Why Manuel's Murals was Selected as 3L Publishing's First Children's Book
We are presented with dozens of concepts and ideas for children's book. In fact, I have been pitched more children's books ideas than adult fiction. I resisted doing a children's book for a number of reasons. 1. Cost of color print runs is expensive and makes it difficult to make a project profitable. 2. Most authors wanted to force a particular illustrator on the project. Most of those illustrations were subpar. (Hint: You think it's cute to use your kindergarteners to illustrate a book, and maybe it's a sweet idea, but it is still a bunch of five-year-olds' drawings you're suggesting for a professional book you hope will become a classic.) 3. Costs to hire a professional illustrator are very expensive. Again, the added cost makes it difficult to turn a profit on not only a labor-intensive and expensive project, but also a full-color book (as noted above). Those three issues alone kept 3L Publishing from jumping into this market. I didn't not w...