My name is Brittany Pettish and I'm a children's book author of Goodbye Blue that we're here to talk about.

But I've also written the book Sally the Brave, Daisy May, and Tate the Wonder Doodle.

And I'm excited to be here today.

Thanks, Brittany, for appearing on the Adventures in the Heart, a children's book authors podcast.

Brittany, as she's mentioned, has written a children's book, Goodbye Blue, and I look forward to our conversation because her story brings up strong emotions for myself and my family.

Before we get into the details of your book, Brittany, can you tell us about what it means to you to be a children's book author?

Yeah.

So my life, I feel like, has led up to this in a very interesting way.

I have worked with the special Needs community for 18 years.

I do art therapy with children on the autism spectrum.

But I've gotten to watch a lot of Littles grow up throughout be big.

They're in their 30s now, which is crazy.

And it's been incredible to watch these kids grow up and thrive and do amazing things.

I work in the design world, so I've done design and marketing.

That's what I went to school for.

And I've always loved working with children.

And so what ended up happening naturally is that my design work led to my ability and my creation of art to being able to create my own books and illustrate them and write them.

And my work with special needs children made me want to write children's books that could help teach lessons and make a difference in this world.

Terrific.

Was there one special moment that was the inspiration behind we're going to be talking about Goodbye Blue.

What was the inspiration behind Goodbye Blue?

So I lost my soulmate, as I called her.

Her name is Annabelle.

I still wear her nose around my neck.

And she was the best thing that ever happened to me.

I brought her home.

When I first moved out of my parents house, we ended up dog swapping.

I had a dog named Vinnegan who was not a good fit and I had dog swapped for Annabelle.

And it felt like we were kindred spirits and meant to meet.

And so through anything that I went through living in a shoebox apartment and by myself and trying to figure things out to buying my house, to.

To relationships, to health things, she was there and she was a part of my life growing up and finding our way together.

And when she passed away, there was such a hole in my heart and so much grief that I knew I wasn't the only one feeling that.

And I knew that Children and adults alike had all lost somebody or someone or something that they loved.

And where does love go when it changes its form?

And so that's part of why Goodbye Blue came to be.

So her name was Annabelle, but I always called her Blue when she was alive.

And that's how all of that started.

I love your story, and like you said, I find your story definitely resonated with myself and my family.

My wife and I have had three dogs over the length of our marriage.

And our last dog, his name was Bandit.

He reminded me of Annabelle and Wade because he was black and white and he was a cross between a Japanese chin and a cocker spaniel.

Looked more like a cocker spaniel.

But he was with us for 17 years, so he was around for the birth and growth of all my grandchildren.

That's all they ever knew was banned.

To your point, definitely a big void, because we thought, at 17, we thought he was going to live forever.

There's a hole, and it's always interesting how people deal with it.

Writing Goodbye Blue, did that help you through your grief?

So what is interesting is that's not how all of this started.

I lost Annabelle.

That started me on my writing journey.

I needed something to do to fill the time and something to do to fill that gap of love that I had for her.

And so I first escaped up to the mountains.

I was going up to the Blue Ridge Mountains, and that's where I met Sally.

And that's how I started writing.

I ended up befriending this deer that has a torn ear and a broken leg, and she would eat apples out of my hands.

I would keep her from getting bullied by the other deer.

She healed a part of me, in a way, and she became my first children's book.

But it was because Annabelle had passed that I did that.

And from that, the next logical step was to write Goodbye Blue because I knew I still needed to address and cope and face everything that had happened with Annabelle.

I was strong enough to write her story and to share my love for her with the world.

And that's how Goodbye Blue came about.

Wow.

That's definitely inspirational.

And I always find there is every children's book author that I've talked to.

There's always a grain of truth somewhere in their story.

Thank you for sharing something so personal and how it started you on this writing journey, this children's book authorship.

Did you envision when you had Annabelle, or was that something wasn't even in your mind?

So I think I always wanted to write a Book, I think that was on my bucket list, I guess, in a way.

But I didn't know what that book would be or what it would be about.

And I didn't necessarily envision children's books as my avenue, but when I met Sally, it just fell into my lap.

It was a story that needed to be shared, but I knew I was still avoiding talking about the real story, which was Goodbye Blue, that I needed to share with the world and honor her in that way.

And so from all of that, it just made sense and it played out.

You talked about having an artistic background.

I just want to jump into that a bit because now you have four single title books and you also then which you're my first children's book author to come on where you've actually bundled your four stories into one book.

Tell us a little bit about that journey.

I want to uncover that motivation.

How did that all come to be?

Yeah.

So what I learned through this journey, and it'll also help other authors, is if you self publish through Amazon and you don't have enough of a page count, you have to do softback books.

And softback books cannot go to the library oftentimes because there's too much wear and tear, especially in the children's book section.

And so they don't hold up over that time.

One of the ways to allow my books to be donated and to touch more lives was to have a hardback.

And what I learned when I went to my first event, my first book fair, an indie book fair, I met an incredible writer, Seth Tucker, and he writes actually completely different books.

He writes horror books and he's got a really interesting life, works in HR and all of these things that we had booths next to each other.

And what's really lovely about the authorship community is there's enough space for all of us.

And so everybody that I have met is willing to help and teach, and I also want to exude that.

And he suggested, of all things, that I put my books together in the compilation in a special edition.

And what that allowed me to do was to give all of the stories to provide them at a cheaper price than buying them independently, but also to have a hardback that could be dedicated and donated, you know what I'm saying, to libraries and things like that, so that they had their ability to reach more lives.

What a terrific idea.

And like you said, the.

The book authorship community is so giving.

And that's what we try to do with this show also is that I find a of lot, lot of my Guests come on and they share ideas.

This is a brand new idea that our audience is hearing for the first time, where you put together a compilation of all of your books, your four titles, and create a hardcover.

And it just gives you greater distribution through, like you said, public libraries.

But it also gives you something also very unique because I haven't seen too much of that.

That's cool.

Thank you.

And what I love about it also is they all fit under one umbrella.

Being True Heart Tales is what I call my books.

And it's Tails.

T A I L has like the Animal tales, which I love, but the whole premise of it is there are these animals that have touched my life in such a way and taught me lessons that I can share.

So putting them all together just made sense to me also, because it's just different lessons that each child or adult can learn.

I'm interested in knowing now that you have actually five titles.

You've got your four individual titles and now you have your hardcover compilation.

Tell us, do you have a children's business book plan?

And if you do, what does it look like?

So I have.

My goal next year is to do four additional books and then I'll decide if I want to put them in a compilation so that I'll have like a series of those compilation books, if people wanted to have those kind of as their library.

But I think my goal for right now is if I can find animals or stories or partnerships that align to do about.

About four books a year, just so that I'll.

We're also getting new material for children.

The readers that are following me and the new readers that are coming, and you never know what animal is going to touch somebody's soul also in that way and make that connection.

And to me, that's what's most important is that like with Goodbye Blue, if they've had loss of any kind, that's the book that they gravitate towards.

And it makes sense.

And I hope that it heals them in a way and gives them hope in the way that writing it did for me.

And I think that's planned for right now is about four books a year.

But they have to be true animal stories or so.

That's very ambitious and good for you.

I know with my grandchildren we've written 38 books in our book series, the Adventures of Caboose the Rocky Mountain Bear.

But to actually bring all 38 books to life at this point, we've started with audiobooks and taken my young grandchildren's voices and they've read about half of our story so far and we've captured it that way.

But to actually bring four books a year to print, that's remarkable.

How do you find time to then market those books to fund your book business?

Like, how is that happening for you?

I've been very fortunate is I have a day job that pays my bills and keeps the lights on.

So this is what I just call my fun work.

This is my work to give back and to make a difference.

Prints and I market for a living.

So I don't have to pay somebody to create flyers or ads or social media graphics or logos or any of that.

So that's how I was able to brand all of this under True Heart Tales and to come up with all of that.

And it all is led to make sense.

And it's creating art.

It's watercolor of these animals that I love in these stories that have touched me.

And they come to life pretty fast once I start working on them.

And I'll write and rewrite and then sometimes change the story as I'm illustrating because they don't align in a way that makes sense or flows in the way that it did in my head once it comes to life on the paper.

But it's been this blessing of my day job allows me to do this for fun.

It no pressure and no stress.

And so obviously the goal is four books.

But if four books doesn't happen next year, that's not disappointing.

I have one coming out in January that is a surprise for someone.

And I already have a partnership in the works.

And that book is being reviewed by that partnership, which I'm very excited about.

And that will come out later in the year.

And that one's in its draft stage.

So really that leaves me to two more books that'll be my stories of something that I want to tell and something that I want that has touched me.

And I've on and cuddled cows for inspiration.

Hiling cows.

I went to a farm and I met capybaras and did a capybara cafe.

And so I'm always looking for those animals that touch my lives in a way that lends itself to this story.

And looking for those full life moments keeping me living.

It's keeping life exciting.

And then when something has to be.

Written, I can tell from the passion and the love in your voice for doing this.

And that's what I find when I talk to everybody about do they have a book business plan to support their books?

I would say 99.9% come to it.

Because they had a passion and a love to do it.

And.

And that's very evident how you're talking and describing your children's book author adventure.

And I think that's what it's felt the most like, is it just an adventure.

And it's been exciting.

And I made these incredible connections and I met amazing people along the way.

And everywhere I've been has invited me back, which has been so wonderful.

Whether it's been a book signing or to sell or to do a story time or a craft that correlates with the book, I keep getting invited back.

I'm booking through 2026 right now and booking up into, you know what I'm saying?

20.

And it feels like what I'm supposed to be doing because these doors keep opening and it doesn't feel like work.

It's fun.

It's exciting.

Terrific.

I want to talk to you a little bit more about your book formats because when I went to Amazon, and that's where a lot of us go as newly minted children's book authors, and I notice you have your hard copy version on Amazon and you also have your paperback.

But I noticed when it comes to your ebook version, not all of your books are available in ebook through Amazon.

So talk to us why you did that.

So the only one that is not available in Amazon in an ebook format is the compilation.

The purpose of that was because I want that book to be tangible.

I want that book to be held and I want you to feel all of the stories and the experiences.

And there was something special about putting it all together and having a hardback book and having enough of a page count and enough True Heart tales together that I didn't want, especially as a designer for a living, I love that tangibility of holding a book.

The way the paper feels in your hands, the way turning the page feels.

I didn't want to diminish anything about the whole compilation of books.

So that reason that I did not offer that particular compilation format.

Okay, talk to us now.

Are you using ingramsparks to reach all other online retailers?

I am not.

I have been very fortunate to do it with kdp and I've gotten into books a million.

I'll have some events with some books and millions.

They're actually selling them online.

And I've gotten into Barnes and Noble through consignment.

But then I've been really blessed that many indie bookstores have picked up my books and sold them or allowed me to come in for signings.

Good for you.

I've Been doing it all myself and all with kdp, with kdp.

And our audience has heard this before, but kdp, which is a part of Amazon and it's Kendall Direct Press, and what KDP does is they do not do children's hardcover books.

They only start with hardcover books at 75 pages.

And so your compilation is how many pages?

Each book is about 30 to 40 pages and it's four stories.

So I think it's around 120.

What I'm trying to explain to the audience is that with your compilation, the nice thing about it is you can get that printed in hardcover through kdp.

Correct?

Correct.

And that's the only version that is a hardcover.

And I don't offer it in a soft cover format.

And I also don't offer it in the ebook format, as we discussed.

And that was intention of the compilation.

I want our audience to understand that anything under 75 pages as a children's book, KDP doesn't print that hardcover format.

So you've got your soft cover formats in single title on Amazon.

And then because of your compilation, and that's what I want people to understand is that you found a way to have KDP print your children's book because you did a compilation of four of your titles, which is just fantastic.

Thank you.

Yeah.

And like I said, that was somebody helping and teaching me along the way.

So I was blessed to get next to somebody and talk about the business and where I was and what I had and to brainstorm ideas while we were sitting there and sharing our stories, as Brittany's described.

Is that the person that she talked to, the book author, his genre was horror.

Yeah, his name is Seth Tucker and he writes horror books.

And like these mystery or mystique kind of genre.

I'm probably not doing it justice at all, but completely different.

Yes.

And that's fantastic.

Just so everyone again understands that if you get around, an author doesn't have to necessarily be a children's book author.

Just pick their brain.

And look what happened for Britney is he talked Britney into looking at a compilation.

And because Brittany was able to do a compilation, she was able to get enough pages in her compilation to have her hardcover book, children's book, printed through kdp.

Just amazing.

I want to talk to you about your publishing approach, because on the show we talk about being traditionally published, self published, which is a form of third party or hybrid publishing, and then independent published, where you are actually the publisher.

Tell us your type of publishing approach and why you took that route.

So I'm Independently publishing.

I'm doing it all from writing to design to illustration to publishing.

And I took that route because I didn't know necessarily any better initially.

I knew I had an idea in my heart and I wanted to bring it to life.

And I started doing research and I found an arena with KDP that allowed me to self publish.

And I've had publishers come and talk to me and been interested in taking my next stories, but to me, it's making it more of a job and less fun.

It's a hobby right now.

It's a hobby that I'm very passionate about.

And I get to control the process and I get to control the timeline and I get to control where I go and sign and who I work with and what stories I tell.

And that, to me, is the best part.

It aligns with the brand or it doesn't.

It aligns with my heart.

Does it?

And that's why I've taken the arena that I've taken.

Is that so that I can control the whole thing and stay true to who I am as a person and true to my core values and true to what's important to me and why I started this whole journey.

And I can tell it gives you a special feeling just by your facial expression.

Yeah, no, thank you.

When it came to publishing, and I want to take you back almost to the beginning, when it came to publishing your children's book, what was the biggest challenge or frustration?

Honestly, getting the ebook format.

It was easy to design, it was easy to upload to KDP from that standpoint and to hold a printer proof and all of that, that was exciting and that was fun.

But turning it into an ebook that would actually upload and sell and figuring all of that out, it just was different software and it was a different way of learning and figuring, and it took me longer than it should have to figure out that format and how to upload all of that in a way that works properly and reads on a reader properly and all of that.

And I would say that initial proof was the most frustrating part of all of it.

The first book and the first time doing all of that.

Brittany has done all the work, so she's learned this skill and being able to download the files, whether it's print format or ebook format, Brittany's doing the work.

Generally, most of us don't have that skill.

I know I don't have that skill set.

I hired someone to do that.

One thing I would suggest is as a children's book author or aspiring children's book Author is.

We.

We looked around and we found a book formatter that had expertise in both print and in ebook.

It was nice because we just could go to One Stop Shop and have someone understand our book and be able to create both files as Brittany's talking about.

But hats off to you, Brittany, for taking on that challenge and doing it.

Thank you.

I appreciate it.

It's definitely been a challenge, at least for the first go round.

And now, like you said, I have the ability to do both.

And for the books that come out as individual books that always be in both formats, because I think that's important that they're accessible in that way.

The nice thing about print and print on demand is the nice thing about using Amazon or KDP is that you can print as few or as many books on demand as you want through kdp.

Is that correct?

Yes.

And you actually get an author price.

So you're only paying when you buy versions of your book.

The cost, that is the cost to produce the book.

That's a great point.

Just so everyone understands, when you go to Amazon and you see a price on a book, what you're seeing on Amazon and when you go to your Amazon account is you're seeing the retail price.

What Brittany's talking about, as authors, children's book authors and authors, we get what's called an author price from kdp.

And then that allows us to create a wholesale price or a price that we can then mark up and sell to retailers.

And the other beautiful thing about it is you can order as many or as few as you want.

Author copies.

Yep.

I think you're maxed out at 200 copies at a time, which is a lot of inventory.

Honestly.

If you were to.

You know what I'm saying?

If you.

Yeah, it's not like you're getting.

I don't think you get a discount on your pricing.

It's the same price.

The only reason, and I want to explain this to everyone, is that as Brittany's mentioned, there's an author's price.

The one thing that some children's book authors don't take into consideration.

You have to pay the freight on top of that author's price.

When you order through KDP, if you order 10 books, you pay whatever the cost of shipping is to your home or your office.

And if you order 25, or as Brittany talked about, if you order 200, you on a per unit basis, you get a little bit of a discount on the freight cost.

I would say that would be your one per.

But you also are Paying per weight, and your weight is going up.

So on a per unit basis, all we're trying to demonstrate is there's probably not much in it for you in terms of a unit cost.

By ordering 10 or ordering 50, there might be a few pennies.

But at the end of the day, to Brittany's point, tying up all your space and carrying 200 books may not make any sense unless you have a specific plan to able to sell those books in a timely manner.

Yeah.

Otherwise you become your warehouse, essentially, and.

You have your money tied up.

You do.

Thank you for sharing that.

I've asked this question before.

I find that people who are very artistic, like yourself, and I've had about three or four authors now who are also the illustrator.

And what I find is that you don't give yourself any credit as an illustrator.

And it's such a unique ability.

And so I. I guess I've tried a little preaching here is that I really think as a children's book author and illustrator, that you should give yourself more credit.

And I know it says your name on the front of the book, I think.

I believe it says created by.

It does, which is nice.

But I really think that you should give yourself more flowers.

If I can encourage you at all, I would really encourage you to take a little more credit for the beautiful job that you're doing.

Because I know in my mind I was thinking, okay, Brittany, who's your illustrator, and why don't you give them any credit?

That was one of my questions.

Guess what?

We know who the illustrator is.

And.

But I don't understand why you're not giving yourself any credit.

So to me, I was trying to find the way, the right way to do this and to go about it and not to be like, written by, illustrated by, and to have that redundancy.

So that's why I settled on Created by.

On the front of our books.

We just put by.

So if you look at the front of our book, it says, by Papa Rick Harris and Kira Dumoulin.

That's my granddaughter.

Our second book, actually.

You'll see again, it says, by Papa Rick Harris, Kira Dumoulin, and my middle granddaughter, Bailey Harris.

I love it.

If you don't want to put written, I think the word by now, if you open the inside of the book, we do have the name of our illustrator, and we do have the name of our editor.

I just think that even if you don't want to give yourself the credit on the outside of the book, I think you should give yourself the credit on the inside of the book.

Because maybe.

And I'm just.

I'm not sure.

And I certainly don't want to put words in your mouth, but having the talent to be an illustrator, we thought of taking on more illustration work.

I have not.

I enjoy doing it for myself, to be honest.

And I do it when needed for my day job.

So I'm a designer and whatever that entails that they need designed for my clients.

I use it in that instance that I enjoy doing for myself.

And you don't think of it as something that you would do for others.

Unless it's in that commercial setting.

And it looks completely different than what I'm doing for my books.

It's lined up things and diagrams and things like that.

Okay.

I know.

I. I just, just so the audience gets a feel.

Because if they purchase your books and they see how beautiful a job your illustrations are, they might be wondering who's the illustrator?

And wow, terrific skill and awesome.

You also did the book cover design.

You did.

I did everything.

Yep.

I'm my own editor, publisher, writer, illustrator, all of it.

I am and marketer.

I am controlling the whole process.

You're the Jill of all trades in this instance.

Be.

It's the clinical God.

I'm learning along the way.

Congratulations.

And I know you talked about your website, truehearttails.com Tell us a little bit about your website development because did you do your website also?

I did.

That was another learning process.

I have a website for my design work.

Obviously.

My name is Brittany Pettish and it's Brittany Pettish.com and I designed all of that.

But to have a storefront is a different way of designing and to make it a shopping cart and to be able to check out and all of that.

So again, that was a learning process.

I've taught myself a lot in doing this on how to do a lot of different things.

Be that creating an ebook format, be that creating a shopping cart web and things like that.

What is nice is the website that I created I did through Square.

And so I was able to.

That was another thing that Seth taught me at that book conference that I was at when I was sitting next to him was how he keeps track of his inventory for tax purposes.

And what he sells is he puts in, whether it's cash or a card, he takes payments through Square.

And he has each one of his books inventoried that way.

And what I learned is if you have a square itemized like product list, you can easily turn that into a website and then design around it.

I'm Paying for the hosting and for all of that through Square.

They finished the shopping cart format of all of that.

But then I added all the enhancements and the design abilities with my marketing background and my ability to design versus having to design and build something from the ground up from scratch.

Okay.

So I'm a little bit limited in what I can do design wise or where I can put a button or something like that, but not in a point that I feel like compromises it at all too much.

When we go to your website and we click on one of your books to order, where does it send us?

It'll send you to the page about the book and then you're buying that book directly from me.

I am shipping it when you go to my website and I'm able to sign it for you.

So one of the perks of ordering it directly through me is I can sign it, I can make it out to somebody, I can reach out to you and I can mail it for you directly.

I had noticed that you don't have all the ebook format is not with all your titles on your website.

Correct.

So the ebooks you can only purchase through Amazon because they go through that reader with Square and the limitations it's just for anything physical and tangible.

So you can buy the hardback book, the compilation.

You can buy each one of my independent books.

I noticed on your website you mention stuffed animals on your website and you say but no visuals or pricing.

So I'm curious about is this a dream that you're going to develop plushies.

I have picked out.

When you come to the events and see me in person, there is a stuffed animal that I have found and researched that looks like each one of my characters in the book that looks like the animal in real life.

And I have was with me and I have photographs of all of them.

And at one point they were all on the website but they were confusing people.

And so if anybody comes with me, I don't actually sell the stuff to animals, but can provide you a list of the animals that correlate just because there's no way to inventory that on top of the books and to be able to sell them.

But being a children's book author, I have those stuffed animals on my table with each one of the books and I feel like gets the kids to come to you.

Yes.

Terrific.

Brittany, I'm glad you brought this up because I want aspiring children's book authors especially to understand you can probably see in the background now anyone listening can't see it, but I have Two plushies in the background.

I have a larger caboose.

So, Brittany, you can probably see it on my right hand side, and on my left hand side, we actually developed our character.

So this is caboose.

And the only thing that we did, and it was quite interesting, and I tell the story all the time because one of our guests came on the show, and her name is Charlotte Glaze, episode 23, and she's from Oklahoma, but she actually printed her hardcover books off a website called Made in China.

So then she said, they can make anything for you.

And I thought, oh, wow.

And a lot of the retail stores that we've been dealing with, bookstores, said, you should have a plushie with your book.

Because we do very well when we have a supporting product to go with the book.

And I thought, oh, that's pretty neat.

We developed a plushie, we had it shipped over to us, and we had to buy 400 units.

But we did that, and now I got a garage full of plushies.

The one thing that I didn't realize, and this is why I'm glad you brought it up, Brittany, is that the cost of freight to get them here, you have to work into your price.

Even though we got a very good price, you have to work the total cost to your freight.

The other thing that I didn't think about until we actually had the 400 units in our garage is that because of the size, it has nothing to do with the weight because of the size, and it's an odd size.

When you put a plushie into a mailing bag, the cost is based on the size, and the shipping costs tend to be prohibitive.

Media mail, if you just have books in the United States to ship, is $5 flat.

So whether I have one book that somebody's bought or five books that somebody's bought, it's a flat price for the mailer for media books for books only.

As soon as you put a plushie in there, you're no longer media mail.

And like you said, you're now paying for the cost of the package, the weight of the package, and all of that.

And it does become prohibitive in that way.

Yes.

And that's what I'm finding.

And so, luckily for us, two of our main retailers, we were able to deliver the plushies ourselves.

Along with books.

We were able to, I don't want to say eliminate the shipping costs.

It was our gas money, and we were making the trip anyway, and that worked out well.

But the moment you ship one item, I soon realized that, and that's what I want to pick up on.

What Brittany said.

If you had this idea for a plushie, the only way you're going to sell it and make a profit is to help support your children's book business is at these events.

And what I decided to do is I use them as inspiration so they bring children over.

Everybody wants to touch a stuffed animal, but I don't actually sell mine.

I'll just provide a list.

And that also gets me emails and contacting for my newsletter and whatnot of where you can go to buy that stuffed animal that looks just like the one that you saw that goes with the book.

Oh, very generous.

It's allowing me to stay in contact with that individual that bought my book and then they can go.

And I'm not marking anything up.

I'm not keeping inventory of how many of her stuff he's got.

What a great approach.

I never even thought about that for a moment, but that's a great approach.

Thank you for sharing that.

So anyone out there who has this idea, and a lot of times you can find plushies that almost match your character in terms of its characteristics and its look and to do what Brittany is doing, what a terrific idea.

And I've done the groundwork and I provide that list.

So if anybody's bought a book and they reach out to me and they're like, hey, where was that deer?

Now, the only thing is, in my particular stuffed deer, we did cut the ear and stitch it back together so it matches Sally's torn ear.

She's the only one that has a modification that you couldn't actually purchase.

But for the vast majority of them, they were just stuffed animals that I researched and found and happily share the links.

I noticed that you're very active with book events.

And I recently read, and again, I like to share these little tidbits that I find out from time to time.

But I recently read that authors who are active at events sell about 80% of their entire book sales come from going to these events.

Talk to us about your experience.

About.

Because I noticed on your website.

Yeah.

You're very active in events.

Talk to us about that experience.

And are you selling your books through these events?

I am.

That is part of why with Amazon, if anybody is selling their books on Amazon, you don't make a lot of the cuts.

There's.

You get a very small fraction.

And the best way to make the money for the work that you put into the books is to sell them.

I have found in person.

That's where you see the most revenue when you have the best margins.

And it also allows you to make connections.

So the whole reason I started doing this is because of the animals that I love and to share their stories.

And people have shared their stories about the animals that they love as well.

So for me, these in person events have allowed me to connect with stories, my readers, be them, adults, children, and everything in between, and to hear the stories that they love and to be able to make those sales.

But it's not even about the sales.

It's about the connections and the people that I'm meeting.

And when you take this sales part out of it, I found I sell more.

It's not a sales pitch.

I'm telling you about animals that I love and how they've touched my life.

And I'm listening to your stories about animals you've loved or people that have had loss.

In the particular case of Goodbye Blue, when it's humans connecting with humans.

And then if a sale happens, that's wonderful.

With Goodbye Blue, my first event, there was a woman that came in and she bought eight copies of Goodbye Blue.

She had just lost her best friend, her human best friend, and was going to awake the next day.

And so she bought copies of the book for everybody at the wake.

And she was crying and I was crying.

And regardless of the sale, just to be able to touch a life in that way, it was better than the sal itself, to be completely honest.

And that's when I call an event a success.

And that's why I keep doing these events, is for these moments and for these stories.

I was at another event and I had a little girl and she had lost her father two weeks prior.

And they bought Goodbye Blue.

When she left, I held it together, but as soon as she left, I started sobbing.

And moments later, a little boy had come in and two days prior, he had lost his dog.

You realize that you don't get out of life unscathed and you don't get out of life without going through hard things or good things and everything in between.

And so if I can have these moments and I can connect with people to me, that's why I'm doing it.

And I love selling more, not even trying.

And it's interesting you should say that because I've had many of our guests talk about how we're talking about children's books and the primary consumer of your book as a child.

But a lot of times I'm now finding out when children's book authors go to events and they do a reading, they Have a lot of adults come up to them and they say, that's my story.

A lot of our guests were surprised that people who were adults were seeing themselves as that child in that story.

It's so true.

I think all of us have had the trauma of dealing with the loss of a pet.

And we can certainly see ourselves like I did in your story, Goodbye, Blue.

I could see myself completely immersed in that story.

And that's the best part, is for a minute, you don't feel so alone.

And that's my hope in writing it is that you find a little bit of hope and you have a moment of reprieve.

Nothing takes away the pain of that loss.

Nothing eases that ache.

But just knowing that you're not alone and that you can survive it.

And then, goodbye, Blue.

Because I called Annabelle blue.

What is interesting is, since she's passed, I've seen blue herons everywhere.

And it's how I feel like.

And I talk about that in the children's book.

It's how I feel like her love has lived on and lived with me.

Is the first time I went kayaking down the river.

And my character in the book, she kayaks down the river.

A blue heron follows her down the river.

And it really followed me down the river.

This is all based on a true story of what happened to me.

And I knew without a shadow of a doubt, like, if there was Annabelle that could come back and look after me.

And that was something she and I did together.

That was her way of saying, I'm here.

I love you.

I'll never leave you.

I see that even with myself, Brittany, when I'm out and about and I see something that triggers an event, there's an event that triggers something that I think of.

Bandit.

I've seen it in the strangest of places.

I was getting ready for an art show, and of all the places on the bathroom toilet, the seat was down.

And I didn't.

I always tell the story.

I didn't want to touch it.

It was gross.

But when I looked down, there was a blue crane logo.

And it just felt like that moment of her saying, I got you.

I'm still here.

You know what I'm saying?

I'm like, absolutely.

Wow.

I want to take you just back to your children's book authority journey.

Was there a specific now, and I'm not thinking about your.

Any of your books, and as this specific item, I'm just thinking about, was there a specific person or event that that triggered you and said motivated you to finally become A children's book author.

The Dear Sally.

Sally was that absolute moment.

Sally was the moment that felt like that fell into my lap and was too good of a story to be true and needed to be shared.

That motivated me to put it on paper.

And when you wrote Goodbye Blue, as you developed the character, was Blue Annabelle completely, or were some things in your book different from your own experience?

No.

Everything that happens in Goodbye blue was Annabelle 100%.

Everything that happened in Sally was Sally the deer.

And Gladys is based on myself.

These are my experiences entirely.

Other than I don't know how Sally got hurt.

I needed to find a way to show that for children, to show what she looked like when I met her, which is the tournier and the limp.

And so I needed to soften that and find a way that made sense from a storytelling perspective.

But everything outside of that, her eating apples out of my hand, her coming each night, her leading with courage and not being as bullied anymore, all of that is based on real life experiences.

As you wrote Goodbye Blue, and like you said, it's based on all real life experiences.

Discuss how, because you already had the story, you already had the experiences.

Talk to us how you developed the theme.

So discuss the theme and how you wove that in into the book.

So for me, I always called Annabelle blue.

And the story, just like I said again, when she passed, fell into my lap.

And this theme to me is what love looks like when it changes form or when we experience loss.

And the version that I wrote is actually the version that I ended up.

I don't think I had any rewrites for that, but I wrote with my heart and I wrote what I was feeling.

And it was easy to stay true to the seam and true to all of that.

And the blue, I didn't even realize the connection would be the blue heron from calling her blue and making sense as that wink and that nod until it was done.

And I looked at it and I was like, oh, that makes total sense.

I'm like, in this weird way, what I always called her and what I started seeing that I knew was her and was the theme of the book, of what love looks like and how it's transformed and changed and how she stays with me.

It just is what it was.

It's what I've lived and didn't even know that's what I was living until I put it on paper and stepped back from it.

When it comes to your, I'm thinking about your writing process because you seem to me to be a very Visual person, as you're describing things, tell us about now that you've authored four separate titles, talk to us about what's changed or what's stayed the same in your writing process.

So I do what everybody expects me to do last first, being visual.

People think that I start with pictures, but I don't.

Writing, to me, is cathartic and therapeutic.

What I am doing when I am writing the story, that's how I start with my children's books, is I start with writing.

It is a way of me processing emotions or an event on paper.

And I am writing down everything that happens and everything that I've felt and experienced, and then finding a way to pare it down to a children's level so that it's appropriate and packageable, but it's cathartic.

So I am using that as a therapy and a healing or a processing.

And then from that, the pictures come to life, and maybe the story needs to be rearranged ever so slightly in order so that it makes sense in a children's book format.

But I'm using the writing as therapy, and then the visuals are just like bringing it home and packaging it.

So I'm doing it in the way that people least expect, but it's healing a part of me or helping me process things.

Okay, and as you wrote your books, did you do any external research or did you just draw from your own.

Experiences with the books that are currently on market?

They are all my own experiences with a book that I have coming out next year that is a partnership.

I did a ton of research, but also my work with the special needs community led me down.

And so for that one to have accuracy in what we are showing and how we are speaking and the partnership itself that we are explaining in the back of the book, I did a ton of research.

I did a lot of walking, interviewing, et cetera.

We can say more in the new year, which is really exciting about that one.

But that's the first time that I did research to that level to make sure that everything was accurate.

And there was a lot of subject matter experts that are reading through my story.

It's no longer just a story, for it feels good and it has heart.

It's still is based on a true life animal story, still stays true to the brand, but there was a lot of subject matter checking that needed to happen to make sure that everything that I was portraying in the story that we were telling was accurate and appropriate and all of that.

So that one's been totally different.

Thank you for Sharing that.

I'm going to try and take you back to the beginning and I want you to think of your first book and then I want to draw you forward on a journey.

So I want to talk to you about success.

So talk to us about how you envisioned success when you published your first children's book and how has that stayed the same or how has it changed over the evolution or journey of now having four soft covered books and one compilation.

Take us on that whole success journey, how it's changed for you.

Yeah, that's a great question.

So when I started, I wrote the book for me.

Sally was, for me, in a way, felt like this.

Like I felt like Snow White.

And I always joked that I felt like Snow White with the animals coming to me.

And you know what I'm saying?

Like, I've always had that ability, that kinship.

And so I was like, it was just fun to express that and to put out what I could do into the world.

And to me, being successful at that moment was just getting a book out into the world because I had never done it before.

So I could say, hey, I have always wanted to publish a book and I published a book.

I did it.

I did the whole process.

The E book, the book itself.

That was success when I started is the fact that I had a children's book that was pretty cool.

And now to me, success looks like being able to touch lives with these stories and make a difference.

And if I go to an event and I got one of those stories about somebody's loss or some connection or some, you know what I'm saying, with you and your granddaughters and your loss of Bandit, that makes it worth it and that makes me feel successful because people don't feel alone, they feel understood.

And that is now at this stage, how I am measuring success.

It's not how many books I sell.

I keep track for tax purposes, but that's not why I'm in it.

It's not my day job.

That's why I go with a publisher.

You know what I'm saying?

When I've had.

I've been blessed to have those opportunities.

Absolutely, absolutely.

Now, you mentioned that you'd like to produce about four books a year.

Because that's ambitious and yet you've done it.

But I'm curious, how is the role of writing and illustrating changed from your first book to now you've set yourself a benchmark.

Like you said, it ends up being three, not four.

You're not going to be stressed about it, but obviously things have changed.

Talk to us now about the role of writing and illustrating in your life versus prior to writing about Sally.

So now people are coming to me with their stories, which is exciting.

And so that's part of what I'm writing for next year is it's someone else's story that has touched me in a way that it fit into the brand, it fit into what I'm doing.

And I would say that is how it's different now is it's not just my immediate experiences and animals that have come directly into my life than animals that I care for or take care of.

Would you think that your conscious level is higher now in terms of your mind?

Is it's almost like sending out.

Almost like sending out signals looking for stories?

Yes, I would say yes.

And I would say that they're finding me and in.

In these events and when I least expect them, you know what I'm saying?

Or in these animal encounters, because it just.

I'm doing what I love.

I'm living a.

That I love and that feels purposeful.

And in it, these things are finding me and demanding to be told.

And I'm willing to tell those stories and help bring them to life.

Thank you for sharing that.

Because recently I was watching a show on Sunday and there was a story and I had just actually got this inspiration and I wrote a children's book over the last couple of weeks.

It fits into the Adventures of Caboose, the Rocky Mountain Bear.

It's all about animals that live in the Rocky Mountains.

It was interesting because I was watching the story on a blind mountain climber.

Can you imagine?

No.

Yes.

It was unbelievable story.

And I thought, oh.

And even though it didn't take place in the Rocky Mountains, could very well have.

And I thought that's an inspiration for another story in our books.

I wrote the title down based on this Blind Mountain Climbing.

That's incredible.

And so to your point, you're sending these signals out searching and then it's funny what bounces back to you.

And it's usually when you least expect.

And you didn't.

You weren't like advertly looking for it, like you were just watching and you didn't expect to be inspired, but there you were and it demanded to be written.

And so you wrote it and are producing it, which is incredible.

You know what I'm saying?

I'm like, that's what has happened here.

Yes.

Yeah.

So thank you again for sharing how you are being motivated, the catalyst to keep your children's book authorship journey going.

So thank you for sharing that because I'm sure a lot of people think, oh, I wrote one book, I got an idea for a second book, but maybe not thinking it all the way through.

And I think you never know when inspiration is going to strike.

If you are open, I say keep that open heart and the stories will keep coming.

It's a great segue because my next question for you is advice for aspiring authors.

What advice would you give for someone who's just starting out?

That's a good one.

I've had a lot of help.

I've been very fortunate and very blessed to be next to the right people without even knowing I was right next to the right people.

I would say to keep that open heart.

Like I said, you never know when the right story that demands to be told or that the world needs to hear is going to fall into your lap.

And encouragement for readers as you go out to all these book events and all that.

Why should people, children's book readers, purchase your books?

For me, I hope that it's they have a fellow love of animals or they need something.

There's they're looking for hope or healing or courage or strength or bravery.

And one of the titles, those are the things that I've tried to emulate in True Heart Tales and they're things that I've found in my own life that are important.

And there are things that with my special needs work and my day job and everything else I feel like the world needs more of.

It's hard, it's tough.

And so I hope that these books help individuals of any age find that.

Thank you.

As we come to an end here, Brittany, is there something that you'd like to share that possibly I haven't asked the question to you or opened the door to that question.

Is there something you'd like to share?

I think you've done a wonderful job asking everything that I could think to cover.

Oh, thank you.

I appreciate that.

Brittany, thank you so much for being a guest on Adventures in the Heart, a children's book authors podcast.

Your generosity of time, your insights will significantly benefit aspiring authors and readers.

The nuggets that you put forward is just absolutely incredible and we promise to provide our audience with links to Brittany's social media and her website.

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 Brittany and her children's book.

Goodbye, Blue.

Thanks, Brittany.

Thank you for having me.