Nikki McFetrich.

Name of the book, it's Maya's Birthday Wish.

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

As Nikki's mentioned, she's written a children's book, Maya's Birthday Wish, and I really look forward to our conversation.

Nikki, before we get into the details of your book, I'd love to know, what does it feel like being a children's book author?

What does it mean to you right now?

The feeling I'm getting used to it because this is so new.

This is such a new journey for me.

This book just got published August of 2025 this year, so I'm just taking it as it comes.

It's very exciting.

Fantastic.

One of my first guests on the show, she's from New York, and I was looking at her social media and I noticed she didn't have children's book author on her Instagram or Facebook.

And I said to her, why is that?

And it was like a light bulb came on.

She just never thought of herself as a children's book author, even though she was a published children's book author.

And about 15 minutes after we got off our call, she actually sent me an email and said, go check my social media.

Now tell us a little bit about the inspiration behind Maya's birthday wish.

Of course, my daughter Maya is the actual inspiration of the bug.

She such a special little girl.

She just turned 5, and I wanted to leave something for her.

Some type of legacy, Something for her.

Right.

I just didn't know what that looked like.

I didn't want to just go to a store and buy her something.

Here you go.

Remember, Mom?

I wanted to create something unique to her.

And that's where Maya's birthday wish has come about.

Wow.

And so when you started to get this whole idea and start putting it together, you got the inspiration, you wrote the story, and then.

Did you say now what?

Yes, absolutely.

That.

Because the story actually came to me in a dream.

So that inspired thought came to me in a dream.

Gotta write it down.

Because the ending of it is what the whole idea.

Idea of the story, the ending is the most special part of it.

I didn't want to forget it.

I did not trust my memory.

So write everything down.

And then I just.

Yeah.

Decided.

Well, now what?

Let's go get it edited.

Got it edited.

Sent it to the publisher.

Here we are.

Oh, good for you.

Good for you.

So I'm interested now that you're a newly minted published children's book author.

What's your business plan look like for Maya's birthday wish?

It looks grand in my mind.

In my mind it's just going to be the biggest thing.

Multiple bugs and merchandise.

We're going to create a whole little.

The name of the business is my storyland.

So I'm thinking it'll just be a place where imagination runs wild, where kids will learn through stories, storytelling, imagination, fun experience, hands on experiences.

I have a big picture, so we're going to see if the execution is there.

But in my mind looks really big.

And it's nice because in today's digital world, you can take it one step at a time.

As long as you're taking that one step, correct?

Absolutely.

Terrific.

Terrific.

Tell us a little bit about your book formats because I noticed you have a paperback version and you have a hard copy version.

Tell us about that.

And also I'm curious on why you don't have an ebook version.

Not yet.

Don't have the ebook yet.

And that is because the whole idea of writing books was to get kids off of the tablets, off of the electronics.

I wanted them to actually have a physical book.

Let's not only focus everything on digital.

Okay, Back to basics.

That's why I started off with just the hardback and the paperback Feast.

I noticed you use Amazon to sell both formats.

Now you get your hard back copy printed through.

Okay.

And I also noticed, I think on the back here book, which I have right here is Book Fox Press.

Yes.

You would order that for in larger quantities, is that correct?

In larger quantities I would go through Ingram as well.

Okay, we'll jump back to the publishing side of it in a moment.

Okay.

So you're using Amazon and then ingramsparks fills in all the other retailers.

Correct?

Yes.

Okay.

And of course, Amazon doesn't do hard copy children's book.

So that's done through Ingram, also.

Correct.

Yeah.

It takes a little bit longer.

If someone were to order the hard copy through Amazon, it'll take it a little bit longer.

But if you order the hard copy through my website, get it to you faster.

Okay, great.

So on the back of your book it says Book Fox Press.

So talk to us a little bit about Book Fox Press.

Oh, they were amazing.

Ron, who edited the story, really easy to work with.

He gave me my edits in a handful of days.

Very fast.

They're awesome.

And Courtney, who's actually the publisher, she did an amazing job.

She linked me, she connected me to Norizaki who is the illustrator, and she did amazing.

And yes, we got this book ready to go within a year.

Fantastic.

I've had a couple of guests on who have used Book Fox and.

And they've all said really good things about them.

So you really enjoyed the process.

Yes.

They made it very easy, especially for a new author such as myself.

Didn't know anything about it.

They step by step all was really good.

Okay.

And so do you think you've got the skill set now?

Would you do it differently if you do another book, Would you do things differently?

That is interesting because I have the second book ready to go which I'm going to send to Bookfox Press to get edited.

Now here's the thing.

I don't know if I want to go the same route.

Maybe go more traditional or do self publishing.

I'm still weighing my options there.

But I know for sure I will send it to get edited by John from Book Fox.

Okay.

Then you'll figure out whether you're going to actually have them do the book formatting.

Now, would you use the same illustrator?

Yes.

Gotta keep Nora.

She's amazing.

She's good for you and that relationship.

Because you said, I think Book Fox introduced you to Nora.

Is that correct?

Yes.

But you were able to have that relationship separate from Book Fox.

In other words, you could for your second book, you could just go directly to her.

That'll be something I'm learning.

So I'm not sure if that's actually a possibility or if I do have to go through Book Fox.

So I have to learn that.

Okay.

So we'll see.

Yeah, I know.

Thank you for sharing that.

Because that's part of what we're trying to do is help other aspiring book authors understand the process.

And always understand as you go through from your first book to your second book, may feel more comfortable in your role and you might want to take on more, but depends on the requirements of the book publisher that you're using, correct?

Yes.

Okay, great.

Have you just used ingramsparks to order large quantities of Maya's Birthday Wish or have you sourced other printing services that do a larger quantity?

Currently it's just ingramsparks.

But I am looking for different avenues.

Always trying to find different ways.

Always have options B, C and D. So I am looking through other sources as well.

Had a guest on from Oklahoma.

Her name is Charlotte Glade.

Episode 23.

She wrote a book called Storm Trucks.

Charlotte Glaze put me onto a company that she did her hard copy with and it's called madeinchina.com and she had them print.

I think she had to have four to 500 copies printed.

But she said the quality was awesome.

And she said the pricing was out of this world, very attractive.

And she said even the freight to bring it over was still worked out extremely well for her.

And because of that, we actually took our main character in our book, Caboose.

So the name of one of our books is Adventures of Caboose the Rocky Mountain Bear.

And so actually, thanks to Charlotte, we had Caboose made up and we used the company madeinchina.com because they'll just about do anything.

That's interesting because I was thinking about doing a pledged version of Mayan.

Okay.

Madeinchina.com okay, perfect.

Yes.

Like I said, Charlotte's experience was good.

Our experience was good.

The thing is, they're a website that houses all these different type of manufacturers, so you still have to go through and do your research.

But they were very professional.

We ordered a sample first.

We had to pay for that, but it was quite reasonable and we could see the quality of work we were getting.

And I think Charlotte said she ordered samples of her hard copy book from two different companies and then she decided which one to go with.

Oh, I love that.

Excellent.

Anyways, thought I'd just share that with you.

No, I appreciate it.

And we love options.

No problem.

I looked at your website and Maya Storyland.

So I love that.

So like you said, you have this aspirations of building out Maya's Storyland, who does your website design, for starters.

Oh, gosh.

Okay.

So I'm doing it.

Oh, hey, good for you.

And let's say I'm trying to do it.

Work in progress.

I'm learning everything is on the job.

Training.

I'm learning every aspect.

I'm trying to do it.

You mentioned you've already written the second book and now you're just in the process of getting it edited and published.

When I looked at your website, and I have it actually on my iPad in front of me, I can see you have other ideas.

Share some of your vision with us.

Other ideas.

Such ads.

Because it could be anything.

So now, right now, if we go to your website primarily, we can purchase your book.

Yes.

In both paperback and hardcover or just hardcover.

Both.

Both options.

Okay, great.

The way I read your website, you seem to have other ideas.

Like it says, other.

I think it.

What did you say?

Products.

We have a couple of shirts available now.

Beanies are on the way for you.

So you've done some T shirts.

Done the T shirts.

And that's part as part of our giveaway.

Buy the book.

And then I'll include a free T shirt.

That's great.

Yeah.

One of our guests, Cody Bogart, I had talked to, as she was telling me, she wrote a couple of books.

She was a helicopter pilot with the armed forces, and now she's retired from that.

And she's written three children's books.

And she has a brand called Hilo Girls.

It's a helicopter pilot with a.

A female with the helmet.

It's really cool looking logo.

But what she did is she was telling me to help her support her book publishing business.

She designed these T shirts, and the margins are better for her, and she said it.

It helps offset the costs for continuing on with her books.

So I'm glad to see you come up with the T shirt idea.

Oh, yes.

Oh, yes.

Because everybody needs a T shirt and then free advertising.

Absolutely.

Oh, well, that's really good idea to offset the cost because I started crunching numbers and yes, the margins with the apparel.

Definitely.

You talked about at the beginning about your daughter being the inspiration, and actually Maya is your daughter's name and.

Yes.

When you got into thinking about becoming a children's book author, was there a specific person or event besides your daughter that motivated you to say, you know what, Nikki?

I can be a children's book authority.

Was there someone or some event that convinced you that was possible?

Not really.

I think I just had a passion for writing ever since I was a little girl.

I wanted to leave something for Maya, but I wanted it to be creative.

Okay, let's write her song.

Because I thought it was gonna be a song at first, but then now the story came to mind, and I feel like this story could help a lot of children worldwide.

Let's make life more simple.

Let's have joy and fun and play outside and all the little things.

Get off the tablet.

That was my idea going into all of this.

Let's encourage reading, family, all the things in the book.

Terrific.

Talk to us about Maya in your character development.

Talk to us.

Is Maya in the book very similar to Maya the person?

Absolutely.

What are the similarities?

Maya in the book is about three years old, and she is very curious, and she wants to do things her way.

Same as my daughter.

She's five, going on 15, and if she has a problem, a dilemma, she's going to work her way through it.

She may ask for help, but then she's going to sit down.

In the book, dad says, okay, you have this dilemma.

You need to create your wish, figure out what you want, draw it, be creative about it, solve your Own problem.

That's exactly how my girl is.

Excellent.

And I see in the book Maya's mom and dad have a big influence on Maya.

And I love how you've incorporated the birthday games into the book.

Talk to us a little bit about Maya's mom and dad and then about the birthday games.

Maya's mom and dad, I. E. Me and my husband, we.

So we, we're trying to instill just simple and gratitude into our child.

We don't want to promote a bunch of things, a bunch of materialism, things we don't know.

Not about that in birthday parties.

She just had a birthday party.

And you know what they did?

They had a jumper, they had water balloons and water guns and they had a ball.

So easy.

Fun.

And we're getting away from that as a society.

It's really.

It's scary.

Yes, I hear you loud and clear.

Was any of the book based on your own childhood experiences?

Yes.

Oh, you did mention the games.

Games.

My friends and I would always play the games.

And I did go back to traditional games when I was growing up.

Cops and robbers.

We played hide and go seek.

We did drawings, pictionary, things like that.

Those are pretty good games.

Let's put them in this book.

It's fun when you can incorporate not only Maya's childhood, but your own childhood memories.

Definitely fun.

And that's what I wish that for us to convey to aspiring children's book authors is, you know what?

Never be afraid to go back and dip into your own childhood.

Yes, absolutely.

And so talk to us about your theme.

This is.

I know this is your first book.

So talk to us about how you came up with this whole idea and used it to build the theme for your book.

My whole thing was simplicity and getting kids off the computers.

And that is still going to be my crusade from now until I don't know how long.

Long as I'm alive.

That's gonna be my thing.

That's gonna be my thing.

There's just too much.

I have a nephew who is so addicted to his iPad, it's.

You take it away from him.

He doesn't know what to do.

It's almost.

He's going through withdrawal.

Can't have that.

We gotta get the kids outside.

Gotta get em more creative because their imagination, they're losing their imagination.

Because I can see these kids now learn through observation.

And I'm just a lot of kids, they would rather be on their phone, their devices.

You're not.

You're not being creative.

You're losing your.

Should I Couldn't agree with you more.

My oldest granddaughter was the inspiration behind our first children's book, and she co authored it with me.

And then my middle granddaughter and my oldest granddaughter helped co author our second book.

So we've definitely been getting them involved.

Nikki.

And it's not inexpensive to bring a children's book into the world.

So we actually wrote.

We've written 38 stories in the Adventures of Caboose, the Rocky Mountain Bear.

And all five of my grandchildren have been involved in writing one or two of the stories.

And what we did, which might be fun with your daughter, is I had them record the audiobooks in about half of our books.

Oh, wow.

That is super cool family.

So that I love it.

Something Maya might love doing with you.

Oh, yeah.

She would eat that up.

Yes.

Yeah.

And to your point, it creates that creativity.

Because the beautiful thing about storytelling, not only storytelling, because I say to people, you know what?

And we have activity sheets where people can go to our website and print them off and write their own stories, draw their own stories, but I always say it to people.

Also, if you've got a child like you're talking about, I think your nephew, and he's always on his iPad, you know what?

Maybe what you do is get them to do a video as a short story.

So you trigger them and say, I'm not sure what your nephew's name is, but say, oh, you know, wouldn't it be fun if we went out in the forest?

Your nephew is possibly with you being a storyteller, maybe see if he could.

He would do a video.

Or from that standpoint, he still got his hands on that iPad, but he's doing something more creative.

He's only seven, so there's some time to turn it around.

But he's very.

He's obsessed with that thing.

Talk to us about the central teaching or lesson that you're trying to convey through your book.

That family, imagination, simplicity, play matters.

Things do not matter, because I try to tell so many people.

You can collect all the things, all the presents, all that you want, but at the end of the day, you cannot take it with you.

When God calls us home, you can't take it with you.

You need to create the memories.

You need to spend time with your loved ones, your family.

Let's value that.

That's what I'm trying to, through storytelling and children's book, try to convey that message.

I love that.

I love that.

I love that you're sharing with your daughter.

Because you know what?

I. I find that with My grandchildren.

It just started with one adventure with my oldest granddaughter and all these adventures we shared together.

Eventually it just turned into all these stories.

Like you said, it takes you away from being in front of a screen.

You're actually.

And then with us actually turning them into audiobooks again.

It gets them to learn to read from iPad.

You turn in teleprompter, but then they get to read the stories they've helped write.

Definitely a lot of fun.

Yeah.

And so do you see Maya playing a role in helping you write some of your stories?

Yeah, I would love that.

Already she's telling me, mom, how about me do this?

How about you write this story and all this, like, oh, okay, give me a second.

She's giving me the ideas.

It's funny you should say that, Nikki, because my oldest granddaughter, when we started getting this idea to write our first book, she said, papa, can we go and buy a journal?

And I said, okay, sure.

So we went to a farmer's market, we bought a journal, we wrote our first book story.

And then she said, oh, I got all these ideas, just like Maya, your daughter.

And so we ended up writing all of these titles to the next stories down.

We had a shopping list that I'm not sure if we'll ever.

I won't be around in this lifetime to see them all come to light.

But at least we wrote all these down and.

And turned some of them into audio stress.

So it's amazing.

I love that.

Yes.

Yeah.

So get you and Maya just write down the ideas.

We're gonna do it.

Yeah.

Talk to me about your writing process.

Give us some idea.

You said you wrote your second book, so take us through not only how you wrote your second book, but think back to your first book and tell us what may have changed from when you wrote your first book to writing your second book.

Interesting.

The first book was.

It was so fast, that process.

Extremely fast.

When I came to the second book, I had this idea and then I started writing it.

But then it takes longer.

To me, this process took longer with me writing with me writing it, because now I'm all very picky.

It takes longer.

So I can only imagine what John is going to think.

So, yeah, I've been working on the second one.

Yeah.

It took a little more time this time.

Okay.

Much longer.

But process still the same.

It's just this one.

I'm more.

I don't like that.

Let's switch this.

So I became my own editor.

Your first one was more spontaneous and.

Yes.

And the second one maybe overthought it.

Yeah.

I can say then yes to.

I haven't sent it in yet because I'm thinking I'm still trying to perfect it, but we're gonna see.

It's funny you should mention that because the other day I was talking to a guest and we were talking about is better than perfect.

Oh, I like that.

Yeah, I like that.

That is better than perfect.

Okay.

Because we were just talking that if you work for perfection, generally that's what stops most aspiring children's book authors is they never finish.

That is.

That is true.

Actually, yes.

Done is better.

I'm going to write that.

I'm going to steal that one.

Yeah, you're more than welcome to it because sure, it wasn't my original quote.

I'm sure I got it from the back of a cereal box or cover sticker or something like that.

Oh, yes, it's so true.

That's very true.

Yes.

I'm also curious, and you, if you want to think about your first book and your second book, I'm curious, besides your personal experience, did you conduct any research now into your second book?

Not even a little bit.

The research is not holding you back.

It is not.

So I'm doing more research into the process.

I'm trying to learn everything I can about the literary world because it's new to me.

But as far as researching on my book, just pulling it out my brain and just keep down and keep going.

It's fun talking to someone who's written and published their first book and now they're working on their second book.

Try and take us back.

So think, before you actually had your first book published, what did you have in mind as success?

What did success look like to you?

And after you publish your book, what changed?

Or what has changed?

Before publishing, success looked like the Dr. Seuss empire.

Okay, Dr. Seuss, all right, has stood the test of time, man.

In the children's book world, Dr. Seuss, to me, is everything.

So reality sets in.

Oh, it's hard and very hard, very competitive.

But you just gotta stay focused and remember your why.

Right.

My why is Maya.

Plus, I'm gonna do my part to change the world just a little bit.

Get us more, bring us back to simpler times.

I was saying to the other day, the neat thing about children is they're a renewable resource.

And because right now it sounds like we're both writing for about a 4 to 10 year old age group.

Is that correct?

Mine's a little bit younger, maybe about three to eight.

Three to eight.

So yeah.

So whether it's three to eight or four to ten.

The beautiful thing about it is that there's every day there's more three year olds or four year olds coming into the world.

And sure they leave, they get older, but you know, you just keep, we just keep replenishing this incredible resource.

So as a children's book author, and that's why I think to your point, Nikki, that's why Dr. Seuss has stood the test of time, because he knew he was always going to get a new audience every day.

That's true.

And that's what I'm trying to convey to the all children's book authors is remember, your book is evergreen.

It's going to last forever.

Because there's always going to be birthday parties.

Yes.

And there's always going to be birthday wishes.

Yes.

How do you envision the success now that you know about this whole book publishing, the method of doing it and getting your children's book published?

How do you envision your next book, the success for your next book and what are your aspirations for that?

The next book?

The next book, I feel it may surpass Maya's birthday wish because without giving it all away, it's going to be a Christmas book.

I think that's going to be a big one.

Cool.

But we won't reveal your whole idea.

Folks will have to wait.

The thing is, I don't think I've ever seen it done before, so I'm excited about that.

But that's the idea, just to keep growing, keep building and just not stopping because every day is a new day, an opportunity to get better.

So I'm working on.

As you build out your social media and as you build out your website, how do you see the role of those changing for you in launching your next book?

Social media is such a huge animal.

Isn't that the truth?

It is.

It requires so much attention, so much.

But you need it.

So I might actually have to get some money on that because you definitely need it to increase your audience, increase your visibility, increase your sales.

But definitely need to use social media to my benefit for sure.

As, as you developed your book, talk to us about, have you done any events yet or markets or that kind of thing?

Not yet.

In process.

Yeah, in the process of doing all.

I just came back from North Carolina to do some in store marketing.

It's very hard again, very hard to get into these places but I know is my fuel there.

No, their rejections.

Oh, I'm sorry, we can't do that right now.

Okay, on to the Next, the shop next door will have me there.

So not yet as far as in store, any book signings, things like that, but on the horizon.

It's interesting you should say that because I think all of us sometimes think of just bookstores.

When we first started out, I actually found a list of all the independent bookstores.

And I thought, okay, I'll reach out to all these independent bookstores.

And what happened was someone said, because our book is called the Adventures of Caboose the Rocky Mountain Bear.

And they said, have you ever thought about the shops in the hotels in the Rocky Mountains?

And I thought, oh, no, I never thought about that.

And so I reached out to the Fairmont chain who's in the Rocky Mountains, and I said, oh, would you be interested?

And they said, absolutely.

Oh, wow.

So they actually placed two orders already and they sold out of their first order in two or three weeks.

And then they placed a second order.

And I was just flabbergasted that that would happen.

So I'm just trying to say, because I was thinking about your book with the birthday wishes is there might be shops that actually I think there's those party stores or stuff like that.

And I was thinking bakeries as well.

Great idea.

Yeah.

So that's all I guess I'm saying to share with our listeners is just don't think traditional bookstores.

Sometimes if you've got a special book like Maya's Birthday Wish, whether it's a party store or Nikki just said bakeries.

Wow, what a great idea.

And bakeries, you know, because even with your next book coming out, there's all these Christmas stores and pop up Christmas.

Oh, yes, that's the plan.

Definitely have some opportunities there.

Do you have any markets in your area that you've been thinking about going to or what's your thought process being there?

Yes.

So I do have a couple of applications in for our local flea markets.

So we're gonna see hopefully in the next few weeks during the holidays can get into one of them.

But yeah, we're just still word of mouth, tell everybody about the book.

And a lot of people are like minded as myself, they're just, yeah, the kids need to be more creative.

Yeah, they'll buy a book and not just me striking up a conversation like, it's everywhere.

There's opportunity everywhere.

That's why I try to tell people in different areas of business, we're just trying to tell them there's opportunity everywhere.

I want to pick up on that advice for aspiring authors.

So someone who's thinking, oh, I got this great idea, but I just don't know where to start.

What would you say to aspiring children's book authors?

Funny that you mentioned.

I was talking to a girl today, a dental hygienist, and she says, oh, that's so cool.

You inspired me to write my own book.

Yes, just do it.

Take the words from Nike.

Just do it right.

Even if you were to write a page a day, that's.

It just starts.

That's all you have to do.

I just recommend it just starts ideas.

Brainstorm some ideas.

That can be day one, day two, let's get a couple of characters.

Just start.

And the beauty about children's books is they're generally between 500 and a thousand words.

Really?

It's not like you're writing the great next novel.

If you were saying, Nikki, doing your second book, you'd be a little more critiquish for yourself.

But.

Yes, but that's.

Yes, that is the word.

I'm still talking about 5, 500 to a thousand words.

Because to me, especially in Maya's birthday, which there's different levels.

It's not just little girl trying to.

Oh my gosh, what am I gonna wish for today?

It's layers to my book.

Some people catch it, some people don't.

It's okay.

But there's different, different things I'm trying to touch on in 25 pages.

So that's where I think my over critical self comes to play.

As far as my second book, because I want, I have a short time to instill something in these little children.

I gotta try to do it as quickly as I can.

So right now you think you've got too much content?

No, I think actually it's perfect.

I feel like it's pretty, I feel like it's pretty good.

Oh, good.

Don't let me, don't let me.

If I read it now, it's gonna.

Be like encouragement for readers.

I'm curious, why should someone buy Maya's birthday wish?

To promote family values, promote memories, creativity.

You want your kids to grow into not what is the word.

You don't want them to be so greedy or selfish.

Just let them focus on the things that truly matter.

And that's what I'm trying to promote in this book.

That's right, family like you've got, like I said to you, the mom and dad play such a strong role in your book.

And then all of her friends throughout the book.

And that's so neat.

And I think even I saw she has a pet dog.

Yeah, it's Coco.

Yeah.

So all of those family type friendship rules are quite strong in your book, so I love that.

Yes.

And then I believe one.

Yeah, one of her wishes was to of course get the unicorn, but where did she want to go?

She wanted to go visit her grandmother.

So see, that's what I'm just she's wishing could be with family.

So I love it.

Yeah, that was the whole idea.

Fantastic.

Final thoughts.

Is there anything you'd like to share that.

Is there anything I didn't ask you and you said, oh, geez, I wish Rick would have asked me that question?

No, your questions were I wasn't ready.

No, I think pretty much we covered about everything.

No, I think we did pretty good.

Okay, great.

I appreciate that.

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

Your generosity of time, your insights will definitely help benefit aspiring authority authors and readers.

And we promise to provide our audience with links to Nikki's social media and her website.

And if you've enjoyed the 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 Nikki and her children's book, Maya's Birthday Wish.

Thanks, Nick.

Thank you so much.