I'm quitting Domaining ... what do you think of my alternative?

[instaunt]

As you'll have probably seen, I'm selling off the rest of my portfolio for £99 a domain so that I can fully jump in to my previously-side-lined project:

http://www.picklesadventures.com

So far, I have one animation:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kc1E5pIG3Io

plus an educational app, an ebook on the way and a soft toy being designed too.

What do you think? I wanted to get out of the online business completely, but every publisher I went to said they only develop the stuff we see on the shelves "in-house". Same goes for children's channels. So I've ended up promoting it online ...

Love to hear opinions and comments as well as your dream jobs ... because I can't imagine anyone ever enjoyed being a domainer?

Thanks
Mike

 

[websaway]

As you'll have probably seen, I'm selling off the rest of my portfolio for £99 a domain so that I can fully jump in to my previously-side-lined project:

http://www.picklesadventures.com

So far, I have one animation:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kc1E5pIG3Io

plus an educational app, an ebook on the way and a soft toy being designed too.

What do you think? I wanted to get out of the online business completely, but every publisher I went to said they only develop the stuff we see on the shelves "in-house". Same goes for children's channels. So I've ended up promoting it online ...

Love to hear opinions and comments as well as your dream jobs ... because I can't imagine anyone ever enjoyed being a domainer?

Thanks
Mike

Love it !

 

[accelerator]

Quite a change in direction so good luck with it. I had a quick 10s view of the video and it looks high quality, I liked the narrator.

Rgds

 

[Aiden Roberts]

Good luck too you, you have clearly done a lot of work and it looks great to me.

 

[retired_member36]

Good luck with your new venture

I think both the website and video are fantastic.

Lee

 

[grantw]

Impressive! Good luck with it.

Grant

 

[dashu1]

I take it you mean book publishers? Have you tried literaryconsultancy.co.uk for help with getting in front of publishers, or you could try http://www.davidhigham.co.uk/submissions.htm.

I recommend the latter purely because I vaguely know Trish Cooke who is published via them - she does childrens books and from what I can remember I think they're an alright publisher.

I know another author who does economics books (academic) and she earns literally next to nothing from her publisher, and they don't do much to promote her work either.

You've got to be careful who you end up with, some are terrible.

Alternatively you could self publish and try to get it into Waterstones but it's a right ball ache - I did it myself once, wouldn't ever do it again.

 

[stevebrowne]

excellent!

 

[aZooZa]

Great work. Best of luck to you. You now have green rep

 

[instaunt]

I've wasted over £1000 on literary consultancies. I think that the dozen or so testimonials they have on their website are the ONLY people they've ever helped. They receive thousands of paying author's submissions every year. I think their hinted promises and gentle self-praise are an over-estimation of their abilities to actually help people out in this industry. They are just editors as far as I can tell.

As for David Higham, I am still waiting to hear from them. But every publisher/agent so far has said they cannot take on new people because publishers are taking on so little. And every publisher has said they're not taking on new people because either a) I'm not with an agent (Catch 22) or b) they do not take new works at all.

I've even resorted to bribery after the last message ... they didn't respond ...

I take it you mean book publishers? Have you tried literaryconsultancy.co.uk for help with getting in front of publishers, or you could try http://www.davidhigham.co.uk/submissions.htm.

I recommend the latter purely because I vaguely know Trish Cooke who is published via them - she does childrens books and from what I can remember I think they're an alright publisher.

I know another author who does economics books (academic) and she earns literally next to nothing from her publisher, and they don't do much to promote her work either.

You've got to be careful who you end up with, some are terrible.

Alternatively you could self publish and try to get it into Waterstones but it's a right ball ache - I did it myself once, wouldn't ever do it again.

 

[eddieb]

Get a few short videos on Youtube and strip cartoons on Uberhumor. Might help get things moving a bit

 

[tifosi]

Good stuff. Hope it gets picked up by the mainstream channels. Agree with the comments on the narrator.

 

[dragon]

Looks like a great, well presented product, think i read somewhere twilight got rejected 14 times before it was published!

 

[The Ferryman]

Intended as constructive criticism,
You may get more support from parents if you lose the skirt, teddies don't traditionally wear clothes, but if they have to, a boy would usually have trousers or shorts. He could maybe have different clothes in different episodes.
Also, he doesn't look at all like a teddy, so maybe call him a cuddly toy or something?
Quality is great, well done!
Regards
Bruce

 

[Edwin]

You may find it easier to talk to publishers if you have a series of finished* examples for them to look like (e.g. 3-4 ebooks, developing the character and its "friends", plus sketches for more "friends" and some notes about their characters/personalities/quirks etc.). That shows them there's the potential for legs if it catches on (think "Mr Men"). The investment required to market a one-off would likely be far too much for them to even consider doing so. This material wouldn't be wasted as you could repurpose it on the website...

*I know, you could say that you will develop more, but showing is MUCH more powerful. One is a (potentially empty) promise, the other's a done deal. A friend of mine is working on getting a trilogy (fiction) published and she was told by an agent that publishers generally won't even look at individual books if they know it's a 3-book series (the risk is too great that the author will flake out/die/whatever before getting it finished).

Good luck with it!

 

[med]

Very nice, took me back to my childhood.

He looks like a hippo to me or an aadvark like 'Arthur' (was on cbbc).

 

[instaunt]

Looks like a great, well presented product, think i read somewhere twilight got rejected 14 times before it was published!

I think that was Harry Potter? And I'm not being rejected ... I'm being told that in the children's market there is no room for new people. Publishers have their own artists on staff and they create everything. That's why so many books look alike I guess?

 

[instaunt]

Intended as constructive criticism,
You may get more support from parents if you lose the skirt, teddies don't traditionally wear clothes, but if they have to, a boy would usually have trousers or shorts. He could maybe have different clothes in different episodes.
Also, he doesn't look at all like a teddy, so maybe call him a cuddly toy or something?
Quality is great, well done!
Regards
Bruce

It's a Kilt you racist!

Pickles is from Scotland.

 

[Retired_member41]

I've always suspected that The Ferryman hated the scots

Agree with losing it though.

Some very talented people on this forum. Well done.

 

[The Ferryman]

It doesn't look like a kilt, but anyway a kilt is a skirt. Boy George and John Paul Gauitier got away with wearing them, but many parents would choose more conventional dressers for role models than these two gents for their children.
In Scotland 99.99% of us don't wear kilts, and neither would Pickles if he had been out with me today, the snow was blowing upwards at an alarming angle, even wi' troosers on!
Best
Bruce