Is my "kosher creator economy" plan a pipe dream?

My last update was in June, and since then, my part time job, moving to a new house, the chagim, and a family simcha have kept my schedule pretty packed. Things have finally settled down a bit, so no more excuses!

A) I did finally pass a driving test! (Right after my last mail, the war against Iran broke out and I couldn’t do driving lessons for about a month, so that racing wheel/sim ended up being well worth the investment.)

B) I had a chance to speak with a “key decision maker” from one of the big names in Jewish books, and the conversation left me with a lot of thinking to do.

Important background info: I had quoted them a price that was higher than they expected.

During the conversation I was told things like:

• Jewish illustrators are expensive.

• There’s no money in this business.

• I [the decision maker] won’t make back my costs at that price.

• I can’t pay royalties to an author and an illustrator!

(That last point reminds me of a debate among my illustrator colleagues - what’s more important to a children’s book: The words or the pictures?)

There I was, a dreamy eyed Jewish illustrator, thinking positive thoughts and all, and he hits me with that dismal report from the front lines.

And although I’ve learned that business people understand business much better than I, I couldn’t help but cook up some points in the defence of optimism:

• He has to pay a full time staff, marketing budget, logistics, and print in large quantities, not to mention hire expensive Jewish illustrators 😜 . He’s taking a big financial risk with every book, whereas I enjoy much lower overhead and can test out ideas at a smaller scale before committing resources to them.

• He’s publishing in a very competitive environment. So many titles are competing for the same spot on the bookstore shelf. The shelf life of a Jewish book can be as short as weeks. I want to skip the shelf and deliver my products straight to you guys!

• I’d also like to believe that a quality title will stand out to somebody, as long as it does something better or different than whatever else is out there.

So I’m not throwing in the towel just yet, even if I’m a bit shaken by the foreboding forecast.