I'm Wendy Schicktanz, and my book is Ivy Blue's Greatest Pumpkin Playhouse.

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

Thanks for having me.

My pleasure.

Wendy has written the children's book Ivy Blue's Greatest Pumpkin Playhouse, and I really look forward to the conversation.

And Wendy's gonna reveal a special treat for us later.

We'll get into talking about that.

Before we get into the details of your book, Wende, I'd like to talk to you about your children's book authorship.

Can you explain to us what it means to you to be a children's book author?

Sure.

What I would say is it's something that I always wanted to do.

From the time I was very little, I wanted to be a mom.

But the first thing I wanted to do after that was, besides being a mom, was to write a children's book.

And so I started that actually writing with a friend in third grade.

And then I first, I didn't go very far and then just started picked it up a couple times over the years and really didn't decide to actually take that leap until about a year and a half ago.

It's a great feeling.

And I.

And I it's a dream I always had.

And it's so nice to be able to hold your book in your hands and say, I made this happen and now this story is out in the world.

Tell us about the inspiration.

Because you said about a year and a half ago, so you had this idea about and even you delved into it in grade three and then hung on there for a while and so tell us about what's the inspiration that a year and a half ago got you to finally take action?

I was a professional photographer and I had my own business for over 20 years, and I was winding it down.

And I was sitting there one morning, like on Facebook, and I saw an ad for writing a children's book.

And I was like, I knew I had more creativity in me.

I just wanted to use another outlet.

And my husband happened to walk in the room shortly after.

And I said, I think I'm going to write a children's book.

And he said, that's exactly what you should do.

You've always wanted to do it and now's the time.

And so that's how I decided to take the first step.

But going back to the inspiration behind the book, my father is a great storyteller.

He would tell my siblings and I stories growing up and my children.

And I was more Of a reader of stories to my children.

A couple years ago, my granddaughter was three and I was putting her to bed and she said, grandma, tell me, will you tell me a story?

And so I.

It was the fall and so I decided to tell her a story about a little girl who was her and a giant pumpkin.

And she loved the story.

And so she continued to ask for that for nights down the road and it became our thing.

And so when I knew that I was going to write a children's picture book, it was a no brainer for me that this was going to be the story that I was going to tell.

Wow, fantastic.

And so you said when she was about three.

So how old is she now?

She is six.

Six, okay.

So that kind of triggered that, this whole journey.

It did.

So it just was something that I would tell her over the course of the years.

But she was four when, yeah, four when I started writing the book.

And she turned five during that time.

So when that book was launched, she was five and then she turned six this summer.

And my grandson is the other character in the book and he was just two and now he's three.

Those are the, the two children in the story.

But yeah, so I think just I knew that was the story that I was going to tell.

And did the story evolve like when you first told it to your granddaughter, evolve to your finished product?

Oh, definitely.

And did she realize that, oh, it's so funny because she will say she'll call it our book, hers and mine, because when I was writing the drafts of it, there was no illustrations at that time.

But I would sit her and I would sit alone and I would read the book to her and I would judge her reactions to things and if she didn't like something or whatever, I would follow up and ask her.

So she gave me input along the way.

But definitely the ending is.

Was a surprise ending than I think a lot of people think is going to happen in the book.

And that was a different ending than the ending that I had told her when I was telling her the story over the course of the year.

So yes, it did definitely evolve.

Okay, so I want to just take you back to when you saw this ad on how to bring a children's book to market.

And I'm curious on when you first started out, did you think, oh, I'm going to write a children's book.

And did you have any business background because you had this product, a children's book, Were you thinking, oh, this is a children's book business.

Did you Think of that at all.

Or was it just to write the book?

It was really just to write the book.

But I actually have a marketing degree, college degree, but it was just to write the book.

But that's daunting in itself, going through all the processes of that.

And so I, after I saw that ad, then I signed up for an online course.

And while I was taking that course, I realized, wow, there's a lot more to this than I think people really realize when they.

Yeah, yeah.

And that's why I always talk to people about their business book plan.

Because I noticed, just like ourselves, I have a degree in business also, and I never really even thought about, oh, this is actually a business.

Because once you publish your book, now you have to market and sell it.

Absolutely.

And I think what happens is in most cases, people get the finished product, they hold their book up in their hand and they're very excited, and then they go, oh, oh, now what do I do?

You're so right.

You're so right.

And that's why I asked that question.

For me when I started writing the book.

It was in April, and my book launch was October 30th of last year.

So ordinarily, the plan I was on would have taken about nine months, but we hustled it so that I could take advantage of just a couple fall days, basically, since my book kind of centers around pumpkins in the fall and people think about that during this time of the year.

And I was just doing one step after another.

I have to do this next and this next, and I wasn't thinking so much long term.

I knew that I wanted to have a high Amazon ranking because that was going to get my book out in front of a lot of people.

But one thing that I did, because I realized I was going to miss the fall of that of last year, I had decided that I wanted to go into elementary schools in the springtime and associate my book with pumpkin seed planting time in Colorado, which is late April and May.

And so I got the idea of getting donations of pumpkin seed packets so that I could have that as an extra bonus to the children when I was doing my book reading, that they would get to take home each one of them a packet of pumpkin seeds so they could plant their own pumpkin patch.

And so I was on this mission at the same time I was trying to get the book, go through all the steps of contacting local nurseries and corporations and getting donations of pumpkin seeds.

And I actually had one from Canada, west coast seeds, and they made a Large donation to me, which I was very grateful for.

Ended up getting over 200 seed packets.

Wow.

So I was real excited about that and that.

So I was thinking ahead for the.

Doing the school visits in the spring.

Last spring.

Good for you.

Because it's interesting you should say that because yesterday my wife and I were out in Home Depot and of course they've already started putting up their big Halloween displays.

They're like Costco.

They put everything up six months in advance of the season.

And so there was so many different pumpkins or like Jack O Lanterns with the carved out faces and all that.

And they were plastic, of course.

But it's starting.

So your timing is perfect in terms of starting to promote the book again.

Because the nice thing about it is it gets to be timeless.

Yes.

Yes.

That's what.

Yeah, there's always fall.

Yes, exactly.

Tell us a little bit about your book formats because I have the hard copy.

But tell us about your book formats.

There's the hardcover and paperback and then it is available on Kindle.

And I've only had not a. I wouldn't say very many people buy the Kindle version because I think for a children's picture book, the illustrations are so important.

And unless you have a candle or a tablet that has color, you don't get to see that as much.

Mostly I've sold the hardcover and the paperback.

Okay.

And I know you have your soft cover.

So tell us about.

You've got your soft cover through kdp, which is part of Amazon, is that correct?

Correct.

And then your hardcover.

I know Sparks.

Ingram Sparks.

Okay.

So Ingram Sparks produces it.

You sell your hard copy on Amazon.

So tell us a little bit about that because Amazon doesn't do children's books in hardcover.

So how did you get your book to Amazon on hardcover?

My publisher really helps walk me through that and gave me all the information I was going to need to do that because this quite an intimidating thing to put your book out there.

And it's a couple days before it gets approved and everything.

And especially the ingramspark.

They have you like look through it after it's out there and make sure that the bleed is correct and everything.

And so that was a little bit nerve wracking, but definitely the help from my publishing company on doing that and getting that up on ingramspark.

And I do have author copies of both the paperback and the hardcover.

My books are in a couple local bookstores and I also, I'm a big fan, by the way, of the little free libraries.

So I try to Stick when I pass one, a soft cover of my book in that.

And if my grandchildren are with me, it's even more fun because they get to see that we are putting the books in there.

So that's a fun thing.

And you know what?

It's interesting you should say that, because I think you're my 48th or 49th guest, and no one's ever said to me that all those little.

What did you call them, they're called little free libraries.

We have them in our neighborhood.

But I never, as a children's book author, I never thought, oh, why don't I go stick one of our copies in there?

So you've got to tell us more, share with people.

Because I'm sure people aren't thinking, oh, why don't I do that?

And why would I do that?

Correct.

And so, to be honest, until I really had grandchildren, I didn't look for that either.

We have some little free libraries.

I spend a lot of my year in Colorado, but we also spend time in Scottsdale, Arizona.

And so in both neighborhoods, there are actually little free libraries.

As an adult reader have taken advantage of finding so many books that I read and loved in the little free libraries.

But until my granddaughter was born, I really didn't pay attention to the children's books that were in there.

And I have to be honest with you, we have found some just amazing children's books in there.

I'll find these ones, and they're just treasures.

And just because they're in a little free library doesn't mean that they're not wanted anymore or discarded.

It's more they're probably outgrown.

The children are grown up and the parents say, these are great books.

I'm going to see if another family would like them.

And sometimes we read them and we put them back, and sometimes I'll put them in a different little free library.

And the books that we'll get.

But yeah, I've tried to keep them with me, and if we pass one, then put them in the little free libraries.

And another thing that I've done is in airports, if you.

I keep an extra couple copies of my paperback with me, and I usually only give out one.

But if you see, like a family with young children and they're getting ready to board a flight and maybe the kids are antsy or whatever in the airport, then I will take a copy of my book up and offer them, take that on a flight with them and enjoy it.

And that's been something that's been really fun as well, with your background in.

Marketing, so I'm curious, have you seen any or did you plan any benefits of doing that?

Because I think it's a great idea to put your book in a little free library.

Have you seen any benefits from doing that or have you got a plan behind that?

So that's interesting that you say that because I can't really track that, what's happening with those.

I think the idea is that getting my book out in the world, somebody will read it and say this is a wonderful book that they're sharing with their child and, or their grandchildren.

I want to buy a copy to give to my friend who's having a birthday party or something like that.

Because you're right, you're giving away books that for free.

My hope is to that they will say, wow, this is great and the book will inspire them to buy perhaps other copies of the book or that it reaches somebody that has the ability, maybe they're a realtor and they say this would be a great book to, to give to my clients who buy homes in the fall.

I'm going to purchase a bunch of these books.

So you never know where that one book is going to travel to, how far the impact is going to be.

Thank you for sharing that because that's what I want people to know is that marketing isn't a clear cut plan and there's so many ways to market.

That's why I delved a little deeper with you, is to have people think a little bit outside the little free library and think about the impact that just that one simple thing could have.

The ripple effect and it's an act of kindness.

One other thing is as a professional photographer, I had always known that people buy from people they like and trust me.

And I think on a one on one basis, not necessarily I'm getting away from that, passing them out at airports.

But everywhere I go I have business cards with me and I'm not a pushy person at all.

So this has been a little bit out of my comfort zone.

But if the opportunity presents itself where someone asks what I do or whatever, my title is long, so.

So it's not one that people would necessarily remember.

And my last name is complicated.

So I try to incorporate giving them a business card that has a picture of the book and it has the Amazon QR code on it.

And so I do know for sure that has worked a number of times because people have, they bought the book and then they've sent me pictures of them with the book.

So that's Been another great way.

Sometimes people maybe don't do anything with it at that moment, but down the road, a Christmas present or something like that.

Does your granddaughter, does she like to read out loud?

Oh, my gosh.

That.

That.

That's a funny story.

The first class author visit I had was to her kindergarten class last year.

And she pretty much had all of the words memorize.

And so we didn't really talk about how this author visit was going to go other than she said, grandma, I'm gonna sit next to you.

And so the teacher had me in a rocking chair and she was in a chair next to me and I start reading the book and all of her classmates were sitting on the floor and I start reading the book and she is like reading it along with me.

It was confusing.

Fortunately, my son and daughter in law were also.

They were there to take pictures and everything.

And they said, why don't we let grandma read the book?

So then I went on and I read it.

But she acted out some of the scenes like she did part of the scenes next to me.

And at one point there's an illustration in the book where Ivy Blue is puffing at.

She's like holding her breath and her cheeks are really puffed out.

And I look over and my granddaughter's doing that with her cheeks puffed out.

And I just.

It was so cute and we laughed and my son got a picture of it.

So it was just a really special memory between us.

But she does love the book and my grandson loves the book and they love seeing that they're in it and you know who they are in the book.

I'll tell you the reason I asked you, because with knowing that you have a marketing background.

So I've got five grandchildren, my middle granddaughter, what.

So what we did is.

And some of the listeners have probably heard this story one too many times, but we've written 38 children's stories in our book series called Adventures of Caboose, the Rocky Mountain Bear.

Congratulations.

Thank you.

And so what we ended up doing is that before they get too old, we've taken about half of our stories because as Wendy, bringing a book to market isn't inexpensive to publish it.

So even though we have 38 stories, we just recently launched our second book.

It takes a while because you have to build up some resources.

And that's why I always ask people about their business book plan to generate revenue.

So what I did is I actually, and I was thinking about you, you might have some fun with this is we made up a bookmark and so what we did is if you look at the QR code, which is similar to what you did, but in this case, it's actually my middle granddaughter reading the audiobook of our story.

What's your granddaughter's name?

So my granddaughter's name is Riley.

So Riley would probably be the perfect.

Like, her voice right now at 6 years old would probably just be perfect.

That's a great idea.

And you know what?

I got to tell you something.

This costs absolutely enough to design.

I designed this on Canva.

They even have the QR code on Canva.

The only thing of course, I have to pay for was printing the bookmarks.

But now when we go out, instead of handing out a business card, I hand out a bookmark because it not only takes you to the audiobook, but then you get access to knowing where our website is.

And we also added what we call the story behind the story.

So my oldest granddaughter, who's the inspiration behind Caboose, she.

She actually tells how we came up with this whole idea.

That's a great idea, Rick.

I have bookmarks, but the QR code I have is just.

It's to Amazon.

So I love that idea.

The nice thing about this, just so you know, Wendy, once you go to our website, guess what?

The Amazon link is right there.

Perfect.

Yeah.

So you kill about 27.

I don't want to say it kills.

27 birds, but totally, that's a great idea.

That's.

That's why I just like to share when I hear people talking about their inspiration.

Like, Riley was the inspiration for you.

That's why I like to ask if they like to read, then if they like to read, then recording them, reading the story, and then actually making an audiobook which you could actually turn around and market.

It probably wouldn't sell any more than your Kindle version, but you never know.

But having another option.

Option to sell or.

Or to give away.

In this case, we give our audiobook away.

Uhhuh.

But anyway, that's wonderful.

Yeah.

So I just thought I'd share that with you.

So speaking about publishing, you've used Miriam Laundrie Publishing, which pro.

I would say about 25% of the guests I've had on have used Miriam.

And again, I'm trying to help aspiring book authors understand the different.

There's generally three types of publishers.

There's a traditional publisher.

There's an indie publisher, which means that you're an independent publisher.

You publish on your own, usually under your own name.

And then there's a hybrid publishing company or what people call self publishing, which is like Miriam Laundrie Publishing.

So tell us about that experience for you and why did you use that service?

When I saw that original advertisement and then I signed up for a course and I started taking it and I just realized I probably was not going to be able to do this on my own.

It was just the main nuts of publishing a children's picture book.

But I realized I was going to need more hand holding than that there.

Nobody in my family had written a book and I didn't have any background in that or anyone to.

To ask.

So I signed up with Miriam because I could email and get an answer.

This is going on.

What do I do about it?

And so that for me was.

I'm not sure that I could have put my book out into the world if I didn't have that somebody to help me.

This is the next step and this is what you need to do.

Okay, I can do that.

Now, as you said, it's not inexpensive to do that.

Miriam does have editors and I loved my editor and I really felt she did a wonderful job and made some good suggestions.

And there's a book designer and just the one on one communication that you have with people.

She does let you choose your own illustrator and which is also expensive.

But I was very glad to be able to choose who I wanted to illustrate the book.

But definitely, I would say for the first time, unless you have a lot of resources available to you for how to do it yourself, going through a company, a publisher that is going to help you know what to do next.

And when there's ups and downs, right when you're writing your book and you things happen and somebody that can say it's okay, this is what you need to do.

So that was very, that was for me was very helpful.

I was very fortunate because out of COVID and I don't know the exact statistic, but I heard that a lot of people turned to writing the book that they had buried.

They had this desire to get it out.

I was one of those people.

Now I didn't write a children's book.

I actually wrote two business books on investment real estate.

But what I learned to do was I learned to be an indie publisher by default.

And so that led me to becoming an independent children's book publisher, which wasn't something I ever saw in my future, but that's what happened.

But to your point though, I've talked to a lot of people who say using a hybrid or a self publishing option can be expensive.

But at the end of the day, you've got a beautiful book.

Thank you.

Yeah, it's awesome.

And I've seen that so time in time out with Miriam and I've also seen it with other hybrid self publishing book publishers.

So I certainly don't want to discourage anybody from doing that.

I just like exposing people to other options that you can take advantage of.

Already had as guest a book formatter, con Lavery, episode 29 on the show.

I've had a website designer, David Servi, episode 31 on the show.

My goal eventually is to bring on the supporting cast or your dream team so that at some point when you say, you know what, I love Miriam, but I think I can go this alone.

How do I do that?

And so I'm trying to show people how to develop their dream team.

But thank you for sharing that.

So tell us about so Miriam got your all your files ready so you're able to download your files to KDP Income Sparks in softcover, in Kindle format or ebook format and in hardcover.

So tell us about when you do your school visits.

How are you purchasing your author copies?

Like how are you doing that and who are you purchasing them through?

I get my author copies through Amazon KDP and I tried to make it simple in that I only offer the paperback.

But what I have offered a couple times is if somebody wanted a hardcover book, they could purchase that on Amazon and I would still sign that for their child if they brought it in the day that I was going to be there.

I've only had a couple people take advantage of that, but for the most part get the author copies, which they take a long time to get.

As if there's like a three week leeway.

I.

You never know.

Exactly.

So I have to get my orders back from.

So for example, I'm going to be doing some school visits at the end of this month and tomorrow is when I need to have the all of the orders in so that I know how many books I'm going to need for that school visit and give that three week those school visits a couple of them.

That cushion of time.

I do try to always keep some on hand, but I don't want to have a huge inventory means you're paying for that.

But I do think some people are really like the hardcover and being able to say if you bring that in, I'll sign that.

I'll personalize that for your child as well.

Okay, fantastic.

I want to pick up on something you said a little earlier that you had to find Your own illustrator.

And I think with Miriam Laundrie, if I understand it correctly, they usually give you three or four options and you have a look at those people and then you find an illustrator.

Is that correct?

They don't really give you options that you have to go through.

They give you suggestion, oh, we work a lot with this company or this or a lot of our authors work with this company or this company.

And I did look through those companies, but I ended up finding my illustrator, Robin Boyer through a different company, children's illustrators.com and I found her and the whole.

It was one of my more stressful parts of this, of getting my book published was that finding the dealing with the illustrator, the whole illustrator aspect of it, because my grandchildren are the main characters, I wanted them to look a certain way.

And so I wanted to find an illustrator that could see my dream in that.

And the puppy is my puppy and the mom and dad are my oldest son and daughter in law.

And so I had this vision of how things should look.

I looked through a lot of portfolios before I ultimately decided on Robin.

And I am so glad I did.

I thought she did a really great job.

Fantastic.

And Robin is located where?

I'm not entirely sure.

To be honest.

That's not a problem.

The only reason I ask is I want to people to understand that in most cases, you and your illustrator are not in the same room.

Today's technology, they could be anywhere in the world.

And a prime example, and I've mentioned this before in our show, is our illustrator, for example, is in England.

And.

And I talked to a lot of American children's book authors who have a lot of their illustrators are in Canada.

So it's always interesting where your illustrator ends up.

And then some are in Europe.

It's pretty amazing.

I want people to know it's finding the right illustrator that matches with you and they could be anywhere in the world.

Exactly.

We did a zoom call at the beginning of our contract time and everything after that was email.

And she was just right.

If I emailed her with something and almost immediately she get back to me.

I know she was in the United States, but I'm not entirely sure where.

But yeah, it was mostly email.

I noticed in your book, you actually on the back of your book.

And of course for our listeners, I've just shown the back of the book.

But your illustrator, you definitely give them as much credit as you give yourself as the author.

Tell us a little bit about that.

Why be so generous with giving your illustrator so much Credit for the book.

I think that you write these words that you are really proud of and you think they're.

It's a wonderful story, but the illustrations add so much to that.

And Robyn's illustrations, like we did some special things which we might end up talking about later in the book.

She was so great to work with that I really felt like she needed to be a part of the back cover.

Her picture and her bio and all of that.

I'm glad I did that.

And does she share the work that she did with you?

Does she promote your book?

I think she does.

I don't know.

We.

We just have only communicated just a handful of times since the book was launched last October.

She's on social media and I'll sometimes comment on her things or she'll comment on my things, but I would imagine that she does because it's her work out there too.

Okay.

And the only reason I ask again, as we had talk talked earlier, I'm not sure if we talked about this prior to actually recording the show, but what I find, again, we're all trying to find paid book readers.

We'd all like to have like you do with the little free library to get people to read your book.

But on the same token, it's hard to.

If you want to bring another book out, you'd have to generate some revenue and.

Right.

I always encourage my listeners to know that as children's book authors, the community is so generous.

And so I just make sure that if you're giving.

Ask your illustrator if you're going to post every once in a while on your social media, would you please post my book?

And you can say, you know what?

I illustrated this book.

I'm very proud of it.

Wendy's great children's book authority.

So if you're following what my logic here.

Exactly.

Yes.

So I'm just encouraging other aspiring authors to make sure they take advantage of everything they can true with their work.

The other thing I wanted to pick up on because you mentioned you spent 20 years as a photographer, is that the illustrator that we used is sitting in England and all of our stories take place in the Rocky Mountains.

And he'd never been to the Rocky Mountain.

So the beautiful thing about it is that our whole all of our adventures started because my oldest granddaughter said, oh, we have all these pictures.

I call her our first digital baby.

Every picture she of her, there's no such thing as film.

It's all digital.

We were able to review these pictures.

And she said, papa, we need to turn these into children's stories.

And that's what we did.

But the neat thing about it is every story was based in a grain of truth.

And then I was able to send the illustrator pictures of what I was trying to get at.

And even though it's people and our characters are all animals, he was able to pick up on that.

So it made it fun.

So as a photographer, to have your pictures turned into.

If you took still pictures of people just as you described Riley and your grandson and your dog, you're able to then take those photos and inspire your illustrators to turn them into something very unique.

Yes.

And actually, a little side note on that is that when Robin sent back to me the first illustrations, not they were sketches, but they were with where my words were going to be on the page and all of that.

And I was going through them and loving everything.

And then towards the end of the book, Ivy Blue is on the stage and her mom is taking pictures of her.

And in the sketches that Robin sent, she had used a cell phone for the mom.

And I was like, what?

And my heart was like, I always envisioned certainly not a camera like I would use when I photograph, but like a point and shoot little camera.

And so I was like, oh, my gosh.

And so I messaged her, and she said, you're right, I will absolutely change that.

And she changed it to a little point and shoot camera.

And then after the book was actually, it's just been in the last couple months, when I read the book, I thought, years down the road, is a child going to say, what is that mom holding in her hand?

And so I thought, even myself, my husband and I have been to Europe twice in the last year, and I don't bring my professional cameras.

I mostly rely almost entirely on my cell phone to take pictures.

And they take pretty darn good pictures now.

And so I at times second guess, should I have left that as a cell phone instead of the camera?

But ultimately, and I've actually had a conversation with Robin since having these thoughts, and she said, no, this is a nod to your career before you were an author.

And I'm glad I made the decision to have her change it to a point and shoot camera.

Good for you.

Good for you.

Yeah.

And you know what?

It certainly doesn't hurt to have that because you talk about history.

And when my oldest granddaughter and I were coming up with our character, Caboose, her name is Kira and her first name starts with a K, and she didn't even know what a Caboose.

Cabooses haven't been around for about 20 years, maybe longer.

And so my dad had a toy train set from the 1950s.

We actually shadow boxed it and put it in our home.

And at the end of the train is a red caboose.

And she had no idea what that was, but she loved the word caboose.

Caboose.

Caboose.

And so that's how we ended up naming our main character Caboose.

But what's interesting is the tradition of what you're talking about.

Thank you for sharing that, because I'm not sure if I've ever thought of it in those terms, but again, it's a tribute to my father and the tribute to the past.

Exactly.

Yeah.

So thank you for sharing that.

I want to talk to you before we move away from the illustrator.

And we had teased people at the beginning of the show about something unique you've done.

I won't mention that.

I'll let you explain to us and how that.

What I'd like to know is also the background behind that, because it's a teaser and it's a fun thing.

And so I need you to expand on the concept, Tell us how it all started, how you work with your illustrator to think about it, and how you're using that now to market your book.

Sure.

We're going to get to the butterfly aspect, but prior to that, I need to give a little backstory.

My main character is Ivy Blue, but she is based, like I've said, on my granddaughter, whose name is Riley, but I call Riley Blue.

I call her Blue.

That's been the nickname I've had from for her since she was just a couple months old.

And it's got a cute story behind it, but basically it's because both her and I have blue eyes.

And so that's our thing.

And so she is blue or my blue girl.

And so it was really important to me to have blue be a big part of this book because it is like our tie in our meaning to each other that we hold special.

And so I wanted Robyn, when we first met, I said I want Ivy Blue to have a little splash of blue sun blue on her person in every illustration.

She either has.

Sometimes it's like a.

Just a headband or trimming on the edge of her shirt or something like that.

Sometimes it's bigger, like her shoes or a backpack.

But I wanted it to be something that the children could look for.

And where that idea came from is that when my sons were young, we would read the Mercer Mayer little Critter Books and Mercer Mayor did his illustrations.

And I don't know if everybody knows this, but he had on every illustration he has the same spider or a grasshopper.

So it's an extra level of engagement in that book.

And my children enjoyed that looking at, oh, here's the spider.

Where's the spider?

On the next page.

Page.

And so I wanted to start, I started out with the blue for ivy blue and all the pages.

But then what ended up happening is when we got towards the end of the designing of this and I was concerned the way it was laid out that my, my readers wouldn't know they needed to change the page to see the last page of the book.

I was concerned that they would think, okay, this is the end of the book.

And so Robin said, I think I'll do a little butterfly flying off the page to make sure that they know to turn the page.

And I said, oh, that's great.

And then the next day I was thinking, what if we had a butterfly on every page?

And then that turned into what if there is a butterfly in every illustration?

So it ended up being so fun.

It's actually been a big selling point for me.

And when I go into the schools, the kids, they love that searching for the butterfly.

It's this whole other level of you could read the book a couple times maybe and then the second or third or fourth time, where are these butterflies?

And some of them are super easy to find.

Like a two year old could say, oh, there's the butterfly.

But some of them, as you found, are, they're tricky to find.

And so she did a really awesome job putting some in some really special spots.

And so I actually, I have a key on my website for where the butterflies are because some people haven't been able to find all of them.

There are 29 in the book.

And so if they can't or their child can't find them, they can go back and look at, oh, that's where it is.

But it was just, it was something really fun that I really enjoyed being able to share that about the book as well.

Unless you're doing a reading or people go to your website, I don't think there's any mention of the butterflies for the reader when I look in the book.

That was a big miss on my part when I first published and I realized shortly after that because we were in a hurry to get this out.

And I realized shortly after that when I was getting feedback about the butterflies.

Oh man, I should have had something on there.

Teaser.

Exactly.

So What I did was I had, in the newer editions of the book, there is actually a little sticker that.

It's not like a sticker, it's Amazon.

The COVID was redesigned to have this little logo kind of thing down here by her feet and it says that there can you find the butterfly?

There's one in every illustration.

And so now that is on the front cover of the book because I love it.

Yeah.

And it was a whole.

I had to pay for the COVID redo and the uploading to Amazon and all that.

But I want people to know that it's a big part of the book.

And I was disappointed that we hadn't realized that when I put the book out the first time.

No, but thank you for sharing that so that people understand that sometimes you can.

It comes at a cost, as you said, Wendy, you can make modifications.

You're not stuck to all the illustrations, even your illustrations.

If you wanted to change something a little bit, you could actually do that again.

It comes at a cost.

So it, even your words don't have to be finite.

You can change them up or whatever if that's what you decide to do.

So I just want people to understand that sometimes things like you said, the rush to get the book out, sometimes it's a little thing, sometimes it's something that you say, oh my goodness, I've got to invest the money.

We did all this work to have so much fun with the butterflies.

We have to make the change.

And I was really glad I did.

Yes.

Good for you.

So let's talk about your website because that's one of the ways for you to get the word out to anybody who's purchased the book after or before the change to the new cover.

I want to talk to you about your website development.

So first of all, it's like the chicken and the egg.

Did your website come first or does your book come first?

So the website came while I was writing the book, towards the end when I knew I was going to get ready to, to publish it.

And I had a photography website and I had used a particular company for all of the years and they had a sticker company that was going to be good for me using for the author website.

So I went ahead with that sister company, it's Zipster.

And what I like about it is that I can, I have control over it.

So, so I can make changes and.

But at the same time they have a number that I can call and I am not a tech savvy person so I'll usually try to make some changes.

And if I'm like, oh man, that didn't, didn't work, then I can call them and they'll either walk me through it or sometimes they'll just say, look, we'll just do it for you right here because we're on the phone and it's easier.

And so that's who I use.

And then of course, I was able to take some of the pictures of myself and stuff with my camera equipment and all of that, but it would.

It definitely I had that website going prior to my book launch.

Good for you.

And that's what I found.

And if you asked me my opinion, what would I recommend?

I certainly recommend that you have your website.

It's nice to do it in conjunction with, as you're working on your first book, as you can use your.

I always tell people, remember, your illustrations are your assets and you can use those assets.

How you feel free to use them.

And using them in your website development just makes the continuity of brand come alive.

So thank you for sharing that.

Now I want to talk to you a little bit about your social media.

I know you have an Instagram account and a Facebook account.

Talk to us a bit about how did you use Instagram and Facebook to promote your book as it came to market, or did you?

I did, I.

But I, at that time I tried to keep my socials separate.

So I have a personal and then an author Facebook and a personal and author Instagram.

And it's hard to build your author.

I have a lot of friends and contacts, followers on my regular Facebook.

So I started the other ones and.

But I was posting on both to begin with because I found that you end up attracting to your author social medias, a lot of other authors.

And so when you're wanting to reach the people that are going to be your customers, it's not probably going to be a bunch of other authors.

And so I knew that I needed to use my regular social media.

I was trying to just to promote more just on my author.

But I am this fall going to actually promote on both because I have a much bigger following on the other ones.

But what I did was going into knowing when my launch was going to be.

I messaged either through email or through social media or if it's like family, obviously in person, but all a ton of people, friends, family, people that I went to high school with, for example.

And I asked them if they would be willing to share about my book launch.

And I got really great response from that.

And I was very nervous to Send those.

Some of them, I'd have it typed up and before I press send, I'd be like, oh, man, do I really feel comfortable sending it to this person?

And so it was a big leap for me to do that, but I got a really good response from that.

And so I would say almost a hundred percent.

My book launch success was based on people putting that out on their social media the day of my book launch and sharing about me.

And then even though there was obviously no requirement that they buy the book, a lot of those people did buy the book.

Right.

And that was even more.

But definitely the social media aspect, I think that's really how you're going to reach.

Unless you have a big email list, that's how you're going to reach a lot of people in the future is on social media and let them know what's going on.

Absolutely.

That is a great point, because I think a lot of us feel uncomfortable asking our friends.

And a lot of times your Facebook friends are very casual friends.

It's not like you're having them over for dinner every night or on the weekends or something so casual.

It can be a little intimidating to ask your casual friends to help you support your children's book business.

And I love that it is.

Thank you.

And the other thing, I loved that you said.

And again, I don't want to distract because I've had so many great children's book authors on the show, but at the end of the day, like you said, Wendy, you're preaching to the converted.

So in other words, a lot of your social media, when they.

When people join it, are other children's book authors.

So you're already preaching to someone who's already in the industry and they're looking for the same clientele as you are.

Right.

It makes it difficult.

The one area that I found, and I noticed a lot of children's book authors aren't members, but LinkedIn, and that's generally a business platform, social media platform.

A lot of children's book authors aren't on it.

The thing I like about LinkedIn and I do a lot of posting on LinkedIn and you say, why would you do that if it's all business?

Is that you can drill it down onto groups.

And one of the biggest groups that I post to and get the most reaction from is principals and teachers.

And a lot of people are trying to get into schools and get their books introduced.

That alone is a reason you should join LinkedIn.

Because there's lots of teacher groups or.

And a lot of my guests that come on are either teachers or retired teachers.

And I'm thinking, whoa, that's a pretty big pond to be part of.

I would encourage anybody who's listening to think about LinkedIn because it picks up on what Wendy said.

If you're swimming in a pond where you're all looking for the same clientele, it makes it pretty difficult.

But if, if you're looking to get your, your book into schools, one thing you got me to, you triggered it.

Wendy and I.

Thank you.

I was thinking, well, what about librarians?

I haven't even looked for a librarian group that maybe we should be posting to.

So thank you.

Yes.

In fact, a couple of the schools that I have either been with or going to be presenting to, I dealt with.

My contact has been the librarian at the school, but that wasn't what I originally thought was going to happen.

I contacted the principal or teacher that I had a contact with.

But I love the LinkedIn aspect because I've been on LinkedIn for a long time, actually.

But in my photography business, it was all local.

Everybody that I needed to photograph and stuff had to be either willing to drive if they were out of my area, but they were local.

I did change my LinkedIn to have the authorship, but I really haven't, haven't spent much time, like, posting on that.

So that's a really great idea because.

Actually what I did is I have.

I've got two profiles on LinkedIn, I have my business book profile on LinkedIn, and then I have my children's book Persona, Papa Rick Harris, so that my children's book author name.

And so I have that separate.

The only thing that LinkedIn doesn't allow you to do is they always want you to certify that it's you.

If you have two profiles, you can't do that.

They just won't let you certify that you're the same person, artistic personality.

Thank you.

That's one of the things that I like sharing with people is.

And talking about is, as a children's book author, how do you reach a bigger, broader audience?

Especially what you said earlier, actually paying customers.

And even though I've supported children's book authors and purchasing their books, I certainly don't expect all my guests to purchase our books just because I'd been a guest on the show.

But at the end of the day, I'm hoping at least they share the podcast episode with their followers.

And their followers say, oh, he sounds like an interesting guy.

Maybe we should purchase his book.

Exactly.

I Want to delve a little deeper into motivations?

You had this classmate in grade three and you started to write a book, but was there a specific person or event that really motivated you besides your granddaughter?

Were you thinking all along about at some point I'm going to be an author.

Was there someone or some event that kept this dream alive?

I would say it was just always in the back of my mind but the time was not ever right.

And I to go back to you saying that a lot of your author guests are retired teachers or teachers.

I have a lot of author friends and they're usually retired or at the end of their career because when you're raising a family and you're in the throes of life when you're younger, it's so busy and this is a very time consuming and costly ventures.

I feel like that the time has to be right.

And I had actually when I was younger I wasn't thinking I would write a picture book.

It was going to be a children's book more for maybe a 9 or 10 year old.

I started one in college and wrote on it and I got pretty far actually on it.

Then I started my real life job after I graduated and never picked up that book again.

But it was always something, yes, that's something I want to do.

So really the motivation was just like winding down my photography business and thinking I, I want to take time to do something else creatively but I'm not really certain what that will be.

And then it was just so amazing really that I saw that kind of.

That post was just like there for me that morning.

So I really feel like it was meant to be.

And that was really the kind of.

And then my husband, because he could have said, oh yeah, I don't really think you should do that right now.

But he said that's exactly what you should do.

You've always wanted to do that.

And then I told some people in my family and they said you've always wanted to do that.

So yes, you should do that.

It was really the winding down of one career, having more time because my children are in their early 30s so they're grown and just having the time now and being retired from the photography business that allowed me that was probably the big push and that and seeing that here it is right in front of me, it's a sign I should do this.

Fantastic.

I can see how Riley's been an influence on this whole journey and you've described.

I love how you've talked about the story behind Blue and Ivy Blue and how you're using the significance of Blue throughout your book.

And there are a lot of Riley in your character development, certainly what she looks like.

But I would say I. I think my granddaughter is a very bubbly child.

She loves friends and.

And that's always been really important to her.

She likes pleasing people, but she's a little stubborn.

And there's a little aspect of that when Ivy Blue doesn't get what she thinks is going to happen in the part of the yard where she thinks her playhouse should be.

And.

And so that's actually one of the themes of the book that I really wanted to come out, is that believe in your dreams and they just might come true in the most unexpected ways.

And a lot of that is if you do the right thing.

And a lot of times we're disappointed in life when things don't go our way.

And even as adults, we pout.

And certainly children are probably going to pout.

And so Ivy Blue, she's.

She pouts.

She's upset when she finds out that, you know, her parents had decided there's going to be a pumpkin patch.

But ultimately she does the right thing, which in this case is helping out with the pumpkin patch chores.

And that leads her to find her pumpkin that she treats with special care and ends up becoming Autumn, that she names the pumpkin Autumn.

And that kind of leads to the whole end of the story.

Definitely, there's a.

A little bit.

But it.

What's funny about it is she would say, I don't look like that picture at all where she said, I don't look like that.

And.

And her mother said, yes, you do.

When you frown, that's.

That is what you look like.

I love it.

And I. I love how I usually ask about theme.

And I think you've explained that well.

And the central teaching, like you said, there tends to be.

You have a couple of lessons throughout your books.

Very important.

And the reason I bring that up, and I always bring up central teaching or a central lesson is that I find it helps you.

And you can tell me, because I'm going to.

I want to talk to you about your writing process, but it's having a central theme or a central lesson.

Did that help you in your writing process?

It definitely did.

And the other thing, too, that is a theme that's more of a minor theme, is the environmental aspect.

And that's really important to me.

And I don't know about you, Rick, but when my kids were younger and we carved pumpkins and several days after Halloween, we Threw those pumpkins away there.

We.

There wasn't really a composting.

We didn't.

People didn't really do that where I lived.

Pumpkins are a delicacy for farm animals and stuff.

And so I wanted to choose something and have it be a way that her pumpkin gives back to the earth.

And so that was another central, like a sub theme that I wanted to come out from the book.

Fantastic.

Yeah, I know.

My son is really good at it with his kids.

They learned from him.

I'm not as artistic as my son.

And they do Jack O lanterns together.

They usually have one per my son, the big kid, and then his three kids.

And they carve out the.

The whole Jack O lantern thing and then they put it on the step during Halloween.

And now, luckily, where we live, we have these green bins that you can put all your waste into that gets composted.

But they like roasting the pumpkin seeds.

Absolutely.

That's fun.

Your writing process.

And I haven't talked to you about this yet, but in terms of.

First of all, have you got another book in your.

That's percolating in your author's coffee pot?

Okay.

I do have a couple other ideas.

One in particular that I probably the most excited about.

But when I published.

When I launched my book last fall and I missed the fall, then I decided that I was going to spend that this year just promoting Ivy Blue's Greatest Pumpkin Playhouse, particularly this fall, so that I could take advantage of what I missed last fall.

And I feel it's a lot of work, right?

A lot of work, a lot of money.

It's a great personal reward.

But I'm not certain that I'm going to next year publish another book or five years or 10 years, or maybe not at all.

And I told myself that's okay.

I set out to.

To publish a book that was my children's book when I was in third grade.

That was one of my dreams.

And I did that.

And so I've let myself have, like, permission to just relish this.

It's kind of like your first child and somebody saying, are you going to have more?

And so I feel like I want to enjoy this one.

And I'm not saying for sure when another one will come out or if it will, but to people that are thinking about writing their first book, I want them to know that it's okay if you don't have a series planned or something like that.

Do what's in your heart and get your story out there and then see.

What comes it's interesting.

Wendy was talking to one of my first guests and she wrote a seasonal book.

It's called Santa Simon.

And so it's all around Christmas.

And she wrote that book about 30 years ago.

It took her a while to actually bring it to life and but eventually she ended up.

So it was a 30 year journey and then all of a sudden went from one book to two books.

So you just never know.

And the other thing that encouraged her was her book Santa Simon.

She actually just earned an award this year, yet her book's been out for about three years.

So you never know what's going to come at you.

And then.

So to your point that you can never say never, but it doesn't have to be linear for sure.

Exactly.

You said you do have a couple of ideas.

Now do you do any writing and keep it aside or like, what's your process here?

I am a huge walking in nature person.

I go, I try every single day to go for a walk.

And I think that my husband probably say most of our life is planned.

When I'm on these walks, like all my best ideas come to me.

They just.

I'm not thinking about anything else and I get these thoughts and ideas.

So for me, so many of them come.

I did edits in my head while I was.

I was greatest company in the playhouse while I was on a walk.

And so I would stop and send a note to myself real quick.

I would say that is a huge part for me.

Or I come home and write down what I thought of right away.

But I just think about if something happens or I posted something the other day on social media.

My grandson in our pumpkin patch that we actually have in our backyard.

My grandchildren live in Scottsdale.

So he had just seen pictures of the pumpkin patch and I had a scarecrow.

And when they came to visit a couple weeks ago, he was like, where's the scary man that lives in the pumpkin patch?

And he thought this scarecrow was a scary.

Like a per.

A scary man.

And I put that out on social media and one of my friends said there's your idea for another book or whatever.

So I think there's just.

You write stuff down.

Oh, that's a great sentence or a really great to write about that.

But I haven't sat down and written what I believe would probably be my second book.

I have not penned that yet.

And I don't think I will do that until I get past this ball for this book.

And then I do plan to write the story and see where it goes.

Because it, like, it may be 10 years when I say, wow, this book really needs to come out.

And I will have done at least some of the groundwork and the basis for the story.

Good for you.

I know you talked about success, but not from the book business aspect of it, but just success in general.

You said it was just getting the book to life was a big part of the success.

Is there anything else that you had in mind?

And now that you've had the book out for over a year, is there anything that's been a surprise to you in terms of the success of the book?

So talk to us about the original success and talk to us about how it's developing that you never even thought of.

One of the first things that happened was the book.

The book launch was successful, and it reached Amazon number one bestseller in the categories that it was listed in, which was just.

I was shocked.

Like, you just, there's other bestsellers, but you.

You don't always think that you have any opportunity for that.

And that was great.

But a couple days after my book launch, I started getting unsolicited pictures of people reading my book to their children or grandchildren.

And that just was like, oh, my gosh.

Like, my book is actually really out there and people are really reading it.

And one of my friends sent a picture of her reading to her grandchildren, and she said, Ivy Blues Greatest Pumpkin Playhouse made it to Alaska, and that's where she was, and she had ordered it there.

And so that was like.

That was success.

That I think there's this thought of your book is going to outlive you.

It's going to be an heirloom, hopefully, that gets passed down and even when you're not here anymore.

And I think just seeing that people had bought the book and they were enjoying the book, and I still just this last week, I got two pictures, which I didn't ask for that.

Here's my sister reading the book to her children.

That was really special.

And then the book is one.

A couple of awards, and that's just like the icing on the cake.

But to be honest, I think really you just want to know that people are enjoying your story and they're enjoying it with their children or grandchildren.

And that's why I wrote it.

Okay.

And the beautiful thing about your book, all children's books, is our audience gets refreshed every year.

Yes.

Because children are born.

So.

And that's why I said your story is timeless, because there's always going to be more children and there's always going to be more falls.

So even if you said, you know what, I think I'm just going to spend the next couple of months, every late summer, early fall, promoting my book, well, it ends up, it's timeless, so it's evergreen.

Yeah, it's evergreen for sure.

So thank you for sharing that.

Was there anything else that was a surprise to you?

Now that you are, like you said, now you're going into really the full cycle, how you probably had envisioned it.

Tell us about that.

I would say, I think that probably every children's book author, when they put their first book out, they think, oh, I got this book out and it's on Amazon and they don't really think about their a hundred thousand other children's books that people are buying and how is your book gonna stand out?

That was just something that I haven't really considered, like the difficulty of getting your book out in front of people.

And then I think just the how I was surprised and happy about how the butterfly engagement went over with people.

So that was a pleasant surprise.

You talked about devoting some time to writing coming up in the future.

How much time do you think you would devote to additional writing to a new story?

I don't think, since I don't have I'm going to publish a book in six months deadline, I wouldn't sit down and say I'm going to spend half an hour every day.

I think it would just be.

We tend to spend time in Scottsdale when the weather gets colder here.

And so when we're there, I have a desk I really like to write at.

And so I think when my husband's on phone conferences working in the other room, that's probably when I'll say I'm going to write.

I'm going to write some things today.

And that's when I anticipate that.

And that's where I anticipate most of it will happen.

Advice for aspiring authors like you've given.

I love it.

We've got a lot of nuggets out of this show.

Talking about things that.

Oh, you're welcome.

We've talked about things that I've never talked about before with and that's what I hope is that I'm getting different children's book authors.

They have a different way of approaching their children's book business or their children's book.

I'm wondering what advice would you give to aspiring children's book authors who are trying to get started?

I think that probably a lot of people say comments around, just do it.

And I think my advice would honestly be write your story.

Do that, write your story, your ideas, and don't worry so much about the editing of them right now.

But I would suggest that you wait until the time is right in your life before you undertake this process.

Because I have spent so much time bringing this book to life and financial and all of that.

And I think that's why almost all of my author friends are retired or they're nearing retirement.

I don't have a lot of author friends that are like young mothers, for example, because I don't think there's a lot of time to, to do that.

At that time there wasn't, at least for me when I was raising my children and I was a stay at home mother for a lot of those years and I didn't have time to do something like this.

So I would say never give up on your dream.

But if the time isn't right and you don't have the financial resources to see that, see it through, it's okay.

You know, that time will present itself.

I, trust me, I've heard it over and over where you say, this is when the time was right and that's when I took this leap.

Wait for it, write it, be prepared, but just wait till the time is right before you actually feel like you have to do it.

Okay?

Encouragement for readers.

What's the encouragement?

Why should children's book readers purchase your book?

I would say first of all, it's fun, especially I'm not going to say it's only a fall read, but it tends to be.

Mostly, I think people think about it that way and we're in fall now, so it's a great time to purchase the book and snuggle up with your loved one, your child, grandchild, neighbor, child, and read this book together.

And I think the lessons in it are good and just in giving back and being kind and never giving up on your dreams.

I always save this to the last and I'm just curious, is there anything you'd like to share these ag.

I wish Rick would have asked me this question.

Is there something that I haven't asked you that you thought, oh, I'd love to share this?

Wow.

No, we've covered a lot.

This has been great.

And I just would like to say thank you for having me on your podcast.

I gained some definite nuggets from this myself.

That's been wonderful for me as well.

But no, I think you've covered a lot of information and this has been awesome.

Terrific.

Terrific.

Wendy, I'd like to thank you so much for being a guest on the Adventures in the Heart of Children's Book Authors podcast, your generosity of time and your insights.

There's so many little nuggets here that I hope people can mine them and maybe re listen to the show a couple of times because there's so much, so much value.

We promise to provide Wendy's social media links and her website.

And if you enjoyed the episode, hit the subscribe button and listen to our future episodes.

And feel free to share this episode with anyone who'd be inspired by or who enjoys hearing about Wendy and her children's book, Ivy Blue's Greatest Pumpkin Playhouse.

Thank you Wendy.

Thank you.

Rick.