My name is Amanda Capito, and I'm the author of let's Talk Podcasting for Kids.

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

Thanks for having me.

Oh, my pleasure.

As Amanda's mentioned, she's written her children's book, let's Talk Podcasting for Kids, and I look forward to our conversation.

Want to share with the audience something really cool?

And Amanda has written a nonfiction business book, and it's entitled let's Talk Podcasting.

Already.

You're into your second edition, which is what I own and I've read, so I love it.

We're going to unveil part of that mystery today.

Okay.

I can't wait.

Yes.

There's lots of ties between the two.

The first thing I would love to know is, tell us about being a children's book author.

What does that mean to you?

I love that you open with this question.

It's so thoughtful.

And I think sometimes in our busy lives, we don't stop and think, yeah, what does this mean to me?

How does this feel like?

And it's really special.

I've always loved kids.

I was the kind of teen that always was offering to babysit everybody's kids.

I worked as a camp counselor.

My first pay job was as a swimming instructor for young kids.

And so I've just always loved the magic and wonder and creativity that comes with children and storytelling.

And I have pursued a career in mostly corporate and business side of podcasting, which you talked about with my other book, my adult version of the book.

So to say, getting back to my roots and getting back in touch with just that childlike wonder and imagination has been so lovely.

Life giving, it's been really a bright spot in my days to be able to do work around the kids version of the book.

And so I think it was always part of me, and I'm really glad to be able to lean into it.

That is terrific.

And, you know, I just.

As a side note, I was a playground instructor through my high school days.

So you get it.

You're the same common.

You know what, with my grandkids, I just get to be a big kid again.

Think I've ever grown up?

So, yeah, that's a good thing.

You know what they say about living a long life, get younger friends.

That's.

Oh, there you go.

So you're on track to.

To live forever?

Yeah, I set a goal of 111.

All right.

I believe it.

We've mentioned to the audience you wrote your first.

I'm not sure if it's your first book, but you wrote a book on podcasting and for an adult audience.

I don't want to put words in your mouth.

Tell us for your children's book, tell us the origin story.

Like, what motivated you to say, you know what, I've written my business book for adults, but, man, I want to dig deeper.

I want to go deeper into my audience.

So to talk to us about this youthful approach to podcasting.

All right, so the first edition of my adult book, let's Talk Podcasting, came out in 2018, and the second edition just came out last year, 2024.

When I was updating the book, I was looking up all of the latest podcast research, and there's been a lot of research, as you can imagine, that's happened between the two editions.

I actually really love digging into research because sometimes it confirms trends that I was already thinking I knew.

Sometimes it unlocks a whole other area that I wasn't expecting.

So I already had an inkling that podcasting for kids was up and coming.

I was getting more requests to go do podcasting workshops for younger audiences.

I was seeing the popularity of Yodo boxes, which is these audio stories that kids can put a card into and listen to an audio story.

And I found that there was brand new research done by Edison in collaboration with Disney that highlighted the listenership for children 12 and under.

And specifically, the stat that stood out to me was kids 6 to 12 in the US but we know that Canadian listenership is also quite similar.

49% of them had listened to a podcast in the last month.

So about half of the kids between 6 and 12 were listening to podcasts on a regular basis.

I never heard that before.

Yes, it's a shocking number.

And then I went.

As soon as I saw that, I went, oh, my gosh.

And I started digging deeper.

And they had research for kids that were 6 to 8 years old listening to podcasts.

Like they had drilled down to even subsets within that 6 to 12 range.

And it was shocking.

And year over year, it is growing exponentially.

And I just went, oh, my God, there's.

This is notable.

And then when I went to go look to see what resources there were for kids under 12 in podcasting in a nonfiction sense, if they just wanted to learn about it, there was truly nothing.

And so I went, I guess I'm writing a kid's book.

Oh, that's how I began.

Yeah, it is amazing because I talk about this on other episodes, but I wanted to show you.

So there's a QR code.

So this is a bookmark and it actually has a free audiobook.

Okay.

With the QR code and the story behind the story.

What it is, it's my middle granddaughter reading our original book, the Adventures of Caboose, the Rocky Mountain Bear.

And then I interview my oldest granddaughter because she's the inspiration behind Caboose, because you'll notice caboose is spelled with a K and her first name is Kira, with a K. So that's how this all started.

I interview her and she tells the story behind the story and about how this whole children's book writing adventure came to be.

Oh, I love that.

I'm going to have to check that out.

That sounds so sweet.

Thank you.

So I love how you are picking up on a trend, and it's interesting because I'm always looking for different ideas to share with the audience.

One thing I notice when I search our show, Adventures in the Heart of Children's Book Authors, it was interesting.

What I was finding is there was more and more of these shows that were doing children's books as audio.

They were lumped in as a podcast, even though they're not.

I shouldn't say what is a podcast, but.

No, that's fair because the definition keeps changing, and even audiobook to podcast, the lines are blurred.

So it's hard.

I do think that some people will have listened to an audiobook and said they listen to podcasts.

It's a fair thing to notice.

And I think that's indicative of the lack of one definition that we could all rally behind when it comes to podcasting.

It even got my mind flowing because I've got all these 38 stories, and with my grandchildren, we've recorded about half of them in audio book format.

And I thought maybe I should be launching that as a podcast here.

Just add some more stuff onto my plate.

I digress.

Here you are.

You're updating your first version of your adult book.

Let's Talk podcasting from 2018 to 2024.

It definitely stimulates this whole thought process of checking into your research and realizing, oh, my goodness, there's even a bigger market here.

That's the whole inspiration behind the children's book.

Or is there more?

No, that was it, really.

I within seeing that on.

I wrote the book in five minutes on my phone.

Like, it poured out of me and I was.

I think I was in transit somewhere and I just went, oh, I'm just gonna write something.

Just.

It just wrote it like it happened so fast.

That's terrific.

Yeah.

I've talked to many children's book authors who have definitely woken up in the middle of the night, had their iPhone beside their bed, and they recited a whole children's book.

And their spouses will wake up and say, what the heck did you just do?

And when creativity strikes, you gotta just lean in.

Agreed.

I'm interested.

And the reason I'm asking this question is I'm always trying to help children's book authors how to build out their business because 99% of the children's book authors I talk to do not have a children's book business plan.

I'm trying to figure out.

Okay, now this is interesting from with Amanda, and here's my question.

I'm interested in knowing how are you using your children's book to fit into your primary book business plan and your business?

Talk to us about that.

I will say out of the gate that this was maybe not even the most strategic business plan.

Mike.

I've been spending time building a corporate audience, a more professional audience, entrepreneurs and businesses.

And I recognize this is a completely different audience.

But number one, I felt I needed to do this because it needed to be in the world.

Like, I had this, like, undercurrent of maybe even altruism of maybe I'm gonna set somebody on the right path and they're gonna become brilliant podcaster because they read this book.

As a kid, I felt like I. I owed it to the universe to do.

Which might sound a little woo, but that's the reality.

I'm not really trying to build it out as part of lead podcasting.

As my company, we run a podcast production agency.

We do corporate podcasts.

And so that's why the book definitely makes sense.

My adult book definitely makes sense to go hand in hand with my agency.

But we're not in the business of creating kids podcasts.

From a business perspective, this is how I've.

I still do have a business lens on what I do and how I spend my time.

Number one, I was going to go on book tour anyway with my adult book.

So why not go on book tour with both books and add in some extra stops that would be able to have a wider audience.

So that was a check of the box.

It made sense from a business perspective.

And now I could sell both books and people are maybe buying the adult one for themselves and then the kid one for their kids or for a gift.

The second thing is, I'm always doing workshops.

Since I've made my first podcast, I've been sharing the learnings from that and that's.

I made my first one in 2010, so it's been a while.

And I was already.

Thanks.

And I was already starting to be asked to do these kids workshops.

And so the book actually allowed to my workshops just to be better.

The core of my workshop is the book.

I open up with reading the book, and then we extrapolate on that.

So the book is for ages 5 to 9.

And when I'm into classrooms like grade ones, twos, threes, this is how we begin.

And so that strategically has just made my workshops better.

And the last thing is that I do feel that the kids podcast industry is up and coming.

It's not fully fleshed out yet.

There's still a lot of questions around monetization and who are going to be the big front runners in this space.

And I just thought, what's the harm in throwing my hat in that ring and seeing how things shake out and then maybe making a more strategic, strategic business play later.

I'm a creative at heart and I love to experiment.

And so this is me just staying open.

And one thing that I will share here that's coming very soon, and this is part of me just experimenting and seeing what happens, is that we are creating a podcasting app for kids and it will be free and it will live on the domain podcastingforkids.org I couldn't believe that domain was available.

And so I got it.

And I got at the same time that I decided to write the book.

I just thought, oh, that that could be something.

And what we've done is just a community give back.

So it's completely free.

Kids can record themselves and turn it into a little podcast instantly.

This will be launching at the beginning of next month, so December, and we'll see where that goes too.

Maybe there'll be something there.

I love it.

Phenomenal.

Congratulations.

Thanks.

That is fantastic.

And it's interesting.

I'm very fortunate to talk to so many different children's book authors.

I had one guest on.

She's written three different children's books and she's a adult motivational business speaker, and she wrote these books.

And at first I asked her, how does that fit into.

Into what you do?

Yeah.

She says it's absolutely amazing.

Wow.

That it does fit into her business.

Yeah.

And then I've talked to many authors who have done event book readings where there's children not in a school environment, but at a bookstore event or whatever, where there's adults.

And they've said to me, they brought adults to tears and and they've come up and said, oh, that's my story.

That's so nice.

It's incredible how a children's book can actually transcend when we talk about you.

You said 5 to 9 or 4 to 10 or whatever it is.

A lot of times we all take ourselves back to our childhood and we can relate to the story.

That's just outstanding.

Another little fun fact I'll throw out, though, too, just to add on to that, is that it's been unbelievable for anecdotally, to hear how many podcast professionals, which.

Which are ultimately my peers in the p. In the conferences I'm going to have bought the book because it helped them explain to their kid what they do for a living.

They used it as a connection point for their own children to say, yeah, and that's what I do as a podcaster professionally.

So it's.

It also helps explain a job and give life and pictures to a career that some kids don't even know exists.

So that's been nice, too.

Yeah.

And it's cool.

Now my grandkids come over to my office, and I've got two microphones, and I've got lighting and the camera and all that.

But also I.

In the beginning, I had even bought those little lapel mics.

And Dolby, the sound company, they have an app.

That's phenomenal.

Yes.

I recorded us with those lapel mics and used that software on an app.

It was just incredible.

Sounds professional.

Yeah, it does.

It does.

Amazing.

I love that.

So I noticed you have three formats in your book, of course, for everyone who's listening.

Amanda.

I was showing Amanda.

I purchased her book on my tablet, and then I use the Kindle app, but of course it's on my iPad.

And then of course, you have the softcover and you've got a hardcover.

Is that correct?

Or you just have no hardcover, Just a soft cover.

Okay.

Just a soft cover.

Yeah.

So tell us a little bit about, like, how are you using your ebook with your business?

Okay, first I'll say that I very intentionally listed the two formats it comes in, and audio is not there.

And that's a glaring omission.

But.

And I feel like I need to say that it's only because I want to do my own audiobook and sound design it myself and not hire it out.

And I want that to be a fun, creative project for me over the holidays.

So an audio version.

Just pick up on my idea that I shared with you.

Yes.

Create a QR code.

Brilliant.

And a bookmark.

And Then there you go.

And off to the races.

Yeah.

So I got to do that.

That's going to happen.

And the adult book has an audiobook, obviously.

Like, that's.

Yeah.

And putting it on.

And by the way, that's just in Canva.

Free Canva.

Yeah.

It looks great.

And it looks so pro.

All the fun.

So it's amazing.

So an audiobook is coming then.

I chose a soft cover because I love Robert Munsch books, to be honest.

And my book looks and feels like a Robert Munsch book.

That was my inspiration.

So it's like sized.

I went and picked up a bunch of kids books and I just kept coming back to the books I grew up on, which is Robert Munch.

And I was like, that's the kind of book I want to have.

So it's soft cover because of that.

The back is even designed the same way with an illustration.

I did an illustration of myself and the illustrator.

Robert Munch typically put a real photo, but liked the illustrator was just so talented.

Ladan legiardi.

That's how I landed on the sub cover.

And then the ebook version or the digital version was really for.

My strategy was give it to people at a really affordable rate or for free if you have.

I signed up to be.

If you.

Part of the subscription with Kindle, you'll.

You can just get it.

Because I was hoping that people would love the book so much.

They'd buy the soft cover, they'd buy a copy of it.

So I purposely said, you know what?

This is not going to be what makes big bucks.

And I know it.

I just want to get it in people's hands.

They're going to see how beautiful the illustrations are.

They're going to see how great of a story it is.

There's little work pages at the back.

I love that.

I love that kids to fill out.

Yeah.

And that's really good to have physically in hand.

And so I thought if people could even take a look and see that, they're going to want to purchase it.

So that was the thing I love.

About your book too, is that it's not only informational and historical in a matter because you talk a little bit about the history of podcasting, but what I love about it is that you trigger people's minds, including mine.

And then at the end, you create these questions so that people can start formatting their own podcast.

Yeah, exactly.

Because I just wanted people.

The goal was to help kids feel empowered, to make them love the medium, but also feel like they could do it Themselves.

And to get them started, I want.

To talk to you a bit about publishing.

Now that we've talked about your two formats.

And I noticed, first of all, congratulations.

I noticed it says, your book says printed in Canada.

Now I'm just curious, did you run off a whole bunch of copies?

Yeah.

You have a whole bunch of copies Printed.

Printed, yeah.

Okay.

Now also on Amazon, it's print on demand on Amazon.

Okay.

Okay.

So you.

I didn't want to have to deal with fulfillment.

No.

And I don't blame you.

And that's fantastic.

Printed some quantities for yourself.

And then.

And just so everyone understands, too, the thing I love about.

Because people always talk about the big corporations or whatever, but at the end of the day, Amazon, if you purchase a book in Canada, it's printed in Canada.

Yeah.

And sometimes, you know what?

If you only purchase.

If you purchase one copy of a book, a lot of times, like in Alberta, they print these books.

If I order one copy, it's printed about 15 minutes from my house.

I see.

Like, that's nice.

And I. I know there are.

Everybody has different reasons for how they go about publishing and where they point people to buy, but for me, Amazon handling fulfillment and doing individual, like Print on demand makes it possible for me to sell the way they do and expand the reach.

And so for me, I've been.

I am all for it.

I think it's been great.

So, yes, I did a batch that I printed out in British Columbia and had shipped to me.

Those are the books that I tend to take to my workshops.

Take when I'm doing an author signing, I will send out as gifts or whatever.

So that's my base.

I have a bit.

I have a whole bunch of boxes.

And then I'm also listed on Amazon, which is print on Demand, and also IngramSpark, which is also print on demand.

And that gives you worldwide distribution.

That's it.

Yeah.

Through online retailers like Indigo or Barnes and Noble in the States.

Exactly.

Yeah.

Fantastic.

Now, the other thing I noticed, and because we're an independent book publisher, ours is called Caboose, the Rocky Mountain Bear Publishing Den.

And that's the name of our publishing company.

And I noticed you named your publishing company after your own book.

Yes.

Let's talk Podcasting Inc. Yeah, I incorporated a whole other business to run these through.

And this was all strategic.

So I have my incorporation for my podcast production company, Lead Podcasting Inc. And I was being strategic.

So if you want to get into the business side of it, I was first thinking, oh, should I run the books through this company.

But you know, this company is doing agency like service based production work.

It's not really aligned.

And should I ever want to sell the company or make decisions for that agency, I wouldn't want the book to be affected.

It needs to be separate.

So just so you know, my question strategic.

Because I'd like the listeners to learn.

That's why I figured.

Yes.

The behind the scenes.

The behind the scenes.

Yeah.

The business mind behind it.

Because no one really talks about it.

So it's a good question.

Like how.

Why this.

And you and I chose to incorporate and have it mainly be books.

And also through that corporation.

If I'm running workshops or anything connected to the book, it goes through that corporation.

And so it's separate.

Terrific.

Terrific.

I was looking at with you owning your own publishing company and I always like to look a little bit deeper and I noticed you gave people credit for helping you.

Let's start with the publishing support because I think that's what you call it, publishing support.

So talk to us about that person and how that came to be.

Yeah.

And I.

And this is on the inside cover.

And so I already talked about the illustrator and designer Ladan and the publishing support is what kind of the catch all.

It's Ishita Chopra.

And this is actually a student who interned with me and she helped me with both my books.

And I just felt like she deserved to have her name on the inside cover because she really helped with just getting quotes for publishing like where am I printing it for my copies?

She helped register my ISBN numbers, which is free to do, but you just.

Have to fill out some forms just so everyone understands.

Free to do in Canada, not inexpensive to do in other parts of the world.

Okay, that's good context.

Yeah, we're fortunate in Canada.

And so there's a couple of duties like that she helped with and also was the one who came with me to the bookstores and picked up all the kids books.

And we talked out which one do we like and what kind of paper do we think helped with all of these kind of like odd.

Well, I think I love that story we're sharing with our guests.

And the reason I want to tell my origin story a little bit is that when I looked to publish my first book and actually I wrote two business books before I ever wrote a children's book.

So I wrote two books on investment real estate.

And when I went to write the book, I tried to get a traditional publisher and all that kind of good stuff and eventually settled on independent publishing.

I reached out to a local college in the Edmonton area and said, I'm looking for someone who could help me with web site design and book formatting.

I noticed you have courses on all this stuff.

Do you have a student in mind?

And believe it or not, that's how I have a 10 year relationship with a guy who had just started his own business, was maybe a year into it, and him and I have gone on this journey together.

So he's grown his company in graphic design, book formatting, web site design.

I've supported him and I've tried to push business his way.

And it all started by just phoning your local community college or university and finding out from the head of the department, how did you find your person?

So Ishita actually reached out to me.

It's interesting because I. I did reach out to a college.

I went to Humber, which is a local college that has a publishing program.

I did the same thing you did.

I ended up meeting some really neat people, but nobody that ended up being able to fit the kind of role I was imagining.

Though I did meet one gal who was the one who helped me get the kindle version all up and running.

So that was good to get the epub file, that's what it's called.

To get the digital copy of the book available.

But Ishita had reached out to my agency to see if she could help with podcast production.

And I didn't have an internship available on that side of things.

But then I saw that she had actually written as a teenager.

She had written a kid's book.

This was part of her resume.

And she said she had a keen interest in publishing.

Just coincidence that was on part of her cover.

And so I just thought, oh, this is meant to be.

And so I gave her a ring and told her, this is a unique moment in time where I have to get both these books out the door.

Do you want to help?

And so she did a portion of the work that was part of a formal internship and then a portion of the work that I paid her for hourly.

And that, yeah, it was just a great working relationship, but I just feel very kismet.

Yeah.

What a way to get an education, too.

Because you know what they say, the best education is doing.

Yeah, exactly.

Yeah.

Oh, wow.

Good for you.

That's fantastic.

It was a win win.

Did the illustrator do the COVID design also?

Yes.

So the illustrator, La Dan is somebody that I've worked with for years.

Okay.

Me and her used to work at a digital content agency over a decade ago together, and she had done all the design work.

I knew she.

She used to work for listeners in Canada.

You might know Chickadee or Owl magazine.

These are magazines for kids that are like subscription based and still run into this day.

So she did all the illustrations for those magazines in its early days.

So brilliant designer.

Loved doing kids work.

She laid out my adult book which is not as fun for her because it's very tedious work to lay out a novel.

So she did all that and then she illustrated the entirety of the kids book.

Ladan also created the logo for my agency Lead Podcasting.

So her design work, her fingerprints are all over my stuff.

She's so talented and I had never worked with her on any kids products though.

And I'm so happy with how she.

She went about designing it especially well.

It's the image of me able to align yourself one with someone who had the creativity to go beyond just a business book.

Yes.

And this is where she thrives.

This is actually her sweet spot.

And knowing me, I think because she knew me, she was able to turned me into a cartoon.

Even better.

She really captured me.

But I think it's because she knew me.

I think that was part of the magic of it.

I love that I went to your website.

Now it's a business type website.

Yeah.

It's primary focuses on promoting your books and your events.

So talk to us about who designed your website and talk to us about that whole strategy behind your website.

Okay, so I have lots of websites.

I should preface this.

I have Amanda Capito.com, which is my name and that's the what I call is the like center of the star.

This has everything I do and it all stems from this website.

Then I have a website for my adult book, let's Talk podcasting.

Com.

I have a website for my company lead Podcasting.

Com and I have a website for my kids book, let's Talk Podcasting for kids.

Com.

I bought all those domains.

Okay.

And that's just smart to do even for search engine optimization and make sure nobody weird gets the exact name of your book.

I already claimed those domains the moment I knew these were going to be the titles.

I built out the let's Talk podcasting for Kids.com, which is the website that is point the book Kids Book points to in the back.

That was built out by myself and with the help of an intern.

It was very bootstrapped.

It's in Squarespace and I like Squarespace because it really allows you to make a professional looking website.

And I want to pick up on one thing you said because I want to repeat it for our listeners.

Yes.

You said that you put your website on the back of your book.

Yeah.

Okay.

And I want to emphasize that to new children's book authors or aspiring children's book authority authors.

Make sure if you have a website that you put it on your book.

Because so many times I'll buy children's books and I'll go to look for the author's website or the book's website, and it's not on the book.

And then when I talk to the author, they say, oh, yeah, I have a website.

And so then I ask them and they say, oh.

And it's almost like a aha moment.

Right?

Yeah.

So I just want to share that.

So thank you for mentioning that.

Yes.

No, it's good.

And that was strategic.

And I always knew that I was going to launch the app podcastingforkids.org and I thought, oh, do I put that website too?

But I knew it wouldn't be ready in time for the book.

So my plan is that's again my star of all these websites.

So once that is live, there will be a big banner on letstalkingforkids.com that will also prompt people to go check that out so they can try to make their own podcast.

My website, I will say too, for my kids and for anybody who's writing a kid's book, it's.

You could make your website.

You could keep editing your website forever.

You could always make it better.

Yeah.

So you gotta just.

It's in it.

It's iterations.

You don't have to have it perfect.

So I just put it up.

It was so simple.

It was two pages.

I got an intern in who could upload a gallery of photos.

I went, great, you could work on that.

And so we're just adding to it slowly.

And even this interview, I'm excited to embed it on my website once it comes out.

So, like, of course.

I love what you said again.

And it's such a really a big nugget to share.

And that is done is better than perfect.

I need to say that not only was Amanda talking about website, but also your children's book.

If you.

Especially if you're an independent book author, whether you're a children's book author or you're an independent business book author.

What kind of.

You have literary license to go in and make those changes later.

If perfect is holding you back, get off of it and get on to done.

Yeah.

And then you can make it Better down the road.

And there's no perfect in creative work is what I believe.

Like you could just.

There's no moment that it's.

Everything is exactly right because then you change, something else changes.

Like bingo.

You gotta just ship it.

That's what we say in business, ship it.

I love it.

I love it.

Now, I know you talked a bit about I love it.

Amanda is one of the main characters in her book.

I actually believe Amanda is the two main characters in her book.

And we'll get to that in a moment.

Amanda, was there a specific person or event if you went back a bit further, further from what motivated you?

I know you talked about this children's book idea came to you as you were revising go from first edition to second edition.

But was there a specific person or event that really was the catalyst behind your children's book?

I did a workshop for Girl Guides in Canada and that was two years ago.

It was the first workshop for kids that I ran.

So there was two that I did back to back this one and then I did a summer camp shortly after.

And the girl guys were actually brownies now, recalled Embers, I think.

So around that age of six to eight again.

And then I did a kids camp where they were all around nine or ten.

Summer camp.

Okay.

So I did these two events back to back.

And the Girl Guides were so into podcasting.

I played a clip, I said, let's just see how long they listen.

Audio only.

They listened to an eight minute clip, no pictures.

And they were sitting, listening.

And that was the end of the episode.

And they were like, oh, we want to hear more.

It's done.

That's the episode.

You got to listen more like, I couldn't believe it.

And here is this notion that we all hear that kids have no attention span.

You got seconds they were in.

So I went, wow, that's special.

Then I was at the summer camp a couple months later, again around 10 years old.

And I knew my second edition of my book was coming out.

And so I actually had a lot of first editions, copies left that I was just given out for free just to make a move before we get out the second edition.

And I just thought, oh, I don't have anything to give these 10 year olds.

I guess I'll just give them my adult book.

And you should have seen these girls lining up to get my book and to get my signature.

And this is the adult book.

I just love this.

Oh my goodness, it's such a sweet photo of them all in a line holding proudly holding my adult novel about podcasting.

And I just.

My heart was like, they deserve something for them.

So, yeah, like, that kind of all definitely was stirring up inside of me.

And it came together as soon as I read that stat.

But, yeah, that's terrific.

That's terrific.

I want to get into character development a little because I know you're one of the main stars now.

It's interesting because I mentioned to you that my granddaughter Kira is actually the inspiration behind Caboose.

Caboose does have a papa, which that's what my grandchildren call me.

Papa.

I'm actually bear in the book.

And it's fun when you actually.

Now nobody knows I'm the bear except for me telling you right now that I'm the bear.

It's like a little Easter egg.

Exactly, Exactly.

When we start to go through your children's book, it starts with you as an adult.

Yeah.

Which is cool.

And so guess what?

In 40 years, you'll still look the same.

Great.

I. Yeah, exactly.

Yes.

Keep myself looking like this.

Yeah.

And the other character was.

Is that you as a child?

No.

You know what I wanted to make it as so to describe the child.

If anybody's listening to the audio only version of this, it's like purple skin, purple curly hair.

And I actually just wanted this child to.

I was trying to make it the most ambiguous on all fronts.

I wanted this to be anyone.

I wanted anyone to look at this and see themselves in it.

And so you'll see it's a pretty gender neutral child.

Terrific.

And culturally agnostic.

On purpose.

All on purpose to be like.

I just hoped that a lot of kids could see themselves in it.

That was the goal with the child care.

Nice touch.

Nice touch.

Yeah.

And.

But then you do see that the kid who's nameless because it's just meant to be the reader.

It.

They end up doing a story about their family, which I am known to do.

I was always recording my family family growing up.

And even as I got into audio professionally, I just thought, oh, I want to capture these moments through audio.

And there's this really cute illustration of them, like, holding up the phone to their granny and sharing stories.

And I feel I've always been passionate about legacies, oral histories, and listening to stories from my grandparents, which I am so lucky to still have three of them alive.

And that sharing the storytelling and passing it down is so special.

And so that interaction is definitely inspired by what I appreciate and value.

And it was really sweet because I have.

My cousin has a child, and so we share A grandmother.

And it's a great grandmother to this child.

And that child said, it's me interviewing Nanina.

And it's like that she saw herself in it, and she saw herself interviewing her great grandma.

And I was like, that's perfect.

That's exactly what I want it.

Nice.

That's fantastic.

Yeah.

Because it's interesting you should say that, too, because when I got this whole idea about podcasting, I actually did nine episodes on investment real estate.

And during COVID after I had written my book, I thought, okay, I better build a supporting podcast show.

And while I was doing all that, I found I was getting engaged with my grandchildren because they were frustrated over this whole Covid thing.

So I actually had them come over and I interviewed them about this whole experience.

Wow.

So I haven't gone back and listened, but I'm going to have to do that because I asked them some pretty pointed questions about this whole Covid experience, which I hope no one has to live through again.

Yeah.

But at least I have their words in their young voices.

What a neat time capsule.

Absolutely.

Thank you for sharing about the whole character development and the family.

Let's talk a little bit about your theme when you started to put this whole thing together.

And I love how you started off and when you were with your children's book and you gave us a little bit of a history lesson.

And I loved how you took it back to.

I think you said that podcasting originated in about 2004.

And I loved what you said in the book was.

And that's older than you or.

Yes.

Yeah, I love that part.

But you know what?

2004 isn't that long ago.

Yeah.

That's why it's a context.

So I had.

I was struggling with that line a little bit because I had said.

Because this book was.

It was going to be more than 20 years old at that point, and that's what I had originally wrote.

And then actually, one of my editors was the one who said, why don't you just say?

Because I said, oh, but it'll be more than 20 years old, then the book will be dated.

I was trying not to date it.

And one of my editors was the one who said, why don't you just say that means they're older than you?

Because it's always going to be a book for five to eight year olds, and it'll always be older than them.

And I'm like, perfect.

Absolutely.

Yeah.

And it's funny, too, because I've been talking lately about our best renewable resource is our Children.

Yeah, they just keep coming.

Yeah.

You know what you get.

And you get new 5 to 9 year olds all the time.

Yes.

So that's right.

And that's why I've been trying to tell people when they're promoting their book to realize that you have an evergreen product.

Yeah.

It'll not go out of trend because your audience could be 4 to 10 or 5 to 9 or whatever, but they're always coming back into the picture.

Yep, exactly.

And I purposely wrote it that way to say that let's let this book last beyond this cohort of 5 to 9 year olds.

Couldn't agree with you more.

So talk to us about your theme.

How did you develop the theme when you were thinking about a children's audience?

I always knew that I had to give some historical context because I think that's important.

So that's how we start the definition, where it came from.

And this is actually how I run all my workshops.

So it really was a tried and true method of then I was, how do I break down production, but for a child, and really coming down to the basics, which the production steps listed are truly the same steps if you were adult, just not as nuanced.

But with my company, we always break down our production.

So if you go to our website, our corporate website, we say we work on four steps.

Show development, episode mapping, production, and then distribution.

So how can I break that down for kids?

So it's like, what is the theme of your show?

That's your show development, who's gonna be talking and how many episodes.

That's your episode mapping, your production.

I put a couple pages on saying that they could record it on their phone or they could perform it live and then distribution.

I even tackle that in the book.

But mindful that I'm not necessarily wanting kids to go upload and create a whole RSS feed and there might be some privacy concerns.

So I. I talk about sharing it online, but also keeping it for themselves and giving them a little bit of an option there to say it could be a private podcast.

Because once you learn how to do an attachment, that.

Right.

It's.

Yeah.

You open the whole world.

Right.

Yeah.

It doesn't just have to be a print attachment.

It can be an audio attachment, a video attachment.

And I think most kids today know how to do.

To do that.

Yeah.

So that's why you see a child at a computer.

And I thought if parents are going to want to encourage that and maybe they're going to send a little recording to their grandma if they're already doing that.

Then great.

But also giving you the option of you don't have to.

So the.

I broke down the four steps and then we kind we round out the story with expanding it.

Another big part of my workshop is talking about, especially in English speaking markets, we tend to be very insular and we don't think about what is the podcast globally, what's happening in other countries and other languages.

And it's quite interesting and robust and popping.

And so I always give that global lens when I do my presentations.

And so I really zoom out in the book.

And.

And I love that how you did the touch points on the globe.

Yes.

I'll tell you what's.

Why is that when I first started this whole podcast show, I thought, okay, I'm going after primarily North Americans or that was my perception, the people that would listen to the podcast show.

We are now listeners in over 38 different countries.

Wow.

Yep.

That's our podcasting.

Oh my goodness.

Like places, like I've visited a lot of places in the world, but there's places I have.

And I went, what the heck?

Yeah, it's amazing.

It's global.

It is.

There's no way about it.

Yeah.

So we try to lean into that and talk about all the different languages and then it even zooms out further and pictures an alien being interviewed just for fun.

Yeah.

And that was actually, that was the illustrator Ladan's idea to take it really out of this world.

And I just thought, oh, that's such a fun way to wrap it up.

The central teaching as you build out the book.

So I know we talked about themes, so talk to us about the central teaching.

When I'm doing the workshops, the key pieces is number one, exposing them to a new medium and maybe this will be a new career path they want to go down.

So just knowledge sharing really.

Yes.

Number two, imagination.

And when I play the clips, also when I do the workshop, I play clips of podcasts and we will hear voices and then we'll all go around the room and describe what did they imagine that person to look like of that voice?

And everybody will have imagined something slightly different.

And that's the power of audio storytelling.

Or you become part of the story because you're imagining things.

So we talk about imagination.

And that's in the book too, that the co host is the dog and they're like that.

And it was a very imaginative page of what the dog would share on the podcast.

Talking about its food and the cat, whatever.

And then the third is loving your voice.

And the unique perspectives that everybody has a.

As a story to share.

And that's really the closing sentiment.

And when we do the workshop, we talk a lot about how even at a young age, people can be so harsh on hearing their voice back on a recording.

And we talk about why that is, like, the science behind it.

And then we all record a little something together, and we all cheer for each other to start wiring those neural pathways to have a love and appreciation for their voice, no matter what it sounds like.

I know.

I even found that I've got four out of my five grandchildren who have done the audiobooks and.

Which has been fantastic.

But my youngest granddaughter, she just doesn't like her voice.

And no matter how much I work on complimenting her, it just.

That breaks my heart.

Yeah.

I just haven't found that.

I haven't cracked the nut yet.

Okay.

Hopefully it comes soon at some point.

That would be fun, for sure.

And yet I did do a podcast interview with her through Covid.

Okay.

Yeah.

So you got her down.

You got her voice on tape somewhere.

I do.

That's awesome asking you this question.

It's fun in a way for me because most of the time, I'm talking to children's book authors.

That's their primary focus.

And for you, you've done both.

You've done an adult business book, and you've also written a children's book.

Share with us maybe the similarities of your development and writing process for writing a children's book.

As my writing process was really fast to begin with.

Like, that first draft just flew out of me.

But like, with an adult book or a kid's book, you want to be edited.

For the kids book specifically, I got a teacher who was teaching this age group to read it, and I got kids in that age group to read it.

So I made a little focus group.

So I did both.

And the teacher, A couple of adults.

A teacher and a couple others who work with kids.

So maybe like three.

Two or three eyes from adults, and then two or three eyes from a kid's perspective in total.

And the edits, some of them were great.

Some of them I chose not to take.

You can.

You gotta just pick and choose because it can be overwhelmed and you can receive edits forever.

So you also have to know when you're gonna cut it off.

So I knew.

Yeah, I knew.

These are the core people I want the advice from.

I consolidated it all.

I took the advice I wanted.

And for instance, I'll give a specific example.

Cause I think that's helpful.

There was, on my second last page, there's a line that says, podcasts are being made all over the world.

They can be made in different languages and share unique perspectives.

And one of the pieces of feedback was that the word perspectives might be a little bit too tough for ages 5 to 9.

But then somebody else said, we actually like that it's a little bit hard because it's stretch reading for people who are wanting to learn and not just make it so easy.

And so that was one where it's like, there's no right or wrong whether I keep this word in or not.

Absolutely.

I have to choose.

And I ultimately, as you saw, choose to keep it in.

And that was intentional, but that was something that was discussed and.

And I will say too, that the book was being read without illustration first and then also with illustration, because sometimes the illustration changes the feel of the book.

So I think it is important to have both.

So the finalize was of a five year old with the illustration.

And I told my friend to give it to her kid.

His name is Brooks.

And actually he came to my book launch and helped me read it on its first go.

Nice.

Which was so sweet.

But Brooks was the first official reader with the illustration.

And I said, she put it on her phone as a PDF and I said, just give it to him and see what happens.

And so she recorded him reading it and it was really interesting to just see how he flipped through the pages and what words he stumbled on and.

Yeah, and that was really helpful for me.

And it's interesting because I talk about this on other episodes because we've done about half of our books out of the 38 in audio, and my grandchildren have been the narrators of some of the books.

The neat thing about them reading the book aloud with no pictures is they have helped me edit the book.

Because you say papa, that word.

I don't think so.

Yeah.

And then I'll ask them, okay, what word should we be using again?

I'm glad you're mentioning that.

It's such a great way to edit, is go right to your audience.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And that's what I did with my adult book too, to be honest.

I. I got a professional copywriter to look at it, but you also want to get podcast professionals to look at it and say, does it check out?

Is this helpful?

I asked for five testimonials for my adult book and I gave them all a working PDF on purpose to say, I would like you to write testimonial.

But also I'm open to Feedback.

And sometimes I got good feedback and I incorporated them right into the book.

Because I. I said, and you know what?

When this person read it, they said this.

It added to the books of the adult technique.

Besides your personal experience.

Cause I know you talked about your love of research.

And so I'm curious, did you need to do any additional research when you're doing your children's book, or did you feel like doing an adult book is one thing, doing a children's book is another thing.

Did you have to break down some of your own personal barriers when you put your children's book together?

I did a lot of market research with the kids book.

So I began with seeing, is there anything else out there?

The answer was no.

But I had never dabbled in kids marketing kids books at all.

I had to do a lot of market research.

And.

And thankfully, this is what Ishita and my intern who helped me with the website, they both did.

So I got them, for instance, to compile a list of a kid's book author websites, kid authors of kids books on Instagram.

I did a lot of these sort of research to figure out because I did wonder, should I make a Instagram account just for this book?

I landed on no based on research.

And so there was a lot of strategic decisions around the marketing that came from doing research.

Wow, Good for you.

Yeah.

You gave your children's book a lot of thought, which I love.

And so as you developed it and we talked about having a book business plan, but I'm curious if we can delve a bit deeper into the success of your book and what does it mean to you?

So let's take you back.

When you started writing the book and it popped into your mind and you got it down quick.

Now you've got this children's book and you're starting to put it together.

How did you envision success for this book and what does it look like now?

Yeah, that I love this question because I think success is so subjective and there's no one definition.

And even someone's definitions might change day by day, including my own.

Right.

And so I always went with the intention of doing this.

And everything about this book was actually just meant to be fun and life giving to me.

Really.

Like the moment it got stressful, I went, then we're not going down that route.

Like, it couldn't be for me because it was a side project and not my sole goal.

I really had to keep the focus on Joy and I ended up.

That's why actually it's a great Example of why I don't have the audiobook out yet, because that I wanted that to be a joyful experience for me to create and not under the gun stressed.

And you know what?

I'm going to do it at a time where I can really enjoy doing the sound effects and make them myself instead of rushing.

And so monetary wise, and as you alluded to, illustrating an original book is expensive.

Printing it in Canada is expensive.

So no, I, I haven't broken even yet and.

But that wasn't my goal.

I knew I was going to invest in this and over time, I'm sure, especially with the workshops and all of the work that comes from it, but my book sells for 1395 Canadian and it's going to just be a long game success for me, a joyful experience, seeing kids light up and be open to podcasting.

Every time I go into a class, I walk out feeling like my cup is full.

And that's that success to me.

Having a book I'm proud of, that's like on my wall behind me.

Success, that's success to me.

And I'm thankful I did.

My one little metric that I did want to hit, which I did, was to hit number one on Amazon in my category the week of release.

And I did.

And for me, I. I've already hit all the success metrics.

I'm glad you said that because again, like you said, it's all subjective and some people, they just want to hold their book in their hand.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And that's a win.

That's success.

Big time.

Big time.

And it's interesting for me, what I love about your book is it's a.

You're teaching a fun skill that someone could parlay into a career and they may not even have thought about it because you're a child.

Okay.

And I had the great fortune.

I got to go to my youngest grandson's class and read our book.

And this was last year and he was in the last year of elementary.

And what was interesting is the audience was a little older because the range of our book is from about 4 to 10, and these were 11 and 12 year olds.

What was interesting is at the end, I opened the floor up to questions and what was amazing is the interest in not only learning how to write a book, a children's book, there was a huge amount of interest in illustrating.

Wow.

And it was just amazing to me.

And I was telling the students, I was saying, you know what, we had to go offshore our illustrators in the uk.

And I said I would Encourage.

And they said, but is there any type of career?

And I said, think about this for a moment.

Think about all the Disney movies that come out.

So I asked them about the different movies they had seen.

I said, they need animators.

And I said, how many of you play games?

Video games.

They need animators.

I said, comic books.

And it just goes on and on.

And now all of a sudden, the lights were coming on and saying, whoa.

Illustration.

That's a big feel.

Yeah.

That's incredible.

Opening their minds like that, I think is invaluable.

And you know what?

One goal for me, this would be a really great success metric if 20 years from now, a very famous podcaster says that they learned about podcasting because someone gifted them a kid's book about it.

That would be like, yeah, the ultimate win.

Yeah, absolutely.

Yeah.

I couldn't agree with you more now that you've written your first children's book.

And I.

Cause I was thinking, you know what, Amanda, you might be onto something here you could do a book on.

Just want a little bit of the royalties so you can do a book on video.

Okay.

Because right now, I record this in video and audio, but I only release it in audio on the video side of it for what's my next children's book?

I'm just planting seasons, saying, there's different skills here.

There's the.

What you just described with the four steps in putting a production together.

So the production side of it, it's just amazing.

The opportunity, endless.

There you go.

So I just gave you three or four more ideas for three or four children's books.

Okay.

I'll kick.

Your check will be in the mail.

Okay.

Advice for aspiring authors.

I think I'll circle back to what we talked to in the beginning, is that if you have an idea, you gotta just do it.

I have seen so many people have so many good ideas and just not act on it.

That's broad strokes, and we said that before, but more granular.

Tip.

Here's a couple of approaches.

If you find yourself stuck, you have this idea, and you just want to get it out in the world.

If there's an element that is stressing you out that you can't even wrap your head around, just hire somebody to help you with that piece.

Okay?

Because sometimes we have mental blocks around stuff, and that will hold you back.

So you gotta just get somebody to help you or even volunteer to help you, but just get extra hands on the items that are keeping you up at night.

Number two is give yourself deadlines.

Just make up deadlines.

And they have to be micro deadlines.

They can't just be.

And my book will be out by this date.

You have to say, by what day will I stop writing?

By what day will I have people edit it?

By what day am I sending it to the printer?

And then by what day am I hoping to put this out in the world?

Make four or five, six steps of deadlines for yourself.

Great advice.

And hold yourself to that.

And if you need an accountability buddy, get somebody to hold you accountable.

A friend who is going to message you the day before saying, you have one more day.

Did you do it yet?

Like, you really got to commit.

And you can always say that life is too busy.

You could always say, I'll do it next month.

Your life will always be busy.

You'll always say, you'll do it next month.

So if you really want to do something, figure out how to do it now.

Because it's.

Now is as good as any time.

So you got to just figure it out if you really want this.

For sure.

I really appreciate that.

That's great advice.

Encouragement for readers.

So why should someone purchase your book and read it?

Not only is it the only book about podcasting for kids, so really it's a trailblazer in and of itself, but I do think that gifting this to a child is not only fun and entertaining, but they're going to learn.

And I think that's the nice little mix of having something that's entertaining but also educational.

And it strikes that right down the middle.

And it's not just the book as you alluded to in the beginning.

It really sparks your imagination.

And then there's the work pages in the back.

And I've seen already so many kids bring their book back to me with it all filled out.

I've had kids record stuff.

That's great.

So cute.

Yeah.

So it really does.

This is, like, starting point for who knows how many hours of entertainment and learning.

So I do think it's.

Yeah, it's a good thing to gift to a little one in your life.

It's so cool now because you know what?

All five of my grandchildren have.

Guess what?

They have a phone.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Okay.

And they.

And today they're so sophisticated.

The ability to record on them and the quality is so good.

Yeah.

So this is not going anywhere.

All this to say is podcasting is not going anywhere.

And so you might as well.

And already when I go into grade one, two, three classes, I always say, who knows what a podcast is before I even start.

There's always a handful of kids that already know they're starting young.

So you might as well equip them to know what it's all about and inspire them in a positive way.

For sure.

Absolutely.

Final thoughts.

Is there anything that you think I missed I should have said?

Oh, and you might say to yourself, I wish Rick would have asked me that question.

I think you asked me really thoughtful questions and I haven't done an in depth interview about my kids book like this yet.

So this is really.

You got a lot of first time anecdotes from me from sharing publicly.

The only thing other thing I think I'll say that's a fun fact is the version of me that's on the COVID of the book, which is me in this like purple sweater with these orange headphones.

Like that was an image that actually existed.

I own this purple sweater like truly.

And so it's been fun.

If you're ever going to make yourself into a cartoon, it's actually great to own the outfit that you have because then when I go out places with it, oh, it's just always a hit.

Like people really love it.

The the illustrator has in a orange.

Now this is kind of wild.

Let's see if I can find it here and show you.

This is our second book.

Page five illustration.

Here's me in an orange jacket.

Yeah, right.

And I said and do you own.

An orange jacket, Rick?

I've actually Amazoned it.

I actually looked on Amazon to find can I buy one?

And did you find one?

I did, yes.

Okay.

I haven't ordered it yet, but I found it.

Okay, but see, you've done it backwards.

You got to do it the other way around.

You got to own the.

Yeah, thanks for sharing that.

There you go.

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

The generosity of time and your insights.

Again, I'm always looking for something new and you bringing this cool skill to children.

I just love it.

So thank you for doing that and we promise to provide the audience with links to Amanda's website, her social media links, and if you've enjoyed this episode, please hit the subscribe button to listen to future episodes and feel free to share this episode with anyone inspired by or who enjoys hearing about Amanda and her children's book.

Let's talk podcasting for kids.

Thanks Amanda.

Thanks.