Kat Cronenberg, the author of the Live Big series with Live Big with Ketchum, Dream Big, Love Big, and Think Four Books.

Wow.

Thanks, Kat, for appearing on the Adventures in the Heart of Children's Book Authors podcast.

Kat has written a beautiful children's book series, Live Big, and I look forward to our conversation, especially behind the whole idea of a book series, because I think anyone who's listened to our podcast show knows that myself and my grandchildren are developing a book series and we now have two books in our book series.

So it's neat to talk to someone who has a book series that's well developed.

Before we get into the details of your book cat and your children's book authorship, can you tell us what it means to you being a children's book author?

What does it mean to you?

It's been a magic journey.

It's not something that I grew up thinking, never even considered, never even met an author till I was 40.

So it found me in life as a prayer answered of how can I use my life to do good?

And it literally whacked me over the head at a symphony.

And I thought it was a crazy idea to do and tried to ignore it and it wouldn't leave me alone.

So it's magic from this standpoint.

I didn't quit on it.

It's been magical to see the story connect with Kim.

It's a magical journey.

And so tell us into your 40s.

All of a sudden this magical moment appears.

What was the inspiration?

Like, what jumpstart this whole idea about writing a children's book?

Because you could have said, oh, I think I'm going to become whatever you want it to become.

Why the children's book author route?

Yeah, it literally, it was at a symphony.

I had my eyes closed taking in the music.

And if I tell kids, I don't know if you want to call it God, divine inspiration, but it was literally like I got hit in the head by a two by four.

And it said, kat, you were meant to write books about the power of a smile to help kids live their best life in all ages.

Wow.

Wow.

I wrote it down and then stuck it in a drawer and tried to ignore it and it wasn't.

It just kept paining me.

And it's funny how a lot of the guests that we've had on that's what's happened.

They've had this inspiration.

Some people talk about the old yellow pad and writing the story on the yellow pad and tucking it away, or I've even had a guest Tell me.

She put it in a box and put it in storage, and then three or four years later, it came out of nowhere, and all of a sudden, yeah, there it is.

It's now the time to do it.

I noticed.

And maybe you can help us understand this.

Did you release your first three books all at once?

No.

Dream Big.

My first book was 2017.

The next one was 2019.

Love big, think big was during COVID May 2020.

And then my newest was just born.

It's not even a month old, so he's a little infant.

Okay, terrific.

And the reason I asked is, of course, one of the first places I go is Amazon.

And when I went to Amazon, I noticed all three of your first books had exactly the same published date.

Oh, it was?

Yeah.

If you check, it says December 2021 for all three of them and that.

So that's why I was wondering.

Oh, okay.

So that's why I was interested.

I thought, wow, that's pretty ambitious to launch all three books at once.

So that's great.

2017 was your first book.

2019 was your second book.

2021, during COVID was your third book.

And then four years later, I wasn't.

Planning to write another one.

And like the symphony, it kind of found me loud and clear.

And so tell us about that relationship.

Obviously, you wrote your first three, and then, like you said, you didn't have this idea of writing a fourth book, and then all of a sudden, it must have percolated over time in your book, Coffee Pot.

And all of a sudden, whoa.

It felt like the series was complete.

So they're based on three powerful secrets.

We watch animals become the hero of this story by lighting the little gift of stardust in their heart by smiling big and believing.

Right.

So is the first Love Big is the second, and think biggest the third.

And that's.

That's it.

It was complete.

But this little guy, Ketchum is his name, right?

Math matter.

And on the website, all of a sudden, he was like, I want my own story.

Okay, so it's the.

It has the little infinity symbol right here, right?

The first story and the last produces the other three books, but completes them.

Just so folks know.

And we won't give it away quite yet, Kat, but I know there's the number eight and a special word in your latest book, and the infinity symbol have special meaning, but I've saved that for a little later in the show just so we could tease the audience to stick around and wait for that.

Oh, I like that.

Not your first record I'm also interested in knowing because you've been on this journey since 2017.

That's fantastic.

Tell us about your children's book business plan and how that evolved.

When you wrote your first book, was it more about passion and getting your first book out?

I would say it was more a calling than it was career.

And since it's a calling, it's a purposeful passion.

I would is maybe what I would say to answer even what messages have to say.

And I think it and seeing it land on kids.

So it's a purposeful passion.

I love that.

I love that.

After you looked at your purposeful passion and you had your book out for a couple of years and you knew you had to bring out a second book, did you constantly start thinking, oh, I think I might have a children's book business here and I've got a book series in me that needs to come out, but I need to have a plan.

So talk to us about that.

I did not have a business plan.

I did not plan to be an author.

None of the above.

So I came in through the back door all the way around and really didn't even plan to build a series.

It is slowly shown itself to me.

Okay, I've made it up as I've gone.

My plan is making up stuff as I go and really finding ways to connect with kids with my stories.

Like, I like eye to eye contact.

That's my business plan is take as many eyeballs as I can to share my story with.

Good for you.

So in terms of your first book, and now we're into your fourth book.

Tell us what's so much different from your first book.

If you can remember back to 2017 and getting eyeballs.

And now here you are with your fourth book.

What's the big difference in getting eyeballs to your book?

I know what works, does what doesn't work.

You know what I am good at, what I'm not good at, what I've learned is stay in my lane with my gifts and then invite other people to help me.

When you say get other people to help, you explain that.

So explain how you went like with your first book to your fourth book.

What's the difference in how did you attract more people to help you get your message out?

I finally built an email list which took me forever to do, which has been helpful.

I've hired a really fun teacher to send out emails for me, which has been very helpful.

I keep trying to give up my social media, but I didn't do it for since COVID till today.

So I'm getting back into that.

I'm going to use this girl to help me with social media because it's not my wheelhouse.

I'm the wrong generation.

But I have found social media helps.

Like they.

I started social media with my first book, okay?

Now I've seen it work and instead of pretending I'm good at it, I'm gonna now get back into it and have somebody help me use that resource because it's not an expensive resource like for the listeners out there.

It doesn't really cost me money unless I hire somebody to really multiply eyeballs to my story.

You talked about your mailing list and you know what?

That's part of the.

Hopefully the attraction of people listening to this show is learning different techniques.

And everybody talks about the importance of having your own mailing list.

If social media changed the way they do things and you lost all your Instagram and Facebook followers, you still have your email list and people say you should make sure you hang on to that and cherish it and grow it.

So tell us, how did you build your email list from 2017 to now?

All different events, conferences, school visits, bookstores, a little bit of everything.

And the year to two to three years when I'd go do these events, I wouldn't set out a list for people that were interested or like what they heard.

Give me their information, duh.

With that on day one, gather information from your audience.

So when you go and do a book reading, you have a sheet, a sign up sheet.

Sign up sheet.

Be part of my live big club is what I call it.

Give it a name and just if they're interested then they can know what you've got going on and stay.

You're the first person that's ever said that.

Give your email list a name.

Good for you.

Yeah, give it a name.

We're a part of something.

We all want to belong, so we're a part of something together.

Thanks for sharing that nugget.

That's very important.

The other thing I noticed on Amazon this morning, and of course you have all of your books in the ebook format, which is awesome.

But I noticed the launch of your new book.

I could only see the hardcover.

I didn't see the soft cover.

Yes, I have my soft cover made my bookshelf somehow in the last year disappeared.

My publisher put the hardback I have put on paper, but they disappeared so I haven't been able to find it.

We've talked to all kinds of people, blah, blah, blah, blah.

And haven't figured out the Amazon beast yet to get.

Your intention is to put your paper back also.

It's ready.

It's just those books have disappeared.

But floating around with ketchup.

Yeah, I mean they're in the eaters.

I just.

Oh, technology in that whole world.

Get an actual human and then they tell you it's here and someone tells you it's there and then it's nowhere.

Okay.

There's an intention to get a paperback because I like giving my audience options.

Whatever is best for them.

Absolutely, absolutely.

Me and Amazon aren't getting along, so.

I'm sure you'll get that whole thing.

Yeah, hopefully.

When I talk to everyone, I always say, you know what?

Especially when you've written your first book and trying to earn any revenue and build sales is always a difficulty in the beginning.

And then as you go along, you're looking for other avenues of revenue to actually support your habit of being a children's book author.

Yeah, yeah.

And so I noticed with you.

And again, if you can take us on that journey.

But I noticed you have your star plushie Ketchum, which is cool.

You have your super cape, which I love, superhero cape.

And you've got the smiley socks on your website.

So I'm interested in a few things.

Can you explain to us how each of these products was developed and was there anyone instrumental in helping you in their development?

I had no help on any of them except for the graphic designer on my cape.

I just reached out to about four or five different companies to create this and each one did a little different.

Like I have one over here that came in really small that I don't like per se.

It lights up.

And this one I couldn't love more.

It comes with batteries, so it's super user friendly.

So I just made it up, kept trying until I found the exact right product.

The plushies aren't cheap.

I'm sure you figured it out to make and blah, blah, blah.

Ape has been not expensive, which has been fun because it goes along with the theme of my story.

So to find something that covers the gamut cost wise, that gives the audience a chance to make something a little bit more dynamic than just the book for the reader.

Been nice to have both.

And the socks are even the most expensive of all to make.

Right.

But the teacher had the idea.

I always come in with a little yellow smile T shirt that has B, the letters B E U on them.

Be you and smile.

It's a termite trick in my stories.

And she's oh you need to make those into socks.

Good for you.

Did you source the products locally or did you go offshore?

What did you do?

I just interviewed all different groups and had to make paid to make five different samples from different groups.

And this is the one I've landed on.

And I had a before that I liked but they went out of business.

People can go on your website and purchase the items.

So tell us, are you actually having them order from you directly and you're shipping them?

Right.

Okay.

It's all amazing.

All the products I offer everything from me out of my garage that I ship.

My publisher does the hardback books and the ebooks, but I do everything else.

I do the hardback books.

They have some in their warehouse, I have some in my garage.

And then you also sell online, which I'm going to get to in a moment.

What's nice that you're able to bring it together Now I noticed you do a combo like you can buy multiple stars, you can buy multiple capes, but I didn't notice if you had a combo where they could buy a star and the books together.

Yeah.

Just because e commerce is already confusing to me.

So.

Okay.

But simple.

I don't know if I will really just a little more brain damage and e commerce chaos capable of.

So.

So let's talk about e commerce for a moment because I'm always trying to get people to think outside the book cover and how they can generate more revenue to support, like I said, their book habits.

With you having multiple products available besides your books now, has that worked out the way you've thought it would in terms of revenue and helping you along your children's book author journey?

I would say when I sell books at an event, this is what draws everybody in.

Okay.

The book.

So hands on personal events.

I would say the plushie and the extra stuff is a giant home run.

Okay.

Online, I don't think it makes a difference.

I don't sell it on Amazon.

This stuff you only see on my website.

Okay.

And I don't say that because we actually made up a plushie.

Yeah, I saw behind you too.

Yeah.

And it's of our main character, Caboose.

It took us a while because our first independent bookstore, who took our book in, they said to us, you should have a plushie.

And I said, a plushie?

And they said yes, they said because we have.

And they showed me.

They took me to their children's section and a lot of the books they had the book and the supporting plushie to go with the book and they say they sell tons of them, but it took a while to source the right pricing to be able to do that.

Now we just recently got these in and our first sales just started in August.

I said thank you.

So it'll be interesting to see how it goes.

But certainly again, just having in person.

I think the Plushies really are a giant home run online.

I'm not so sure.

Okay, good to know.

Good to know.

Your publishing approach.

There's generally three types of ways you can publish.

There's indie publishing, there's hybrid publishing and there's traditional publishing.

People get confused is that self publishing and indie publishing are really a separate thing.

Indie being that you're the independent publisher.

On the back of your book, like we've done, we actually put the name of our company is Caboose the Rocky Mountain Bear Publishing Den.

So we actually publish ourselves.

We're an independent children's book publisher.

And then there's what you've done.

I believe you're a hybrid self published author and you use a group.

I haven't heard of them before, but you use Greenleaf Book Group Press.

So they are a hybrid publisher?

Yes, sir.

Out of Austin, Texas.

Yes, sir.

And so explain to us a bit about their approach and how you found them.

And now you're into your fourth book.

Is your fourth book still published through Greenleaf?

All four of them?

Yes, all four of them.

So tell us about that experience because it must be a good experience for you.

I do.

All four.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I met them probably a first month into the idea hitting me over the head.

But I really learned I knew nothing about the industry or writing.

So then I went out and got versed in the world of publishing and versed in the world of reading and writing and went down all kinds of roads and got an offer to go big with a mainstream publisher.

But I learned that I couldn't control my art or choose my artist.

Right.

It's for me, my stories are very close to my heart.

Was almost more important to me than the actual words is that the art and the story were in tandem and decided upon.

I don't have the gift of art that we kept the story in tandem, the artist and I.

Okay.

So then I went back to Greenleaf who is a hybrid and for your people online, to me, the best way to define what a hybrid as opposed to mainstream or independent is that it has relationship with the wholesalers and the libraries and Amazon that the independent has to.

I still have to run, but they definitely can carry a lot of the load and have relationships that, as an independent, I didn't have to develop on my own.

You've enjoyed that relationship.

I love my art director.

He is the biggest home run in my whole experience.

When you say art director, like, I'm thinking about Greenleaf doing all the things that you described.

Yes.

Is it the whole package or is it just the art director?

It's a tricky answer to that question.

I would say, like any relationships, it's had its ups and downs and good people and not so good people.

But the guy who chooses my artist and helps format and put the whole visual together has been King Kong for me.

He's done an unbelievable job.

Has he been the same person from 2017 till now?

Okay.

Yes.

And I've had to have three different artists.

Yes, I noticed.

That's what I was going to ask you is that I noticed you have.

That was not intentional.

No.

First artist, she had a high needs child and so wasn't available to do my second book and third book.

You had the same illustrator.

Yes, my second and third book.

And then on my fourth book, my second, the artist that did love Big and think big was going to do this with me.

And then he had a family situation come up.

Right.

And said he couldn't.

So then we had to start from square one again.

And I couldn't love the art on this more.

So it's fun.

And I would say.

But I.

There's continuity, like when I look at.

And it's all the art director, 100% finding found each artist.

Like he took the color, the flowers from the COVID on my first book, was smart enough, since it's a series to put him on the second and the third book.

Like, he just.

He has done this a really long time.

Wisdom and a brilliance to bringing it together for me in a way that stayed true to my vision, which was.

And you know what?

It's interesting you should say that because I've interviewed a lot of children's book authors, especially hybrid self published children's book authors.

But you're the first one that's ever said to me it was the art director that really has kept you as a client for all these years.

Because that's a pretty long journey.

2017 till now.

That's eight years.

And I'm thinking, wow, that's fantastic.

Again, when we talk to people, it's important because every hybrid publisher does things differently.

And so to know that someone has you, that's been with you tried and true, it's a pretty amazing thing to have happen.

And the Art was that important to me and have been that blessed in this arena where I feel so good about the story visually is thrilling to me.

He's been a giant gift in my life.

This is a good time to bring it up is that we teased our audience at the beginning of the show and said there was one word that you incorporated into your current book.

At first I thought maybe this was something to do with the illustrators, but it sounds to me this was dialogue you had with the art director.

So tell us about the teaser.

So we talked about the number eight.

We talked about affinity, and we talked about a special word.

Can you share that special word and the whole idea and how you incorporated into your latest book?

It's a little bit of a long answer, but my first three books have 1, 2, 3, like the three secrets.

Then I write a fourth.

What do I do?

It's not really a fourth secret.

It's a whole buildup of what's going on and all the other stories.

To me, love always wins over fear.

Life is binary.

It's very binary.

So the word is the word.

W, O N won.

We've won no matter what.

If we can hold that truth in our heart, we've won before we've even started.

Like, my books are a giant success no matter what happens, because I've already won my artist full this little guy in my heart.

When I looked, I thought, okay, the last book is a double zero.

And so people are probably thinking, what is he talking about, double zero?

I noticed you stacked a zero on top of a zero.

That was to create the infinity.

Is that correct?

Absolutely.

Deduction.

My panels on the books didn't match.

It's on the next printing.

I'm going to have to do it a little different because this is a little.

It's in bold and the other ones aren't bold.

So it marries a little better.

Take us through the word one and the significance of eight.

One.

So, like in my books, I raised two boys and we read a ton to try to find my stories.

And there was a book written by the same author, Shell, that wrote Shrek.

Okay.

And he had this artwork, and it would say the letter C and then the letter D and the letter B.

C, the B and had a bee flying through the air.

So my boys loved that.

So.

So we incorporated little termite tricks in my stories.

Like on their back, they had the letters U, K, N. Say that a couple times fast.

U, K, N. You can live your dream.

So those are kidney through all three books.

But I didn't do that in the most recent book, what I did was take the letter wonder because I think we're all full of wonder.

That's what Ketchum is.

These love's wondrous spark in our heart.

And bolded the letter W.W. o N eight times through the story.

So there's back matter that invites the reader to go back through and see if they can figure out how many ones there are.

And it all ties it all together.

The letter A, the fun of going through a story again, like the termite tricks.

And so it just creates a tandem line in my brain to all the different layers.

It's nice to have those little nuances to add to the book and get people thinking and to go a little deeper.

And that was your whole intention?

Yes.

To internalize more and more that love wins.

Light always wins over darkness.

And I love how you thought it through because like you said in the beginning of the interview, you didn't have a fourth book in mind.

And then to actually develop the whole concept and the double zeros and the infinity and the eight ones.

Hats off.

That's great, Joel.

Yeah.

Yeah.

It woke me up at 4 in the morning quite a lot to figure it out.

Yes.

How did you decide what pages the one should go on?

The word one?

Yeah.

Every time the word wonder wondrous, wonderful was in there, and it just did it in the rhythm of the story.

The story finally presented itself where it was all in tandem.

So it was pretty easy by the end.

Not in the beginning, but by the end it came together pretty terrific.

It's great to talk to you about being able to take you back to 2017, to move forward to now.

And I looked at your website, a lot of content, which is awesome.

And so I want to take you Back to day one, so back to 2017 or whenever you started the idea of developing a website.

Tell us about your website journey.

So take us back to the beginning and then take us to the present.

Yeah.

I was very naive, very dumb, but to move.

So don't ever be afraid.

Just keep going forward.

I hired a graphic designer instead of a web designer.

And so we built up this graphic world that then I didn't know you couldn't go in and change it.

Like it just.

But I like the visual, so nothing is ever bad.

It's just how I utilize it down the road.

Learn the hard way.

Right.

Do web.

So you got this graphic artist to put it all of these pieces together and then you went, oh, I can't get that format into a website.

Then you went and found yourself a website developer.

Yes.

Who took the graphics and then put it into a normal website normally developed.

Where then I could go in and change the wording or update.

Now I haven't gone in and updated it said pre ordered.

Now I can go in and update it myself and books are available.

You see what I'm saying?

Where before when I originally designed, I couldn't go in and make those changes.

I've got your website up in front of me and I looked at it and I thought, you've got a lot on here.

It's grown over the years.

Yes.

So like when I look at your tabs, you probably didn't have the dream shop in the beginning, is that right?

It's hard to remember.

I think I've always had whatever I've created on my website for sale.

2017, Dream Big was on there.

2019, I had Dream and Love.

And I think at Love Big is when I created this guy.

Since 2019, all those have been on there and then grown from there.

Terrific.

I want to talk a little bit about your social media because I think if I.

You've got all your social media at the bottom.

Yeah, I.

Yes.

Yeah.

But you know what?

Before we get into that, I missed one important question when I was thinking about publishing because.

And the reason I want to make sure I circle back to it is because I've never seen this one before.

You have what's called Indie Bound.

You say you can buy your books on Amazon, Barnes and Noble, which I see all the time, but I've never seen Indie Bound.

So tell us about that publishing service, how that works for you.

The main reason I did Indiebound, I'm in Austin, Texas and there's an independent bookstore called People that is just amazing.

I try to encourage peers and friends in the area to go buy my book there because it's such a powerful gift to our community to have a space that celebrates books like they do.

So the indie town is a way that people can go in and get my book off of book People.

Okay.

From I went to the website and again, I want to share this with, with our audience because getting into independent bookstores, there's a lot of us children's, independent children's book authors or self published children's book authors.

We're all trying to get into an independent bookstore and it's not always as easy as people think.

Now from what I gather from the Indie Bound is they actually donate funds to independent bookstores.

I don't know if I can answer that and be confident in my answer.

Okay.

And the only reason I asked is because when I read that, I thought, oh, so if you could get associated with one independent bookstore in your area and you could use that as a selling feature that they would be donating to that bookstore.

I don't know the answer.

I should ask the people that I work with at Book People and see if I can find that answer because I don't really know because they're fighting just like we are to get absolutely.

And recognized over Amazon.

And I don't know the answer to that because it would be really amazing if they all collaborated that way.

For sure.

And the reason I bring that up too is because I just had an experience where I went to an independent bookstore.

We live just outside the Rocky Mountains.

All of our stories have taken place in the Rocky Mountains.

But I went to a independent bookstore.

It's probably about 300km away from where we live.

But anyways, they only support independent children's book authors who live within 100 kilometer radius.

So if you don't live within that radius, they won't support you.

And I thought, oh, so I just thought that this was interesting when you said Indie Bound and then I went to their website and I.

Now you've got me thinking I'm going to have to go back and.

Oh yeah, yeah.

Between us, if you can develop a relationship with a.

With an independent bookstore and say, you know what, Indie Bound is going to donate and I get to choose who they donate to in my area, that'd be a nice relationship feature.

Yeah.

There were mutual benefit for both.

I hear exactly what you're putting down and I'm not 100% sure.

I got really lazy during COVID and I'm just getting back into it.

So I'm like, you don't know for sure.

There we go.

We both got homework.

Yeah.

Exactly as it is a beautiful thought.

I want to talk to you about your motivation because I know you talked about sitting in a Symphony and was that the main thing that motivated you to write your children's book or did it just jump started?

What was the major motivation to get around to actually completing it?

You get a jump start, but if you don't finish, tell us that story.

Yeah, I would say the whole.

I think these stories were already written.

As crazy as that sounds.

I think they wanted someone that would actually sit down and put them on paper for other people.

And I think the reason they found me is because I had a pretty hard childhood.

Like I didn't have life Skills or social, emotional learning.

I was thrown in the fire with different circumstances and have since built a life that I'm love and I dream big.

I love big.

I think big.

I have an amazing life and I wanted to not have kids bang around in the dark like I did for decades.

Right.

So I think that's why these stories found me, to give kids a chance.

It's very subtle, but a real.

I see kids hold my books like it's a lifeline, especially the ones that have been through something.

And so there's some level of truth to that that I think I wrote a place that the kids that need it, it speaks to them in that.

Place you saw yourself and released yourself.

Yeah.

I think my books were a way to bring light into the darkness.

They brought light into my life as a writer.

They were the light I needed as a little girl.

And my prayer is that they're the light into the readers and homes and classrooms going forward.

That they, for me, so fantastic.

It's fantastic you can influence people that way.

Our children especially.

Yeah.

About character development because you've got four books.

I know you've got Ketchum, but talk to us about this whole character development and does it come from those experiences you just talked about?

Because literally you've heard Symphony, Smile.

That's all I got.

I'm like, okay, now what?

Like, nothing came.

I'm nothing.

Nothing but sitting for hours and hours with stacks and books from a library.

Never really went to a library till I got whacked over the head at the symphony.

And I'm like, I can't.

People were like, I met an author.

They're like, if you're going to write, you need to start reading.

I'm like, I can't afford to go buy a bunch of books.

And they're like, go to the library.

So we would go to the library and get stacks and stack stacks of books and just read through and find what we like and didn't.

Hundreds and hundreds.

And in that we decided we wanted animals in the story that animals were going to be.

I tried people didn't work.

So we were going to focus on animals.

And Albert Einstein says, if you look deep into nature, you will understand everything better.

So then we picked Africa.

And you watch each of these different animals.

I use the real science of animals.

If flamingo's born white, then it turns gray before it turns pink.

And that's fascinating.

So in the first book, you'd see that flamingo want to be beautiful and then she feels real self conscious and Turns an awful gray like I did writing because I was terrible writer in the beginning and used her whole journey to her best life as so my character development was always based on the science of each animal let go going from place A to their best life.

So it's their hero's journey.

I use science.

So there's a lot of science, a lot of social, emotional learning for each character development and then trying to have them all incorporate with each other's lives and.

And you kept that alive through the whole series.

Exactly.

Good for you.

Yes.

A lot of layers.

Let's dig into and maybe you can connect the stars so into the theme.

Discuss with us how you took your four books live Big, like the connection.

How did you run the themes through that?

Yeah.

So again, I love quotes, and I study people as much as I've studied animals.

And there was a famous scientist, Carl Sagan, that says, we're all made of stardust.

There's a little piece of the cosmos that in each of us that we all have a precious purpose.

And that's always jumped out of me.

Like I said earlier, light always wins against darkness.

Love always wins to me against fear.

And so the fact that we're all made a stardust, this little guy grew as I developed that.

You'll see in each story, the animals, when they get to their best life, the little star lights up in their heart.

So it just builds on the fact.

For me, it's a very spiritual truth.

But I can go in and let kids decide what truth it is for them because it's scientific.

But for me, it's very spiritual that they're made extraordinary, that they have an extraordinary reason to be.

This guy makes it real easy to remember that you can look up at a night sky and know you're part of something way bigger than yourself.

Wow.

Thank you.

I noticed on your website you have a lot of groups that you read to.

It's incredible.

And they're quite large groups.

Tell us, when you go and you do your reading, how do you incorporate your central lesson through your reading?

How do you incorporate that?

And do you develop conversations from that?

You mean develop conversations in the keynote.

When I'm delivering it, like when you're.

When you do a reading to.

I noticed there's a lot of groups that you've read to when you do that.

And what's the central theme that you're.

Are you trying to draw more than.

This is the central theme.

And I'm talking to you.

I'm thinking about your audience's reaction and how you draw it out of them rather than you being center stage?

Yes.

They get personal to each person.

How does everybody in the orchestra get to play an instrument?

Yeah, that's a beautiful question.

Each one of my presentations is different and, like, for the most part, let them choose.

But this guy Ketchum is the central theme, that we're all born extraordinary.

We've got to start smiling big and believing it to be true.

Okay, that.

Go true.

I go back to that point over and over through the presentation, and have.

You had some child have an aha moment?

Oh, I've had quite a few.

Yeah.

Okay.

Can you tell us about one of them?

Yeah.

One was right in the beginning.

I.

There's a foster home here in Austin, and I just called them out of the blue and said, hey, I wrote a children's book.

Can I come and share it with your kids and get them books?

And they're like, sure.

And they.

It's a picture book.

So they were going to just put me with the young kids, and I'm like, let me do the old kids, too, Having no idea.

Never been here.

I saw.

I drive up, a kid's trying to escape.

I'm like, oh, God, now what have I signed up for?

But I get in with the older kids and share my message, and a little girl comes up to me.

She's not little.

She was probably 12 at the time, just crying.

She goes, so you mean I can be a scientist?

She had never heard that she could do anything.

Wow.

Yeah.

And that.

That has kept me motivated ever since.

It's just.

It's.

I love it.

I love it.

Yeah.

It's like you.

Somebody wants to write a book after hearing your podcast, and they do it and they finish it.

It's.

That's the motivation you need to keep going.

And her little tears is the motivation I need to keep going.

Yeah.

It's nice when something that you've written touches someone that motivates them to think bigger and better.

Yeah.

Awesome.

Absolutely.

Now that you've.

I don't want to say gone full circle, but now that you've got your cl.

I'm not sure I don't even want to call it closure.

But now that you've written the fourth book, you've the plan and how you've done it is pretty incredible.

I love the infinity because it just keeps going around and around so it lasts forever.

Share some insights into your development in terms of thinking ahead about writing more children's books.

Where's that journey going to take you again?

It's always gotten loud when I'm supposed to do something.

I know I'm supposed to do a workbook.

It's called a playbook.

A live big playbook that's been germinating.

Lord knows they always take me a little longer.

The first one and this last one took me a lot longer than I thought.

So I don't know how long this PL playbook will take me.

It's just a daily workbook for kids to internalize and color out their own story with these books.

And then there's been some talk of TV or an animation series to go along with it.

That's.

Yeah.

So we'll see.

It's had a life force of its own, so we'll see.

Have you started the playbook or is it just.

Oh, you have.

Good.

Oh, yeah, yeah, I see it.

But it's changed quite a bit.

So I might have to like this book.

I had to write it way over here and way over here to find it.

So I'm not sure where I am in the process of the work, but if I'm going to find it easy or have to go way over here, then way over here to find it.

So I don't know.

I love your story about going to the library, which all of us have public libraries that we can access.

And they're free.

And they're free.

And I'm fortunate.

I can walk to it in five or seven minutes.

Oh, good for you.

Yeah.

So it's neat.

You talked about getting a stack of books.

Talk to us a little bit about the research in your whole.

In the.

In your book series.

So did you do much research to put your books together?

Yes, a hundred percent.

Like I said, the best advice I was given, if you want to write, you've got to read.

And I took that to heart.

So I'm not kidding.

I went to every library in the area and read all their picture books by the time I got to writing my stories.

Yeah.

And then I researched each animal, then I researched the industry.

A good thing for your listeners that was super helpful for me is a group called SCBWI.

Yes.

Children's Book Writers and Illustrators.

The website scbwi.org they have a conference in New York and one in LA where everybody in the industry, from top agents and editors to wannabes like I was in the beginning, to very accomplished authors.

I got super involved in that and built out a peer group, mentors, just really researching and understanding the industry and what was best for me and what I was trying to create.

So that was a super helpful resource.

There's even a society of children's book writers and illustrators.

I'm a member.

I've been a member for a couple of years now.

And I'm so very helpful and again for the audience.

Just so aspiring children's book authors know, it's not expensive to for an annual membership and there's lots of resources and.

There'S a lot of stuff online.

Especially since COVID Those big conferences that I would travel to are now online.

Yes, a lot of local chapters.

Austin has a local chapter that meets once a month for free.

So there's critique groups.

That would be something else in my research that I would offer your audience that are wanting to write is get involved in critique groups where people read your stories and give you feedback.

I got better being a critiquer and being critiqued at writing.

So it was a huge part of the research for me.

I want to pivot to success.

We talked about your business book plan, but I want to delve into your original goals around success.

And now that you've been at it for eight years, describe, take us back to what you had in mind for your first book.

And now that you've got your fourth book into the marketplace, talk about success, how you see it then and how you see it now.

Success for me, bottom line is as many books in kids hands as possible.

That's for me what it's about.

Was that your inspiration when you wrote your first book?

No, I don't even think.

I just was excited.

I figured out how to finish it.

Like I literally, I didn't really have a plan.

I was just excited and green and happy and had no plan.

I would say that's the answer I get from when I drill it down and I talk to each children's book author about their first book, that tends to be the answer that they actually were able to hold something that they had dreamed about turning into reality.

Dream to reality.

That was so important to them.

Yeah, like you really couldn't come up with plan B until you finished and saw for me I had to hold it before I could run the next race.

And now you've got your fourth book out.

I know it's more, it's more than just saying ta da.

I've got my book done.

Tell us about the success for you now.

Yeah, success for me now is really finding ways to get the books in kids hands and meet them eye to eye is really what I love.

Because you can read the stories and hear one thing.

When I share the stories I really see it land.

So that's getting opportunities to.

To share the stories.

One on Face to Face with Kids is my favorite.

Do you do quite a bit of traveling to.

To reach more children?

Yes, during COVID I got really bad pre Covid and now until I did great during COVID and really I got hunkered down writing.

I haven't done so great.

And now I did a bunch of school visits actually last year, but there was two to three year window where I didn't do bookstores or libraries or school visits.

And I'm now starting last year really getting back into it.

And what do you enjoy most reading at schools, libraries, bookstores.

What's your favorite?

All of it.

All of it?

Yeah.

Anything where I can really look a child and tell them they're extraordinary.

That's like the best thing in the world to me.

The role of writing.

When you first started, you didn't even think that you would ever be a children's book author.

Now you're a children's book author with four books and a book series.

Talk to us about in the grand scheme of things how that's changed your life.

What's the role of being a children's book author now in your life?

It's my full time gig.

My life is full.

We have a very full family and my kids dream very big.

They're in their 20s now and so I'm a full blown in their life.

So that takes a lot of time believe in their passions and their purpose.

So it's kind of everything.

It's everything in my life because what the messages have to say is who I am.

It's what I want to leave the world with.

It's who my kids are.

So it's my career and who I am are all one in the same.

Okay.

The reason I always ask that is I know some of the guests I've had on are young mothers, a lot of them with teaching backgrounds.

And then they start their family.

And so that adds another level to that.

And I've had, I had one guest in particular.

She didn't even have children's book author in her title on Instagram or Facebook.

And I asked her about that and it was an aha moment for her because 15 minutes after getting off the call, the interview updated it.

She did, she did.

And it's that realization, I think that's the whole thing like we've talked about.

You get the finished product in your.

Hand and now what?

Yeah, now what?

And then you have to reflect.

You know what I'M actually a published children's book author and getting your head wrapped around that.

But now that you've had eight years of wrapping your head around that, you are a children's book author.

Nice.

Yes.

Yeah, it's fun.

So, advice for aspiring authors.

And you've given some great advice already.

There's so many little nuggets we've had.

But is there other advice that you would give someone starting out and thinking, oh, I don't know if I can do this.

We've touched on quick.

Bullseye is read, start writing.

Getting in critique groups where you critique others because I learned from both and being critiqued.

Scbwi, going to writing workshops and asking for help and taking what you like and leaving the rest because really you're the filter.

Everybody's going to have an opinion.

So it would really confuse me because I like their opinion, but it wasn't necessarily true for the story I was writing.

So then I go down a rabbit trail because of their critique that didn't serve the story, which ultimately always helped me become a better writer.

But know you're your best filter, so take it.

If it's good and helpful, really integrate it.

Otherwise, just say thank you and let it pass on by.

Okay.

And I always tell people to make sure that you're writing children's books.

So you should hang out with children.

Yes.

That's a very good input.

Yeah.

So I'm thinking about what you said earlier.

Your children are in their 20s now, but if we go back eight years, some of them were probably either laid out adolescence or early.

Oh.

When I started the library runs, they were preschool and kindergarten.

Oh, nice.

Okay.

So from the symphony to a book was a really long time because life I had my parents, I adopted kids, blah, blah, blah, blah.

A lot of stuff got way.

Yes.

From the whack on the head to an actual book was a probably a ten year window.

Oh, you were taking your potential audience with you to the library.

Oh, for sure.

They were the ones that.

Yes.

No, this is terrible.

This is great.

Let's do animals.

It was 100% size of the youth telling me what to do.

That's a great suggestion to go to the library.

But I love that we were able to dig down a little deeper and find out that you actually took part of the audience that you wanted to speak to with you.

Oh, and sit with them for hours on the couch with these stacks of books.

What did you like?

What didn't you like?

Terrific encouragement for readers.

I tend to send save this towards the last but the most important person and you and you've talked about that getting in front of as many children as you can.

So encouragement for readers.

Why should children's book readers purchase your books?

Because there's nothing better than figuring out how to live your best life.

And for me, these stories have taught me how as an adult continuing me in the cycle of fighting for my best life every day.

And I couldn't think of something better for each of us to challenge each other with.

Whether it's my stories or whatever stories work for that mine were written from that standpoint and I hope they give kids that.

But that's what my hope is for the readers, that they wake up every day excited to go for their rest life.

Okay.

Like we were talking earlier, I love how you built some teasers into your books so that readers can find something new each time they read the book.

So.

And then go to the website.

There's a whole blog post and one minute videos on my YouTube that kind of take you through all the resources on the website.

How to become the hero of your own story, how to control your moods like baby baboon and all the fun.

And there's dung beetles, doo doo game.

There's tons of stuff building out dream boards and how to write your own animal story.

So terrific.

I love that.

And final thoughts.

Is there something you said?

You know what, Rick, I wish you would have asked me this one question.

Is there a question you thought, oh, I wish you would have asked me that.

Sure it's a question.

But maybe an answer to a question you gave me earlier is if it taps you on the shoulder, don't quit because like I said, it took me probably from the symphony to an actual book 10 years.

Don't judge it, don't worry about it.

Just keep doing another next thing in front of you that.

Yeah.

Because it took the tapping of my oldest granddaughter on my shoulder to motivate me.

Yeah.

Absolutely.

So incredible.

Yeah.

So I would say just keep honoring the process and the timing of it all is really none of your business.

Just keep going because it will time out if you don't stop for sure.

Kat, thank you very much for being a guest on the Adventures in the Heart of Children's Book Authors podcast.

Your generosity of time and there's so many nuggets here will benefit aspiring authors and readers.

We promise to provide our audience with links to Kat's social media and website.

Her website is chock full of stuff and Kat's describe that if you've enjoyed this episode, please hit the subscribe button to listen to our future episodes and feel free to share this episode with anyone inspired by or who enjoys hearing about Kat and her children's book series Live Big.

Thank you Kat.

Thank you.

Thank you for what you do for books.

Books Matter.