A former journalist took a leap of faith after being laid off, using his redundancy package to buy a ticket to the largest children's book fair in Italy - and now he's an acclaimed children's author.
James Russell told Seven Sharp's Tim Wilson about his early beginnings writing stories about dragons on the train for his sons Paddy and Flynn.
"I called an agent - I think it was my first port of call. They said, ‘We’re not going to take you on. We only take on published authors’. And obviously, if you call a publisher, they’re going to say, 'Have you got an agent? Approach us through your agent', so you're in a catch-22," Mr Russell said.
After finding an illustrator through the Media Design School, the author unknowingly turned to the growing trend of self-publishing by having his work printed for cheap in Hong Kong.
However, self-publishing had troubles of its own, including warehousing and distribution.
"The logistics department is my garage downstairs where I have thousands of books," Mr Russell explained.
After he was laid off at the NZ Herald, Mr Russell spent some of his redundancy package to go to the Bologna Children’s Book Fair in Italy, the largest fair in the world – where he had a chance encounter.
"I sat down on this couch and a lady comes out from the back of the store. She said to me, 'What are you doing here?' I pulled out the books and said, I'm trying to get a publisher for these."
"She spent about 30 seconds flicking through them and said, 'I'll publish those', and that was Source Books in the US. They're a top 10 publisher there."
Mr Russell's books have since been published all over the world.
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