the most rewarding parts of this project was getting photos and feedback from those who bought copies. Hopefully one way or another my book helped a kid learn how to read. That's enough reward in itself to justify the act of wasting my life making it.