Foreign Sarah Doran, author of the Peppered sky and Sleeping Giants.

Hi Sarah.

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

Great to have you here as a guest.

Thank you for having me.

I'm so excited to chat with you.

First thing I wanted to mention to the audience because they're going to wonder why I get so excited about the Peppered Sky.

Sarah's going to get more into that and we'll delve into it.

But my dad was in the Canadian Armed Forces and he was a paratrooper.

I want the audience to know that when we get into Sarah's book about the Peppered sky, everyone understands.

Why is he so darn excited about these things?

And even the little.

The little instruction page at the back on how to put your own little paratrooper together.

I got a story to share with you as we get into it.

Fantastic.

I can't wait.

Oh, great.

As you can see, I purchased the book the Peppered Sky.

I love it.

It's beautiful graphics, great story, and the amount of detail at the end of the book, the activities is fantastic.

Sarah, give us a glimpse into your military background as a Blackhawk helicopter mechanic.

Yeah, I joined the army when I was 21.

I actually celebrated my 22nd birthday at basic training.

So that was super fun.

I joined the army for six years as a helicopter mechanic.

I worked on Blackhawks and we did just basic component swapping.

We took care of inspections and washes and things like that.

So just your average mechanic works on a helicopter.

Don't know if people will think working on a Blackhawk helicopter is just a basic mechanic.

That's pretty cool.

It was really amazing too because before the army I had never even changed a car tires.

I didn't really know a whole lot about anything mechanic related.

And it was exciting to try something new and to challenge myself.

And I really learned so much, not only in school, but as I was going about my job.

And eventually I actually also became a crew chief, which is a mechanic who flies with the crew.

And so we were able to to fly around.

I spent time in Iraq and Afghanistan during my six years.

Wow.

And it was just a very special, very challenging, but very fulfilling career opportunity.

Good for you because I don't even think I can change a spare tire, so I don't even know where it is.

Oh no, it skipped a generation because my dad was very mechanical and so was my son and actually so is his sons.

But I don't know.

Skip me if I can do it.

Just about anybody can learn how to do it just takes a little bit of dedication and you can do it.

After the podcast show, I'm gonna go just change a tire just for the.

Heck can get you far in life.

Isn't that the truth?

So for the audience, I just want you to realize as we get into talking about Sarah's two books, the Peppered sky and Sleeping Giants, and we're going to focus primarily on the Peppered sky, but we definitely will get around to referencing Sleeping Giants also.

And I wanted folks to know Sarah's background.

So then when we get into discussing the books, they go, what was your point of reference?

And now they'll, they'll understand that.

Fantastic.

Now I, I want to talk to you a bit about the inspiration behind your.

And you can talk about both books, but talk to us about the inspiration behind the books.

And how did it all get started?

I actually grew up a military child, which is just a child of a service member.

Any of the six branches of service, their children are considered military children.

And growing up, I didn't have books that represented military families.

It was very rare to find anything even remotely related to your lifestyle.

And fast forward to my adult years after the army and I went to school to be a teacher and did a project in children's literature focusing in on military children's literature and representing military families.

And realized there were still very few books out there about military families.

And once I finally decided to try putting my writing and I've always been a writer, but I really hadn't written children's stories, I put my writing with my military background, my childhood as well as my adult experiences and stories like the Peppered sky and Sleeping Giants were formed.

It's interesting.

I talk.

I.

You may know this lady, Monica Voiku Denison.

Yes.

Monica and I are friends.

We met through mutual author communities.

Oh, fantastic.

Monica was recently on our show and of course, we got into talking about it because I grew up in the Canadian Armed Forces.

They call you army brats?

Yes.

And she has a book called Maggie the Military Rat.

And so it's military brat.

So that was the only difference.

But it was a lot of fun talking to her.

And.

And like you, you talked about your background actually being a military kid.

That was my background for 25 years.

My first 25 years of my life was I was a military brat and got very lucky because we got to travel all over Europe and Canada and it was a pretty amazing life.

And I wouldn't go back and trade it for anything.

No, I'M right there with you.

I absolutely adored being a military kid and getting to travel, getting to meet new people and try new things.

I highly recommend Monica's book as well.

It's one of my very favorite military children's books out there.

And she and I have developed a quick friendship over the years because we just have this shared love and passion for military kids.

Highly recommend.

Fantastic.

Yeah, It's a Small World.

It is.

Yeah.

You mentioned you have a background in teaching.

And it's interesting because almost every.

I'd say 99% of my guests that I've talked to have either been teachers or retired teachers or they've been in the service.

It's amazing to me, when you look at the children's book authors, the backgrounds of many of my guests are from a teaching background.

Pretty amazing.

So tell us, because you said, oh, you know what?

I wasn't really thinking about writing a children's book.

How did that all come about?

Tell us the inspiration behind you writing your first book and how that led to your second book.

When I was reflecting on my favorite moments as a military child, the first thing that came to my mind was watching my dad jump out of airplanes as a child with my brothers and my sister out on the drop zone and getting to see him and his paratrooper training jumps.

It's really a very unique, magical kind of experience that I don't think most people, even military families, get to experience.

And I just knew it was going to translate beautifully into this very experiential type of children's story.

So part of my goal as an author is to not only create stories where military kids can see themselves in those stories, but also create stories that are windows of opportunity for readers who are curious about the armed forces, because military are.

I think we represent about 1% of the.

Of the population in our.

In the U.S.

anyways, I don't know the other statistics for other countries.

However, very small group of people.

And it's not like you can waltz onto an installation and check everything out.

And so this was a way for me to be able to teach and to educate, but also create an engaging story that children could really relate to.

And so you were talking about teachers, and I do have a teacher's heart, and I was able to use up those extra pages at the end of the book to really pour out my teacher heart and create literary resources for parents and teachers to be able to extend beyond the story.

Well, you did a fantastic job.

And I have to jump in there just for a second because I want to tell everybody there's one exercise I love.

It's the one that you call create your own paratrooper.

Yes.

I love how you use coffee filters.

But I have to tell you a story because I'm more old school in the Canadian armed forces.

One thing I always remember, and my mom worked a full time job and.

But what happened was in the Canadian military at that time, they always had to have white kerchiefs.

What do you call it?

My mom would wash, I don't know, two dozen of these things.

She would iron them because in the forces you had to be like buttoned right down.

And so everything had to.

Yeah, you had to shining and everything had to be clean.

So I just remember as the kerchiefs got a little used, we would end up with them and then my mom would help us build.

So instead of the coffee filter that you have in your exercise to make a parachute, we'd actually use the kerchief.

And then my brother and I had bunk beds.

We would spend hours climbing up the bunk beds and then dropping our paratrooper off the top of the bunk beds.

So fantastic.

I can imagine the whole scene and how those have work very beautifully because they're just the right size.

Absolutely, absolutely.

So thank you for doing that.

And so anyone who's listening, if you're wondering how can I create my own paratrooper, all you have to do is purchase the peppered sky and then go to the back and you will find great details, including all the materials you need and how to actually build your own paratrooper.

Falling out of the sky.

Very neat.

Now, I would like to also talk just a little bit about.

You wrote your first book, and so how did that motivate you to write your second book?

What did you do different going from your first book to your second book?

So my first book was, like I said, based off of my memories as a military child, written from the perspective of a military child as well.

Going forward, I really wanted to incorporate my military experiences as a veteran in the helicopters that I was able to work with, because what kid doesn't like helicopters?

And I started working on how I could reach the most readers.

And I worked on Blackhawk helicopters, but we also worked with crews who flew on Apaches and Chinooks.

And often you might see them in the same hangars or in the same flight line.

And I was able to run with this story of a mom because I really wanted to represent military women in aviation as well.

And she takes her son to the Hangar and to see something very special at the hangar.

I won't tell you what it is because I don't want to ruin the story.

But they're there to see something special.

But before they get to do that, Finn, the little boy, gets to play on the helicopters that are there in the hangar, the sleeping giants.

And he goes into his imagination and goes on these little pretend missions on the three different helicopters.

And it's just really endearing.

It's super fun and imaginative.

And then at the end of the story, they get to.

To see what they've come to see that morning.

So it's just a very fun, like I said, engaging.

I want to create stories that really highlight the interesting and exciting aspects of military family life.

And I feel like I was able to do that with both of these stories.

I noticed the format of your book, the book size.

So this would be a six by nine.

That is the paperback mini version.

Right.

So the original trim size for most, for the copies that I offset print are 10 by 8.

The hardcover, premium hardcovers are the standard size.

But I do offer a few other options.

I purchased this one on Amazon, so that's how it came.

And the reason I say that is this is our children's book, which is the square nine by nine.

Yeah.

And so that's what I primarily see come to me when I purchase children's books.

But I thought that this was pretty cool.

I tell people it's the perfect diaper bag size or the car version, if you want a smaller car version for keeping the kids and paint in the car.

It's a great size for.

Absolutely.

For sure.

So I want to talk a little bit because you have two books.

As a children's book author myself.

And you're self published, correct?

I am, yes.

As a self published author, of course.

It's your resources that fund the publishing of your books.

Yes.

And so I'd like to talk to you a little bit about your book's business plan.

First of all, I've got to give you like a huge compliment because as I'm getting to know more and more children's book authors, a lot of them, generally.

There's two things that children's book authors do when they're.

When they create a website and start their children's book business, they either name the website after themselves, like their author's name, like you have, or in our case, because I've written 38 stories with my grandchildren, I have five grandchildren.

So what we did is we call ours the Adventures of Caboose the Rocky Mountain Bear, and there's going to be at least 38 adventure stories.

We branded it a little differently.

You branded yourself as the author, and we branded Caboose as our main character.

What I loved, and I haven't noticed this, and it's interesting because I'm going to go back and do a little more research, but what I loved about what you did is you identified and I love your website's catchphrase, and I'm now going to share it with the audience.

Sarah's catchphrase is creating stories for and about military children.

I just love that because you catch the real essence of what you're trying to do.

Yes, absolutely.

Compliments to you.

Because a lot of times I'm finding some children's book authors, they're not.

Even though they're the brand, there isn't really clarity on what they are as a brand.

And you, as a children's book author, have made it perfectly clear what your brand is to me is really important because we're all dealing with trying to get our name out into the world and how do you set yourself apart?

So, hats off.

Great job there.

Yeah, it's been a learning curve for sure, and it hasn't been perfect.

There have been a few different catchphrases over the years as I've refined who I am and what I'm trying to do in the market.

And the current catchphrase is probably stories celebrating military families, because that's something that we can all do whether we're a military family or not.

And.

But yes, I definitely commend you for also recognizing that this whole authoring thing is not just about writing stories, it is about business.

Absolutely.

That's incredibly important.

As you're moving forward.

Talking about moving forward, do you have more art stories for and about military children coming?

I do, actually.

I am in the early stages of book number three.

It's been written for a while.

However, I have not found the right illustrator yet.

So I am still actively commissioning samples from various illustrators to see if I can find the right fit.

But this third book is called the Fearless and the Fallen, and it's a tribute to veterans past and present.

It's still written from the perspective of a military child, but really highlights veterans.

Okay, terrific.

And it's interesting because I was going to talk to you about this a little later, but I'll talk to you about it now because I'm very curious and I want to share this with the audience because you mentioned Illustrator.

So I noticed your books, the Peppered sky and Sleeping Giants have two different illustrators.

And it sounds to me the Fearless and the Fallen is going to have a different illustrator.

For aspiring book authors who are going, oh, my God, Sarah, I just want to find one illustrator and you're shopping for three.

Tell us what's the motivation and why change illustrators from book to book?

Okay, so I will make this note before I get into this.

If I had stories that were continuous stories, it would be important to me to use the same illustrator for that series.

Okay.

However, since my books are standalone stories, I felt like I had the freedom to choose different illustrators, which is a direct reflection of my personality, to be honest with you.

I have eclectic tastes in lots of different things, whether that's music or food or art.

And I really wanted to bring that out and expose children to different styles of art.

And the current illustrator that I'm exploring right now for that third book, she actually does watercolor, and her stuff is so charming.

And I thought, oh, that would be so cool to be able to incorporate watercolor illustrations in this third book.

But because I do change illustrators, I work very hard behind the scenes and with my designer to ensure that the books still feel like books by Sarah Doran.

My titles have a similar look and feel.

The formatting of the text and the paragraphs inside the resource pages, the activity at the end and the end pages are all a direct reflection of trying to keep some consistency with recognizing that I did switch illustrators.

I just want to pick up on that for a minute because it's, again, for aspiring authors, what Sarah is talking about.

And I'm trying to share with everyone so you can learn why people's motivations change or why they their strategies change.

What we did is we created a banner.

It says the Adventures of Caboose, the Rocky Mountain Bear.

That branded banner.

What we did is with our second book coming out and in the series, you can see that the Adventures of Caboose, the Rocky Mountain Bear banner is at the top of the book cover.

The book is actually called Hijinks from the Big Head Folk Music Festival.

So that'll be the title of the book, but it'll be under the.

Under our Adventures of Caboose Rocky Mountain Bear banner.

We've got the same illustrator.

We probably will use the same illustrator for all of our books at this point.

Yes, we're happy working with that illustrator and what he's creating.

Absolutely.

It was such a joy and a privilege to be able to work with Beth Snyder on the peppered sky.

And then Angelina Davis on Sleeping Giants.

And I'm just excited to be able to work with other illustrators.

And like I said, if I were to do a continuation of any of those stories, I would absolutely go back to those original illustrators so that we could continue with that consistency.

But I.

I just think it's fun to.

To be.

Oh, I couldn't agree with you more.

I interviewed a lady.

She used watercolors, and she did a book called Ice Cap, and it was the modern version of Frosty the Stoneman.

Oh, how cute.

It's a beautiful book.

She had definite thoughts as to what she wanted to convey, and that's what happened to the audience.

If you have different thoughts, you don't have to stay with one style.

Do exactly what Sarah's talking about.

Open up your creative juices and just let it flow.

That's the beautiful thing about children's books.

There's so many fantastic, different children's books with graphics and styles and all of that.

Like I said before, there are lots of ways to help it still feel like your book.

And so I write in rhyme and rhythm in my stories.

And so Sleeping Giants was exactly the same with being in rhyme and rhythm and.

And just really trying to be consistent, like I said, with the formatting and the colors even, because I knew that my books were going to be on the same table.

So making sure that the colors complement each other.

And so my second illustrator actually used the same color palette that we had for my first book so that when they were sitting next to each other, they would look good together.

Fantastic.

I'm curious.

Talk to us a little bit about when you first started Ice.

When you get into your second book, I think you.

You're realizing whether you like it or not.

Not only are you a children's book author, you're also a children's book business owner.

Yes.

Talk to us a little bit about your business plan.

What did it look like when you first started and what's changed now to allow you to get to your third book?

Oh, my gosh.

So I will just say it's funny because when I first started writing, I thought, oh, this'll be fun.

I'll write a children's story.

And then it quickly turned into this business that I was not expecting because I did go the self publishing route, and it's just been a giant learning curve ever since.

I made mistakes along the way.

My business plan was I didn't have one when I started and quickly realized I needed something like a website and a domain and I needed something like QuickBooks and a way to keep track of my sales and events and things.

And as I have grown and developed and added a second book to my collection here, as I work towards a third book, just continuing to refine all of those processes and stay as organized as I can be and making sure that I'm staying true to why I began in the first place.

Because it can quickly become all about the numbers and the sales and the statistics.

But that's really not why I started writing.

And so reminding myself, keeping myself grounded in that.

Okay.

While also trying to be efficient and a good steward of the business as I'm going forward.

Let's pick up on the good steward of the business because I noticed on your website.

We'll get into your website a little bit in a moment.

I looked at your website and it appeared to me you have three revenue sources and I've got your website in front of me here.

But what I noticed is you sell your books through online book retailers like Amazon, you do author visits, and you have an online store with an organization called Spousely.

Talk to us about each one of those revenue sources.

What's your primary source of revenue from those three and explain to us why you went that route.

So I've actually expanded distribution recently and so my books are now available on major retailers like Barnes and Noble and Walmart and Target.

But it's just evolved as like I said, I've become more efficient.

Is that through Ingram Sparks?

Yes.

Yes.

So I guess I should back up a little bit and let you know that I have published in different ways.

So I use an offset printer as a self published author because I like the quality that I get from a an offset printer.

Now is this an American publisher or offshore?

No.

It was really important to me in the type of books that I'm creating to have a US based printer.

And so I've used 4Max, which is based here in the United States, as well as Jostens, and both of them have been great experiences.

And so that's.

I call that my premium hardcover edition.

And that's the one I take when I do in person events.

I want to give people the best product that I can when I'm face to face.

Okay.

But being so niche, being such a small business, I realized that distribution was my biggest hurdle.

And so utilizing a platform like Amazon, KDP or IngramSpark would offer me greater distribution.

So I started with Amazon.

That's where I did the paperback mini.

And then I was also doing fulfillment by Amazon as a Third party seller.

That was a big learning experience.

I have a love hate relationship with Amazon.

That's with your hardcover, right?

My hardcover, yes.

Is on there, yes.

With book number two.

I learned from all of those choices that I made with book number one and I wanted to try IngramSpark per the recommendation of my designer.

She said that she had had a lot of success with IngramSpark.

So I formatted a slightly larger landscape size, that's an eleven by eight and a half.

And so now you can get hardcover and paperback of sleeping giants through IngramSpark.

So it's on Amazon, it's on Barnes and Noble, it's on Walmart and all of the others.

And so I've been working on getting the Peppered sky transitioned over to ingramspark as well so that I can step back the involvement I've had to have with Amazon as a third party seller and kind of let IngramSpark take care of those distribution channels with your paperback.

I mean it.

I just want everybody to understand that if you do your paperback through kdp, it's quite a simple process and you don't have to work too hard at managing it.

Right.

But what you're talking about is where you actually use an offset printer and then you try, you sell it.

So they're like a sales agent, the.

What did you call the Amazon component that you're using for your hardcover.

Oh, fulfillment by Amazon is a third party seller.

Yes.

So what they do is they're like a sales agent but they then the price gets higher, the markup gets higher.

All of that.

Correct.

There's a lot of legwork that I've had to do with that scenario.

And so that's.

I'm going to be closing that account once I've got everything over on Ingram.

And, and just so every.

So aspiring authors or first time book authors understand from what I'm hearing that Amazon doing it like a selling agent for your hard copy, it tends to be a lot of work and you could probably take that time and effort and put it somewhere else like Sarah's doing and get more sales and notice from doing that and probably going to sell your hardcover.

A lot of people sell it through their own website and have a lot more success.

What you're finding?

Yeah, even the.

My paperback that I published on kdp, my paperback mini that you purchased.

Yes.

I'll probably be retiring that format and just switching all everything over to ingramspark.

And then I'll just have my offset copies for in person events or for spousely sales.

Okay.

Just because Ingram not only does Amazon, but they also do all of these other big retailers.

And with kdp, you were stuck with just Amazon.

I wanted greater distribution than just Amazon.

Okay, okay.

Yeah, we've talked about it.

You're publishing reports approach.

So why did you take the self publishing route in the first place?

Yes, when I was researching the different publishing routes that I could take, my first inclination was to traditionally publish and I spent about a year and a half quarrying agents in the traditional publishing world.

And the resounding narrative that I would receive in return was, this is a great story, but it's too niche.

And so they didn't see a market value in these stories.

I disagree with them.

I think there is a very important value with these books that is not only applicable to military families, but applicable to our nation and helping us understand the armed forces better and military families better and how we can support them.

So I didn't agree with that narrative, but that was the resounding narrative that I received from traditional agents and publishers.

I decided to go ahead and do the self publishing avenue, which honestly was so rewarding in so many ways because I had control over making sure that everyone on my team is military connected in some way, form or fashion, whether they are a veteran, they're a military spouse, or they're a military child or a printer in the United States.

So all of those things were very important to me and I was able to have direct control over that authenticity.

I also wanted to make sure that the illustrations were high quality and authentic in their representation of our armed forces.

And, and then being able to pour in my teacher heart there at the end with the extra resources and activity, all of that was such a blessing to be able to include in my stories and is really foundational to, to what I'm creating.

Good for you.

When it came to self publishing, of course you did print on demand through Amazon and then you actually did the offset printing.

Now tell us, what was the minimum run you had to do?

I don't remember the minimum.

Okay.

With offset printers you can go pretty low.

It's just the lower number you go, the higher your price is going to be per book.

Okay.

And so the more that you're able to financially commit to printing, the lower the cost per book.

So obviously you have to look at your finances and your income and your revenue and decide what kind of investment am I going to be able to make.

I think the most books that I've ordered for the Peppered sky was like 580 with the first one and then sleeping giants.

I think 7:50 is how many I ordered for that first run.

So I would consider those small batch print runs.

Anything over a thousand is more typical.

Okay.

But as I do print in the US Our prices are going to be higher than if you were to print in China, for example.

And what I found is I always keep track.

Cause I'm always interested in, and I like to share this information is I've noticed that pricing on whether it's soft cover or hardcover, especially hardcover, really ranges in pricing.

So I've seen anywhere from about $20American to about $46American for the same book format.

But you can tell that there's other things involved when you see such a pricing spread.

It gives everybody an opportunity to realize from what I'm seeing, there isn't quite a sweet spot of pricing.

Now you may find that you do have a sweet spot, but I haven't really seen in the range that there's a sweet spot, especially on hardcover books, a sweet spot of pricing.

So what would you price your retail hardcover book?

Both of my hardcovers, the premium hardcovers, retail for 1999.

And that's something that, you know, as I said, continuing to learn and speak with other authors about, it's going to have to probably be a reflection of the economy.

And for the last couple of years it's been holding Fairly steady at 1999.

But I was just recently speaking with another author at a convention last week who said she was raising her prices on her books as a direct reflection of inflation and what's going on with the economy.

I do think as we see hikes in paper prices and printing costs, it may reflect in the future for book prices, not only for myself, even big publishers.

What would have your, what would have your price been on Amazon for the hardcover book?

So the hardcovers on Amazon are also the same 1999.

Oh, really?

Okay.

So again, there's extra costs involved.

So you would have been making less margin, correct?

Oh, a hundred percent.

Yes.

Just so everyone understands, love, hate, relationship with Amazon.

Yeah.

We're talking about running a business.

Oh, yes.

No, it's.

It is not my favorite platform for selling on.

For sure.

So you had mentioned I want to pivot to website because it sounds to me when you first started you didn't have a website.

And then as you got into realizing that you were running a children's book business, that you need the website.

Talk to us about your website development.

I like to tell people I'm technologically challenged.

I'm not.

I'M not a great computer whiz at all, but I'm able to figure out some basic platforms.

So honestly, my website is based off of a very basic option on WordPress which actually I started off with the free version just so I could start learning the platform and how to formatted in a way that made sense to customers.

I recognized very quickly the value of having that website because as a consumer, the first thing I do go to a business's website and see who they are, what they're about, what their product is and how I can get it.

And so all of those components are incredibly necessary.

Even if you do are just starting out as a new author, just having a free version with the basic information so that people can see, oh, this is a real person, this is a real product.

Here are the platforms that are very familiar to consumers where they can find your book.

The nice thing about it, I'm looking at your website right here in front of me and the beautiful thing about it is that you're using some of your graphics from your books.

Yes.

And they're beautiful graphics.

So they just make the website more engaging.

I wanted them to be aesthetically pleasing so that people when they were coming to my website, they weren't off put by ugliness.

And one thing that I noticed that I haven't seen on anybody else's website yet.

Talk to us about the sponsorship.

What exactly is your sponsorship?

What's the role of the sponsorship tab on your website?

This is something that is very new and I'm still dabbling with and I've got some more work to do on my website with regard to sponsorship.

I was attending a conference in Denver last week as an author and learning from some of the other authors about how they are sponsored for events and conferences.

Sponsor authors to help promote their work and to engage their attendees.

Something that I'm learning in, something I'm dabbling in very early on and how I have to educate myself and learn how sponsorships work and how they can be successful in partnerships and collaborative relationships with other businesses.

And the sponsorship page on my website will be a landing spot for corporate businesses who are interested in sponsoring said number of books for their event or for their fundraiser or whatever it is that they're doing where we both are meeting the same goal and mission.

Fantastic.

So you mentioned that you had talked to a couple of authors at the convention you were at.

Can you give us one example?

So somebody understands that maybe part of their travel costs were paid for by the sponsor.

Is there someone you can Mention, I.

Can tell you I went to the Verticon event, which was put on by Vertical Aviation International, that was in Dallas a few weeks ago.

And my contact, Liz Booker, I can't remember which branch she was in, but she's a retired pilot and author and she had invited me to Verticon VAI Vertical Aviation International, who put on Verticon conference.

They said, we like what these authors are doing.

This is really special for our event.

We're going to sponsor $1200 of books for the authors to give away at the event.

And so it was a win scenario where Verticon is getting great exposure saying, hey, we sponsored these authors and their books to be here.

You're welco.

Attendees were excited because they get new swag to share with their friends and family.

And authors obviously are being supported in their small business and being able to get their story out there.

So it's really a cool scenario when it works, but have to have the right connections.

And like I said, it's a learning process for me to really understand who makes those decisions and how the pieces really fit together.

This is fantastic because you're the first children's book author I've had on my show that actually had, like I said to you, has sponsorship as a tab on your website.

So.

No.

But it gives every aspiring authors another approach to realize, okay, this is how you can support your business.

Because again, we're coming, we're talking about a children's book business.

And one of the authors I spoke with last week, Graciela, I'm going to butcher her last name so I won't say it.

Okay.

She writes the Captain Mama children's book series.

They're bilingual children's books.

Anyway, she's a retired military member as well, and she was explaining how you can, as an author, even just if you attend an air show and your books have something to do with aviation, you go around to the booths and talk to the corporate businesses and say, hey, I'm an author.

Here's how we align as in our mission and here's what a sponsorship can look like for us.

And so just going armed with that information, it takes research and it takes time and intentionality, but it's definitely something I'm trying to learn more about and start putting into practice.

Good for you.

Good for you.

Thanks for sharing that.

This, that's so much value for our audience.

Absolutely.

So when you.

The reason I asked this question is when we first, and I'm sure the audience by now, when they're listening to me, are Going, you're not going to tell the story again, are you?

But when we started, we actually had our.

We were so excited.

We had our book, we had it in distribution.

We have it through ingramsparks and we also have it through Amazon.

We were excited.

And somebody said to me, where's your home?

I said, what do you mean, where's my home?

They said, where's your website?

They said, you should have a website for your book if you're a children's book author.

That hadn't crossed my mind.

And then all of a sudden we.

We did our own website.

But that deviated us off of our path of selling and marketing the books and distributing.

I wish I could go back, but I can't do that.

And had created the website first.

But in your case, tell us a little bit.

You launched your first book and how quickly did you.

Did you get your website up and running?

It was within a couple of months.

I realized very quickly that I was having the same interactions with people saying, where can I learn more about you?

Or where can I send people who want to learn about where to get your books?

And I recognized that I needed a website very quickly.

So it was within a month or two of publishing the first book.

Right on.

And.

And for our listening audience, you don't have to have to Sarah's point, you don't have to have the most sophisticated website.

Just get yourself a home, get it up and running, get the information on there that you.

That people are looking for, and then take it from there.

So that's fantastic.

Thank you for that.

There's a lot of options out there.

But I will note that I like I said, I'm not a super techie person.

And so WordPress was fairly easy to learn on.

And like I said, they've got very basic plans that are inexpensive because, you know, at that bottom line really matters in those early.

In the early stages of writing and publishing.

Absolutely.

I think the audience has a sense of where your motivation came from.

Is there any specific person or event that motivated you to really embrace this whole idea that you were now creating these books for military children?

Was there one specific person or event that you said, oh, turned the light bulb on.

I mentioned briefly earlier that when I was going to school to be a teacher, I went through a children's literature course and one of the projects that we had to do was to pick a theme.

I picked military children's books as my theme and recognized very quickly the lack of resources available for military families, but also the few resources that Were out there, maybe weren't authentically written, were poorly published, had low quality illustrations or low quality writing.

And while there are definitely more resources now for military families than there were when I was a kid or even going through school, I'm finding that a lot of people are writing these books because they see that they're needed, but they don't necessarily have any business writing them.

And I don't mean that in a negative way.

I mean, not everybody is meant to be a children's writer.

Yes.

And it is truly about creating something that is of high quality, something that is engaging and educational and empowering and not just filling a void.

We don't need books to just fill a void.

We need high quality literary resources.

And coming back to your question about is there somebody who specifically helped guide me down that path?

The seed was planted with that course I took in college.

Okay.

But the person was Stephanie, my friend out in California, who, she was already writing children's literature.

She's not published at this point yet.

However, she was so instrumental in helping to edit my first stories and give me feedback and critiques.

And my first story I've told people this before was awful.

It was not good.

It was very fable y and just very universal.

And there was just really nothing special about it.

And I remember her saying, hey, Sarah, you need to write what you know.

And that was the moment it really clicked.

I said, I know the military.

I know there's a need for military children's literature.

But I have the experience as a military child and as a veteran and as a veteran military spouse.

That's my life.

Right.

When I finally figured out how to put those military experiences with my writing, then the stories have just really come together.

Good for you.

And again, that's.

That's what they, they always talk to you about, is finding something that you have expertise in.

Even if you don't realize that you have expertise.

If you just looked around and said, okay, what has my whole life been about?

All of a sudden you realize, oh my goodness, I do have expertise.

Yes.

You are an expert in your own experiences.

Yes.

And it was just profound, honestly, for me to hear her, her say, you need to write what you know.

That's what happened for myself is I had all of these adventures with my granddaughter and then, then all my grandchildren in the Rocky Mountains and we did so much.

And my granddaughter, my oldest granddaughter, was instrumental because she's the co author of the book.

And she said, papa, we can't just leave these lay dormant on your cell phone.

We've got thousands of pictures.

I'm sure we can make adventure stories, and that's what we did.

That is so amazing.

I'm so excited to.

To check out your books more and kind of learn your stories and your adventures.

Thank you very much.

I appreciate that.

Talk to us a little bit now.

I know each story's a little different, but talk to us about.

Even if it's in a broader sense, because character development.

Because I.

In the Peppered sky, it's the mother and the two children are central, but I don't believe there's any name.

They didn't have any names.

It's just the family and then their support of their dad and husband, of course.

So tell us about your thought process, character development.

It's funny that you mentioned their names.

I actually named them on the back of the book as a.

An afterthought because my friend Stephanie, who I just talked about, she's.

Your characters need names.

These kids need to know who they're.

Who these characters are.

And I.

I agreed with her.

I said, they do.

They need names.

And I named them on the back here.

And I did this same thing with my Sleeping Giants book as well.

I named him on the back of the story and.

Sorry, I missed.

No, it's okay.

And it was fun.

As I was creating the.

The resource pages, I actually have an option in there to write.

Where is it?

Write a letter to Haley Mason or author Sarah Doran.

What questions would you ask?

What were your favorite parts of the story and why?

And so it does help the children to relate a little bit more to those characters.

It's important that I'm just trying for the audience to understand that through all of your story, the characters don't have a name, but.

Correct.

But ultimately you do name them.

I do.

And if and Mason come into another book, perhaps they take their names, take on a larger role.

Yes, absolutely.

And what's their mom's name?

Sarah.

No, Mom.

I'm just Diesel.

In your third book, will your characters have a name or because of the name of the title?

It seems maybe it could be more generic.

Yeah.

So it's very similar in fashion to my first and second book, where they are not named outright, but their names will be included in the back and in the resource pages.

The characters in my third book are two brothers and mom who are highlighted in that story.

Fantastic.

Fantastic.

And normally I talk to you about theme, but I think we've talked a lot about how you came to your theme.

And it's funny because we even Got to dig down a little deeper to realize that when you're taking a writing course and then being asked to develop an idea and how that sprung to your mind, but that just sat on a page until your friend in California.

I think it was in California.

Yes, Stephanie.

Stephanie.

And.

Yeah, she activated your inner author.

Yes.

Yes.

It's crazy how I'm a believer, and I truly believe that God orchestrates different things in your life to work together for his glory.

And he plants little seeds and people in your life, and eventually those things are able to come to fruition because he's orchestrated everything to work that way.

I really have seen evidence of that in.

In my own author journey.

Good for you.

So, central teaching, even though you're focused on military children, each book has a little different theme to it.

Is that the case?

Yes.

The Peppered sky really focuses in.

On airborne.

Airborne training and how airborne paratroopers keep us safe and just kind.

Trying to provide children kind of an experience that is not normal for them to be able to get a glimpse of military family life that way.

Sleeping giants.

I really wanted to incorporate the helicopters.

And so it's more about, like, military history and aviation.

And so in the back of this book, I include resources like the history of US Military aviation, How do helicopter pilots and mechanics keep us safe?

Just like in my first book, how do Paratroopers keep us Safe?

And then I include, like, critical thinking questions, journal prompts, and things like that.

My third book has more of a veterans theme because I definitely see a need for books to help children relate to and understand who veterans are and why they're important.

Why do we have a Veterans Day?

Why are there these big memorials and things?

And it's going to help, hopefully, bridge that gap a little bit.

And I'm glad you said that, Sarah, because my dad, he was in the forces for 25 years, and then for the rest of his life, he was part of the Veterans Association.

He was part of the Royal Canadian Legion.

He was always going to reunions.

The life for military people, whether it's in the United States or Canada, it continues for the rest of their lives.

And it's pretty incredible.

I just watched a movie on Netflix yesterday called Mending the Line I haven't heard of.

It's about leaving the military and the impact, that transition.

Huh?

And the impact.

But it was.

It's a very good movie.

Anyways, I just.

I mentioned that for any veterans who might be out there.

Absolutely.

Yeah.

The.

Even though there are lots of resources out there for the transition from Military to civilian life.

We still need more because no veteran is the same and none of the of their experiences are the same.

And it really is quite a huge transition.

Yes.

So talk to us about your writing process now that you're into your third book.

What's changed from your first book to your third book?

Is there any change happened in your writing process?

Honestly, no.

I'm a very.

I'm a creature of habit is what I tell people.

And I.

I do a lot of author visits where I'm talking to children about how do you go from having an idea for a story to having a book in your hands?

And so I talk to them about your senses, so you know, your five senses of sight and smell and taste and hearing and touch.

Right.

And that's how I start with my children's stories.

I start by writing.

I've got my main idea and then I start writing down.

What do I see in this memory or this story scenario?

What do I see, what do I hear?

What do I taste and smell and touch?

Once I start writing all of those down, then I can start grabbing from those and creating my little stanzas.

I do write in rhyme and rhythm, and so I'll use tools to help me because I I.

Rhyming is one of those arts that not everybody can do.

And I want to create rhymes that are high quality as well.

So I don't like cheap rhymes.

And so I'll use a tool like rhymezone.com or the thesaurus to help create more visually enticing words for what I'm trying to describe.

Those are my two biggest tools I use when I write.

And like I said, I'll just take those little snippets of my notes and then I'll start forming them into stanzas with rhyming words and rhythm that help to really captivate my audiences.

And once I create my stanzas, then I play with them and see which order they need to go into and then if I need to add more or take out at that point.

But yeah, for the most part, the process for me has been pretty straightforward for each of my stories.

And do you write every day?

No.

I wish I could.

If I had lived in a world where all I could do is write, I would be a very happy lady.

Running a book business.

And it.

There's other elements that go with it.

We wear so many different hats as small business owners and publishers that I.

I can't spend all my time writing, but I would if I could.

I want to talk to you a little bit about success, how you measure success, because I always find that.

And I want to go pre children's book to market, after children's book to market, and then how you envision success as you go more into the future.

So tell us about how you envision the success of your first book.

With the first book, I was just solely focused on creating that book and getting it out to as many people as I could.

That was my approach.

And like everything else, it's been a giant learning curve as I've gone on.

I do recognize that success has a lot to do with making sure that it's accessible.

So that's part of why I chose to go with expanded distribution with IngramSpark, having that website for people to land on creating print materials like bookmarks or even business cards that I can give to people so that they can see, oh, this is a legitimate thing.

And here's their website.

And here, oh, now I can find this book.

Or they can tell their friends and family and then social media as well.

I want to show you one thing, because you brought up bookmarks.

What I did, and I've talked about this before, is we created our own bookmark, and there's a QR code.

And so when you scan the QR code, it actually, in this case, takes you to a free audiobook of our first book.

That's amazing.

Yeah.

And my middle granddaughter is the narrator.

She's Caboose.

Oh, my gosh.

I love that so much.

I do have goals to hopefully have my books available for audio.

But even I don't know if you've seen the braille books that are out there now for visually impaired children.

No, I haven't.

Children's books.

Well, I've seen braille books, but I've never seen their.

Yeah, yeah.

I'm very intrigued and excited to not only have for hearing impaired and visually impaired, but even working towards other languages as well, which is going to be a lot more complicated since my books rhyme in the English language.

But I think that all of those are so cool.

And I was starting to talk about social media and how it's probably my least favorite part of being an author.

I'm not.

I don't like putting my face out there on things, but I also know that it's part of establishing your brand and your repertoire for your customers.

And all of those are very important to just ensuring the success of your story.

And how do I measure success?

I would say if my book is touching the lives of readers, then that is success to me.

So if I'VE made it available.

If it's accessible to readers and they're being touched by the story, that's success to me.

Fantastic.

And how has that changed?

Has that philosophy changed any since you wrote your first book to now looking at launching your third book?

No, honestly, no, it really hasn't.

I still feel like it's really important just to make your book available to people and for it to be so well done that it does touch people.

I'm curious, like, you've given us a lot for aspiring authors to think about.

So what advice would you give to an aspiring author who is just starting out, just thinking about becoming a children's book author.

What would you say to them?

I would say don't be overwhelmed because there are so many choices, There are so many publishing routes available, there are a bazillion illustrators to choose from.

And do I write in rhyme or do I write in prose or.

All of the different choices can be very overwhelming.

But don't let them be.

Focus on rooting yourself in why you're doing what you're doing, being confident of who you are as an author and the type of story that you want to create.

And the rest of the stuff can be researched.

You can learn from podcasts, you can learn from books, you can learn from other people who've been there and done it.

Yes.

But be rooted in who you are and what you're doing and why you're doing it is imperative to your success.

Good advice.

Good advice.

Encouragement for readers.

I know I always saved this for the last but why should children's book readers purchase your book or your books?

Like I said before, these stories were written not just for military families.

I did want to provide them a reflection of themselves and stories because kids need to see themselves in stories.

But I truly wanted this to be a resource for all families to be able to see what a military family looks like, what they might do on a day to day basis, and how they can relate to members of our armed forces a little bit better.

And I know you mentioned that your books are available to be purchased virtually anywhere online through Barnes and Noble, Walmart, Apple Books, Amazon at this point.

But that could change.

Oh no, it'll still be available on Amazon.

Okay.

And talk to us about.

You mentioned spousely.

Yes, Tell us a little bit about that because I don't think too many people use that service.

No.

So spousely is S P o u s e-l y.com so just how it sounds, but with a dash in there and essentially spousely is a fairly new platform.

It's very similar to Etsy, but all of your sellers are either military or first responder connected.

And so it's a really cool way to directly support small business owners who are of the military and first responder communities.

It's a really cool platform created by another Monica and like I said, I think it's only five to 10 years old.

It's pretty new, but it's a fantastic platform.

Lots of really interesting products and services available on there.

Very similar to Etsy, but it's a way, like I said, to directly support first responders veterans.

Thank you for sharing that.

We will make sure all the links, we supply all the links to everything that, that Sarah has mentioned here because there's a lot of resources which is fantastic.

Spousely, if you order my books through spousely, you can also get things like sticker sheets or other resources that I have available.

But you can also have it personalized.

So if you leave me a note just like on sponsors on Etsy, if you order on spousely, you can leave a note saying, hey, sign my book to Jason and Kiara and their dad is a whatever.

And so I'll be able to personally sign those and then ship those out.

Which means that you're also getting the premium hardcover copy with the pretty end pages and the highest quality printing.

Fantastic.

Wow.

So is there anything else before we wrap up here?

Is there anything else you'd like to say or share?

Honestly, no.

I just.

It's such a privilege and an honor to be an author and to have a voice that is able to be shared with others.

And I truly believe in what I'm doing in the stories that I'm trying to create and the difference I'm trying to make for military families and for others as well.

It's just like I said, a humbling experience and a learning curve.

But it's been so rewarding and I'm just so grateful for that opportunity.

Thank you for doing that because as a military brat for 25 years, I was never exposed to anything like what you're doing.

It's just so commendable, just beautiful.

So thank you.

Thank you so much.

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

Your generosity of time, your insights is unbelievable and I'm sure it'll benefit a lot of aspiring authors and readers.

And I just to say to our audience is please go to Sarah's website which we will put links in in the show notes.

Yeah, it's www.authorsaradoran.com thank you for that.

I would encourage any listener to please if you've enjoyed this episode, please share it with other people, especially military families, because it's just a commendable thing that you're doing.

Sarah.

I really appreciate it.

Please support Sarah and purchase her books the Peppered sky and Sleeping Giants.

Thanks again, Sarah.

Thank you.

It was a pleasure.