Lori Orlinski, and my book is Being.

Middle, and Eli Orlinski, the star of the book.

Fantastic.

Thank you both for being here.

It's a real treat to actually have the person who inspired the book joining us today, and that's Laurie's daughter, Ellie.

So welcome.

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

Oh, my pleasure.

Thanks for you both being here.

Lori has written a children's book, Being Middle, which is part of her book series, Being Me.

We'll talk more about that.

Laurie, before we get into our conversation about your new book, Being Middle, I'd like the audience to get to know you a bit more because you.

You've got an interesting background, and I'd like to share that with everyone.

So you're the head of marketing and publicity for Yorkshire Publishing.

Tell us about your role.

Very interesting role.

Yeah, it's a newly created role.

Yorkshire is expanding.

We do both traditional and hybrid books.

And so I will be working with authors directly to get their names out there to get the media coverage.

Wonderful podcasts like this, and also just visibility in the marketplace with the goal of selling more books.

Terrific, Terrific.

If we can just break it into two parts, because I think a lot of people.

It's interesting, when I'm talking to people about children's book authorship, it's always interesting because I find that a lot of times getting your book published is the easiest part of the whole children's book authorship.

And what I mean by that is after you have a published book, that's really when someone like yourself, and that's when the author really has to get down and dirty and realize that they have a marketing and sales function that is so critical to the success of the book.

Tell us a little bit about the marketing side and then the publicity side.

You're right.

So authors do have to wear many hats.

Just to clarify, you're talking about my marketing or Yorkshire?

You know what?

If you want to share both roles, first as the head of marketing for Yorkshire and then how you've used that, or maybe it was your background that got you the job.

Just give us that whole story.

My background is in journalism.

I graduated from the Ernie Pyles School of Journalism at Indiana University.

And I thought I was going to be a newspaper reporter.

I did a lot of internships, and unfortunately, the market was shifting digital.

And so I started to use my experience and I broke into the marketing and PR world.

I've worked at a couple of the big agencies, helping on campaigns as big as McDonald's and Barilla pasta.

And it wasn't until my older daughter hailey was about 3 years old that my career completely changed.

She came home from preschool one day and was crying because she was the shortest kid in class.

They had done a growth chart, and everybody's names were at the top in the middle of the growth chart.

And her name was right by the doorstop.

And she said people, like, saw that she was different.

They were calling her names like innocent names, like Peanut and Munchkin and Squirt.

But it made her feel really bad.

I didn't.

I could tell that it just was really impacting her.

And so the first thing I did is I went on Amazon and I typed in books about short kids.

And I couldn't find one.

So I went to Barnes and Noble, couldn't find one.

I decided just to write her a story that night.

I wrote it down and I would tell it was as simple as you are the last one to get wet when it rains and you get the most legroom when we fly in a plane.

So very basic.

And I watched her face completely light up with joy.

And I decided after a lot of people read the book, friends, just friends and families and passing it on to their kids and grandkids, that the book resonated with other people who were not just short, but maybe felt different for a different way.

And so the book that was called Being Small isn't so bad after all.

That was published in 2018.

And it's about embracing your differences and your differences being your superpower.

So that is my.

That's how I got into writing books.

And then I had just decided I. I didn't love promoting other companies as much as I love promoting books.

I love reading.

I love reading to kids.

I think reading is so important.

And I started taking a new career path and helping market children's books first and then market all genre books.

And so I really enjoy it because books are so important, especially in today's world as people are taking shortcuts.

There's nothing like a good book.

Fantastic.

So, Ellie, do you understand what your mom actually does?

Yeah.

Oh, good.

That's fantastic.

The marketing aspect of it.

Take us how you've helped yourself through your role at Yorkshire.

What I do for authors is we look at authors in kind of three components.

The first is hype.

So it's building the hype for the book.

It goes hand in hand with building credibility.

And credibility is a lot of finding the right reviews that fit for authors because they need professional reviews in order to sell their books to bookstores or libraries.

And it's trying to align authors up with different awards because everyone loves an authority.

But to be an award winning author and to have a seal and to be able to say award winning just really helps you stand out in the marketplace.

And so we do a lot of credibility building, we do a lot of hype building.

And so the hype is more fun part, it's launch parties for books, it's book signings, media appearances, and then we help authors sustain their momentum.

So whether that's continuing through social media or a website, or just generally guiding authors through the process, that's how it works.

What's the difference between marketing and publicity?

Publicity is earned media.

So publicity you've never heard.

Can we just say that again?

Earned media.

Because I've never heard.

That said, I've heard media, but I've never heard earned media.

So can you explain to the audience what is earned media?

Earned media is media that you never pay for.

There are no sponsorships involved, there's no exchanging of money.

It's pitching your story to a podcast or a newspaper or a television station without putting any compensation towards that.

And that is always the best type of media because the media themselves govern what they put in.

And you have a good story if it gets picked up by the media.

And with marketing is more leveraging different channels.

It's omnichannel marketing.

So you might do digital marketing through paying for Facebook ads.

You can actually buy a segment on TV that says sponsored by.

There's all different ways you can market your book, Amazon ads, et cetera.

And so marketing is really paid.

It could be a combination of paid and earned, but publicity is strictly earned.

Okay, terrific.

And thank you for sharing that because actually when we launched our first book, we had a lot of earned media, but I had never heard that phrase.

So it's eye opening.

So thank you for sharing that.

And it is a little difficult right now to get earned media.

There's a lot going on in the world and everyone has a story to tell.

And so it's about finding.

One of the things I do at Yorkshire is I help find the right hooks for authors.

We don't just go out and say, hey, this local person has a new book, can you write a story about it?

We find the hooks that make them exciting at that time.

Excellent.

Just so the audience knows, you're also an accomplished children's book author with five published children's books, including, as you talked about, multiple awards.

So I want to just pick up on the significance of the awards?

Because I noticed on your website there's a string of awards at the bottom of your website.

One of the things I've noticed and I've had, for example, I think it's called Mom's Choice Awards.

So now we know there's earned.

You called it earned media, and then there's marketing, where you pay for the media.

I've noticed some of these awards is that you have to pay to play.

Tell us about.

Are most of the awards for children's book authors?

Do they have to pay to play?

First of all, I would say don't ever discount an award because it's pay to play.

What you're paying for is the time that it takes somebody on staff to read it, the time and the resources.

So we never want to undervalue anyone's time.

But that being said, there are a lot of awards out there that unfortunately, you give them 50 or $100 and you always get the participation trophy.

There's a lot that try and prey on new authors.

And I always, personally and through my job, work with trusted award companies that don't give everyone the participation trophy.

We know that if we enter our authors in five awards, they're not going to win all five.

Our hope is that they'll win one or two.

Right.

And with awards, it's also about placing authors in the right category.

For example, I wouldn't put myself for my next book being middle.

I wouldn't put myself in the picture book category.

I would maybe put my book in the sibling relationships category.

So it's finding the right category, doing a lot of research out there, even checking the Better Business Bureau, because there are a lot of scams and red flags.

Thank you for sharing that.

Because I just want people to understand that it's interesting when I see these awards and I always try and get just a little more background.

And I'm glad you said that.

Sometimes you have to understand that someone's doing the work to actually certify yourself as a children's book author.

And like you said, you need to be in the right category.

Thank you for that.

Sure.

I want to delve into your book because you mentioned.

And this is fun having Ellie here because you mentioned you're not a middle child and.

But you're the proud mother of a middle child.

So you know your mom, Fraudy Allie.

Yeah.

Oh, good.

Before we get into the details of your book being middle and your children's book authorship, can you tell us, Laurie, what it means to be a children's book?

Author, what does it mean to you?

It's been one of the greatest books honors of my life to be able to go out into the community and read into schools and bookstores and see kids reading my book and it not just being entertaining for them, but also making a difference in how they view themselves and how they view the world.

I saw firsthand with my first daughter how the book about her being small completely changed her outlook on life and made her feel better.

And that was my goal, that's my goal in all my books, to give kids a clearer picture of the world around them.

I write rhyming lesson based books, so a lot of my books also have lessons in them that kids can learn in a gentle way.

It's fantastic that you were inspired to get off the couch and help your oldest daughter understand what was going on.

And it's interesting because I was very fortunate.

I've come out children's book authorships differently and Ellie, you might appreciate this.

My oldest granddaughter and I, we have had a home in the Rocky Mountains.

So her and I would go to the Rocky Mountains and I taught her how to ski and snowshoe and mountain bike and all those kind of things.

And we had so many adventures that eventually she said, papa, we've got to write a children's book.

And what triggered it all was her daycare used to send her.

They would give them a plushie, it was either a rabbit or a bear.

And then they got to bring a suitcase and we would go on a trip.

And when she came back to her daycare, she got to tell the stories or the adventures of what happened with Georgia the rabbit or George the bear.

So we had a lot of fun doing that and of course we took a lot of pictures.

But when she got older, of course she didn't go to daycare anymore.

And so we had to come up with our own character.

So she inspired that.

So we ended up actually writing our own book together called Caboose the Rocky Mountain Bear.

And my granddaughter Kira is a co author of the book.

Congratulations to you both.

I signed the best books come out of personal experiences, not just looking at the marketplace and saying, okay, there people are looking for middle grade books right now about mysteries and then having to fit your book into that category.

I find the best books come from your heart.

And I couldn't agree with you more because not only she inspired me, my wife and I always said even from when she was a, like I an infant, she had an old soul.

And so she inspired me and that.

And then she inspired her cousins and sister and we ended up writing 38 children's book in our book series, the Adventures of Caboose the Rocky Mountain Bear.

Yeah, incredible.

And as Laurie, you can't bring them all to print at once because even if you're an indie publisher, it's still a very expensive thing to do.

And so we just launched her second book, which is called Hijinks from the Big Head Folk Music Festival.

And the reason I mention this is because our middle granddaughter Bailey chose she wanted to be Bailey the Beaver.

And this is actually Kira, who's Caboose in the book.

It was inspired from a true weekend at a folk music festival in the Rocky Mountains.

So we'll have to get that for my 3 year old.

We had so much fun doing it.

What we've done with about half of our books, and just to share this with Ellie, is we've actually turned about half of the stories we've written into audiobooks so we could capture the young voices before they get too old.

I just thought I'd share that with you.

So as a published book author, so tell us a little bit about.

And because of your background with your Yorkshire publishing, but tell us about, are you doing print on demand or tell us a little bit about that.

So for the last four books, I've been with a hybrid publisher.

I worked with mascot books.

I really enjoyed working with them.

It was a big stepping stone for me in helping me to achieve my goal of having a traditionally published book.

So that is what I'm working with Yorkshire on.

And so the audience knows a traditionally published book is where a publisher loves what you're doing and they take the risk and they take the chance on you.

You're not upfronting any costs and you're getting paid on the back end a portion of sales.

With hybrid, what usually happens is you invest a certain amount of money into your book and you also get a portion of sales.

It tends to be difficult to get a traditional publisher.

You can get that through just your own research and pitching or through a literary agent.

And I was fortunate enough that I owned my own company where I helped children's book authors promote their books.

And I had connected with Yorkshire and the timing was just.

Was perfect right now.

Do you primarily do what with mascot books?

They're a hybrid book publishing service.

Yes.

Okay.

Okay.

And right now I was looking at your books and I noticed that with your five books, four you used the same illustrator and one you used a different illustrator.

So can you give us a little bit of the background behind the illustrators.

So for the first book, being small, I didn't know a lot about the process.

And so when I was working with Mascot, I told them what kind of illustrations I was looking for.

Whimsical, colorful, not cartoony.

And I looked at a portfolio of about 50 illustrators and we dwiddle it down and then we would have the illustrators do a test sketch and then from there color it.

So we'd.

I'd ultimately look at about three different color sketches of whatever scene I felt was Goodwood depicted the best in the book.

And Vanessa Alexandri just seemed to capture everything I wanted in my book.

I always wanted to work with an illustrator like her, and I'm honored to do that.

The reason I didn't work with her for my other book called the Adventures of Lefty and the Windy City, is because I was looking for more of a graphic style illustration.

And so it was interesting how it came to be.

I was over at a friend's house and our kids were playing in the playroom and she had a chalkboard wall and there was an awesome picture of Elsa and Anna.

And it was like drawn, it was hand drawn and it was cartoonish style.

And I said, who did that?

And she said, it was my father.

And she connected me with him.

He's a retired.

His name is Ken Vidro.

He's amazing.

He's a retired elementary school art teacher and he lives in Michigan.

And working with him was a dream as well because this was his first book and it was just such a fun collaboration.

He really made my characters come to life in a way that exactly I envisioned them.

And even better for my last book because it's part of the series, I went back to Vanessa because I had to continue the series how it started.

It's beautiful.

Okay, so that's fantastic.

The book with Lefty Righty is.

Was that your middle book or where does that fall in the grand scheme of things?

So that book is number four.

Okay, Number four.

Yep.

And actually Ellie inspired that one too.

It's just a small comment she made.

Okay.

Ellie, are you left handed?

No.

Are you ambidextrous?

No, by my mom is.

Oh, okay.

So the vocabulary.

Tell us about that a little bit because I. I want to talk to you a little bit about the plushie.

So talk to us about Lefty.

Righty.

So you're ambidextrous.

I am.

Although that doesn't have anything to do with the book.

I am.

That's my one cool fact about me.

Okay, fantastic.

Because my wife is left handed, but all of.

All of my children and grandchildren, they're all right handed, and I'm right handed.

So being a lefty or being ambidextrous is a pretty special thing.

Thank you.

Thank you.

One day I was just.

Ellie was probably three.

I was sorting laundry, and I was picking up socks, and I was going, why are there no matches?

Where are the socks?

And Ellie just looked at me incredibly with this innocence, and she said, mommy, they went to the White Sox game, and we're huge White Sox in our house.

And I just thought, what a cool, funny idea coming from a child about white.

About Sox taking a field trip and going White Sox game.

And so I actually was fortunate enough to work with the White Sox on that book.

Oh, yeah.

A portion of proceeds went to White Sox charities, which actually help with literacy in schools.

Okay.

Teaches a lot about Chicago, a lot about the different places.

It's almost.

It's almost like a flat Stanley now where people take the plushies and they pose with the different places that not only in the book, but different places they go on vacation.

It's funny that you should say that, because I know my wife has helped my son out from time to time with his three children.

And one of the things was actually matching socks.

So I didn't realize, Ellie, that a lot of my son's socks went to the white socks.

Did you know that?

Yeah.

Okay.

All socks, you know, that aren't matching.

And so tell us about how the plushie came to be.

I thought the characters that Ken drew were so cute.

When I was visualizing the book, I literally just visualized socks with eyes and a mouth.

He gave them personality, he gave them hair, he gave them glasses.

He made them look like two sweet little guys that you just wanted to be your friends.

Ellie kept hugging the book that I made, the proofs that I had.

And she's like, I wish I could hug this all day long.

And I thought, oh, what about a plushie?

She can actually do it.

My kid, always the inspiration behind everything I do because I love seeing the world through children's eyes.

And it's interesting you should say that because one of the first things we did when we launched our book is that Kira and I wrote the book and we could visualize what caboose looked like, but we didn't have a caboose.

And so what happened was I had my dad's old train set, and I put it in a shadow box, and at the end of it was a red caboose And Kira, of course, if you're 20 years or younger, you've never seen a caboose on the end of a train.

And so most people don't even know what that is.

But she loved the name, and she would run around and she'd say, caboose.

And so we thought, oh, now we've got the name of our main character.

We're going to change the C in caboose to a K for Kira.

And we had this visualization.

So when my wife and I were down in San Francisco on holidays, we actually saw this bear, but it didn't have any clothing.

And then we saw the outfit, and we thought, oh, my goodness.

So we got help from one of the store staff, and they helped us put it together, and we came up with our character, which we had visualized for two or three years.

So we came up with Caboose, the Rocky Mountain bear.

And that's adorable.

What ended up happening is the first store that bought our book, the store owner said, you should have a plushie.

Because he said, every time we have children's books that have a plushie that goes with them, we sell a lot more books.

And I thought, oh, you know what?

In North America, that's easier said than done.

I don't know where you have your plushie manufactured, but I have to show you this.

So we finally, thanks to a gal in Oklahoma, we actually had our plushie made.

Oh, cute.

Yeah.

So now we have a plushie that goes.

So now we have a plushie that goes with our book.

That's adorable.

I also find that kids gravitate.

If I'm at an event or something, they gravitate to my table for the plushie, but then they start reading the book, and the book hooks them.

It's a good way to get kids actively wanting to read, too.

We're very excited because two weeks ago, we delivered our first orders of plushies with the books.

So very exciting.

So that's why I was interested in talking to you about that, because I've always found with children's book authors, a single book generally isn't enough to build a children's book business.

So let's talk to you a little bit about that.

So do you have a business book plan?

I do a marketing plan for my books.

Okay.

And I used to write out all my marketing tactics.

But having done this for so long, I find that I know what works for me.

One thing that I've been really fortunate to get is a lot of media coverage.

And so with the Latest book being Middle, I had so many of the contacts and I thought maybe we'd go on NBC Chicago or ABC Chicago.

And we were able to go on all five major stations in two days.

Oh, congratulations.

Wow.

Exciting, but tiring.

And I know that people are just generally excited when they see your book on TV or when they hear about it in a podcast.

And so I really try and focus my own things on the earned media side.

I do very little paid because I feel that I've established myself as a credible author.

I want to just come back to the Plushie, because again, most children's book authors, or most authors only sell between for the lifetime of a book, between 100 and 500 copies.

And if you were to total up what it cost you to actually bring a book to market, if you did the math, you'd probably say that doesn't make any economic sense.

People do it because of their passion.

But now that you're established children's book author, is your book business paying for itself?

It is on certain books.

Certain books do better than others.

I always say sometimes being an author is an expensive hobby.

Yes.

Really have to hustle and grind.

And no matter if you're traditional or hybrid, you're always going to need to hustle your books out there.

The best marketing that you can do is marketing for yourself.

And it's.

I really feel like it's going out to bookstores, it's going to schools, it's getting known in your community.

And all books are different, all sales are different.

But when you establish a good presence and a good home base, it usually helps with sales.

Has the Plushie helped you with income or revenue to help you pay for your next book or things of that nature?

It does.

It helps offset some of the costs.

When I did mascot, when I did hybrid publishing with them, it helped offset some of the printing and the storage fees.

Okay, terrific.

Terrific.

So I also want to talk about your website, which I have up in front of me, but as a children's published, children's book author, if you can think back to before you published your first book, which you said was in 2018.

Yes.

Did you have an author's website?

Which came first, the website or the book?

The book idea, the book proofs, and then the realizing, oh, no, I need a website.

So then it was the website.

And since then I've been refining the website to include all the books and to have different social media handles, photos, et cetera.

You've had your website, you launched it about the same time as your first book.

Yes.

Great.

And your social media.

And I was looking at your social media.

Wow.

Like, you've got some great numbers.

I was looking at your Instagram, I think you're over 8,600.

Facebook, you're over 3,400.

LinkedIn, of course, LinkedIn only gives you that 500 plus thing.

You're never sure how many people are actually following you.

I'm trying to understand and to help the audience.

How are you using your social media accounts to launch your book?

Because one thing I noticed, I thought was so cool I hadn't seen this before was I saw a picture on your Instagram page.

Ali, you probably loved it because you ate the cake.

You had a cake with the face of the book on the cake.

So tell us all about that and how that all worked for you.

We do book cake every year.

My husband started audition and ever since then we get a book cake and we've added book cookies to it just to celebrate what I call my book birthday.

So usually every year we do something and for social media, I follow personally follow the 8020 rule of 80% of my content is value to the audience and is also about me.

And about 20% of it is, hey, buy my book.

Because you don't want to be salesy all the time.

You want people to get a peek behind the curtain and know you.

And so a lot of my posts focus on why I wrote my books.

They focus on who Ellie is, they focus on who my other daughter is.

They'll focus on the different landmarks in Chicago for another book that I wrote.

So I try to make a connection with the audience and I respond to all comments and it's exciting to me when people engage.

Oh, good.

Fantastic.

So that's.

You have a.

With your three major social media accounts, how do you find time to spend responding to all three accounts?

Luckily, I usually have to just set up one post because Instagram sends it everywhere.

You can hook it up that way, so that's nice.

I just make time every day.

Whether it's the end of the day and I'm winding down and I'm laying in bed waiting to fall asleep.

I'll go through and respond to all the comments.

I'm going to take you back to 2018.

I know it was your oldest daughter that inspired you to write your first children's book, but was there a different event or person in your life that inspired you to think, okay, you know what?

My oldest daughter is having trouble through school.

Was there an event or a person that kind of motivated you to believe that taking that challenge for your oldest daughter and turning it into a children's book, what was the motivation that.

What made you believe that you could be a children's book author?

I actually reached out to my high school AP English teacher, my AP Journalism teacher, and I was asking her, what do you think of this?

What do you think of my writing?

And she's, go for it.

Just go for it.

What do you have to lose?

And it was wonderful being able to do that.

Unfortunately, she passed away before the book came out, but I made sure to send a copy to her daughter and grandkids.

Fantastic.

I always find that there's someone that always comes, is the catalyst.

So good for you for recognizing that.

And she was the teacher that would make us.

People complained about it, but we would have to find at least five mistakes in every newspaper a day.

And so she taught me very.

To pay attention to details and to just keep going and perseverance.

And so that was just an important skill, life skill, that I learned in those classes.

I want to talk to you a bit about character development.

It's fantastic to have Ellie sitting right next to you.

And so tell me about middle.

And tell us why you took that approach to character development with.

And Ellie, if you want to jump in, please do.

When I read the book, I thought, ah, you've revealed the younger child's name, and you've revealed the older child's name, but the middle child didn't have a name in the book.

I'm interested in why you did that.

I don't know if there was a clear reason why I did or didn't do it.

In my second book, it was called the Tooth Fairy's Tummy Ache.

It was about a little girl who loses her first tooth and puts her tooth.

Puts a piece of popcorn under her pillow, and all this stuff starts happening everywhere.

In the tooth fairies workshop, everything starts popping with popcorn.

And I actually used Ellie's name in that book as the main character because I thought I wrote one for Haley.

So I think maybe I didn't use Ellie's name specifically because I named another character Ellie.

Wasn't a strategy.

It just happened to be the way it worked out.

Yes.

And maybe it was intentionally done because of that reason.

Okay.

Okay.

Interesting.

So, Ali, did you realize that your character didn't have a name in the book?

I didn't realize that.

I don't think anybody did so far.

Oh, okay.

When I'm looking, I'm always trying to get into that.

It's fun because My.

My grandchildren always try to get into my mind as a children's book author, and I try to get into their mind and figure out the motivation on why you do certain things.

And like you said earlier, Laurie, is that with our stories, there's always a nugget of truth in every story.

It was something that happened to us.

We just happened to turn it into a children's book.

So it's very quite interesting.

So when you.

And now that you've brought up the Tooth Fairy's Tummy Ache and with you being in marketing and publicity, is that book reviews are very important.

And I noticed that two of your books being small and the Tooth Fairy's Tummy Ache, both are well over 100 reviews each.

So talk to us about that.

Everybody talks about a sweet spot.

Sometimes you hear if you get 25, 4, 5 star reviews, it really helps you on Amazon with the algorithm.

And then some people say it's 50, and then some people say it's a hybrid.

What have you found in your journey?

I strive to get 50.

It's difficult because when you ask your friends and family to review it, it is a process, especially if they didn't buy the book on Amazon, they have to go down.

I usually make a video of how to do it because it's a cumbersome thing to explain.

You have to go down, you have to type in the product.

There's a lot of dropdown menus, but reviews in general are worth their weight in gold because when you Google yourself, you're seeing those reviews and it's ranking, your SEO presence is growing.

And so that's always for an author to grow their SEO presence, to grow their visibility online, their digital footprint.

Sorry, what number did you find was significant for you when you started noticing it was helping?

I would say 50 is probably.

It does start to help.

It is very important, though, within Amazon to have at least some verified reviews.

Whether it's verified and verified reviews is some of them that purchase your ebook or your hard book on Amazon.

And so those are important because there are unfortunately a lot of people out there and Amazon's doing a good job of flagging them, but they open a ton of different accounts and they won't review any product, but they'll review the book and they'll give the book five stars.

Then they'll open a different account and you can tell the comments are the same.

So Amazon has that under pretty good lock and key.

Okay, so you feel that 50 is a number that really helps out a lot.

Yes.

And I Think the place is good reads as well too.

The more places you can get reviews, the better you can often leave.

Many people don't know, but Barnes and Noble, you can leave a review on target.

You can leave a review anywhere the book is sold online.

You can leave a review just so I understand.

So you're using.

I was looking at your book format, so you've got.

When I looked at your website, you don't link to Amazon.

So are you selling your books from your home?

I am selling my own books from not being middle.

Being middle is being sold exclusively through Yorkshire and Amazon and other channels.

I do sell them to schools, as I do school visits.

A lot of the kids always want to purchase them, but for the earlier books, I sell them on my website as well as selling them on Amazon because when you do hybrid, you tend to buy a lot of copies of your own book.

And I noticed you don't have any links to Amazon though, on your website, do you?

I don't think I do, but I go in the media or something.

I tell people it's just so much easier than giving them my website.

I say go on Amazon because everyone buys on Amazon.

They're not going to remember.

They might just remember Middle Child Book, but.

But not the name of.

Not my name, not anything else.

And so if you get Middle Child book on Amazon, it'll pop right up and you can buy it without even putting a credit card in.

If you have Amazon prime and if you have the face ID enabled, all you have to do is show your face and buy that book.

I just wanted to understand that and for the audience to understand that.

I want to talk about theme and let's discuss your theme.

So let's dig a little deeper into the theme behind and with Allie being there, it's fun.

Tell us a little bit more about the theme.

And Ellie, tell us from your point of view, did your mom capture the theme of what being middle is all about?

He captured it like she's her own middle child.

Ellie would.

Ellie, the reason the book came up is because we had a surprise baby during COVID So I have.

My kids are now 12, nine and three.

And Ellie was always the baby of the family, even though she was only three years younger than her older sister.

And she got all the perks of being a younger child.

She had everybody do everything for her.

She was getting the most time with mom and dad.

And when Avery came along, she quickly realized that my older daughter needed a lot of art time because she's going to competitive dance Practices and competitions.

And our younger one needed so much time and attention for her growth, development that Ellie kind of felt like she was weirdly being forgotten and overlooked and in the middle.

And so she came to me one day and she said, I hate being in the middle.

There's nothing good about being in the middle.

And we were at the kitchen table, and I picked up an Oreo cookie.

And I said.

I opened it up and I said, what's the best part of an Oreo cookie?

And she said, the cream.

And I said, you're the cream that holds the cookie together.

You get the best of both worlds.

And so I think in my family, we always knew when we find something that could be a book, we're like, that could be a book.

That moment created the inspiration behind the book.

So, Allie, did you help contribute to the book?

Yeah, I was kind of like her helper because I was kind of an author.

I helped her write words.

And if they're hard words, like kids under age 9 couldn't pronounce, if they were reading it themselves or they didn't know what it meant, I told her so she could make the word a little simpler.

Excellent.

Excellent.

Because that's what I found with my grandchildren, is they'd say.

They would.

Like I said to you, we turned about half of our books into audiobooks.

And they'd say, papa.

That's what they call me.

They say, papa.

Oh, my goodness.

I don't think this is the right word.

It's too hard.

And we would change the words.

Good for you, Allie.

Very critical, in a good way.

When the illustrations came back, she would do thumbs up, thumbs down, and she would point out very interesting things.

That's actually not the face that I would make.

It would be more of a frustrated face versus an angry face.

And so I think the final product is a combination of my words and Ellie's expressions.

Good for you.

Good for you.

Did you like that process of being involved on the illustration side?

Yeah, it was fun.

Oh, nice.

And again, I'm.

If you both of you want to answer this.

So the central lesson or teaching of your book, were you consciously aware of what you were doing?

I was.

I knew that I wanted the lesson to be, for this book, no matter where you.

First of all, no matter where you fall in the family, you are important.

Everybody serves their own purpose.

But when you're middle, you're not stuck in the middle.

You get to be in the middle.

And Ellie actually coined that phrase a couple of months ago.

But seeing the world with a Different lens, just putting on the rose colored glasses for a second and see the perks that you get from being in the middle.

And the perks sometimes are funny, sometimes, like, we do overlook Ellie and we forget that she's on her iPad and not in bed on a school night.

Some of the perks she likes and some of the things we've worked on with her.

Ellie and I think have had a closer relationship since I wrote the book because I realized that she did feel overlooked.

And so she and I take the time every month to do something one on one.

What she and I do, we volunteer through an organization in Chicago called the Honeycomb Project.

And we've done everything from sewing pillowcases to baking cookies for kids in the hospital.

And that is our time.

That's our thing.

We never cancel it.

Nothing ever gets in the way of it.

And I want parents to know that you got to see middle children for who they are, not how they measure up to their siblings.

And I make a very conscious effort to show Ellie not only feel in my heart that I'm proud of her, but show her that I am fantastic.

So, Ellie, it gets me thinking of what your mom said earlier, is that you got to be the youngest child for quite a while, and then now you're.

And then you were the middle child, and that got a little frustrating.

So do you feel a whole lot better about being the middle child now?

I feel better than before, but still wish I was still the youngest.

No offense to Avery, but I wish I was the youngest.

Okay.

Thank you for your honesty, Laurie.

I'm interested in your insights into the writing process because a lot of aspiring children's book authors, they just don't know how to get started.

Give us some insights into your development as a writer and the writing process.

I am proudly the simplest writer on the planet.

I just write whatever in my head.

I do a brain dump.

If I'm at gymnastics waiting for my kids, I will.

If I don't have a piece of paper, I'll open the iPhone notes app and I'll just start writing.

Don't worry about if this rhymes perfectly, then the other if the two, if there's the same amount of syllables, I don't worry about titles.

I don't worry about grammar.

I just write.

And I find that it's so much better than overthinking it.

And then as I've dumped everything, I then go back and try and cohe make it cohesive and connect the dots and fix the grammar.

But I have unfortunately written.

I'VE had writer's block before, and it's hard, but I've just found.

Just dump whatever is in your brain if it's in the middle of the night.

I have a notepad by my nightstand.

I just write it down.

Good for you.

So I'm curious, besides your own personal experience, have you done any additional research into some of your books?

I have.

For the first book, there was a lot about bullying because my daughter, she wasn't being bullied, but it felt like when she was short, it could have turned into that scenario if she didn't lean into it.

And so I actually work with the PACER Bullying Prevention center, and I was an ambassador for them and would go into school and share their bookmarks, their posters, things like that when I was doing readings, and the numbers were staggering for bullying.

And so that was something that I did.

This is actually really funny, but I connected for this book with the president of the International Middle Child Union, and.

Which no one would believe.

You'd think you're making this up.

The best part of this is after we connected, he said, I love your book.

I want to give you an honorary membership card to the International Middle Child Union.

And I said, that's great.

What do I get?

And he said, you get the same perks as a middle child.

Nothing with a lot of fun.

I also did a lot of research to see what celebrities were middle kids, what television shows depicted middle kids.

I would tell Ellie constantly about Jan from the Brady Bunch and Stephanie from Full House.

There's so much comedy that evolved around that revolved around middle kids.

That's incredible.

I think it's characters.

You know what I have.

I'll have to look into that for my middle granddaughter, who's a double middle.

Yeah.

So thank you for sharing that.

Are you a part of that organization now?

I do.

I work with him, and I think my book is on his blog.

And it's just a funny organization where you can let middle children vent, no matter their age.

Right.

And, Ellie, are you a member, too?

Yeah.

Yes.

Okay.

But you're a legitimate member?

Yeah, she is.

I'm just an honorary member.

So I. I want to take you back, Laurie, to 2018, and then I'm going to bring you forward because I want to talk to you about success measurements.

A lot of the guests I have on, they've written their first book, and so I always talk to them about thinking about what did success mean to them when they brought their first book out.

Go back to that.

And so what was success to you?

For your first book, what did it mean to you?

What did it look like?

I think for my first book, it was gaining the confidence that I can do it.

And when it released, I was so worried, are people gonna buy it?

Or is it just gonna be, am I gonna come home to my parents house on Thanksgiving, open the closet, and all the books are gonna fall down from the top shelf?

I really saw that book resonate.

I worked with, actually the children's hospital in Chicago.

They asked me to come read the book to the kids that are staying in the hospital for extended periods of time.

And it was an eye opening moment for me because one of the questions I asked, I kept it very light, but I said to the children, what is one thing that makes you different?

And I said, for example, for me, I'm ambidextrous.

That makes me different, but I'm proud of it.

And the kids were saying, I have a pink wheelchair.

I have.

One kid said, I have another person's heart beating in my chest.

And to hear how kids took my book and interpret it in their own way, it was amazing.

And so for that book, the success was just being knowing that I can change the way someone thinks or make them feel proud of themselves.

I absolutely love that.

And of course, with the next books, I worked with a lot of charities.

I wrote a book on pet loss.

And so it was, for me, it was very important to give back to that organization through donations.

With the White Sox, I worked with them as well for donations.

And for this book, I'm just really having fun.

My goal is to sell books, but I also want middle kids and their parents to take notice that middle kids are often overlooked and try and make the time to make their lives a little better.

When you think back to your first book, being small, then, so we're talking seven years later, what's the difference?

Being in the success of being small and now having the new book out, being middle, what's the difference in your interpretation of success between the two books?

I'm not worried anymore about people, about having people buy it.

I know people will buy it because most people that have liked my previous books, I know, will buy this book, whether it's for their kids, their grandkids.

I've built a name for myself in the author community.

I'm very proud of it.

And for this one, this being traditionally published, I was very nervous about the marketing.

Would it go well?

Would my publisher be upset?

Would they be happy?

I let go of all those worries that just did what I normally do.

And I did find that like the community that I've built through social media, they really came through for me.

They shared my book, we did a lot of news stations.

There's a lot of different media hooks.

I purposely launched the book on National Middle Child Day for that added fun.

And, and sorry, what's the date of National Middle child day?

It's August 12th every year.

Oh, sorry.

I did see that, that you launched it.

August 12th.

Okay, that's fantastic to know because I'll have to share that with my middle granddaughter.

So thank you.

For me also, it's just, it's the joy that are that I see on kids faces when I go to their schools.

It's the excitement when they raise their hand to ask me a question.

It's just knowing that through books you can change lives.

And of course through that, I also want to make, I want to do the best job I can for my publisher because they took a chance on me and I want to prove to them I can do it and I can do it again.

Okay, terrific, terrific.

So that brings me to the role of writing.

Can you tell us what the role of being a children's book author means to you in the grand scheme of things?

Because I know you have a professional career also.

So explain to us the balance of that and what's the role look like?

It's a very important role because I feel like it's a role that shape.

It's my most important role besides being a mom.

It shapes people's minds.

Books have the power to change lives and to change anything.

So I take it very seriously.

I love being an author.

I got a book tattoo after I wrote my first book.

Not only do I love to write, books love to read.

I think being author is now ingrained in who I am.

It's completely ingrained in the person I am.

I don't feel like I was my full self until I had that first book going on paper.

And Ellie, does your mom inspire you, inspire you to be a writer or a children's book writer?

Do you want to write your own books?

I don't know yet.

Okay, no problem.

But she does love reading.

She's her favorite subject.

Ellie wants to be a singer when she grows up, but maybe she'll write her own song lyrics.

Okay, great.

And most songs are stories, right?

Yeah.

And so what kind of time, Laurie, do you devote to writing?

I don't have a lot of time between having a full time job and three kids and getting them from activity to activity.

But I make sure that time before bed instead of turning on the TV or scrolling Facebook, that's my writing time.

And even if I'm writing like a note to myself or a recap of the day or putting a journal entry in one of my children's memory books, I make sure I take the time to write.

What advice?

You've already given so much advice, but what advice would you give aspiring authors in getting started?

I'm really interested in that perspective.

And when they start to write or get the process going, how do you see or what advice would you give them on thinking about marketing and publicity as they're writing the book?

Tie those both in together.

I would say you have to find out if there's an audience for your book.

And I would define that target audience.

If I were going through the exercise of my book, for example, I would define it as middle kids, parents of middle kids, grandparents of middle kids, even siblings of middle kids.

I would define that target audience and learn their habits, learn their buying habits.

Are they on.

Are the moms on Facebook?

Are they generally aged 35 to 54?

Are the grandparents on Facebook?

I would learn as much as I can about the audience.

What books do they read?

What magazines do they read, what television stations do they watch, et cetera?

So.

So I can feel like the book does have a chance to succeed.

You can write a book for yourself, but in general, the book has to resonate with some sort of audience.

And so it's making sure you define that audience, whether it's in your head or on paper, because you have to write for some reason.

There are authors that can write for entertainment, of course, but there's a lane.

For everyone, encouragement for readers.

Because you know what I always say this towards the end of the interview is curious about.

Why should children's book readers purchase your books?

My books are from the heart, and I think they're very relatable.

Most people, most kids can put themselves in the situation that the main characters are going through or the secondary characters are going through, and they can see themselves, whether it's seeing themselves as the person in the book or.

Or having faced a problem previously, they can relate to a portion of my book.

And I think my books come from the heart.

They're designed to empower kids.

They're designed to teach kids lessons about the world around them.

And they also help kids just learn reading, being an author that rhymes, it helps with anticipation of sounds, it helps with alliteration, different skills that you get as you're learning to read.

Okay, thank you.

Final thoughts is there.

And Ellie, you're more than welcome to chime in on this.

Is there anything that I should have asked you?

You're saying, oh, geez, Rick, geez.

I wish you would have asked me that question.

No, how about what?

What do you hope middle child get middle children get out of this book?

I hope that they get the meaning that it's okay not to be the oldest or youngest.

You have to find your own place to fit in your middle.

Excellent.

Excellent.

I love that.

Thank you for sharing that, Allie.

Laurie.

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

Your generosity of time, the insights.

There's so much insights for everyone that you know, and it'll definitely benefit aspiring children's book authors and readers.

And we promise to provide our audience with links to all of Laurie's social media and website.

It's just incredible what Lori has to offer.

And if you've enjoyed this podcast, please hit the subscribe button to listen to our future episodes.

And feel free to share this episode with anyone who's inspired or in the middle by listening to and hearing Lori and her children's book Being Middle on her website.

So thank you both for being here.