Fantastic.

So thank you, Terry, for joining me today on the Adventures in the Heart of Children's Book Authors podcast.

It's a real pleasure to have you here.

Thank you for inviting me and I'm honored to be on a guest on your podcast.

Awesome.

Thank you.

So, just jumping right in, can you tell us, first of all, we're talking about your book.

And for those who don't know, Terry's book is right over here.

Can you see it, Terry?

I can.

Thank you.

So Santa Simon is Terry's book, and we're going to talk about that and get into all the nuances of Terry's secrets behind becoming a children's book author.

So tell us a little bit about your inspiration and, like, your origin story behind your book, Santa Simon.

Okay.

So Santa Simon has been a work in progress for a very long time.

As a child, I always liked to write.

So I've been a writer pretty much all my life.

In elementary school, I wrote short stories, and I love to write poetry that has never left me.

And as I grew into middle school and then high school, I still continued to write.

I didn't really think about publishing so much.

It was more like school newspaper, I think I had a poem or two published, grew in high school.

And I did always know I wanted to be a teacher pretty much.

And so that was my pursuit when I graduated from high school was to go to college and get certified as an elementary teacher.

But I also did a secondary.

My major actually was English.

So that whole love of language and love of words and writing continued.

And then at one point I decided, you know what I really would like to try.

This was before I really got full bored into teaching, but I would really like to try being an author and writing a children's book.

So I had a manuscript I was working on, which was Santa Simon.

How long ago was that?

This the seed kind of got or the snowflake or whatever you want to call it.

Snowflake is a good or a good phrase for it.

Now, this goes back a really long time.

I'm talking about the early 1980s.

Wow.

Yeah.

The long and the short of it is as I was, I was finishing up my degree and getting into looking for employment as a teacher again.

I had been working on a manuscript, so I just, I had an opportunity.

I had met someone who was an artist, and she actually had her own little press that she was publishing her how to books and things on.

And we just started like chatting, and I found out that she had this little press, and I told her I always wanted to write a children's book.

And she says, do you have anything going on with that?

So I said yeah, I have an idea for a Christmas story.

I love Christmas.

So that's pretty much the inspiration behind it.

And I said it's a little bit different.

There's a different twist to it.

I just wanted.

And that's kind of me.

That's the way my brain is wired.

I like different adventures and things like that.

Basically we did it, we published it locally.

So it was way back then.

It was self published.

It was now, I guess we're more called indie writers and independent.

Back then there wasn't any Internet.

There wasn't really the way to connect with people like there is now by any means.

So it was promoted and marketed locally and we did some really nice activities with it.

Like one of the characters in my book is a crystal queen.

So there was breakfast with the crystal queen.

And for that day and time, time frame, it was very well received locally and we didn't pursue it for too many years because at that point that I also had finished my degree and then I did get a full time job.

And she had other aspirations too.

She was moving on to something else.

And then I was going on to my career.

But I always continued to dabble in the writing.

And it wasn't only Santa Simon manuscript.

There were others I was developing, but that one was like my heart.

And I always thought someday I'm going to pick this up again and pursue it in the meantime.

Until very recently, every once in a while people were asking me whatever happened to Santa Simon do you know?

I still have that original copy and I share it at this point it's with grandchildren.

Right?

Share it with my kids.

It's our tradition.

Did you ever think about maybe getting it back out there?

And yeah, I had over a long time considered that.

But again my main focus was teaching and.

And all that entailed again, just before I retired my.

I thought that is probably something I'm going to do in retirement is pursue writing again and.

But pursue it more directly and more formally and more goal oriented for sure.

And like you said, technology has come such a long way.

Yeah.

Which is a blessing.

But it's huge learning curve as well.

Huge learning curve, absolutely.

It leads me because it's incredible to hear your story because you're sharing some of the challenges that you know today when we look at technology, if you go back in the 80s or 90s and you go, oh my goodness, like how do you ever bring something to Life.

And nothing was that sophisticated and it was.

It took a lot of effort just to get recognized.

And it's interesting.

So.

So you told me about this lady that you met and she had a small press and you guys launched the book locally and then it went dormant for a while.

Tell me how it evolved to where you are now.

So explain your publishing approach now.

So is it.

Are you self published or traditional published?

What's the story now?

Okay, yeah, I'm self published.

What.

What happened to.

Was along the way I was reaching out, doing research in terms of traditional publishers and even indie independent publishers.

And along that way, at some point I got an email from John Fox, who is Book Fox Press.

He's the.

Basically the originator of it.

Okay.

Elike, you is a person that reaches out to authors and he wanted to help authors, which was.

Is amazing to me.

I just love that about both of you.

And yeah, it's a huge help and it's just very reaffirming.

He.

His email was basically tips.

Do you want to sign up for author's tips?

And he, of course, he.

He was a former English professor and he decided to go this route and he offers courses and he's just grown this business where he does help authors and offers courses and whatnot.

So I did take a couple courses from him over time and then with this book always in mind, he didn't do any publishing at that point and.

But I always kept in contact, emailed once in a while, that kind of thing.

Long and short of it is I checked back, I wasn't having any luck with traditional put my manuscript out there and I checked back on his website and saw that he had started publishing children's books.

I was thrilled.

And.

And one of the things that he included was illustration that he would.

In his package that he would find illustrators.

Connect you with an illustrator.

Okay.

Yeah.

So I.

Because I can't draw a stick figure and I would exactly the same.

I have the ideas.

I had the visualization bot to put it.

The best I can do is a happy face.

Yeah, exactly.

That sometimes can be challenging.

But yes.

And I felt like I had a sense of.

I basically knew him from taking the courses even though they were online.

You could reach out to him, he would have a conversation with you, whatever.

So I pursued that and it was a very good fit for me.

I don't know.

I think in terms of people pursuing indie or pursuing traditional, you have to find what's right for you.

You have to find your niche.

Absolutely.

Is it more of A hybrid or did he just offer you services but you had to self direct at your to get published?

It's more of a hybrid where.

Yeah, he offers a package and basically he includes an editing.

He does the package.

Does he and the package and his support team does everything right.

Yeah, I just.

They basically it's.

It's email.

You consult email with the illustrator.

Fantastic.

And so did he find you the illustrator or did you source the illustrator?

No, he did.

He has his chief publishing officers named Courtney.

Okay.

And she's lovely.

She's been lovely to work with.

So I mostly my communication has been through her.

They do have several illustrators that are available that they have to hire.

She had given she from the storyline and knowing the illustrator that she had recommended who ended up being my illustrator, she just said I think this would be a really good fit.

Can you take a look at her?

You know, think about it, whatever.

So I did.

I went on her website and it was just like an instant.

Yeah, I think she'd be a very good fit.

And she was.

She.

We communicated very well.

Fantastic.

She got me.

She got what my vision was.

I think, you know what if I can share with and build upon what you're talking about.

That's what I found.

Incredible is I was very fortunate to find the illustrator that we have because all of our stories are.

And We've written about 38 books so far.

We've only published one, but we have more.

But it as was a self published author, it takes a while to earn enough money to pay for the next book.

Absolutely.

And what I did is the.

So with my five grandchildren we developed these stories and so we had a real strong visual because they were based on a nugget of truth of our own adventures.

So I needed to find an illustrator and I'm only telling the audience this so they know that if you have a strong sense of what you want or it's based on something very visual to you, then when you're looking for an illustrator, find someone who to your point is in sync with what you have in mind.

Absolutely.

Right on the character itself.

Like the Crystal Dragon for example, did that.

Did you have a something in mind or did the illustrator say I can tell from your words how to do this or how did this come about?

It was a combination.

She started out with the characters.

She.

Yeah, of course she had her own, for lack of a better word, like a format for doing things.

A procedure basically.

And she started out with the main characters and she told me, which was very nice too.

In Advance.

She like, said, these are the steps that you can look forward to seeing.

First, I'm going to develop the main characters, and I will.

I will send you that sketch.

It's not.

The word isn't sketch, but the proof maybe is a better.

Yeah, yeah.

And then she said, we will have a conversation about it.

Tell me what you think.

Do you have anything.

Do you want anything changed on it?

Do you like it the way it is?

So that's what she did.

She sent me the main characters, which were.

Was Simon, of course, and then Santa, the Crystal Queen, Snow Dragon and the Mayor Bean.

Right.

Even with that, there were a few tweaks when we got more into the illustrations as far as the characters and how they were reacting to the events in the story, the characters, basic Personas.

She.

She pretty.

She nailed it for me.

That's fantastic.

So did you guys go back and forth a bit in development?

Okay.

Yes, we went back and forth quite a bit.

Okay.

So then she.

From the original characters, which she gave to me right away in color.

As far as a proof, the other sketches were more of a black and white.

Yes.

Yeah.

So basically, to develop the setting and the details in the setting, and then she went back and started to add the color.

And that's exactly the process that our illustrator did.

He came to us.

Now, the only thing is that we already had developed.

This is caboose right here.

Yes.

And we had already.

My granddaughter and I already had a strong sense that we wanted a bear as our main character.

And then we actually, because we were.

We developed these adventures in the Rocky Mountains.

There was trains, and trains were very predominant.

But my granddaughter had never seen a caboose in her whole life, because I think cabooses disappeared about 20 years ago.

But in our home, I had taken my dad's old train set from the 1940s or 50s, I'm not sure.

And I actually mounted it in a display case, and there was a caboose at the end, a red caboose.

And she just loved the word caboose.

And she would run around saying caboose.

And that ended up being how we came up with the idea.

And then, of course, with the trains, we found a shop.

Actually, my wife and I were in San Francisco, and we went into this plushie store that made plushies for you, and you dressed them whatever way you wanted.

And that's what ended up happening.

We found this cute bear, and then they had an engineering outfit, and we went, eureka.

Perfect.

Yeah.

And we brought it back and showed it to my Granddaughter, she fell in love with it.

And then what we did is we actually.

Her name is Kira.

So we took the K and put K instead of a C in caboose.

We put a K in caboose.

And that's how connection.

Yeah.

So.

And again I just, I tell these stories for the audience to realize that there's no right or wrong way of putting these things together.

It's how you're.

Like you said your.

I think you said your author's mind.

How it.

Word.

How you're wired.

Yeah, how it's wired.

I love that and I think that's important for people to remember.

It's just how you are wired and that's could really drive your passion and your inspiration.

Yes, absolutely.

And as far as like my writing process goes, it's not always.

It's not.

And you would know this.

It's not linear.

You don't just sit down and say this is going to happen and then next.

This is going to happen and then next.

Next becomes very organic and it flows and you're influenced by different things as it's unfolding.

You have framework, but within brain.

I just want to talk a little bit about your website.

So if you don't mind, I'm going to pull.

I've got my iPad up here and I look at your website and I was quite fascinated because when you and I originally made contact, like your website has already evolved in such a short period of time.

I think we probably contacted each other about four weeks ago and I'm looking and I'm thinking, wow, like things that have happened so quick now people wouldn't see this but.

But I saw it cuz I was looking at your website and I saw Coming soon the Merch Merchandising shop.

And then all of a sudden, boom, it appears.

And then I didn't realize you were in.

We'll talk at the end.

But I didn't realize you were developing another book.

I was going to ask you about that and then boom.

It appears so.

Quite interesting.

So maybe if you could just tell us a little bit about.

There's two things.

When I first started on this journey, the first thing that someone said to me is they said, you know what?

You need to have a website to support your book.

And I thought oh.

And we, my granddaughter and I were just so excited about getting the book published, let alone developing a website.

And so we were probably.

We did it in reverse, which you can't go back and change.

It took us about six months to develop our website.

But the Positive thing is that all of a sudden now we had all these graphics.

So we were paying to help us with our website development.

So tell us a little bit about your website journey.

Did you have your website before the book launch?

After the book launch?

And tell us, like I said, I'm looking at your website and it's evolving and I'm going, wow.

So Pete, give us the whole start of the website and then where it is now.

Okay.

Yeah.

It's an interesting story.

Santa Simon.

This is actually its second season, so it was published last October, in 2023.

By last October.

So ahead of that with it going to be launching John Fox, the publisher, he also offered a course in marketing.

And it was very.

An excellent course and very comprehensive.

And basically it terrified me.

Perfect.

I was like, oh, my goodness, I thought you hung a shield.

And they would hung.

I didn't.

I'm almost like, I didn't sign up for all of this.

Like, technically I did.

But one of the main things is, as you said, a website.

And I as a teacher and as technology has evolved, I had a website as a teacher with my school district and.

Right.

I had some basic skills and as a teacher, I had to learn a lot of different other skills as far as media and things like that and technology.

But they were like pretty specific to teaching.

So again, where I can't draw a stick figure.

I.

Websites are way above my pay grade.

I just.

I was paralyzed and I really.

I looked at models that were recommended.

I looked at templates.

I have a neighbor who is a young man who is a author and he is a whiz at everything with technology.

He's just.

And he's.

I'll help you.

I'll help you.

That was very sweet.

But you know what?

I don't think you're gonna wanna help me.

I'm gonna build out of work for you.

So over the past year, I had my events and things like that, and I didn't have a formal website.

I was posting them on my page, my Facebook page.

Okay.

And I.

But I did know.

I did understand the importance.

And then it was back in August, I decided, you know what?

This is crazy.

I really need help.

I need a team.

I need some support.

So I reached out.

I actually was on Facebook and saw the developer of my website, who is David Survey.

He and djc graphics designer.

And he.

He connected with right away.

And I said, this is my story.

I'm a local author and I really need a desk.

I need a website that someone else can develop for me.

And will work with me on it.

And long and short of it was he was again a very good fit and he engineered it and he's wonderful.

I really.

Anybody's out there looking for somebody.

So the evolution.

Tell me a little bit about that.

Because from what I saw four weeks ago or at and now I've noticed so many changes already.

Did you have a specific plan or is it just an evolution of as you're progressing through this children's author's journey?

It's been both.

He had a format definitely as far as like pages, what should be devoted to this and that.

And another thing that came into play was that I a cousin of my husband's cousin, she is an author too, and she had published her books and she had self published and she had a website.

So I was looking at her website and I would see things and I would think, yeah, I should include this and I should include that.

And then also back to the marketing course with Bookfox, there was a format of things that you are important to include on your website.

I would tell David, yeah, that's really good to include.

But I Can you also do this and can you also do that?

So communication with somebody, if you're not developing it yourself is really important for sure.

Even if you are developing it yourself, make sure that you still are communicating in other ways with other authors, taking your time and seeing what else is out there.

What do other authors websites look like?

What might you want to include?

Might.

What might you not want to include on your own?

Okay, yeah, because I noticed like, for example, you've got some activity pages.

And that's very close to my heart because my granddaughter and I actually love this whole story storytelling process.

And so we created activity pages that we actually added at the back of our book so that we encourage people to sit down, go through family photos and write a story.

And then we even made picture frames of railway tracks where you could actually draw your story.

And so that's what we encourage people to do.

I love the idea of activity pages.

So tell me a little bit about the.

I know I printed off the three activity pages you have on your website.

Tell me how that all started.

That's the teacher in me.

I taught elementary, as I mentioned, and mostly my career was mostly centered at primary level.

Okay, great.

To be more specific.

And one of the.

I just, I.

One of the things I love doing with the kids, we're having them do word searches, word finds.

So it was one of the things that I actually tried to develop myself last Year, and it didn't really.

I didn't, again, have the technology to do that.

And even when you go on another site that can do it for you, I was a little bit nervous about copyright and stuff like that.

Just put it on hold.

And then it came back to me when I got the website and I thought, this is a good opportunity to try and get some of that stuff out there.

It was basically based on things I used in the classroom.

The.

The word search.

Then I thought, oh, it might be fun to develop a maze.

And what else did I do?

Now you've got your maze.

And, yeah, it's funny you should mention maze, because the first time in my life, I actually went through a corn maze past summer, so that was funnier.

Fall.

And then there's your word search, and then you've got a word Scrabble scramble.

That's the most recent.

So in my case, I was able to say, David, can you tell.

Can you develop a maze for me?

David, can you develop a word there?

It was.

It was like magic.

Oh, fantastic.

Yeah, fantastic.

No, it's.

It's good.

That again.

So the.

The activity pages for you grew out of trying to add more value to your website.

And I just.

I knew from experience how much kids enjoyed that.

I had a word search every year, or, excuse me, every week in my classroom as a morning activity.

It was themed to whatever we were doing in the classroom, whether it was a literature piece or a holiday or something like that.

And the kids would come in and they were, like, thrilled to see it because we also had tables all over the room and they had little rugs they could work on or whatever, and they could move around the room and work together.

We love to solve the word searches together.

And there was a lot of excitement.

It was anything that'll get the kids engaged with their minds and learning.

And so I'm all about that.

I want to transfer that into my writing and my books.

Good for you.

That's phenomenal.

And you know what?

I just love them.

Like you said, they're fun, they're engaging.

Actually, my wife loves doing word searches.

She's bought this.

She keeps buying these huge words shirt books, and she just loves it.

So that's pretty cool.

So that stays with you forever.

It does, yeah, it does.

Absolutely.

I'm curious about your motivation.

Like, you've talked a lot about that, but was there a specific person or a event that motivated you to say now?

Because I know you talked about saying, oh, I could do that.

Is there something a person or an event that said.

You said, finally, I'm going to write my first children's book.

I don't know that there was an actual like person.

It was just something that I always wanted to do.

It was like, now they use the term bucket list a lot back then.

I wouldn't have thought of it that way.

That term really wasn't in vogue.

But it was like this almost like a.

I don't know.

I have heard the term holy disturbance, where there's something inside you that you really.

I'm a very faith based person.

So that phrase holy disturbance.

Get that.

I love that.

That's cool.

It's something that just, you know, I feel like this is something that I want to do.

What I need to do.

It was positive.

It wasn't like something was gnawing at you in terms of negativity.

It was positive that need to be released.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Okay.

And I thought I.

It's an extension of me.

I just want to.

I approach my writing too in a way of teaching.

I like teachable moments and stories and that again, it's so intertwined with teaching children and being trained to teach children.

Absolutely.

I like to have them think for themselves.

I like them to problem solve.

I like them to have conversations and develop their own in a way, thinking about their own thinking and meeting different characters and thinking.

And what you can do in discussion with them too is would I have handled a situation the same way or would I change the ending?

Would I have done something differently?

And I actually, you talked about characters.

So tell us a little bit about your character development, including your main character and Simon.

Okay, so Simon, he's a beloved elf.

He is like the chief elf.

Yeah.

And he's a good kid.

He is a good leader.

He knows how to organize teamwork.

He's a fair leader and he's happy.

He likes to be helpful and do a good job at things.

And he left friends until he doesn't because there is Snow Dragon who comes in and it's just days before Christmas and everything's set to go.

But then Snow Dragon comes in and puts makes a mess out of that.

And unfortunately he makes it look like Simon is somehow involved in it.

And heartbeat.

Simon's friends are like, they're all pointing fingers at him, like, how could you do this?

You're supposed to be our leader, your.

Your example.

And he's devastated.

Luckily for him, Santa knows his heart.

He knows he didn't do this.

And like.

And Santa does have a clue to who.

Who did do it.

So he asked Simon which come along with me and solve this problem.

Because it's not the only problem Snow Dragon has caused.

He's taken our Crystal Queen, too.

And by the way, again, here's a point where the character of Simon is.

He just.

Everybody's mad at me.

Why should I do this?

Why should I put myself at risk?

No.

He steps up and he says, of course I'm going to go.

Of course we're going to make this right.

So that's where Simon's coming from.

He's.

His heart is in the right place, and he is going to continue to be a leader, and he's going to not last.

Although he's hurt by his friends, he's not gonna let that stop him.

I was just gonna say to you, as I had my youngest grandson read your book.

I know, and it was a lot of fun.

But here is the funny part is.

Or interesting part.

I don't know how you look at it, but when I.

He read it before, I was going to take him to the movies.

So I took him to the movies right after he read your book.

And we went and saw the red one.

It's called Red One with Dwayne Johnson.

Dwayne Johnson.

It's a Christmas movie, and Dwayne Johnson plays an elf.

If you can imagine the size of Dwayne Johnson, he's playing this elf.

So it was like such a timely thing.

I couldn't believe it.

But anyways, I digress there.

But so sorry, go back to.

You were talking about your theme.

I just wanted to share that story with him.

Yeah.

And I like that.

Yeah.

I've seen the previews for it, the trailers for it.

Yeah.

For that movie.

Yeah.

So then they're going off.

But the one character that I really wanted to have transformational was Snow Dragon, because here he is.

Can you consider a dragon?

He's big, he's powerful, He's.

Usually they're not very friendly, but Trey, he's just misguided.

He's a goofball.

He's under the influence, for whatever reason, of the mayor of Meade, and he's going to do his bidding, which is disrupt Christmas for the Land of Glee and Santa and the kids around the world.

And so he.

He does the mayor of Means bidding, and he just goes and creates this problem.

And then as Simon and Santa arrive and mean and things transpire, he starts to get a different perspective.

And his Snow dragon and his perspective really starts to change when the mayor of me has the challenge before him that the only way that Simon's leaving and the Crystal Queen's leaving and these kids get to go with them, is if you fight him and you have to win the fight or he has to win the fight in order to be able to leave, it should not be a problem for you to defeat Simon.

Saul is.

Simon is.

We know in the story he's successful, but instead of slaying the dragon, he makes the decision that I'm going to forgive him and I'm going to teach him that there's a better way.

And so that's a big transformation for Snow Dragon.

And so that really is.

Did you like the central teaching behind that?

Was that a message you had clear in your mind right from the beginning of the development of the story?

Yes, it was.

In fact, I shared the story last weekend at Barnes and Noble, actually, and a little boy that was in the audience, he said to me, actually, we were having a conversation after, and he's.

I took.

He took a picture with me.

So that is the picture on my website for that event.

And his mom came into the conversation and she said, Charlie said that he identifies with Simon and he's a fourth grader.

And I said, oh, tell me about that.

And he said, he goes, I.

We, mom and I and my family, we really love animals.

And it would have been our choice to spare the dragon as well, not to hurt them.

Wow.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I imagine from the review that we did, my grandson and I, I was so.

Because I was quite interested because I told him I was going to be talking to you.

And I didn't prompt him in any way.

I just said, so what was the main message or what did you get from this, from the story?

And he said, there's a good dragon in everyone.

And that I, like, he caught me totally off guard that.

He caught me off guard when I read that, too.

Yeah.

And so that.

It's just so much fun that what.

Children are very intuitive.

It's just amazing as fruiting.

Just amazing.

They ask you too, if.

What is your grandson's name?

Cooper.

Cooper.

Yeah.

I want to, like, I want to use that.

Because he nailed it.

That, to me was a message.

I would hope.

Oh, please do.

Yeah, I would love it.

This is a quote from Cooper.

Absolutely.

Please do.

I know you had talked about writing and your love of writing and all of that.

Tell us about.

Because we're going to talk in a little bit about your next book, but tell us about your writing process.

Can you share some insights into your, like, your whole development, your writing process?

How.

How do you go about this.

I get ideas everywhere.

I'd like to give you like a very specific example, but I, I don't know, they just pop into my head and I, I will write them down and keep.

And, and then I go back to them and there's different phases of development with the ideas.

Right.

When I really get into a book and really get going on it, I don't tend to work on anything else.

I tend to just keep with that book.

Right.

It's.

I was trained in the writing process as a student and then as a teacher, I taught kids the writing process.

So there's always the brainstorming and the pre writing.

So again, you get the idea, jot it down.

I call it framing it.

I'll get different ideas to add to it.

So then I develop it a little bit more.

I don't again, really write very linear.

I have the idea for the beginning, of course, but then the middle, the end.

I don't have a set of this is going to happen in the middle.

And this is going to.

How it's, this is how it's going to end.

It evolves and different experiences or just even conversations I'm having with somebody, maybe if I'm sharing some of my ideas with them that can tweak my idea and tweak where I'm going with that.

Yeah.

And often, very often, like Snow Dragon too, that I knew at the end he was going to transform, but I didn't know exactly how.

I didn't have all those details in place.

Right.

It's interesting you should say that because even when I started my children's book author writing journey, of course it was with my oldest granddaughter, we had all these things floating around in our mind.

And I remember her saying to me, because there was a local farmer's market every Saturday and we would go to it and one of them had these journals.

And because it was in the Rocky Mountains, it was a journal with.

It had leaves and looked very natureish.

So she said to me, can we get a journal and start writing our story?

And I said, absolutely.

But what was interesting about that is we not only wrote the story, but then all of a sudden she said, papa, can we just write down ideas for more stories?

And that was the framework for all these stories that we've put together over the years is it all started from that simple thing by just getting a.

Even just getting a journal and as you said, just putting the idea down and then does it turn into something?

You never know.

But yeah.

Thank you for sharing that and one.

Other thing I was going to say personally, like again, I.

One of my main loves of writing was poetry, so.

And Santa Simon is written in rhyming.

My next book is written in rhyming.

A lot of times what happens too is when I get an idea, I have a few verses that just come to mind, rhyming verses.

And I just jot those down and sometimes it just way I go with it.

Yeah.

Incredible.

Incredible.

I'm curious on how you measure the success of your book.

And it's interesting because I think most children's book authors like it's.

You gotta sell thousands of do of books to actually even just pay to do your next book.

Absolutely.

And I guess I want to make it clear for the audience this isn't a path of fame and fortune.

It's definitely got to be about passion and else is going on in your life that you'd like to transform into a story.

So tell me a little bit about your feeling about success and what's this doing for you and why would it lead you to your next book?

Success for me is mostly comes from the children themselves.

Again, like getting back to cooperation.

His into what my message is and was just so reaffirming for me.

And it was thrilling, honestly.

And I felt, yeah, he had success in communicating that.

Communicating that change is possible.

And we do.

We are essentially.

And kids especially, I want them to know that they are essentially just good.

Absolutely.

And their essence is good.

When parents tell me that they keep wanting to hear the story over and over again.

I love that when I hear people that again had come to me and said this has become a tradition for us to read your story every year.

That's a success to me.

It's just.

It's a personal achievement that I was able to pursue this, that I have the time to do it and I have the energy to do it.

It's not been easy.

All the time is absolutely a lot of frustration.

It can be very overwhelming.

And what I've yet to learn and one of the things that I have found has been a success.

I didn't.

It wasn't obvious.

It was more of a hidden kind of a thing that just I started to realize is that the whole process, through the whole process, I've grown.

I've been doing different things and exploring different things I never thought I would have as part of my experience.

Being on a podcast is one of them.

It's interesting that you should say that because as a teacher, it's.

You're a lifelong learner.

I would think that most teachers, whether they're active or retired, are still lifelong learners.

And with.

To your point, technology, we're all.

You either embrace it or you get left behind.

It can make a big difference in your life, in how you view life and how you develop and stuff like that.

Because I can.

I, like I.

We were talking, I could see the smile on your face about even your website, how much it's transformed.

That's technology.

And even though it may not.

You may not be the one doing the technical stuff, you're driving the inspiration behind it.

And that must be.

Feel good.

It does, yeah.

And you know what?

It's seeing your ideas actually take life and become reality.

Seeing your characters like in real time, in real life.

So I love that I forgot to.

Ask you because I remember when I looked at your website, it said merch, merchandising store coming soon.

But it's there.

Share that with us.

Like, how did it go from it's coming soon to life?

Can you tell us who, what platform are you using?

How did you develop it?

I looked at some of your, like I looked at the one mug, the mug with the Christmas.

When they're.

When the elves are in the workshop.

Love that.

That's a beautiful mug.

And you've got, of course, you got all the graphics from your book.

But tell us, how did you bring your life?

If I said to you, okay, Terry, please instruct us.

You've got exactly five minutes on how you develop this store.

Can you tell us that story?

Yeah, basically, that's all David, who is the graphic designer, When I approached him about the website, there were.

There are two styles of website that he offered and I, I think it's pretty basic.

You can do a website which is just like more for information or you can do a commerce.

So the store end of it is a commerce.

And getting back to Erin Murphy, was that author, the cousin I mentioned.

And again, she's somebody to look up.

She's wonderful.

But on her way, I did see that she was selling books on her website.

So she, she had that going.

And I had said to David, I would like to do that.

And then we went through how, the how to and whatnot.

So he developed that.

And then he was like, what do you think about some merchandise?

And I'm like, yeah, I would love to have some merchandise.

Pretty limited basis to start.

So he started just doing mockups for me.

And he said, I just.

He talked to his own son and said, what kinds of things do you think you would like to see?

And Mugs are huge.

Totes are huge.

And basically the store operates as far as the merchandise.

It's an on printing demand.

Printing on demand.

Right.

So are you using somebody like stropify or who.

What's drop?

I go.

It's printful is the one who fulfills the orders.

Okay, okay.

And again, like David, just because it's his business, he has a repertoire of places he uses and he shops around for pricing and things like that.

You bet.

Yeah, I had to.

I have a shipping station.

So again, this was like a lot to take on from someone going from basically basic technology teaching to being a little indistoral.

But you're not at like the merchandising shop itself.

You don't have an inventory.

I'm.

It's just coming right.

From who from.

You said printful.

Printful, yes, printful.

So it's just coming directly from them.

So if I went online and I wanted the Elf Workshop mug, I would just order it and they would fulfill it.

Fulfill it.

And they would send you part of the.

Your commission or then they would take their part and.

Oh, okay.

So quite sounds quite simple and I don't want to make it sound too simple, but it sounds like you've got another revenue source.

You're taking your graphics, which you already own and being able to parlay them into a different revenue source, which is like we were talking about earlier.

You definitely need to create some revenue to fund your next book on the.

Website to the book end of it, that is.

I take care of that.

That's where the shipping comes in for me.

So I buy inventory of books here.

Okay.

And you also of course, because I this from Amazon.

Yeah.

And then there's Amazon and there's barnesandnoble.com.

Okay.

Are the main firms.

Okay.

So you probably set.

Went through Ingram Sparks to set up.

I did.

Yikes.

Great.

I just want so that.

So our listeners, if they're aspiring authors, can know that there's Amazon and then there's also Ingram Sparks, which really reaches all others sense of online book retailing.

Yes.

And in my situation going through book facts, they set up IngramSpark for me.

Okay, fantastic.

So that wasn't a separate thing I had to do.

Okay, you have a choice.

Do you want to just go paperback?

Do you want to do hardcover as well?

If you're going to choose hardcover as well, that's through ingramspark.

Okay, fantastic.

So tell me because we're going to talk in a moment about your next book.

Tell me about the role of writing in your Life now, Like, how is it fitting into your life and what's the typical amount of time you're spending writing?

So right now, especially being the Christmas season and my book, Santa Simon, being a Christmas book, more time is actually going toward the marketing end of things, for sure.

Okay.

Than the personal writing.

Although I'm making sure that I do get some time going back to the personal writing.

One of the things, when the Christmas season's winding down a little bit, I do need to get back to a regular schedule.

So I do work on some of the things that I'm developing more, but I'm just trying to be more setting at a certain time of day, getting into a habit.

And a schedule for me is how I go.

So if I can do an hour or two a day, that's my goal.

So with a book that as is more seasonal, what are some of the things that you're currently doing to encourage people to use the book as a stocking stuffer?

Which I think is just perfect idea, but what else are you doing?

Okay, basically, I do readings at schools, classrooms mostly.

I haven't attempted an assembly, and it's not for any reason.

It's just, again, another organizational tool.

I'm busy with so many other things that I haven't done that.

So that's.

That'll be on my agenda.

Probably not this year, but maybe for next year.

I do a lot on Facebook.

I post a lot.

It's a lot of.

I think Facebook is probably my main thing in terms of people and even people that I'm friends with.

They a lot of times tell me, oh, I saw this on Facebook, or I saw that on Facebook.

Oh, cool.

And there's a lot of word of mouth.

I think that is one of those things that you take for granted almost that or hope that people are talking about it, but they actually do, you.

Know, they actually recommend making sure we've got some branding.

Because when I think for most children's book authors, if you do a reading at school, it's not like you're saying to the kids after the reading, oh, can I have your 20 bucks for my book?

Do you take your activity pages?

Is that kind of the silent salesperson?

They take these home and say, yeah, and how has that worked for you?

Do you notice when the next day, possibly the parents have supported you by ordering the book online or ordered it through your website?

I haven't seen a whole lot of that yet, but merchandise was basically launched last week, so not yet.

I also have bookmarks that I give out and they have my website scan Marana scan code.

So we take parents right there.

I also do.

Although that's just.

Again, this is just starting out with it, but I also do vendor shows.

I just did one actually at my.

For my school district.

Okay.

In conjunction with my school district that I retired from.

And that was a lot of fun.

I get to meet a lot of people and they stop and they browse and they.

I did get quite a few sales there.

Oh, fantastic.

Yeah.

And they.

Again, I had bookmarks available and I didn't the sheets with me, but I had bookmarks available.

Okay.

So there was that.

It's interesting on the bookmarks.

I just tell you a little quick story about it.

We did a bookmark also.

And what.

I designed it on Canva and I used Canva's free, but they had the QR code.

And I put a QR code.

I built it into the bookmark.

And my middle granddaughter, she tends to be the voice of Caboose.

What we did is the original story.

She actually did the audiobook.

And what we did is when we hand you the bookmark, all you gotta do is scan the QR code and it takes you to the story.

And Bailey is reading our origin story.

Yeah.

So I just.

I share that with you.

So, yeah.

It just makes that bookmark maybe a little more valuable.

Absolutely.

Yeah.

I have to give David an email later.

So anyways, that was.

It was.

It was fun to do, and it's fun to give out advice for aspiring authors.

What kind of advice would you like to give or tell us a little bit?

Like, how would you inspire if somebody said, you know what, Terry?

I have no idea.

I don't know what to do.

I really have this book inside of me.

I want to get it out, but I don't.

I just don't know how to do that.

And I don't even know how to bring it to life.

What would you say to people?

Take the first step, Number one, don't let it just be an idea.

You know what?

One of the things I have learned through my process is that no matter what action you take, it's action.

And one action leads to another action.

And it does not have to be perfect.

And it also doesn't have to be linear either.

Right?

Doesn't.

No, absolutely not.

And just remember too, that even though as an author, basically that's a solo activity that you do, it's.

Don't let it be isolating to you.

And it should not be.

Community is really important now.

Like, I belong to The Society of Children's Book Writer and Illustrator.

Yes, I belong to that, too.

Yeah.

You can be a paid member.

They have different levels of that.

You can start out just being, you know, it's.

There's a free membership.

There's different levels.

Of course, get connected with people.

Go.

There's, of course, with Facebook now there's so many different writers groups and authors groups you can join.

Podcasts like yours.

I did listen to some of your podcasts.

In terms of the traditional versus the NDA, I think it was episode eight.

You're a wealth of information, and you are a wealth of encouragement, you know, not just because we're talking.

I'm very impressed with it.

I'm going to keep listening and following you because you've learned so much.

Yeah.

And like you said, talking to other people that have been through the process is huge.

Write every day.

Be consistent.

It is hard.

There's a lot of distractions in many respects.

Of course, being a teacher, my day was very structured.

I had schedules, I had a timeframe.

I couldn't deviate from so much.

Being retired is a little more challenging because there's this.

That's pulling you away and that.

That's pulling you away.

You really have to make the commitment.

For sure.

For sure.

Yeah.

And do it.

And so what kind of encouragement?

Because, you know, what if.

If it wasn't for our readers, you know, and like you said, their feedback, that's such a big part of the inspiration when you get the feedback and it becomes someone's favorite book.

Like, I've gotten that comment so often is somebody said, this is now my daughter's favorite bedtime storybook.

And then you think, oh, wow.

Like, it's just very inspirational.

So what kind of encouragement would you give to readers, like, in terms of even encouraging parents or grandparents to get involved in creating that reading habit?

Children learn by example.

Be a reader yourself as an adult, and don't shy away from reading children's books as an adult.

There's a lot that you can learn from them as an adult.

I did have an advantage being a teacher, being an elementary teacher, where literature was a big part of my day.

Talking about different characters and making connections to the world, to yourself, to other characters was a big part of what we did.

But use them as a tool, use them as conversation pieces.

The best thing that ever happened to me as a grandparent is I got to.

I think I'm just a big kid at heart, because you know what?

All these animation movies, I got to go to a mall and then I pretend, oh, I've just been a good grandparent, taking my grandkids.

Guess what?

I'm having as much fun as they are.

Watching the minions or.

Right, yeah, just a lot of fun.

So cool.

Yeah, like you said, too, as a connection, I.

It's something you love to do together and just a way to be together.

Absolutely.

So now we've talked a lot about your book, your current book, and now you've got a new book coming up called.

I love this title, A Hubbard in My Cupboard.

So did I say it right?

So tell us about this gem of, like, just right away, it captures your imagination.

Yeah, I.

I don't even remember to be.

I probably should start to log it in.

Like, how did I get this idea where.

What was the inspiration?

Because again, like, ideas will just pop in my head.

They pop in my head all the.

We had this idea for some creature being and coming into a house, and that's what happens.

There's a creature in this house and there's a boy.

It's focused on the boy and his dog.

Right.

And this creature is very mischievous.

I tend to like mischievous creatures.

They are determined that they're going to get rid of it.

He's causing too much mischief.

So it's a very critical, creative thinking type of a book.

Again, being the teacher, I, you know, always want kids thinking and they just.

They collaborate on different ways to try and get this creature to leave.

The problem is that they get onto something that might work and they think might work, but then the creature is a little bit more clever and he morphs into something else.

So I'm also curious now, this is deviating a little, but I'm thinking, because you're working with, I think you said, John Fox.

Yeah, I.

So I'm just curious on.

Did they do some research and say, you know what, Terry, if you had two books or you had three books, that your chance of selling more books is greater or was there any motivation behind that?

No, there was.

We didn't have a conversation, like, about that.

I figured that out.

I just was like, yeah, once.

Once you have one book and if you.

You are getting positive feedback about it and it's selling and there's conversation about it, then I.

And again, as a teacher and a reader, you do tend to seek authors out that you like.

Right.

I felt that if this book is some Santa Simons, a book they like and I do have another one, they might be more inclined to look at it.

For sure.

For sure.

I bought.

I just have so many Ideas and I really, I wish I could publish them all.

I don't know if it'll happen.

But yeah, I just, that's what happened with my.

With myself and my grandchildren.

Because of course the only problem with young children is they grow up and then their voices change.

And we've tried to record as many of these children's books that we've written.

Of course we can't bring them all to print because it's just the cost of doing that.

But we can actually create all the audio books in advance and maybe someday bring all the books to life.

But then we'll have their young voices doing the audiobook.

And I love the whole.

That was something I didn't really think of till talking with you is doing audiobooks.

Yes.

Yeah.

It's just another way of getting yourself out there.

And you know what the nice thing about technology is we're talking about is that you can do it.

It doesn't cost you anything.

I just got a brand new iPhone and the technology just keeps advancing so quickly.

And you've probably seen the ads for iPhone where they're making.

People are making movies with an iPhone and you're thinking, oh, or you're recording a podcast or an audio book and it's very good quality.

You're going, wow.

And it didn't cost you anything to do that.

So anyways, I digress.

I'm curious if you could share maybe some final thoughts here on your whole experience and where your see yourself going from here as a children's book author?

Yeah, I am.

I'm really happy that I did pursue this.

It's been very fulfilling as much as sometimes it's frustrating and I will say to myself, what have I gotten myself into?

The positive has outweighed any kind of like little stress that I might have had with it or.

And may still have.

The sense of accomplishment is huge.

The knowing that I'm reaching kids, they're enjoying my stories, that there are conversations that can be had about them that makes them think and maybe inspire them and inspire other authors to write and take that step has been very fulfilling to me.

It's another thing I've always wanted to do.

And I'm happy that I am doing art.

Absolutely.

I feel exactly the same as you.

I'd like to thank you so much for being a guest on our podcast show, the Adventures in the Heart of Children's Book Authors.

Your generosity of time and your insights have been like, just so invaluable.

I think it'll help a lot of people and I also want to say to the audience, Terry has talked about so many great resources.

After Terry and I stopped the recording, I'll just ask Terry to send us the different links and the different names of people, and I'll definitely make sure all of that shows up in the show notes so that people can go and have a look at those resources for themselves.

If you've enjoyed this episode, I'd also encourage you to go to either subscribe to our podcast show or go to Ratings and Review and just give us a review that would definitely be appreciated and feel free.

Including you, Terry.

Feel free to share this episode with anybody that you think would be inspired or enjoy hearing about your story and Santa Simon.

So thank you, thank you.

And again, I am honored to have been on your podcast.

Thank you for inviting me.