Rebekah,

Anyway, if this is an 'Industry' standard practice maybe you guys should go a different route. Shake things up a bit. Hell, let everyone pay a fee to enter. Jury the selection, BUT everyone who entered and helped foot the cost of the book is entitled to a percentage of the profit. That sounds fair.

With all due respect, I find nothing UNfair about the existing method. No one is being hurt. No one is forced into doing anything they don't want to.

Wether or not it will work as planned... well, that remains to be seen. I give them credit for making the effort, anyway, even if it flops horribly (which I doubt, just to be clear).

As for "but I understand that a lot of unsolicited material is not taken into consideration at the better ad agencies. "

I hardly think this is the same class as the unsolicited mail from Joe Blow "just out of college please look at my portfolio" mail that we're usually talking about there.

Clearly, Renderosity has a professional Pubilcity Package that will immediately take it out of that 'unsolicited trash mail' catagory. Business to business correspondances, presented properly, are always taken in differently than the junk mail.

Truly, though, I don't know ANYONE in the art business who would would toss a juicy, well printed, and freshly inked publication into the garbage without at least looking through it ONCE. That's really the best you can hope for with anything. Just once is enough in most cases to make an impression if the material and presentation are sexy enough.

Also, if this bothers anyone so much, my advice is to do your own publication.

If you feel strongly enough and are willing to put YOUR money and time and effort where your mouth is, then start your own revolution and give everyone who entered and helped foot the cost of your book a percentage of the profit.

I don't see what's to stop anyone from succeeding with such a project, if it's really a good, workable solution. Indeed, I would look forward to buying your book, as I'm sure the rest of the folks here would too.