Welcome to the Adventures in the Heart of Children's Book Authors Podcast.

I'm your host, Rick Harris.

Today we're going to review lessons learned from our first 25 episodes and the insights children's book authors shared with me.

Thank you for joining me today on this podcast episode.

For those who have been listening to the show from the start, I'm pleased to serve you as children's book readers, aspiring authors and supporters of our podcast guests.

It's essential to build a podcast that speaks from the heart of children's book authors.

These folks have big hearts.

Self published authors are doers bringing much value through their children's books for children.

If you are an aspiring author, you can learn a lot from people who have done what you want to do.

The idea of our children's book readers audience is to give you a chance to listen to a children's book author and their energy in bringing their children's book into the world of words and illustrations.

As I interviewed each self published children's book author, I intended to give you as readers the story behind the author's story and to provide you with a chance to decide if this is a children's book author you would like to support.

Without children's readers, we as children's book authors would be writing in a void of self.

With every one of my children's book author guests, not one children's book writer was motivated or inspired to write to themselves.

There is a more potent force at work.

The best communication medium.

As a self published children's book author who has set up accounts on various social media platforms such as Instagram, Facebook, X threads, LinkedIn and a blog on my website, I decided that podcasting was a medium I could embrace.

Podcasts allow me to share our content with listeners from around the globe.

It's exciting that our first 25 episodes were listened to in over 19 countries.

This is no surprise Children are global.

Children's book authors have a worldwide reach.

In one of our episodes, a children's book author from the US was surprised that her book had been purchased in India.

As a longtime listener of multiple podcast shows, I find podcasts inspiring, educational and entertaining.

Hopefully you've been getting the same value from our podcast show, Adventures in the Heart of Children's Book Authors.

I've been a guest on several podcasts over the years and love the format of most podcasts and the sharing community.

Choosing podcasting as a communication medium to speak to other self published book authors, learn from them, and share their experiences and knowledge with you.

The listener is Fantastic.

You might be wondering, am I supporting other children's book authors out of the goodness of my heart?

I was looking for a marketing strategy to introduce and sell more of our children's book.

The philosophy or business model was I scratch your back and you scratch my back.

Sharing our social media reach and podcast audience with my guests could help reach more reading consumers and that's what I was hoping for when working with other children's book authors.

This method of I scratch your back, you scratch mine would be reciprocal as my guests would share their podcast episodes through their social media accounts and their audience and reach out to their email list as I sent them a link to to their episode.

No matter the length of a podcast episode, you can listen for several minutes and return at any moment to continue listening.

You don't need to consume all the content at once.

The amount of learning from others I received was incredible.

It made a difference in my financial where for all my health and educational knowledge and skills, I'm richer in so many ways.

However, as a self published children's book author, I knew our path and process could not alone help others in their children's book authorship journey.

From the first interview with a self published book author, I knew I had struck gold a mine of knowledge, experiences, insights and methods.

We have many book authors in this wonderful world of words and illustrations.

We live in a magical time when technology allows all of us to take action.

Children's books create a foundation of education, creativity, imagination, dramatically impacting children's lives.

In her TED talk, speaker Helen Pearson, whose title of her talk was Lessons from the Longest Study on Human Development, describes in a few minutes the resounding impact of reading with children at any age and how in later years it improves not only the children's quality of life, but also their ability to live richer lives in financial security and their community.

The only criteria we set in being a children's book author guest on our show was to have at least one self published book.

As a self published book author, our success in writing, editing, publishing, distributing, marketing and selling our first children's book was self taught.

However, this was not enough.

I wish I had access to a group of self published authors and people who were on these self published authors teams who were bringing their books to life.

I could sit back and wait for access to self published book authors or their dream teams who support them in bringing their children's book to life.

Or I decided you know what, I could create a podcast show to help myself and serve others.

In our podcast episodes we are delivering on our promise of giving you access to self published children's book authors.

What a wonderful group of children's book authors I've interviewed to date.

I hope you've enjoyed every single episode.

The insights have been absolutely incredible.

In future episodes, I will also interview talented support members of children's book authorship teams.

I found that children's book authors who do not use a team spend more time and money on their authorship journey than others who have used a team approach.

Like other children's book authors, we found that getting a finished book is possible, however, without much guidance, knowledge and expertise.

The journey took us to years and for some children's book authors I've interviewed, it even took them decades.

For many of us, not seeking advice seems to be built into our nature and I was no different.

From day one, I created more starts and stops.

From co authoring our first book with our granddaughter to writing the book and then letting the words sit in our journal for several years, it took a special, unexpected moment to bring our children's book to life.

I interviewed Denise Caesar on episode 11 and she told me that she wrote her first children's book after waking up in the middle of the night.

The words flowed freely and she dictated the words into her iPhone.

I've never awoken to write a children's book, but I dreamed of what our main character looked like.

I described the look of this character to my wife on more than one occasion.

On a trip to San Francisco, my wife and I visited a Build a Plushie store.

Within moments, we saw the elements of our main character.

With a store associate's help, she laid out the perfect bear.

A grizzly bear, a train engineering outfit including an engineering hat and scarf.

After we returned home with our plushie, our granddaughter and co author Kira didn't have to be introduced to this plushie bear.

She knew who this fantastic character was.

Kira snuggled Caboose the Rocky Mountain Bear and said, papa, how do we bring our story and this character to life in our children's book?

The biggest obstacle to becoming a children's book authority was not because we didn't have our story written, but because we didn't spend much time visualizing our main character with our main character in hand, Caboose the Rocky Mountain Bear.

Plushie was the catalyst that moved our book forward.

With all the pieces in hand, we published our first children's book, the Adventures of Caboose the Rocky Mountain Bear.

Are you in the same situation as usual?

You have all the ingredients to become a children's book author, but have many doubts.

However, there is more than one way to create a main character.

In episode 22, Joan Epp, the author of Ice Cap, had a strong visualization of what her main character, Ice Cap, looked like and with a rough sketch drawing, Joan, who is not an illustrator, found someone who could bring her main character to life.

From Dream to Reality Our podcast contains moments that remind you of the incredible value of what our children's book author guests have to share.

I'd like to share more lessons with you as I recap our first 25 episodes.

Not having a website from the start caused our first delays and distracted us from distributing, marketing and selling our first book.

However, within the first month of launch, we worked hard to get our website up and running because people were wondering where our home was, they needed a place to find our book.

It almost took six months.

However, once you have a website, just remember it must be fluid as it's constantly changing and even small things can make a big difference.

After we got our website up and running, we returned to our children's book with an excellent website to engage more readers.

Now we have a website and offer a free giveaway to get emails to help us establish our email list and client list.

This continues to be a value added service and we continue to grow and evolve.

I aim to share the best value techniques to convert readers into lifelong subs in future episodes for us.

Like many children's book authors, we zigzag through our book publishing journey to distribute, sell and market our children's book the Adventures of Caboose the Rocky Mountain Bear.

We didn't know the ABCs of children's book authorship.

We were undoubtedly infants in self publishing, writing, editing, illustrating, book formatting, ISBNs, distribution, marketing and many other aspects of bringing a children's book to life were mumbled and jumbled together without a set recipe.

Focusing on reaching more potential readers was on my radar.

However, our book to reader strategy was a mishmash of ignorance about printing, distribution, sales and marketing.

Like many book authors we've interviewed, my sales plan was to launch on Amazon and let the magic happen.

Amazon is a great place to start self publishing.

However, it is not a magic wand elixir or a way to pull a rabbit out of the hat.

I didn't understand that Amazon is based on algorithms and has a set formula to reward children's book authors who build a readership.

Later, in an upcoming episode, we will discuss 25 and 54 or five star levels of of Amazon book reviews and the value they bring to you.

Selling more Children's books.

Initially, our children's books had only one digital home and we were visitors to other organizations websites, Amazon and ingramsparks.

When you have limited exposure and someone's controlling access to your book, it makes things a little more difficult.

And that is why we encourage you to have a website, your own website, your own home, to collect email addresses and to market and sell your book and other supporting products.

Having a website is very important.

We had a children's book which was a product to sell.

However, it if you have a product to sell, aren't you a business, even if it's a tiny business?

According to the American Heritage Dictionary, a business buys and sells commodities, products and services Creating a Children's Book Was this our one and done or a garage full of children's book inventory?

Or did I build my legacy for an audience of one?

My granddaughter or an audience of few, like the balance of my grandchildren, family or friends?

If you listen to Darcy Guyant in episode 17, he discusses his one and done has turned into multiple children's books.

One of our aims for this podcast show is to identify the gap between your current and desired results.

As you listen to more episodes, you will learn I'm not trying to discount a one and done philosophy or your legacy of a self published children's book.

If that is truly your desired result, I will be the first to cheer you on.

A one and done or a legacy if this is your dream to reality and you've accomplished the task.

We titled our children's book the Adventures of Caboose the Rocky Mountain Bear and dreamed of creating a children's book series of the same name.

On reflection, I questioned how I used my time and financial resources and recognized the gaps we heard from other children's book authors during our first 25 episodes.

Before you start school as a child, you were introduced to your ABCs with this unique gift of being able to interview many of our children's book authors and have them share their ABCs of children's book authorship and learn from their experiences knowledge I realized that children's book authorship has its own Alphabet and unique recipe did we have an aha moment or a wake up call?

Have you ever had that one question or an aha moment?

It was a wake up call that moves you from a dream to reality.

Shortly after we published our first children's book, a good friend asked me, what does being a children's book author mean to you?

This is one question I now intend to add to my interview questions of upcoming children's book authors.

This question ignited my thoughts about children's authorship more deeply than I had ever considered as a self published children's book author.

My oldest granddaughter, Kira, and our adventures together in the Rocky Mountains motivated me to write our children's book.

Consequently, the birth of her cousins and her sister created fertile ground for more adventure stories to grow.

Having a living legacy with my grandchildren is a powerful motivator.

We've written and published children's books and turned many of our stories into audiobooks.

I've also involved my grandkids in our podcast show.

Two guests have asked my grandchildren who create an audio review of their new children's book releases.

What a unique opportunity.

My oldest granddaughter now has her own children's book review show entitled Kira's Corner.

However, there was one big lesson that I want to share with you because I noticed this was a void with most of my children's book author guests.

They had a philosophy of just throwing it against the wall and hoping that success would come to them.

In children's book author self publishing, we wanted to create a book series no path or business plan.

I want to share this whole notion about digging down deep and creating business plan A book business plan for your children's book Getting your book edited Finding an illustrator a book cover designer Learning what book formats work best Learning about formatting and getting a formatter Deciding on how to distribute and market your book, including a website and social media approach.

Selling all of that takes a strategic approach.

However, most of my guests, including ourselves, had not given this much thought in developing a book business plan and because of that we were not yielding the results we had envisioned.

Our whole business philosophy ended up being we would throw all the ideas randomly and see what sticks.

This was not and is not a formula for success.

After launching our children's book and getting the initial sales from our family and friends, we realized the source of our sales were quickly drying up.

Now what?

There were so many gaps to build our children's book series.

After launching and several suggestions.

As I mentioned, we developed a website our our digital home.

This took longer than we thought and of course we took our eyes off of our books, distribution, marketing and sales.

It also delayed our second book.

We do have a second book coming in early August of 2025.

We have a beautiful website.

We've created several ideas including free activity pages, downloads to to encourage families to write and draw their adventures.

We've made an outline.

We now have a membership club for families to join and access to several features including audiobooks that we've posted on Our website we have a blog.

We also introduced Adventures in the Heart of Children's Book Authors Podcast to our website.

Our website is caboosetherockymountainbear.com we have discussed with many of our guest children's book authors their story behind the story, what inspired them to write their books and they share those stories.

I'd like to leave you with a couple of final closing thoughts.

First of all, our growing library of podcast interviews we hope has been instrumental in providing you as an aspiring children's book author to listen to self published book authors, their story behind their story of experiences, learning, mistakes, triumphs, lessons and how to use resources and so much more.

We hope you've had a chance to look into their heart and understand what drives them to write their second book and beyond.

It is our hope we will make your children's book writing journey more accessible and fun.

And we hope to help you capitalize on your creativity, uncover your inspiration and get a much better return on your time, investment, spending and assemble a team including understanding what role you should play besides being a children's book author.

Speaking to our children's book readers, we hope that you will establish what we call a community home library of children's books.

And what do we mean by that?

We know you can support all of our guests and purchase their books.

Perhaps you could set up a group of children's book readers like yourself.

Each of you could buy one of our guest books and pass them around your small group and create a community home library.

Wouldn't that be cool?

Let me give you an example.

If you listen to Monica voikudeniston episode 21 or Sarah Dorn episode 25, they have strong military connections to their lives and have written children's books with a military theme.

Wouldn't supporting a children's book theme and building a community, a small community library around that theme be awesome?

Thank you again for listening to our show.

Our podcast guests have been incredible as they guide you through the ABCs of Children's book authorship, bringing their dreams to reality and leaving you with what we hope is a pleasant taste of children's book authorship.

We'd love for you to Please keep listening.

There are many more stories behind the Story of Children's Book authorship adventure out.