industry business side of things, and getting the finance to fund paying the book companies and their strict guidelines, I sent off 2 book concepts one was called "Pembroke the fairy possum and the sugar plum trail" and another was an activity book called "Love Love Love, then 10 other things" where children make a mobile with affirmations on it and write in the book. but companies like penguin's subsidiary called xlibris Publishing really liked the work, as did a few other companies like Dark Horse and hayhouse and a few others, they basically want you do pay about $800 per month to do a course step by step publishing and some basic and small number of illustrations and promotions and promise if you pay about $4000-$8000 they can guarantee you promotional postures and for the book to always have a copy on the shelves and distributed, but to me this is really a form of Vanity publishing where you pay and they will publish almost anything even if its garbage. so far no professional or student illustrators have been interesting in doing the drawings for me and I suggested halfing the income amount for good work, I made it clear I wanted the Pembroke possum story to look similar to "Guess how much I love you" with a small plush toy and the possibility of a series and also. I showed a few friends for their opinion and most were positive but I really don't like showing professional illustrators or friends the work as I feel they could steal it on me and seek the rewards for themselves because I have had a few people do this to me stealing story concept ideas on me and its very upsetting when they do this. because I was sexually abused as a child people literally do not want to work with me and put me down saying I am "an undesireable" and they don't want to be associated to that sort of person which was very hurtful from one illistrator and also when I approached the qld wildlife protection association for funding or promotional support they wanted money from me and were exploiting me when the aim is to help save an indangered species as well as make a story which is based on real life experience, then when I showed 2 ladies Emma Lee and Sally Griffin from Nutrimetics they were trying to take over and come up with their possum stories to out do me and their illistrator friend did not want to help me at all and I felt very betrayed because someone else did this to me with a version of "the "philosopher and his magic stone" I had started writing as a childs story after a dream about a toad and I found this toad meaning in a dream book and just thouhgt it was a great inspiration for a story. people often have stolen my basic outlines of stories I wrote a book on magic sword and fairies with powers with a character called Jeopardy and someone stole that, another story called "Not me!" and its really hard to trust, people say show your friends get their opinion and they cheat you, its not funny. I get inspiration from videos or dreams or phrases or pictures and art or personal stories hand down in the family and I have been working on a few and one with my mum for the last 20 years we did some drawings and we leave it and come back to it but we feel a bit stupid because we are novices but my mum has been with writers groups and some work locally published and I have at university and did some literature studies at university but I don't have confidence in myself anymore" my mum and I would love to put together a qld flower photo book and I did consider using photos rather then drawing or just doing basic child drawings rather then some Beatrix potter magnificence" it is the money holding people back, because my dad was asked to write a storybook for the birkdale school reunion and the cost was just too much for the committee. I honestly assumed that the publishing companies print the books at their own expense and they get a cut as well as author and artist once its promoted I didn't know you have to pay them to publish your work. what is upsetting is went you see gross books with rubbish like "why snot is green" for kids and yet I have made some lovely children's stories with some bible verse and morals to the tale and its just ignored because I don't have the money upfront or even monthly to give these rich publishing companies. and all the publishing firms are extreme hard sell with pushy controlling and rude american /Filipinos you can't understand well, they can't understand why I am on a disability pension and can't afford to give them $2,000 a month for 16 months , (penguin is a Filipino company) and I would prefer the money to stay within Australia or with a good firm. I felt ripped off a number of times over childrens stories I was working on and there are some I will never show anyone. I don't write shit like other idiots do. what annoys me the most is a lot of people don't take you seriously enough as well they just think your a kiddy doing play writing but it is a process and most people usually want to exploit you and steal from you and make out they can do better. you get afraid to ask if you can borrow ideas you are inspired by. like just a picture or that they will attack you for copyright over a freaking name of a character you choose and your friends are usally out to knock you down and destroy your dreams that is true. they will call you dumb for bothering, and I get angry because my doctor want s me to the drawing s and I just do not have confidence in my art abilities anymore compared to when I was a teen I could sit down and draw for fun now its a bother. even with computer drawing or free hand with old style which I like more but I was not a grand achiever so why would things change now anyway. even if I had a kids story half fucking sellable people won't buy the bloody thing and I won't look to do this sort of shit again. ever again. I gave them about 4 or more stories and threw them in the bin after because it might as well be someone else work because mind is never good enough anyway and why would it be?