The Making of Unstoppable Sammy · Chapter 3

How hard could it be to get a children’s book illustrated??

Apparently, hard.

My friend Jason and I reached out to people on Fiverr, Upwork, and Facebook. He would gather names and artwork of people we thought would be a good fit, I’d sift through them, and we’d reach out.

Unresponsive. Outrageous expectations. Too many stipulations. Complicated negotiations. More unresponsiveness.

It was crazy.

For the next YEAR, we started the convo with DOZENS of artists, and by the end of 2022, I had made absolutely zero progress.

I was incredibly discouraged. I had naively assumed that within a few months, I’d have a book ready to go.

Finally, I had a “brilliant” idea. If I couldn’t FIND an artist, I’d figure out a way to do it myself!

In January of 2023 (a FULL YEAR after Unstoppable Sammy was written), I reached out to an actors agency, and pitched my idea to the agent:

“I’ve written a children’s book, and instead of finding an illustrator, I want to hire child actors, take their pictures in our arranged storyboard, and we will convert the images to a cartoon look!”

The agent was excited. So was I. It was genius!

I’ll spare you the details. It was awful. A total flop.

Here’s a picture of the kids staging one of the last scenes of the book (and that’s me, holding the board for Sammy, up top).

As I prepared to write this post, I was curious… How long of a process was THAT episode in the Sammy journey?

I checked the time stamps. I sent the first email to the agency in January of 2023. The last email was in August of 2023.

Another 8 months with nothing to show for the time or work. 😭

Back to the drawing board. Repeating the same process as before.

But then, FINALLY. I found my guy…

Discover the book here.