Firstly, I wanted to say a massive thank you to you and Kev again for making the time to see us at (address) and for working with us to create the revised samples. We’ve had a lot of internal discussions about this project because we think Kev is great – his way of interpreting Shakespeare with humour is a testament to the strength of his creativity and writing. I don’t think I’ve ever laughed so much at Shakespeare and still chuckle at the Amazon joke. We can also see how brilliant he would be at events and engaging with school children which is so important in this space.
Having said that, I feel that we’re not quite managing to communicate what we're looking for with the package and hoping to see in his revises. I understand that this is frustrating from both of our perspectives, but we don’t think that we've managed to get to a place where his revised artwork is aligning with the current market. Since publishers have all been buying more in this space, we want to be really certain that we’re achieving the kind of child appeal for the characters which would help the series to stand-out in this slightly busier market. Currently, we're not totally convinced that a 10-year-old would really connect with them – or at least not to the level that they might opt for the book over other options available to them. It still feels to us that the style sits squarely alongside BEANO, which I’m sure will have a nice resonance for lots of adults but we really want that pester-power element to the buyer demand, too, which we think might need something a little fresher. When this is combined with the Shakespeare pitch, we think that the commercial positioning isn't quite there in terms of making a colour costing feasible – even though we can absolutely imagine the buyers who would love to pick it up for their kids, and the schools who would readily engage!
I have been so appreciative of Kev’s willingness to revise his artwork but I don’t want to ask for more development when we’re not quite connecting as I really don't want to waste his time. From our perspective, there would be so many positives about working with Kev and while I’m sad that this isn’t quite the project for us, if Kev wanted to take a beat to take a look at how his style might evolve in order to develop a non-Shakespeare project, I would be delighted to take an early look.
Thank you so much for considering (publisher) for this project – I had a great time discussing all things graphic novels with you and Kev – and I hope we can connect on another project (maybe even Kev’s next project?) soon.
Sigh. Onwards and upwards.
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