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Dunja Popin's avatar

Thank you a lot, a much needed post indeed! ❤️

For me there is another negative point: at the Fair everything seems possible, inspiration comes from all over, magnificent, magical... but soon after everything deflates. There are no concrete results, even those very few publishers who seemed interested do not respond to my emails, not even after 6 months, a year... ever. Like a fizzy drink - everything seemed effervescent but soon after it becomes flat, undrinkable. Then from "everything looks possible" I get to the very wrong feeling "everything is impossible, everything is useless". As you said: it is mostly about inspiration, getting out of one's bubble and not about getting a book deals, networking with publishers etc. ! But you know how an illustrator's subconscious works... 😳

Only once I had a concrete, although unusual, result after Bologna Fair: a publisher contacted me a year later to buy one of my paintings (I am also a painter, besides an illustrator), and for a very good price for my point of view. :-)

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Heather Dryden's avatar

Thank you for this! It was a much needed read for me this morning 💗

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