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the criteria I set for myself was to offer a suitable
book for 7 to 11-year-old boys about the footballer
Pele amongst others. By u sing this famous name
would I hoped to motivate that target group.
Up to this point in time I had made many friends
inside the publishing industry of Brazil which
incidentally was huge and highly competitive. An
average order for a UK book to start its print run
would be ordered in the low thousands, 2000
being an average. Consider that one of our
Brazilian book sales was for 176,000 books in one
order. That is the sort of volume that the public
sector educational market attracts.
The other publishing directors of the Brazilian
national companies were very helpful to me but
there came a cut-off point when they could no
longer help me because I needed new authors and
new illustrators and they had them all. Obviously,
they would not be passed across to me as a highly
competitive gringo publisher. We remained friends
but only socially and I never asked for further help.
They had subtly said to me “Bill go get your own
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