My name is Alyssa Cornwell, and my book is Where Do Grownups Come From?

Thanks, Alyssa.

Thank you.

Appearing on the Adventures in the Heart of Children's Book Authors.

Thank you so much for having me.

Oh, my pleasure. I'm so happy you've written this great book. Where Do Grownups Come From? And I look forward to our conversation. Your book is a subject matter close to my heart. And I know from some of my family members, I know it's close to their heart. And it's interesting. When my mother passed away, my dad asked me if we could do something special, and that ended up us starting an account with ancestry.

Oh, great.

Yeah. And then it was me building out our whole family tree and focusing on my mother. So that was neat. And my dad loved it. It was really special. Once you build out, it's incredible what you find out.

Yes. That sounds like such a lovely gift to give her. I'm sure that was very nice.

Fun. I love about what you're doing is you're introducing the subject of family trees at a very early age, and I just think that is incredible. I'm excited about talking to you about that. Before we get into the details of your book and your children's book authorship, I'd like to know, if you could just tell us, what does it mean to be a children's book author? What's it mean to you?

Oh, man. It's something I never expected to happen. First of all, I had put a lot of dreams of becoming anything literary behind me a long time ago because I went through the whole process of getting a bachelor's degree in English because mostly that's just what I wanted to learn. I wanted to learn about books. I wanted to learn about authors, stories, and stuff like that. But I didn't really have a direct idea of what I wanted to do with that degree. Life just takes you places. And I ended up in a. A field that had nothing to do with English was actually much more math based, which was a shock to everybody that knows me because that is not my subject. I was a cabinet designer for almost a decade, learned through a big box company that I worked for through them, and then was able to transition to that.

Sounds like creative in its own right.

It is creative, but it is much more limited. Right. So you're creative within the boxes that they give you, which has its own way of being creative because you have to work within certain rules, which a lot of authors do as well. But it was just a very different kind of creativity. But I was glad that I Still got to use those juices a little bit. But then when the story presented itself, it was just something that I knew I wanted to keep going with, which was cool.

Did you think, I want to be a children's book author? Like, it's the old the chicken before the egg or the horse before the cart. So was this inspiration to be a children's book author, or did you have this idea for a children's book and then being a children's book author became second?

Yeah, the story came first. The idea of being an author was actually something I had to come to terms with because it's the same thing of being an artist. I love to paint, but I had trouble calling myself an artist because that's something other people do. Right. That's something that someone else has achieved. I don't know how to achieve that. So to actually come out to people and say, oh, I am a children's book author sounds. I don't know. It feels like I'm bragging when I'm not. That's just what it is. But that's something I had to reassociate with myself.

It's interesting that you say that, because I had one of my first guests on my show. She wrote just an incredible book like yourself, and hers was on time management, but directed at children. And so a very cute book called Money Time. Anyways, when I went to her Instagram and she had a good following on her Instagram, it didn't have children's book author in her title. And I said, oh, why is that? And at first, she didn't really think of herself as a children's book author, even though she had a published children's book.

It takes time to absorb that title and accept it.

I did influence her in a positive way because within five minutes after we hung up, I noticed her Instagram changed and she did add children's book authors. Absolutely.

I had to have somebody tell me to start putting, like, author and writer as, like, hashtags at the end of my posts, because I wasn't putting. I was like, aspiring author aspiring. They're like, no, you are, in fact, one already. And I was like, okay, okay, okay. So it all takes a little punch and a little acceptance. And I got there eventually. Fantastic.

So I'm interested now that we know that you put the cart before the horse. Okay, maybe. Anyways, tell us what was the inspiration behind your book?

Family is such an important subject for so many people, as it should be. But family always means different things for different people. And for me, I was a new mother. I had my first son, and he was about 2 at the time. And we had started reading a lot of these lovely children's books together. And as a creative person, I started thinking about what story could I potentially bring to the world. And it wasn't until I was on my parents back deck surrounded by all my siblings and their families and stuff like that, that I started to think about what those big questions were going to be that were brought to me by my children. So my son, I just had this image of him coming up to me at some point in the future and asking those questions. Does the chicken come before the egg? Kind of stuff or where do babies come from? Is the big one? Big one.

Was that part of the conversation when you said you were out on the family on deck at your mom and dad's and you were sitting around, Was there any conversation around the whole ancestry thing? Or you just listened to the conversation.

And thought, oh, I was listening to the conversation. And it was a little bit. It was just. I was surrounded by my family, right. So I have a brother and two sisters that were all there and my parents and my brother has children and my sister has children. At the time, my younger sister didn't have any kids yet. And we were all just telling stories about our kids. Right? That's the stories that everybody has to tell is, oh, my son did this, oh, my daughter did that kind of stuff. And it just brought on this question in my head of, oh, wouldn't it be silly if instead of the ones you expect, which are, does the chicken come before the egg does? Is why is the sky blue? Or where do babies come from? What if they asked you in a way you weren't expecting, how do you answer that? And it made giggle of where do grownups come from instead? So the title was genuinely the first thing that I thought of for this. Really not how it's supposed to work, but that's just one of those.

Actually. I actually talked to a guest a couple of weeks ago and it was a little bit of a sad story that the parents of someone who had a chronic disease, she passed away at an early age around 21, and she was a very positive person and they had talked to her about what would your legacy like to be? And part of it was being a children's book. So they had come up with a children's book title and the characters in advance, and it took them 12 years to find someone who had pen the story.

Oh, wow.

Yeah. So you never know where your title and that whole thing takes you. So thank you for sharing that, because I'm always curious. And part of this show is to help aspiring children's book authors. So it's not like you. If you come up with the title, this is a brilliant title. So.

Oh, thank you.

You're welcome. So to come up with the title and then let it stir in the pot, or however you want to phrase it. That's fantastic.

Yeah. It was the title first, and I had to figure out if anybody else had come up with that title. So I started Googling. Somehow found out that nobody had done that yet. And so literally, just in my phone, I started, like, writing down notes of what that story could be. But it wasn't until I had a conversation with my husband's sister where she was talking about the research she was doing into their family history. So she's gone back in their family tree all the way back to the 1600s. The Cornwells go way back, apparently. And it was that conversation that inspired the connection of where do grownups come from? To leading to an answer of family trees. And that's where the story really started to take shape and become something with a little more depth and something that I could be more passionate about and want to actually pursue. So that's how the story really turned into what it is now.

And I love your spin at taking it back to the start of a child. And I'm interested in it a little bit in. Have you. Has it driven your interest in your adult ancestry from your own work?

Yeah. So one of the big goals of the book is to create conversations between families. It ends. I don't know if you seen a full copy, but it ends with a blank family tree that you can then fill in yourself. So.

Which I love.

Thank you. You can talk about the members of your family with the little reader or. I always felt it could be a really great gift from, like, a grandparent or something like that, where they pre. Fill it out and then could talk about those people to your little readers.

That's a terrific idea.

Thank. It's worked for me, too. So in creating my little family tree that I've written in myself, I realized I didn't know my great grandparents. So I went to my parents. We called on FaceTime, and I was like, guys, I've written this book, and I don't know so much about my family. And my dad just started listing off names, and he just became so excited to start telling me these stories that he hadn't even thought about in a long Time I learned all about my great grandpa Lou and my great grandma Gladys and the Now Lipinskis that I had never heard of that surname before. And it just became something that brought more connection between me and my family. And that's the goal. Right. The goal is to create those conversations and those bonds and to tell some stories that might not come up organically.

Now that you've got this, it's alive, it's growing. The leaves are sprouting out of the.

Yes.

Of the branches I'm interested in. Have you developed a children's business book plan? What if you have? What does it look like? Or do you have visualize building out a business book plan?

I probably at the very early stages of the full process. So I am very focused on goals that are achievable in the right amount of time. So I am the mother of two. That is my main focus in life. And I don't want to do anything that completely disrupts the main priority of my time.

You don't ask me asking, how old are your children?

My son is 7 and my daughter is 2. She just turned 2 a couple weeks ago. We had a little trouble having number two for a while. Me and my husband had a few losses in the process. And I think that more than anything really pushed me to want family to be a focus of the book. Because the loss shows you what you have, right?

Yes, absolutely.

Yes. So sure.

And the only reason I ask is when I talk to children's book author mothers who like our children's book authors and they're also mothers of young children. It's always interesting because of the dynamic now that your son's in school opens up a couple of windows for you.

Life has changed considerably from me raising my older kid. So when he was really little, he was going to daycare every day because I was working as the cabinet designer. That when we knew we were gonna have my daughter, I knew I didn't wanna do that again. I wanted to be a stay at home mother because I really struggled with working and having a kid. I wanted to have more time with my children. So we made this big decision to just go to my husband's income, which is obviously not an easy thing to do. But we took that hit because I really wanted that time with my second and through. That gave me the time to then start pursuing something I didn't think was possible, which became this book signed school.

And read your book.

I have, I have. That's the only classroom reading I've done so far was for his classroom. But it was such a fun experience at the end. They told me like, hey, when you finished reading, the kids are given time to ask you questions. And I was like, oh, okay, I'll be prepared for that. What I was not prepared for was that all the questions were just like, can you tell me a funny fact about your son? Or can you tell me a funny fact about your dad? And I was like, oh gosh, I don't know. So I had to come up with some stuff that would be appropriate for children as the funny stories about my family off the top. It was still such a fun experience. And I did have a lot of kids say that they liked the story, which was very fun to explain.

And I'm thinking your book can transcend a normal children's book because most children's books are 4 to 10 and. But when you're talking about a family tree and parents or grandparents can get engaged in filling in the family tree at the back of your book, it really transcends ages. So I think you're the first person I've talked to a children's book author that their children's book can actually physically pull you in as a parent or grandparent. So that's fantastic.

Thank you so much. That's wonderful to hear. No, I had a really hard time narrowing down the age group for like selling the book because that's one of the big steps of marketing is know your audience might have really tough time narrowing that down because I do feel like it is open to a wider range now. I did go with the younger age group because of the simplicity of the sentence structure and stuff like that. But. And it's just a silly beginning and there will be older kids that it might not appeal to as much, but when you bring it back to the end result of talking about family, it reopens it to everybody.

And you know what, we all wrestle with that as children's book authors because we're writing books for generally 4 to 10 year olds and some of them are in their initial stages of learning how to read and you look at that. But at the end of the day, a child doesn't walk around with $20 in their pocket and say, oh, I want to buy your book. It's the parent or the grandparent.

Yes, you're selling to the parents. Absolutely.

So yeah, so at marketing we all walk a very fine line because you're, you want to speak to your primary reader age 4 to 10, but then on the same token, it's the parent that you need to or grandparent that you need to influence to purchase the book.

Absolutely no. And I appreciate you saying that you feel like that would be easier to do with my subject matter. That's nice to hear and talk to.

Us a little bit, I believe. Now, if I'm wrong, please correct me. I noticed you only sell it in the paperback.

Okay, yes. So right now I am just selling through Amazon, through the KDP program. That's mostly a budgetary reason.

Okay.

I paid my initial main investment, went to the illustrations. So I found a wonderful artist. I fell in love with her style. That's where the money went. So I had to restrain myself on different products that could be made from it. So right now Amazon only does paperback for children's. For picture books like.

And what about an ebook?

I don't have an ebook yet. Only because I have no knowledge of that world at this moment. If you have anything you'd like to enlighten me on, I'll take it. But I do not interact with children's books on ebooks at all. So I didn't have my. I didn't have the right insight to know how to sell to them.

And generally, just so you know, from what, from my experience and then the experiences of so far of the guests I've had on our show, ebook generally doesn't derive a lot of revenue.

Sure.

But a lot of people use it as a calling card when they're trying to book. Like, I've got a couple of children's book authors who have sent me their a PDF file of their book and some will send an E book. I was just curious about that. But I find when you have a book formatter who put your paper back together, generally the second question they ask you. Now, in this case, obviously I'm wrong. Usually like our children's book formatter who did the paperback said, and what about the ebook? Can I format that too?

Oh, interesting.

And so I said, absolutely. So we launch with paperback or soft cover and the ebook at the same time.

Yeah, I think I. I didn't push on that too hard only because I did want the interactive aspect of the book that you can't accomplish through the ebook. I wanted people to actually be able to write in the pages, which is another reason why paperback did work for me. So I was okay with that. I am hoping to one day have some kind of board book version of it. I think once I have a couple more books under my belt, if, when that comes to fruition.

Right.

That I might be able to then go to publishers and see if there's a different way of going about it. But right now I have to stay my course a little bit, building some experience.

So let's talk about your publishing approach. So each one of us comes at it in our own unique way. Like, some people are an indie children's book publisher, some are self published. Children's books do self publishing. And then there's of course a traditional route. And so I noticed. You are the publisher, correct?

Yes. So I went full self publishing. That wasn't my initial intent. I did actually take a little left turn in the process.

But you are, you are the. In what I call an indie book publisher or the independent book publisher, because you didn't you. When I say self publishing, a lot of people confuse. Like, I know some of my guests and listeners have said, oh, what's the difference between indie and self publish? Now I always say indie is when you're the publisher. Self publish is when you get somebody to publish your book, but it's not traditionally published. You just hire a publisher to publish your book. And in your case, you're the publisher.

I am the publisher, yes.

So you got that skill.

I have one thing under my belt. Yes, yes.

And you're a children's book author and a publisher.

Okay. I have to now assimilate that type of for myself. Thank you.

Congratulations.

Thank you. Yeah. So I. When I first started doing the research of different ways to publish, I originally thought that going through a literary agent was going to be the right route for me. And I did all the research. I went through the different agencies, I researched all the agents and sent out queries and did the whole thing. And the whole cult just became very disheartening very quickly. And not because you get no's like you expect no's. That's fine. My book's not going to be for every agency. That's understandable. The disheartening bit for me was the no response at all. Like they say, okay, we'll review it at some point in the next six to eight weeks. You might not get a response. If you don't, that's a no. So you have to wait months just to hear nothing. It was just difficult for me.

I find myself hearing that story over and over again. And so when I'm talking to people, or hopefully we're talking to some aspiring children's book authors and the advice that I would give them based on what I'm hearing is, you know what, don't go the traditional published route because it'll take time and Effort and generally doesn't lead to your book being published, it.

Certainly can, and it could totally work for other people. For me, it was possibly a little bit of just impatience in the process.

You know what, it's interesting because I've talked to so many great children's book authors like yourself, who have what you would think is a very unique idea story.

Sure.

So you would think somebody would say, oh, anybody, Right?

Yeah.

And so who knows? But I'm just glad that you took the initiative, which is this what Part of this show is all about taking the initiative and becoming a published children's book author.

That's why indie publishing becomes scary. Right. Because you then go, okay, so I'm now responsible for doing all of it, even though I don't know much about it. So you have to do a lot of research at the beginning. You have to talk to different people about how they went about it. But really, at the end of the day, for me, once I found Tori, my illustrator, it just led to the road. Right. It's really difficult to go to publishers with a finished product. They want to be the ones to be in charge of connecting you to the illustrator. They want to be the ones in charge of all the marketing. Not all the marketing, but most of it, and stuff like that. I guess mostly just so that there's a reason they get your money, Right?

Absolutely.

I want to provide a reason why you're paying them and taking some of the revenue.

And to your point, Alyssa, the biggest thing that I want to share with others, because you shared it, and I want to make. I want to reinforce what you said, is that it is the most expensive part of being an independent, an indie book publisher. The biggest single expense is your illustrations. If you're not an illustrator.

Right.

The other things are relatively inexpensive because a lot of people say to me, what about an editor? And I say, an editor charges you by the word, and children's book needs to be between 500 and 1,000 words. So if you're getting charged by the word, I can assure you that most editors are editing 60 to 120,000 words. So it's not costing you a lot of. So don't be afraid of going to an editor, because that's going to be the probably the least expensive thing that you make an investment into your book on.

Now, I want to say to that I. I don't grudge Tori the money I gave her. Like, she deserved the money that she got for all the work that she put into the book. I. It was just a Lot of money for me. So it's that kind of thing that I had to work through. That's my investment. That's where I got to be willing to put the money.

And what's incredible about what you just said is I agree with you a thousand percent. If the illustrator. I had to source my own illustrator, it took me a while. I found one that I could work with, a very special guy. On Sunday, we're about to launch our second book, and he illustrated that book also. And what's incredible is that it becomes your assets. And. And the reason I say that to people is we're going to. We're going to talk in a moment. I don't want to get too far off the illustrator, but I'm going to talk to you about website development. But you have this access to these illustrations, so it's your property. So tell us a little bit about. You said it's. Oh, sorry. Tori.

Tori, Kate.

So tell us a little a bit about that. How did you find her and how did it all come to be?

I swear, all I was doing was just scrolling on Instagram. I was scrolling. And I do follow certain artists. I love to watch people paint and stuff like that. And one of her images came up on my for you page or whatever, and I followed that to her stuff, and I just fell in love with her style. She uses really vibrant colors, but she adds a lot of textures that are unexpected to everything. And her characters are just so cute and vibrant. And I just. Once I pictured my book through her style, I really couldn't go back. I loved it so much, and she was just so wonderful to work with. So what happened was I followed her Instagram to her website, saw even more of what she could do, and was thrilled by all of it and knew that I wanted to at least see what the process was. And contacted her through her email through the website and basically said, here, I have a silly little book idea. Would you be interested in doing a whole book? Have you done that before? What's the process? And she came back to me pretty quickly saying, oh, my God, absolutely. And basically what I would do is you need to tell me, like, how many pages, how many subjects are we talking about? And then it went to, I'm going to draw a basic draft for you, a rough draft of what it would look like and give you an estimate from that point and from there. Every step we took, I liked it more. And she was great because I find.

If you look at our front covers, this is going to be our latest Book coming out.

Wonderful.

It's called Hijinks from the Big Head Folk Music Festival. It's actually co written with my oldest granddaughter, which is Caboose. Her name is Kira and Caboose starts with a K. And my middle granddaughter Bailey, we took a true story from a folk music festival and turned it into our next children's book. But notice on there we don't give our illustrator any credit. And not that he doesn't deserve credit, but we give him credit inside the book. His name is Inside, but we never gave them credit on the outside. So I. And I find it's probably about 50, 50 with children's book authors. So I was just curious on. Because you've given your illustrator knowledge.

Yes. Yes.

Ignition.

My cover has words by Alyssa and pictures by Tori. We also both have a page on the inside with our pictures that say like a little bio about each of us. Basically, I knew if I was going to pursue a picture book, I really wanted the art to be beautiful and something eye catching and like a big part of the story. And for me, reading this children's books with children, like they want to look at the picture. So the illustrations are just as important and depending on the book, sometimes even more than the words to me.

So I'm curious, did you've given her. Has she given you your. Dude.

What I mean by definitely talked about the book through her Instagram and stuff like that and has posted a few things about it, but not a whole lot. No, I wouldn't say. I, I don't know if she's been on the podcast. Okay.

And you know what? The only reason I ask is because you know what? The average children book sells between 100 and 500 copies over the entire lifetime of the book. And again, I'm speaking to aspiring authors, is that you know what you need to make sure if you're going to give your illustrator credit on the front of your book. It's like a billboard and you're giving them credit and you're. And to me it should be I scratch your back, you scratch my back. And they should be tooting your horn as the children's book author as much as you are tooting their horn as the illustrator. Because you've got to really look under every nook and cranny for a children's book sale.

Yes, absolutely. She has definitely posted about it and she's written some lovely things about it. But it has been a little bit. So maybe I'll give her a little poke soon.

Yeah, you know what? Absolutely. And that's why to any aspiring book author, if I can give you some advice based on what I'm listening to. This is my 45th it's children's book author interview. And I'm just hearing a reoccurring theme. And I just want people to understand what learning how to market your book is incredibly important because you know the chances of getting sales. You need everyone in your corner and if you've given somebody their due, I just encourage you to say to them, can you help me out?

Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. No, thank you.

Yep. I'm sorry, I hope I didn't make it sound like a lecture, but I.

Just wanted to appreciate it. That's what you want to talk about for your podcast and I appreciate any advice that somebody wants to throw my way. So thank you.

You're welcome. I want to talk to you about website development and this was a prime example, I want to share it with you is a lot of people said, oh, you should have a website before you launch your book. We didn't have a website before we launched our book. I didn't even give it much consideration. But as we were getting closer and closer, people were saying, oh, you should have a website. And I thought, oh, here we go, another expense. But at the end of the day, you have to have a platform where to market your book other than just Amazon. And I thought, oh, where do I get the artwork? How do I put this all together? Here was the incredible thing is that we had the artwork from our book. So we. And luckily for us, our book formatter was also a website design person.

Oh, that's good.

Yeah, they just took the illustrations and said, okay, what do you want? Where? Or just give me all your illustrations and tell me what you want. And magically our website came to life through our children's book illustrations. Anyways, that's something to think about. And I just throw that out at you and I'm curious, are you looking to build out a children's book author website?

That is definitely something that is in the list of to accomplish at some point. That's one of the goals for sure. It has not been something that I have done enough research on yet. I have had a few people tell me that would be something good to do, but it's just been more of a. I wanted to focus on getting the book out first and then part of what I've been doing is doing some of the in person sales. I've done one book festival so far. I've now been accepted to two more. That'll be happening at the end of August and then one in September. I have the big goal of doing at least three for the year just to get myself out there doing it.

Explain that to people listening. What's a book festival and what do you get from it? Who's the audience and who are you reaching?

Each one can be a little bit different. The first one that I went to was just called Georgia Lit Fest and literally it was a multi gym building with tables around each room that each had an author and their books to present to people. And people could come through and peruse all of them just like you would at a food festival or something like that. But just focused on books and their authors where you can talk to people directly and give em your little pitch. And I was lucky enough to have a few first sales at that experience, which was pretty exciting. And then you got to go around and talk to the other authors. You could exchange pleasantries and maybe a contact card or something like that and build a connection through all of that. The next one that I am set up to do is actually more. It's called a yard sale. So it's meant to be more eclectic than just books. But I did tell them my primary product is a book. So as long as that's okay for your business, then I would like to participate. I'll create bookends and some ornaments and things like that to connect to the book in order to bring people into the booth and to hopefully get some sales. That way my dad helps me make the bookends and stuff like that, which is really fun for the two of us to do. And then the next one in September is actually specific for the library community. So that is going to be at a library with only local authors to that county. And I got my acceptance for that one today, which is pretty exciting. So I look forward to. Thank you very much.

You're welcome. We just talked a little bit about your website and. Or looking at developing. Yeah, but no, but I want to give you a big compliment because I want people to understand that there's more than one way to skin a cat. And so when I look at your Instagram, I noticed that you have 1178 followers. I thought, wow, because you know what, if you look at our social media, that's something I haven't really focused on because that's just how I felt. I was getting this pressure to develop a website before developing my social media. So when I looked at your Instagram I noticed you have 1182. And then I just started following you. So you're 1183.

Oh, thank you very much. I appreciate it.

I want people to understand that if you're going to put the effort in, as Alyssa has done, and create a fairly large following on your Instagram, then. And I noticed that you had three different posts, like your cover post, your book launch post, and one other post. Sorry. They all clicked together. I thought that's pretty cool. Trying to help other people and aspiring book authors. Tell me, how did you use your Instagram followers to help get the word out about your book? And what was the plan and how did it work? Or did it work?

I guess I would say I am still probably. I'm just over a hundred book sales so far. So as far as success rate, I don't know how you grade that because I'm still very much at early stages as far as gaining a following, which 1100 is great. And I'm very pleased that I've amassed as much as I have so far. But I still wouldn't say that's a very big following. However, I did start the page well before my book was released, so at that point I didn't have the images of the art or anything.

When you started the page, did you have the goal in mind of launching a book?

Yes, that's it. The whole purpose of the Alyssa Cornwell, author Instagram page was to start building a following before the book even came out.

Great advice.

Most of my posts are of other children's books being held by my children. So they're all pictures I've taken with the hands of my children holding those books. I don't show their faces or anything like that, so it's just their hands. And then I'll write a little bit about the book and say how me and my children either enjoyed or we always enjoyed the book, but just talk a little bit about how we experienced it.

Good for you.

And then.

And thank you for giving that way, doing what you did with your children. Because you know what, again?

Oh, yes.

Like I'm saying, the one thing I found, it's universal. The children's book author community is so giving and they all want to help each other. And so thank you for doing that with your children because you're teaching them something at a young age and that's an important lesson.

Every book you hope will end up in a child's hands. That's why you write them. We write these children's books to hopefully lead to that experience of somebody else having a kid on their lap and reading the book together. That's the experience we love to have with those books. So I hope that leads to someone else doing that with Mike, we talked.

About you sitting on the back porch with your family, getting some inspiration. No. And it's important. I think that's great to share. So I'm curious, is there, when it comes to the motivation or came to the motivation of getting your book actually going, was there a specific person or event beyond sitting on the back deck with the family?

Actually. So what was funny about mine is I had written it a few years ago, actually, several years ago. My son was probably only two, maybe three at most, when I wrote most of it just on the yellow legal pad kind of thing. And life goes on, things happen. Forgot about it, genuinely. We were moving on to bigger things, and I forgot about it. And it wasn't until a good friend of mine came to tell me that his book, not a children's book, more for adult, had been picked up by a publisher and he was getting published, if I can plug him real quick. Daniel Quigley wrote a book called Thunderstruck, and it's very proud of him.

And we'll put that in the show notes, by the way.

I'm gonna do that. It's not for children. We'll just emphasize that a little bit. But genuinely, I had somebody with me telling me his story, and I went, oh, my God. I think Dan actually have most of a children's book written a while ago. And I went looking and I found the yellow legal pad. And I was able to have this weird experience where I could read a book that I had written but not remembering the whole thing. So I got to read it with completely fresh eyes. And when I did. Yes. And when I did that, I went, oh, wow. I think I still really like this. And it was the moment that I was able to reread it and connect the silly answers that the children in class were giving to the question to a teacher explaining about family trees that I decided this is actually something I want to pursue. So that moment, that connection, all hit at the same time, which was pretty exciting. Yeah.

So talk to us a little bit, because now it's neat that you went back with fresh eyes to your own material and talk to us a little bit about character development. So you have a classroom setting with students, which I love, and then you have a teacher walking the kids through it. So take us through that whole character development and why you took that approach.

A lot of it stemmed from the fact that my older sister worked at a daycare for 10 years and she was always coming home with these stories about the children in her class. And, oh, this student did this crazy thing, and the student got into this mess. But they always. It was always a fun time. And when I started writing was, what were these students coming up with their question to the answers? And. But it had to lead somewhere. It had to become something more than just a silly question and a silly answer. So the students are talking about it, and I wanted one of the students to be the one to say, you know what? I really want to know this answer. Let's ask the teacher. So bringing in the adults to then explain. This is a little bit about how families work. Grownups are just kids that in fact grew up. And if you draw it out, it then creates the family tree. So it was all about. Any question can lead to a conversation that is fun and entertaining, but then also can have a real answer, if that makes sense. Yes. Okay.

And the reason I asked that is because when you think of family trees, a lot of times it's family influencing you. You could have written it from a child, come to their parent or grandparent.

Very true. Very true. At the heart of it, it's all about how different every family is. So to just have one family explain their experience or their tree doesn't quite cover the conversation.

It's all about. What a great point.

Thank you. It's all about how different everyone's family structure is.

And it's nice that you broad.

So multiple perspectives to bring to take that into consideration.

So again, thanks for sharing. That's a real true nugget. So. Thank you.

Thank you. Yeah. And when that became the heart of it, the images had to be very inclusive. It had to show different peoples from different walks of life and different kinds of students and that sort of thing.

So let's expand on that because that sounds like we're getting into your theme, so.

Yeah, absolutely.

Describe the theme of the book, how that all developed. Was there some circumstance in your life?

Yeah, actually, I have a half sister as well. My. I didn't know about her till I was nine. I think when she became old enough to go through the adoption agency, she found her birth mother, who is my mother. Okay. And that experience really opened my eyes to that. You grow up till you're nine thinking that your family is one way, and then suddenly there's another person in there that could have been there the whole time. And it brings up a lot of questions and brings a lot of curiosities and it brings a lot of new perspectives because suddenly I have this sister that I didn't know about. Now we now have a relationship with her. We. She lives pretty far away, so we don't see her very often, but we do keep up communication and she's doing great with her lovely family.

Nice.

Yeah. So my family tree is a little difficult to draw out now because there's a lot of different people that become involved.

Absolutely.

But as far as a theme, I always struggle with pinning that down specifically, but I suppose it's just how good it is to have a unique family. And that's something. Everybody has a unique family. But that is a lovely thing. That's a wonderful thing.

And it's funny you should mention that because I've got. Not me personally. My wife found out that she had a half brother and half sister and she was much older. I think she's like a teenager.

Wow. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I think a lot of people going through those, like, DNA things have discovered new family members. That's been a big thing that I've.

Read for different people. I'm not sure if it was her mother's embarrassment. I'm not sure exactly what it was. It wasn't through any DNA or something. It was finally her mother revealing it.

I see.

But it took her mother a long time to reveal it. Interesting.

I think for my mom, it was mostly just not knowing the right time to tell her story.

That could be as simple as that.

For sure. Yeah.

Yeah, I know. We. We. The theme was a little harder to nail down. So let's talk about the central teaching of your book. Is that a little simpler to define?

Yeah, I would think so. It's about teaching about. Maybe it's not so easy. Okay.

Yeah.

If you think about.

Or even the lesson, it doesn't have to be.

It's meant to be a very simple introduction to the world of ancestry and. Or genealogy. So genealogy is a little bit more thorough. It's got more of the stories and stuff like that, where the ancestry is more about the timeline of it all. So it's just meant to be a very simple introduction to ancestry and where you can bring up that conversation of your personal ancestry. So it's a lesson about the topic, but it's really a lesson about you and where you come from is what it's supposed to turn into, if it's possible.

Thank you for sharing that. Because you know what? Even though I'm on ancestry, I never thought about the word genealogy. I just thought they were one and the same. But thank you for explaining that. That's fantastic.

I had a little bit to go through this.

I want to talk to you because you mentioned it. So you opened the door and you opened the door into your aspirations to write more children's books. And I've yet to talk to a guest. One of my first guests said, I thought it was one and done. He said, I thought I was going to write one children's book and I'm out of here. Now he has four.

I'll confirm. That's great.

So I have yet to talk to anyone who's told me that they're a one and doner.

It is possible that this is a one and done for me. I have ideas for other stories. Don't know exactly how I would grow upon this one book, but that's certainly something I may.

And you know what, just so you know, I talked to many children's book authors. Like, our books are a book series. We've written 38 books in our book series.

That's incredible. That's so cool.

The cost of producing a printed book is expensive. So it's going to take a while or I'm going to have to win the super lotto or something. Yeah, exactly. So I'm curious. Children's book authors, I find will either they'll do a book series or they'll do one offs or they'll do a combination. So whatever you approach, you take is the right approach, whatever it is. So I'm curious, can you share some insights into your writing, like your development as a children's book author and publisher, and talk to us about your writing process also?

For this one, my process was to just write anything that came to mind. So a big brainstorming session. Where do grownups come from? I had to come up with some form of answers to those questions, to that question. And so anytime I was walking around and I thought, oh, that would be a cute thing, I just wrote it down. Where that would be a cute thing. I wrote it down literally just in my phone, at the grocery store, wherever I was. If a idea popped up to me, I wrote it in my phone just to have a place for it. After a while, I compiled all of that into something I could write tangibly. I like to have a pen on paper as well. So I wrote out all the ideas that I come up with and I started narrowing down the ones that I would want to visually see as well. And that's where it all came together that way. I love an outline. I love an outline. If you want start with that anytime you can just write the basic Ideas and then go back through and start really expanding on all of that. I do think that that's a really good way to about it. Other than that, for any future ideas that I've been pondering about, I really need to see it in my head first. So the next idea I've been thinking about, I really have the pictures in my head first. Which is again, probably not the way to go about it, but it's just the way that works for me. But the story will build from those images.

Okay, it sounds like you did a little bit research besides your own personal experience when you wrote your first children's book. Tell us a little bit about your research and then how do you see what lessons did you learn that could perhaps for research for your second and third book?

Add to that, a lot of the research went into the publishing process that was a big part of it and which works for you and how does that work for this person and that sort of thing. And. But it wasn't until I actually started doing the indie publishing route that a lot of it came through. So the research came to how to do a copyright, and then it became the experience of getting a copyright. It went into the research of how to get an ISBN and then going through the experience of doing my first ISBN number and knowing that if I do decide to publish my book at any other format, I then have to get more ISBNs and stuff like that. I'm trying to remove member as much as I can, but I'm sure I'm gonna have to re research a lot of it again. Next time.

I'll give you a lot of credit. It's a lot of hats.

It is a lot of hats. And it's something that once you start doing it, you go, oh, maybe my research wasn't good enough, unfortunately, because you do all of it and then there's a random question that you don't know how to answer and you have to then figure it out. It is definitely a process, but it is all achievable items. Like, it's all stuff that if you take it a step at a time, you will get those boxes checked.

Absolutely. And you and I are living proof, right?

Absolutely. Yeah. Now. And I did for things.

So that's the whole thing. And I'm curious because you've been so open with your whole journey, I'd like to talk to you about your success measurement. So I know we, we talked about a business book plan and that's a work in progress.

Yes.

I want to delve deeper into your original goal or goals into your book launch, all of us hope for thousands of copies of sales.

Absolutely.

To measure our success. But with your book, talk to us about how did you see your success and how are you living up to your own idea of success.

I did have those hopes, but I am also. I try and be realistic about things. Right. So, yes, I hope a million people buy my book in the first month. That would be great. But realistically, if I could get a hundred books in my belt, just to say that it's been done and that is a box check would be wonderful. So I was able to achieve that within the first two months, I think. So it's been. That is. I was very pleased with that. That is wonderful that anybody bought the book. So the fact that I reached that number was wonderful. But as far as what I hope to go to, I'm hoping to get somewhere between 20 to 50 sales per year. That's, I think, some kind of achievable goal. Whether that sale is in person or just through Amazon or when the website becomes a thing. Perhaps that could produce some of those as well. If I could at least keep some sustainable number going, throw an idea. I would be wonderful. I would feel wonderful. Absolutely. Please do.

Okay, so the only reason I'm throwing this out is because, again, it's thanks to previous guests on my show. And some of them are helicopter pilots, they're in the military. Some of them have go to a conferences, and some of the sponsors buy their books. And at the conference, so they buy like a whole bunch of books, and then they ask the authors to sit down and sign their books for the people attending the conference. And I was thinking, yeah. And I thought, wow, that's a great idea. And I was just thinking about you, and I was thinking, you know what? There are so many of these. I'm on Ancestry, the software program called Ancestry, and I think a lot of people have heard of that, but there's other ones out there. And I was thinking, you know what, Alyssa, you should reach out to all of these. You can Google them in about five minutes and then find out if they have conferences where they bring their people together. And then say, look at, would you buy my book? And I'll come and I'll sign my book at your conference.

That's a wonderful idea.

I sell a thousand books. But no, because they're trying to. You know what?

Wonderful.

Guess what happens as Ancestry. They're always looking for new clients. Some of their clients are dying because they're getting older. But you could Start with the cradle.

Yeah.

Which is what you're doing. Think about it. You could help them grow their market.

That's a wonderful idea. I've actually thought about it as a good connection to, like, people that like Ancestry.com.

But just so you know, it's working because I'm talking to actual book authors who are doing that.

Yeah. I didn't think about it as their conferences as a way to get in. That's a wonderful idea. I will absolutely look into that. Thank you.

You're welcome. You're welcome. I want to talk to you about the rule of writing. So can you tell us what's being a children's book author now, that now, in the grand scheme of things, you now are a published children's book author. So what does it mean to you now versus before?

It means that life can take you in different paths that you're not expecting. And it means that if you're willing to go with the flow of what's presented to you and the ideas that come to you and you're willing to pursue that creativity, that you can actually create something pretty cool out of that. That's what it means to me. Good for you. Thank you. It's about letting life happen and then being able to say, okay, no, I do want to pursue this action. Making that choice, you lead to new things, which is pretty cool.

And as a mother of two young children now you've got one that's still at home and one that goes to school. So I'm curious on how is writing fitting into your life now?

My husband is taking care of the kids while I'm on a podcast, so that's new. Excellent.

Tell them. Thank you.

I will. Yeah, it's great because I get to share my love of the books with my kids with a more a better intent behind it. So before it was just, okay, it's time to read books, but now it's, let's experience this book together and talk about what they're experiencing in the story and stuff like that. So it just adds a new level of how to experience literature with your children.

I'm curious about advice for aspiring children's book authors. So what kind of advice would you give someone who wants to be a children's book author?

I would say if there's somebody that has the idea, don't go, ah, it's a delusion of grandeur or something to think that. And it is unachievable. That's the first hurdle. It's just saying, oh, no, I am capable of doing that. So that's number one. But I think if you had the idea and you start writing, like, just let it happen. It's somebody that. I forgot about mine for a while. So it's always gonna be there, though. So you can always go back, but you can always return.

I talked to a children's book author who had written her book 30 years ago. It took her 30 years.

Wow. Oh, my gosh.

While she's a school teacher, and she wrote it just as she was starting her career. And then when she retired, she dug up her yellow pad. I'm not sure exactly, but she dug it up and she brought it to life. And now she just launched her second book.

That's amazing. And that's exactly it. It doesn't matter when or how. It's just if the idea keeps coming back to you, it's probably for a reason and might as well see what happens.

Absolutely. And we've been talking about this. I'm always trying to help people, including myself, find readers. So what encouragement do you have for readers? Why should readers purchase your book?

I think people should buy my book because it will produce a conversation that you haven't had before. So it's about your life at the end. It's about your family. It's about the people that you're surrounded by and. But it's also a way to talk about other cultures and other families and people. Students, especially little students, start being exposed to things that they haven't seen before and being able to show how everybody has this family. It's absolutely worth the conversation. It's absolutely way to produce that conversation in a fun, simple way to start that you can then build on in the way that you're comfortable with.

Thank you.

Sharing that anytime people can talk about their family and where they come from, I think that brings people closer and why not have a silly way to go.

Absolutely. I love that. Final thoughts. Is there anything that you said? Geez, I wish Rick would have asked me that one question.

Oh, gosh, I don't know. I did want to ask you something too, though. So let me think about an answer to your question. Then I have one for you. Okay, let's see. What's the question I wanted you to ask me? I guess I wanted you to ask me about what's the new thing you learned about your family? And that would probably be the same one I wanted to ask you. You said you're on ancestry.com I wanted to know, did something become. Did that illuminate anything new for you? Did you Guys, find something that you didn't know about your family through that experience.

I will definitely answer that question, but you have to answer it first.

Okay. I had this great experience with my father driving to the first in person event that I went to, that Georgia lit fence I talked about. And on the way there, he showed up. Like we drove two hours to this event and he showed up with a pile of papers that his dad had written to him before he passed about some members of their family. And we learned all about my great grandpa Lou. Now, my dad had met great. His grandpa Lou a few times and knew a few stories about him. But we started reading the story that his father had created and we heard some of these crazy stories about him. And we just had this wonderful experience laughing together about this man that I had never heard of my dad had met a couple of times. So great grandpa Lou at one point in his life had gotten really sick. Right. He came down with scarlet fever.

Oh, my God.

And it was awful. Like, it was a full pandemic in the area. And she went through this experience of waking up in a body bag. He woke up antibody. They thought he was dead.

Whoa.

And had to get out and explain that he had not passed yet. And me and my dad are reading this together going, oh, my gosh, what a life he's had. And to go through something like that must have been insane. And just. You never know these stories until somebody gives them to you.

Right.

So we just have this wonderful experience learning about somebody from his past especially. And. Yeah. So really fun. Like crazy stories that we hadn't heard before. And it's just a cool way to. To become connected to a history. Right. So that was really fun.

So I will share ours.

Yeah, it's.

I'll share what I thought blew my mind. I'm Canadian.

I live in Western Canada, and my illustrator's Canadian too. That's great.

There you go. And what I found out, and it was actually through some American friends of mine who live in Portland, Oregon. I was telling them about this story. And the story is that my family at one time owned the land that the Twin towers were on.

Whoa. Yeah.

So that's. Someday I'll go to New York and I'll do the complete research. But they are the property in the 1700s. No, before.

And that will totally create a new connection to that space for you. That's how cool. Like ancestry and history. Because it is. Because adds a new level. That's so cool.

Absolutely. Because it happened before the United States was the United States States. And then I found out about when the United States became a country, how people had to swear allegiances who were born in the country of the United States, but they weren't Americans. They had to actually as soon as the America became a country, they had to swear allegiance to that country that they were born in because at the time they were born there, it wasn't a country.

That is so crazy. That is such a cool thing to learn about your own family. That's incredible.

Yeah, we could have a whole show on that.

Next time.

Absolutely. You know what, Alyssa, thank you so much for being a guest on the Adventures in the Heart of Children's Book Authors. Your generosity of time and your insights, like the learning that went on here will definitely benefit aspiring children's book authors and readers. So again, I thank you.

Thank you so much.

Oh, you're more than welcome.